s of government, can take the objects of their desires from the
people. In the same manner, every generation in turn can gratify itself
at the expense of posterity,--priority of time, in the latter case,
giving an advantage exactly corresponding to that which superiority
of station gives in the former. That an aristocracy will abuse its
advantage, is, according to Mr Mill, matter of demonstration. Is it not
equally certain that the whole people will do the same: that, if they
have the power, they will commit waste of every sort on the estate of
mankind, and transmit it to posterity impoverished and desolated?

How is it possible for any person who holds the doctrines of Mr Mill to
doubt that the rich, in a democracy such as that which he recommends,
would be pillaged as unmercifully as under a Turkish Pacha? It is no
doubt for the interest of the next generation, and it may be for the
remote interest of the present generation, that property should be held
sacred. And so no doubt it will be for the interest of the next Pacha,
and even for that of the present Pacha, if he should hold office long,
that the inhabitants of his Pachalik should be encouraged to accumulate
wealth. Scarcely any despotic sovereign has plundered his subjects to a
large extent without having reason before the end of his reign to regret
it. Everybody knows how bitterly Louis the Fourteenth, towards the
close of his life, lamented his former extravagance. If that magnificent
prince had not expended millions on Marli and Versailles, and tens of
millions on the aggrandisement of his grandson, he would not have been
compelled at last to pay servile court to low-born money-lenders, to
humble himself before men on whom, in the days of his pride, he would
not have vouchsafed to look, for the means of supporting even his own
household. Examples to the same effect might easily be multiplied.
But despots, we see, do plunder their subjects, though history and
experience tell them that, by prematurely exacting the means of
profusion, they are in fact devouring the seed-corn from which the
future harvest of revenue is to spring. Why then should we suppose
that the people will be deterred from procuring immediate relief and
enjoyment by the fear of distant calamities, of calamities which perhaps
may not be fully felt till the times of their grandchildren?

These conclusions are strictly drawn from Mr Mill's own principles: and,
unlike most of the conclusions whic