The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-07-30

WTlVer III EuBlbnu WIN has uooh ~ tho
pains to verify what he confidently affirms
by the evidence of what has actually
taken place. In point of fact, ordinary
political economy does not go further than
to describe the process and some OF the
consequences of a state of war; The
elder Mill Endorsed the dismal and absurd
theorem of Ricardo, that the production
of food was obtained only in diminishing
qualities by increased labor-and his son
insisted on it with pious ZEAL"
We have not yet obtained copy of
Professor Rogers work, and are dependent,
in this article, upon extracts given in a
notice printed by the Springfield Repubi.
can, another of which we add here:
"Most writers on political economy have
been persons in opulent or at least in easy
circumstances. They have witnessed with
profound or interested satisfaction the
growth of wealth in the classes to which
they belong, or with which they have been
familiar or intimate. They are alarmed
at the risk that national wealth may be
sacrificed by a change in the relation
which exists at any given time between
profits and wages. Nothing illustrates
this alarm better than John Mills famous
paradox that the fund available for pay
ing wages was fixed quantity. This
doctrine, which Mill saw at last was an
error, has been the greatest difficulty in
the way of the trade-unions. 1t is as
baseless in industrial life as the quadra-
ture of the circle is in mathematics. In
these days we are told that the differences
of the economist are only tendencies.
Had they been veritable, living realities
society would long since have collapsed,
for they would have left only the alterna-
tive of two conditions-the relentless
despotism of the few, or the anarchy of
the many. When the economist becomes
arrogant and avows that he is a guide to
all social action, instead of being the in
terpreter of certain definite results, he is
informed by the workman that his conclu-
sions cannot be accepted as final in the
practice of life, and by the statesman
that they may consist with the constitu.
ton of another planet, but not with this
EARTH"
Professor Rogers declares the land mo-
nopoly of England to be in imminent dan
ger, and that it cannot much longer be
supported by the government. He fsvors,
and says that all wise economists favor,
the distribution of wealth into as many
hands as possible, and then he adds this
warning to England and America: GA
country is infinitely safer, infinitely
stronger, infinitely more capable Of
genuine progress, in which the many are
in comfort and content than that is in
which much wealth is accumulated, but
the process of distribution is artifcially
hindered."
The Republican says, truly, that in
America this distribution of wealth is be
ing hindered, and great estates and mo
nopolies are being built up all over thu
country by the high tariff laws and b!
the practical working of our railroad
system, which showers great wealth ant
the power to accumulate more into few
hands. And it is a fact that the pressur,
of cooperative power is being felt ever
here in the rural state of Vermont to tn
extent that revolution against it is immi
nent. The strong opposition agains
"ring rule" in which THE WATCHMAN'
general columns have recently been 81
we'll and SO ably employed, and which ha
met with such approval from the public
is an evidence that the people everywher
are feeling and resisting the pressure of
ruthless monopoly, based upon the falls
science which is only England's policy o
robbing, under the name of Politica
Economy"