time; therefore, when markets are dull and trade is stagnant, they are still compelled to pay such wages as enable their employed to live comfortably. The profits gained during prosperous seasons not only enable employers to enjoy handsome incomes, but also to accumulate considerable savings; and as the best wages scarcely enable the employed to make any thing like an adequate provision for periods of distress, it is not deemed fair that the representatives of property should use the labour of the working classes just when it suits them, and discard it or only use it on a miserable recompense when it does not so well suit them. For the labour of the employed not only makes annual incomes for the employers, but also permanent fortunes; and the value of that labour is not calculated as lasting only just as long as it is available for the purpose of producing large profits. Labour is recognised in Castelcicala and positively stated to be the working man’s _capital_, and bears constant interest, as well as money placed in the funds--that interest of course increasing in proportion to the briskness of markets; but never depreciating below a standard value--much less being discarded as valueless altogether, in times of depression. A thousand pounds always obtains three per cent. interest, under any circumstances; and, at particular periods, is worth six or seven per cent. Labour is considered by the Castelcicalans in the same light. Stagnant markets diminish the profits of employers, but do not ruin them: if they do not obtain profit enough to live upon, they have the accumulations of good seasons to fall back upon. But how different used to be the case with the employed! To them stagnation of business was ruin--starvation--death;--the breaking up of their little homes--the sudden check of their children’s education--the cause of demoralisation and degradation--and the necessity of applying to the parish! All these terrible evils have been completely annihilated by the system introduced into Castelcicala. The supply and demand of labour are necessarily unequal at many times, and in many districts; and the Government has therefore adopted measures to prevent those frightful fluctuations in wages which carry desolation into the homes of thousands of hard-working, industrious, and deserving families. In fact, a law has been passed to ensure the working-man against the casualty of being employed at a price below remuneration.’--Thus, my lord, you perceive that so far your views have been most successfully carried out: they are no longer a theory--I have seen them reduced to positive practice; and I pledge myself most solemnly and sacredly to the admirable working of this enlightened reformatory system.” “Would that I could see my own fellow-countrymen rendered thus happy--raised thus high in the social sphere--and thus tenderly cared for by their rulers!” exclaimed Lord Ellingham, in the impassioned tone of the most earnest and heart-felt sincerity.