It seems strange that any should quarrel with this increase of wealth;—that there should be any wish to leave off soliciting Nature, and any preference of brute or barbaric over philosophic labour. It seems strange that men should wish rather to go on working like the ass and the caterpillar than to turn over such labour to brute agents, and betake themselves to something higher;— that they had rather drag their loads through the mire than speed them on a railroad, and spin thread upon thread than see it done for them a thousand times better than they could do it themselves. It seems strange that these objections should proceed from those who most need a larger share of the offered wealth. There are honourable ways of refusing wealth and power, but this is assuredly not one of them. If there be reasons why man should hesitate to accept large gifts from his fellow-men, there can be none for his declining the bounty of Providence. The reason why some men do not like to hear of the opening up of new sources of wealth and fresh powers of industry is, that they believe that whatsoever is given to the race is taken from certain individuals; and that they had rather that all should suffer privation than that they themselves should undergo loss. The mention of lighting London streets with gas was hateful to certain persons connected with the northern fisheries, as it would lessen the demand for oil. They would have had all future generations grope in darkness rather than that their own speculations should suffer. In like manner, an increased importation of palm oil was a great blessing to the African date-gatherers, and will prove no less to the British public; but this pure good was at first regarded as a great evil by a few soap-manufacturers, who hoped to have been able to keep up the price of their commodity by controlling the supply of its component materials; and for the same reasons, the same persons sighed over the removal of the salt-duty. Perhaps no improvement of human resources ever took place without being greeted by some such thankless murmurs as these; and, too probably, it will be long before such murmurs will be perceived to be thankless, though happily experience proves that they are useless.