Dilettantism, no world was ever held together in that way for long. A
world of mere Patent-Digesters will soon have nothing to digest: such
world ends, and by Law of Nature must end, in 'over-population;' in
howling universal famine, 'impossibility,' and suicidal madness, as of
endless dog-kennels run rabid. Supply-and-demand shall do its full
part, and Free Trade shall be free as air;--thou of the shotbelts, see
thou forbid it not, with those paltry, _worse_ than Mammonish
swindleries and Sliding-scales of thine, which are seen to be
swindleries for all thy canting, which in times like ours are very
scandalous to see! And Trade never so well freed, and all Tariffs
settled or abolished, and Supply-and-demand in full operation,--let us
all know that we have yet done nothing; that we have merely cleared
the ground for doing.

Yes, were the Corn-Laws ended tomorrow, there is nothing yet ended;
there is only room made for all manner of things beginning. The
Corn-Laws gone, and Trade made free, it is as good as certain this
paralysis of industry will pass away. We shall have another period of
commercial enterprise, of victory and prosperity; during which, it is
likely, much money will again be made, and all the people may, by the
extant methods, still for a space of years, be kept alive and
physically fed. The strangling band of Famine will be loosened from
our necks; we shall have room again to breathe; time to bethink
ourselves, to repent and consider! A precious and thrice-precious
space of years; wherein to struggle as for life in reforming our foul
ways; in alleviating, instructing, regulating our people; seeking, as
for life, that something like spiritual food be imparted them, some
real governance and guidance be provided them! It will be a priceless
time. For our new period or paroxysm of commercial prosperity will and
can, on the old methods of 'Competition and Devil take the hindmost,'
prove but a paroxysm: a new paroxysm,--likely enough, if we do not use
it better, to be our _last_. In this, of itself, is no salvation. If
our Trade in twenty years, 'flourishing' as never Trade flourished,
could double itself; yet then also, by the old Laissez-faire method,
our Population is doubled: we shall then be as we are, only twice as
many of us, twice and ten times as unmanageable!

* * * * *

All this dire misery, therefore; all this of our poor Workhouse
Workmen, of our Chartisms, Trades