As to religion, the popish (!) practically interferes less with the time and industry of the people than the Presbyterian.. In Scotland, if we reckon the occasional fast-days, proclaimed by the church; the preparation days for the sacrament; and the many half days devoted to religious meetings, prayer meetings, church meetings, missionary society meetings, Bible society meetings, and all the other social duties connected with the religious position and sentiments of the individual, it will be found, as it ought to be found, that out of the three hundred and sixtyfive days, the pious, well conducted Presbyterian tradesman, workman, or respectable middle-class man in Scotland bestows, in the present times, many more working hours in the year upon religious concerns than the papist in Italy. It is an inconsistency to ascribe to the loss of time, by their religious observances, the poverty and idleness of the population of the south of Europe, when we see the time abstracted among ourselves from the pursuits of industry for religious purposes, although little, if at all, less in amount, producing no such impoverishing or prejudicial effects; but, on the contrary, evidently invigorating the industry of the people, and contributing essentially to their morality and civilization."

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Having disposed of these two fashionable methods of accounting for the alleged inferiority of Italy, her religion and government,― Mr. Laing proceeds to give us his own theory on the subject, a theory which he confirms by plausible, if not conclusive arguments. He says:

no

"It is, in truth, neither the bad government, nor the bad religion of Italy, which keeps her behind the other countries of Europe. The blessings of Italy are her curse. Fine soil and climate, and an almost equal abundance of production over all the land, render each man too independent of the industry of his fellow-man. Italy has not, like all other countries which have attained to any considerable and permanent state of general civilization and industry, one portion of her population depending, from natural causes, upon another portion for necessary articles no highland and lowland, no inland nor sea-coast populations producing different necessaries of life, and exchanging with each other industry for industry- no wine-growing population, and corn-growing population, as in France, depending upon each other's production mining population, sea-faring population, manufacturing population, distinct from agricultural population and production. She has no natural division of her social body into growers and consumers, because every inhabitable corner of the peninsula grows almost the same kind of products, corn, wine, oil, silk, fruits; and every consumer is a producer, and there is no natural capability in the country of raising an artificial division in its population by trade and manufacture. The great source of industry and civilization in France is the cultivation of the vine, and its natural exclusion from all the north of France. It is the greatest manufacture in the world. . . . . . Italy has not this advantage. With her equal, or nearly equal productiveness of soil and climate over all, both in the kinds and quantities of her products, no considerable masses of her population are depending upon each other's industry for the supply of their mutual wants, and inseparably bound up with each other by common interests. . . There is little command of water power, and none of fire power, in the Italian peninsula, for moving machinery. The Po, the Adige, the Ticino, and all the Alpine rivers; the Tiber, the Arno, and all from the Appennines, owing to the melting of the snow at their main sources, partake of the character of mountain streams, having such

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difference of level at different seasons, that mill-seats on their banks, at which water-power can be always available, are extremely rare. The corn mills on those rivers are constructed on rafts or boats anchored in the stream, so as to rise and fall with the increase or decrease of the water. Italy also, notwithstanding her vast extent of sea-coast, is badly situated for commercial industry, or supporting a sea-faring population. She has little coasting trade, because all parts of her territory produce nearly the same articles in sufficient abundance for the inhabitants, and has little trade, for the same reason, with the other countries on the Mediterranean. Her sea-coast also is, in general, uninhabitable from malaria; so that no great mass of population, deriving the means of living from commercial industry, and distinct from the inland population, can ever be formed. Cities and towns are, no doubt, numerous in Italy, and, perhaps, so many masses of population of from fifty to sixty thousand persons, down to two or three thousand, cannot be found anywhere else in Europe, within so small an area, as in the plains of this peninsula. But these cities and towns are of a very peculiar character. The country is so fertile, that each of those masses of population draws its subsistence from, and extends its influence over, a very small circle beyond its own town walls. All capital, industry, intelligence, civil authority, and business, public and private; all trade, manufacture, or consumption of the objects of trade and manufacture, and, it may be said, all civilization, are centralized within these cities, and the small circles of country around them from which they draw their consumption. . . . . Each city or town, within its own circle, suffices for itself, is a Metayer family upon a great scale living upon its own farm, and having no dependence upon, or connection with, the industry, interests, prosperity, or business of its neighbors in the land; and very little communication or traffic with any other masses of population, by carriers, wagons, carts, diligences, or water conveyance, the objects of interchange being, from the general bounty of nature, but very few between them."

