sible mode of raising wages permanently, and effectually benefitting the poor, is by so educating them that they shall be conscious that their welfare depends upon the exercise of a greater control over their passions.
In penning this brief paper, my desire has been to provoke amongst the working classes a discussion and careful examination of the teachings of political economy, as propounded by Mr. J. S. Mill and those other able men who, of late, have devoted themselves to elaborating and popularising the doctrines enunciated by Malthus. While I am glad to find that there are some amongst the masses who are inclined to preach and put in practice the teachings of the Malthusian School of political economists, I know that they are yet few in comparison with the great body of the working classes who have been taught to look upon the political economist as the poor man's foe. It is nevertheless amongst the working men alone, and, in the very ranks of the starvers, that the effort must be made to check starvation. The question is again before us—How are men to be prevented from starving? Not by strikes, during the continuance of which food is scarcer than before. No combinations of workmen can obtain high wages if the number of workers is too great. It is not by a mere struggle of class against class that the poor man's ills can be cured. The working classes can alleviate their own sufferings. They can, by co-operative schemes, which have the advantage of being educational in their operation, temporarily and partially remedy some of the evils, if not by increasing the means of subsistence, at any rate by securing a larger portion of the result of labour to the proper sustenance of the labourer. Systems of associated industry are of immense benefit to the working classes, not alone, or so much from the pecuniary improvement they result in, but because they develop in each individual a sense of dignity and independence, which he lacks as a mere hired labourer. They can permanently improve their condition by taking such steps as
