[61] I beg your pardon, my dear Fanatic, I see I have unconsciously made a slight mistake. Mill says, that appropriation is wholly a matter of general expediency, and on that ground you may justify slavery.

[62] Mill’s Political Economy, Bk. II. Chap. II.

[CHAPTER XVII.]
SELECTIONS FROM JUGERNATH’S SACRED WRITINGS.

Allow me, my dear Idolator, to make a few quotations from one of your sacred Vedas, on the subject of land.

You are fond of quoting them when it suits your purpose.

Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith.Action of Free Trade.
(1.) Every improvement in the circumstances of the society tends, either directly or indirectly, to raise the real rent of land, to increase the real wealth of the landlord, his power of purchasing the labour or the produce of the labour of other people.Free Trade has ruined agricultural industry. Can it be an improvement in the circumstances of the society.
(2.) Every increase in the real wealth of the society, every increase in the quantity of useful labour employed within it, tends indirectly to raise the real rent of land.Free Trade has lowered rents. Can it have wrought increase in the real wealth of society?
(3) All those improvements in the productive powers of labour which tend directly to reduce the real price of manufactures, tend indirectly to raise the real rent of land.The improvements in machinery, science, steam, and electricity prevented the collapse of agriculture at first, and has even given a semblance of temporary prosperity, and this has been dishonestly claimed by Free-traders as their work.
(4.) Whatever reduces the real price of manufactured produce raises that of rude produce of the landlord.In spite of this advantage agriculture has collapsed under Free Trade.
(5.) The neglect of cultivation and improvement, the fall in the real price of any part of the rude produce of the land ... tend to lower the real rent of land, to reduce the real wealth of the landlord, to diminish his power of purchasing either the labour or the produce of the labour of other people.Your Free Trade prophets, Bright and Gladstone, are unceasing in their endeavours to destroy the landlord and diminish his power of employing productive labour.
(6.) The whole annual produce of the land and labour of every country constitutes a revenue to three different orders of people,
—to:—
1. Those who live by rent.
2. Those who live by wages.
3. Those who live by profit.
The interest of the first of these three great orders is strictly and inseparably connected with the general interests of the society.
Whatever either promotes or obstructs the one, promotes or obstructs the other.Free trade obstructs the interests of the first of these three great orders, and necessarily obstructs the general interests of the nation at large.
(7.) The interest of this third order has not the same connection with the general interest of the society as that of the other two.Free trade has emanated from this order.
Merchants and Master Manufacturers are, in this order, the two classes of people who commonly employ the largest capitals.
(8.) The proposal of any new law or regulation of commerce, which comes from this order, ought always to be listened to with great precaution, and ought never to be adopted till after having been long and carefully examined, not only with the most scrupulous, but with the most suspicious, attention.If attention had only been paid to Adam Smith’s warning, we should not now have to mourn the decadence of England’s industries.
(9.) It comes from an order of men whose interest is never exactly the same with that of the public; who have generally an interest to deceive and even to oppress the public, and who accordingly have, upon many occasions, both deceived and oppressed it. (Wealth of Nations, by Adam Smith, Bk. I. Chap. XI.)
How true of your prophet Bright! Free Trade is another fearful example of the deception and oppression practised by this class.

You will probably, attempt to discredit your sacred writings when they do not support your own views.

You will argue that Adam Smith wrote when the conditions of society and commerce were very different from what they are now.

Mathematicians say, that when a formula will not accommodate itself to altering conditions and circumstances, it is unsound. It is the same with political science. Either the political science of Adam Smith is unsound, and he is not reliable, or the serious indictments against Free Trade given in the quotations above are well-founded.