Yes, you young scamp, your’s. You were going to lie to the Holy Ghost, then, were you, only that she might wear satin slippers and be called a ‘lady’? Suppose, instead of fish, I were to ask her and you to carry coals. Have you ever read your Bible carefully enough to wonder where Christ got them from, to make His fire, (when he was so particular about St. Peter’s dinner, and St. John’s)? Or if I asked you to be hewers of wood, and drawers of water;—would that also seem intolerable to you? My poor clerical friends, God was never more in the burning bush of Sinai than He would be in every crackling faggot (cut with your own hands) that you warmed a poor hearth with: nor did that woman of Samaria ever give Him to drink more surely than you may, from every stream and well in this your land, that you can keep pure.
20th Dec.—To hew wood—to draw water;—you think these base businesses, do you? and that you are noble, as well as sanctified, in binding faggot-burdens on poor men’s backs, which you will not touch with your own fingers;—and in preaching the efficacy of baptism inside the church, by yonder stream (under the first bridge of [[35]]the Seven Bridge Road here at Oxford,) while the sweet waters of it are choked with dust and dung, within ten fathoms from your font;—and in giving benediction with two fingers and your thumb, of a superfine quality, to the Marquis of B.? Honester benediction, and more efficacious, can be had cheaper, gentlemen, in the existing market. Under my own system of regulating prices, I gave an Irishwoman twopence yesterday for two oranges, of which fruit—under pressure of competition—she was ready to supply me with three for a penny. “The Lord Almighty take you to eternal glory!” said she.
You lawyers, also,—distributors, by your own account, of the quite supreme blessing of Justice,—you are not so busily eloquent in her cause but that some of your sweet voices might be spared to Billingsgate, though the river air might take the curl out of your wigs, and so diminish that æsthetic claim which, as aforesaid, you still hold on existence. But you will bring yourselves to an end soon,—wigs and all,—unless you think better of it.
I will dismiss at once, in this letter, the question of regulation of prices, and return to it no more, except in setting down detailed law.
Any rational group of persons, large or small, living in war or peace, will have its commissariat;—its officers for provision of food. Famine in a fleet, or an army, may sometimes be inevitable; but in the event of national famine, the officers of the commissariat should be starved the first. God has given to man corn, wine, cheese, and [[36]]honey, all preservable for a number of years;—filled His seas with inexhaustible salt, and incalculable fish; filled the woods with beasts, the winds with birds, and the fields with fruit. Under these circumstances, the stupid human brute stands talking metaphysics, and expects to be fed by the law of Supply and Demand. I do not say that I shall always succeed in regulating prices, or quantities, absolutely to my mind; but in the event of any scarcity of provision, rich tables shall be served like the poorest, and—we will see.
The price of every other article will be founded on the price of food. The price of what it takes a day to produce, will be a day’s maintenance; of what it takes a week to produce, a week’s maintenance,—such maintenance being calculated according to the requirements of the occupation, and always with a proportional surplus for saving.
“How am I to know exactly what a day’s maintenance is?” I don’t want to know exactly. I don’t know exactly how much dinner I ought to eat; but, on the whole, I eat enough, and not too much. And I shall not know ‘exactly’ how much a painter ought to have for a picture. It may be a pound or two under the mark—a pound or two over. On the average it will be right,—that is to say, his decent keep[3] during the number of [[37]]days’ work that are properly accounted for in the production.
“How am I to hinder people from giving more if they like?”
People whom I catch doing as they like will generally have to leave the estate.
“But how is it to be decided to which of two purchasers, each willing to give its price, and more, anything is to belong?”