THE ELEMENTS OF OUR POPULATION.
It is an instructive lesson to analyse the population of the country, to resolve it into the several classes. First, from the 44,000,000, there are to be taken the classes that count for nothing—the Indians, the Chinese, and the women, for though they are permitted to live in the country, they form no part of the sovereignty. “They are,” as Justice Carter asserted when endeavouring to prove that women are not entitled to the ballot, “citizens in whom citizenship is dormant.” In round numbers these classes are 23,000,000. Of the remaining 21,000,000, 11,000,000 are adults, who are the sovereignty, and who conduct the Government. Of these 3,000,000 are farmers; 2,000,000 are manufacturers, mechanics, miners, and lumbermen; 1,000,000 are unskilled labourers; 1,000,000 are merchants of all kinds, including dispensers of leaf and liquid damnation; 1,000,000 are gentlemen of ease who live by their wits—their sharpness and shrewdness—bond-holders, money-lenders, landlords, gamblers, confidence men, etc., etc.; 500,000 are clerks; 250,000 are permanent invalids; 200,000, criminals; 100,000, paupers; 100,000, insane; 100,000, weakminded; 100,000, professional teachers; 100,000, employes of the national Government; 100,000, of the State, county and municipal Governments; 90,000, physicians; 60,000, ministers; 50,000, lawyers, and 50,000, editors and professional writers and actors. A large part of the property of the farmers is mortgaged to the money-lenders, and the same is true of the manufacturers, while the liabilities of the merchants exceed their assets. So, really, the 5th class—the gentlemen of ease—either own or else hold mortgages on the whole property of the country. It is said that the curse of England is that 3 4ths of its property is owned by forty families. How much less is true of this country? Can such a state of injustice as this continue? And if it cannot, what shall take its place? It is time that those who hold the wealth, should, for their own sake, be asking this question seriously, unless they would incur the risk of having it answered for them, as the same was answered in France in ’93. Public injustice, unless remedied peaceably, always has terminated in revolution; and it will continue so to terminate as long as it is not remedied in a wiser way by those who have the power to do it.