under-saturation, which some new countries are still enjoying, are necessarily short. Population flows in as naturally as water finds its level. It was not till the accession of George III that the increase in our numbers became rapid. No one until then would have thought of singling out the Englishman as the embodiment of the good apprentice. Meteren, in the sixteenth century, found our countrymen 'as lazy as Spaniards'; most foreigners were struck by our fondness for solid food and strong drink. The industrial revolution came upon us suddenly; it changed the whole face of the country and the apparent character of the people. In the far future our descendants may look back upon the period in which we are living as a strange episode which disturbed the natural habits of our race. The first impetus was given by the plunder of Bengal, which, after the victories of Clive, flowed into the country in a broad stream for about thirty years. This ill-gotten wealth played the same part in stimulating English industries as the 'five milliards,' extorted from France, did for Germany after 1870. The half-century which followed was marked by a series of inventions, which made England the workshop of the world. But the basis of our industrial supremacy was, and is, our coal. Those who are in the habit of comparing the progressiveness of the North-Western European with the stagnation or decadence of the Latin races, forget the fact, which is obvious when it has once been pointed out, that the progressive nations are those which happen to have valuable coal fields. Countries which have no coal are obliged to import it paying the freight, or to smelt their iron with charcoal This process makes excellent steel--the superiority of Swedish razors is due to wood-smelting--but it is so wasteful of wood that the Mediterranean peoples very early in history injured their climate by cutting down their scanty forests, thereby diminishing their rainfall, and allowing the soil to be washed off the hillsides. The coasts of the Mediterranean are, in consequence, far less productive than they were two thousand years ago. But in England, when the start was once made, all circumstances conspired to turn our once beautiful island into a chaos of factories and mean streets, reeking of smoke, millionaires, and paupers. We were no longer able to grow our own food; but we made masses of goods which the manufacturers ware eager to exchange for it; and the population grew like crops on a newly-irrigated desert. During the nineteenth century the numbers were nearly quadrupled. Let those who think that the population of a country can be increased at will, reflect whether it is likely that any physical, moral, or psychological change came over the nation coincidently with the inventions of the spinning-jenny and the steam-engine. It is too obvious for dispute that it was the possession of capital wanting employment, and of natural