the same trade, their mutual competition tends to lower its profit; and when there is the like increase of stock in all the different trades carried on in the same society, the same competition must produce the same effect in all."

Mr. Macculloch denies this doctrine, and contends that accumulation creates its own demand, provided all commodities go on increasing pari passu. He allows, indeed, that the increase of capital in any one branch of industry, would have the effect of lowering profits in that particular branch, but he considers that the augmentation of capital in all, instead of lowering the rate of profit in them, would raise it in the one that was depressed.

His reasoning on this subject (p. 492) is founded upon the same error as that which we before noticed in his treating of gluts. Mr. Macculloch fancies that the fall of profit on any one commodity is occasioned by its not exchanging with the same quantity of others as it did before, and that when by their increase this proportion is restored, profits in all will be as before. But here he has forgotten that profits do not depend upon the proportion in which commodities exchange with each other, but upon the proportion in which they are divided between wages and profits, or (given the produce) upon the proportion which goes to the labourer, or is required to replace the cost. This latter proportion may be altered, while the former proportion, or the respective exchangeabilities of commodities may not be affected at all, excepting in so far as they are produced by different combinations of labour and fixed capital, as previously shown.

As, however, the rate of profits does not unquestionably fall in the progress of society, the great question on this part of the subject is, to what cause is their gradual decline to be attributed?

Mr. Macculloch considers it to be occasioned chiefly by the necessity of having recourse to soils of less fertility; to the same cause, in short, as that to which he attributes the gradual rise and increase of rent.

"It is the taxation, and the necessity under which a growing society is placed of resorting to soils of less fertility to obtain supplies of food, that are the principal causes of that reduction in the rates of profit which usually take places in advanced periods."

Rent, in his view, was originally profit. It is, therefore, taken out of profit, and all additions to it are abstractions from this same fund.

To us the doctrine taught on this subject by Adam Smith appears to be the true one. There is in every society a certain state of the demand which determines the price of every thing. This demand consists of the offer of labour's worth on the part

of those who have the means of commanding labour (i. e., who possess money, or what is easily convertible into it), in exchange for its produce. If this offer be not sufficient to cover the cost of production, and give some excess above it, as profit on the capital employed, the production itself will cease. But between this lowest degree and the highest, which the fertility of the soil will admit of, there may be every variety in the rate of profit; nor does there seem any principle which can determine where the resting point shall be, except the state of the supply as compared with the demand. The supply at any particular time is a given quantity, but the demand depends upon a great variety of circumstances, and mainly upon the proportion existing between the productive and unproductive consumers, or between those who make or buy in order to sell again, and those who buy solely for the purposes of use and consumption, a proportion which is very different in different countries and in different states of society. The diminution in the cost of production, increased facilities of communication, the lowering of import duties, and the repeal of prohibitions, have the effect of increasing the general demand, for they open new markets; while whatever impedes intercourse, and throws difficulties in the way of interchange, must have the effect of diminishing the demand. Mr. Macculloch lays great stress on the decreasing productiveness of the soil, as accounting for the fall of profits in the progress of society. But why should any lands be cultivated at a less profit than previously, unless the state of the demand had already lowered the rate of profit, so as to render the cultivation of those lands as good a return to capital as any other mode of employing it would be at the time. If any more profitable mode of investing such capital existed, we may be sure that the lands which yield that less return, would not be cultivated. We are therefore driven to inquire why those higher rates of profit no longer exist, or why the owners of capital are obliged to content themselves with a lower rate; and to this we can find no other answer than that the increasing abundance of products compared with the demand for them, establishes on the whole mass a lower average rate of profit, and by consequence an increase of proportional wages, or of that share of the produce which goes to cover the original cost of the production; so that, in fact, the rate both of profits and of proportional wages, is governed by the demand for this produce.

Our views, therefore, respecting the natural course of wages, rents, and profits in the progress of society, differ very materially from those which are set forth in the work before us. To ascertain the laws which determine this distribution of the produce into those three primary groups is, as has been justly stated by

Mr. Ricardo, the principal problem in political economy. It is the consummation of the science. By the mode of inquiry which Mr. Macculloch has adopted, by his having drawn conclusions from terms to which he has ascribed a meaning of his own, and taken views of value which are inconsistent with each other, he has, as it appears to us, precluded himself from the possibility of correctly solving this problem.

Respecting this distribution, Mr. Macculloch has, in his edition of the "Wealth of Nations," added the following note to the 6th chap. of the first book :—

"The doctrine laid down in this chapter, that the value of commodities in the advanced stages of society varies according to the variations of rent, profit, and wages, is fundamentally erroneous. The variations alluded to merely affect the distribution of commodities, or the proportions in which they are divided among the three great classes, of landlords, capitalists, and labourers, and have nothing to do with their value, or their power to exchange for, or buy each other, or labour."

