nment also has directed its patient
attention: minute inquiries have been made into their existing state, and
the increase of pauperism and of crimes. In no other country have the
wounds of the commonwealth been so carefully probed. By means of
colonisation, of an improved parochial order and of a more efficient
police, the further increase of these evils may be prevented; while, by
education, by providing means of religious instruction for all by savings
banks, and perhaps by the establishment of Owenite communities among
themselves, the labouring classes will have their comforts enlarged, and
their well-being secured, if they are not wanting to themselves in
prudence and good conduct. A beginning has been made--an impulse given:
it may be hoped--almost, I will say, it may be expected--that in a few
generations this whole class will be placed within the reach of moral and
intellectual gratifications, whereby they may be rendered healthier,
happier, better in all respects, an improvement which will be not more
beneficial to them as individuals, than to the whole body of the
commonweal.

The diffusion of literature, though it has rendered the acquirement of
general knowledge impossible, and tends inevitably to diminish the number
of sound scholars, while it increases the multitude of sciolists, carries
with it a beneficial influence to the lower classes. Our booksellers
already perceive that it is their interest to provide cheap publications
for a wide public, instead of looking to the rich alone as their
customers. There is reason to expect that, in proportion as this is
done--in proportion as the common people are supplied with wholesome
entertainment (and wholesome it is, if it be only harmless) they will be
less liable to be acted upon by fanaticism and sedition.

You have not exaggerated the influence of the newspaper press, nor the
profligacy of some of those persons, by whom this unrestrained and
irresponsible power is exercised. Nevertheless it has done, and is
doing, great and essential good. The greatest evils in society proceed
from the abuse of power; and this, though abundantly manifested in the
newspapers themselves, they prevent in other quarters. No man engaged in
public life could venture now upon such transactions as no one, in their
station half a century ago, would have been ashamed of. There is an end
of that scandalous jobbing which at that time existed in every department
of the State, an