Page:Time and Tide by Weare and Tyne.djvu/197

subordinate to those we have hitherto been considering. The laws you make regarding methods of labour, or to secure the genuineness of the things produced by it, affect the entire moral state of the nation, and all possibility of human happiness for them. The mode of distribution of the land only affects their numbers. By this or that law respecting land you decide whether the nation shall consist of fifty or of a hundred millions. But by this or that law respecting work, you decide whether the given number of millions shall be rogues, or honest men;—shall be wretches, or happy men. And the question of numbers is wholly immaterial, compared with that of character; or rather, its own materialness depends on the prior determination of character. Make your nation consist of knaves, and, as Emerson said long ago, it is but the case of any other vermin—"the more, the worse." Or, to put the matter in narrower limits, it is a matter of no final concern to any parent whether he shall have two children, or four; but matter of quite final concern whether those he has, shall, or shall not, deserve to