Here we are formally told by Mr. Macculloch that the distribution of the produce has nothing to do with its value, yet he has written a long chapter in order to explain the effect which alterations in the rates of wages and profits have upon the relative exchangeabilities of commodities (i. e. upon their value in his own sense of that term), and it is impossible that any such alterations can take place, the quantity of produce remaining the same, without at the same time increasing or diminishing the quantity of labour for which that produce will exchange (Adam Smith's standard of value); so that in whatever light we view value, the above passage contains statements equally at variance with the fact. After this it is needless to add a word more in proof of our assertion, that Mr. Macculloch has on this subject fallen into the grossest inconsistency and contradiction.

We have devoted so large a portion of our space to the consideration of the above important questions, that we have no room left to enter into a detailed examination of the other matters treated in this volume. It would, however, be unfair towards Mr. Macculloch to dwell solely upon what appears to be objectionable in his work, and to leave wholly unnoticed the many valuable and useful parts of it, which are written in the true spirit of the science, and are calculated to advance the knowledge of it.

We are glad to find any thing to commend in Mr. Macculloch's book. His introductory sketch of the rise and progress of the science is of itself a very interesting little tract. We have already

spoken favourably of the style in which his work is written, and we have now to add that, in this later edition, he has introduced several new chapters upon collateral topics, more or less connected with the main subject, and containing much historical and other useful information, interspersed with many excellent and judicious observations.

We are too little acquainted with the working of the New Poor Law, to say whether his extreme hostility to the present system is founded upon just grounds or not. At any rate his remarks upon it seem to be dictated by a feeling of sympathy in behalf of those who are obliged to resort to this last resource of misery and destitution, and on that account are deserving of every attention and respect.

Generally speaking, Mr. Macculloch has, on these collateral and incidental subjects, written well, because he has grounded his views regarding them on facts and experience, which have led him to just conclusions; while on those questions which relate to the fundamental and essential principles of the science he has written ill, because he has founded his reasonings on hypothetical and inconsistent data, which have led him into the adoption of a false system of doctrines.

The promulgation, however, of these doctrines being the chief aim and object of the work, we may venture to predict that when the subject comes to be more generally studied and understood, this book, in spite of the valuable and useful information it contains, will cease to be considered as a safe guide to be put into the hands of those who are desirous of making themselves acquainted with the true principles of political econony.

Other treatises will, no doubt, by-and-by arise, founded upon broader views and a more comprehensive basis of facts, in which the true theory of distribution (the germ of which is to be found in Adam Smith's great work) will be more fully developed and firmly established; and the doctrines of Mr. Macculloch, which will not stand the test of an appeal to facts, will share the common fate of all other ingenious but unsound theories, and be gradually neglected and forgotten.

ART. V.-On the means of rendering more efficient the Education of the People: a Letter to the Lord Bishop of St. David's, by WALTER FARQUHAR HOOK, D.D., Vicar of Leeds. Eighth Edition. London: Murray, 1846, pp. 71.

THE subject on which Dr. Hook treats in the present publication is one of vast importance. The author's character, his experience, his learning, his ability, and, above all, his position in the Church, give him a special right to speak upon it, and add great weight to what he says; and it is clear that he has spoken to a very attentive audience, from the EIGHT EDITIONS which have been called for of his pamphlet, within the brief space of three months.

The country is much indebted to him for the abundant and incontrovertible evidence which he has adduced, to show that it is "impossible for voluntary association to meet the wants of the nation by a sufficient supply of school-rooms and competent masters" (p. 21), and that without the aid of the STATE, "we cannot succeed in the great object which every patriot, as well as every Christian, has at heart" (p. 32), and no one, we think, can have perused his pages, without feeling satisfied that if England desires to enjoy the blessings of public peace and prosperity, she must maintain and increase her efforts for the moral and religious training of the young of the lower orders of the community.

There are many, perhaps, who did not stand in need of the statistical details with which Dr. Hook has presented us, to convince us of this proposition; and for ourselves, we confess that we are, and always have been, of that class of persons who regard it as the paramount duty of a Christian State to provide for the education of its poor; and knowing how extensively poverty, ignorance, and crime prevail among us, especially in our large towns, we have long been persuaded that it is the imperative duty of the Legislature of England to make every exertion in its power to promote the cause of National Education.

This being the case, we were fully prepared for the declaration of the noble individual who now holds the chief place in Her Majesty's Government. In his letter to the electors of the city of London, and in his address to them on his re-election, Lord John Russell states, that the question of national education