deprive us of our supply of cheap labour; but we shall have in exchange the great fact that Ireland will become one vast grazing-farm, and will supply us with cheap provisions, and thus aid in keeping down the prices of all descriptions of food sent to our markets." The Hindoo, in like manner, would be told that his aid was needed for keeping down the price of American and Egyptian cotton, and Brazilian and Cuban sugar, and that the price of both would rise were he permitted to obtain machinery that would enable him to mine coal and iron ore, by aid of which to obtain spindles and looms for the conversion of his cotton into cloth, and thus raise the value of his labour. The Brazilian would be told that it was the policy of England to have cheap sugar, and that the more he confined himself and his people--men, women, and children--to the culture of the cane, the lower would be the prices of the product of the slaves of Cuba and the Mauritius. Seeing that the policy of England was thus directly opposed to every thing like association, or the growth of towns and other local places of exchange, and that it looked only to cheapening labour and enslaving the labourer, the questions would naturally arise: Can we not help ourselves? Is there no mode of escaping from this thraldom? Must our women always labour in the field? Must our children always be deprived of schools? Must we continue for ever to raise negroes for sale? Must the slave trade last for ever? Must the agricultural communities of the world be compelled for all time to compete against each other in one very limited market for the sale of all they have to sell, and the purchase of all they have to buy? Are there not some nations in which men are becoming more free, and might we not aid the cause of freedom by studying the course they have pursued and are pursuing? Let us; then, inquire into the policy of some of the various peoples of Continental Europe, and see if we cannot obtain an answer to these questions. CHAPTER XVI. HOW FREEDOM GROWS IN NORTHERN GERMANY. Local action has always, to a considerable extent, existed in Germany. For a time, there was a tendency to the centralization of power in the hands of Austria, but the growth of Prussia at the north has produced counter attraction, and there is from day to day an increasing tendency toward decentralization, local activity, and freedom.