“There might be alabaster lamps and damask furniture in every house under the present system,” observed the earl, “if food enough could be got to keep the production of capital going at its natural rate; aye, and ease and leisure too, if our numbers were kept within bounds. It is not so very long since shoes and stockings were worn only in courts; and that they are now worn by peasants proves that our capital has grown under a system of competition. That multitudes have little ease and no leisure is the fault of over-population, which would be rather aggravated than lessened under a system whose very essence it is to cast each man’s burdens upon all. No man need scruple to have twenty of his children gracing the dinner-table of a co-operative establishment, till he should find, too late, that not all the savings caused by extensive association can compensate for the falling off in the produce of inferior lands, and for the new impulse given to population. His sons and his sons’ sons must add more and more labour to the common stock; must give up, first, damask and alabaster, then broadcloth and glass; then descend to sackcloth and wooden trenchers, then to tatters, potatoes and water, and then....” “Then would ensue a scramble; if anything should be left, competition would come into play again; society would rise by its means, and might possibly attain once more to a state in which they might speculate on the universality of damask and alabaster.” “Well!” exclaimed Letitia, “I shall ask to look at your steward’s accounts, and to have an explanation of them; for I do not at all like our present position. We must reach the extreme, you say, of having our whole produce in the hands of land-owners and tax-takers, unless we change our system.” “Yes, my dear: but by change of system, I do not mean convulsion. All might be set on a safe footing by timely care, the removal of restrictions, the diffusion of intelligence. There is nothing in all this, threatening to public dignity or private safety. There is nothing to lessen the security of property, or to endanger the rights of any class; but quite the contrary: for property is never so secure as when it most abounds; and rights are never so well respected as in the absence of temptation to infringe upon them.” “By change, then, you mean progression, without fear of subversion.” “Just so; the progression of society from an advanced into a higher state. What is there in such progression that is not as beautiful in theory as it is found to be necessary in practice?”