We have been somewhat copious in our extracts, because we wished to exhibit, in his own words, a correct outline of Mr. Laing's theory to account for the alleged inferiority of Italy in her material condition. According to this theory, which imbodies much accurate and solid information on the actual state of the Italian peninsula, there are causes abundantly to account for the inferiority, wholly independent of either government or religion. These causes, as we understand them, are, in brief, as follows: a fertile soil producing with exuberance the necessaries of life, without much labor in the agriculturist, whose industry is, therefore, not much called forth; the nearly equal productiveness of the land over the whole of her territory, both as to the quantity and the quality of the articles produced, thereby rendering the exchange of commodities among different portions of her population, in a great measure, unnecessary; the almost total absence of water-power and of other facilities for manufactures; the general insalubrity of her widely extended sea-coast, rendering a sea-taring life hazardous, and cutting off the right arm of her commerce; finally, a system of centralization, more or less general, making all the capitals and larger towns nearly independent of one another, because they need not go much beyond their own

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gates to obtain all their necessary supplies: these are the principal reasors alleged by our author to explain the alleged inferior condition of the Italian population. These causes, clearly founded in fact, would, it must be admitted, explain the alleged phenomenon, no matter what the religion, or what the government of Italy.

We may be told, that the material condition of Italy was not always as low as it is at the present day; that, not to go back to the time of the ancient Romans, the central and northern Italians were, during the middle ages, the most active and commercial people in the world; and that if Italy, instead of being cut up into a number of petty principalities, governed by absolute sovereigns, were now again united in one great state under one good government, she might be again what she once was in ancient times and during the middle ages.

We may be wrong, but we greatly doubt whether this union of the whole Italian peninsula, under one government, would be useful or expedient, even if it were practicable. The dispositions and characters of the the inhabitants are so very different in the north, center, and south of Italy, that we greatly doubt whether they could be united politically into one nation, unless on the principle of a confederation, as in Switzerland and the United States; and even this would be open to serious objections. Besides, would this destroy, or even diminish the force of the circumstances above alleged by Mr. Laing? Would it render the soil less productive, or more varied in its products? Would it make the sea-coast more healthy, or create new manufacturing or commercial facilities? Would it do away with that system of agricultural and commercial centralization which has grown so naturally out of the situation and exigencies of the country? We believe not,

The northern and central Italians were, indeed, some centuries ago, the most enterprising and active traders of Europe; the Venetians and the Genoese, the Florentines and the Pisans were the commercial carriers of the civilized world. But the condition of things has wholly changed since that period. Commerce is no longer confined to the Mediterranean and Baltic seas; it has stretched out its gigantic arms to new worlds in the far east and the far west, undreamed of by the busy merchants of the middle ages; and the natural result has been a total revolution in the state of commerce. Trade has passed into other and deeper channels; and the new commercial adventurers have supplanted the old pioneers of commerce, even in the Mediterranean itself. As to the agricultural and commercial condition of Italy under the iron sway of the ancient Romans, one fact alone would prove that it was greatly inferior to what it is at present; the Romans were compelled to draw their supplies from all parts of the world, and were even thus often straitened for the necessaries or luxuries of life; whereas at present Italy suffices for itself, having a sufficient surplus in her own rich and exuberant products to give in exchange for those luxuries of which she is in want. Besides, Italian soil is now cultivated by freemen, whose cheerfully bestowed labor

fully rings out its abundant resources, which are, besides, usually consumed on the spot; under the ancient Romans, the land was cultivated by miserable slaves, who worked, trembling under the lash, and the fruits of whose labor often went to increase the luxuries of their cruel taskmasters at Rome.

There is one circumstance to which Mr. Laing has not adverted, or to which he has at least given but little importance, but which should not have been omitted in this investigation: the influence of climate on the comparative industry and activity of a people. There is no doubt that a warm climate tends greatly to enervate the system, and to indispose it for active labor; and that, on the contrary, a cold climate gives elasticity to the frame, and renders bodily exertion congenial, healthy, and even agreeable. Providence has accordingly wisely ordained, that southern regions should be naturally more fertile and productive, and that those lying in more northern latitudes should generally require more labor to develop their resources. Is it any fault of the Italians, that their exuberant soil should produce the necessaries of life with half the labor requisite for the same purpose in less genial countries? Are they to be set down at once as idle and slothful, if, unlike their less favored northern neighbors, they have occasionally more leisure on their hands, after the necessary labor of the season? Are they to be censured as lazy drones in society, if, content with the necessaries of life, they are not goaded on continually by the stimulus of avarice, to accumulate overgrown fortunes by ceaseless labor and solicitude for this world's goods? We think not.

It sounds well to talk of the industry and enterprise of a people, and of the comforts they gather around themselves as the fruits of long continued labor. But if we look a little more closely into the matter, and find that, as is but too often the case in England, the poor operative may toil from morning till night during all the days of a hard life, probably shortened by excessive labor and exposure; if we find, moreover, that, with all this weary labor, he is scarcely able to procure the bare necessaries of life for himself and family; and that, at the end of his mortal career, he is no more wealthy than he was at its commencement, his hard earnings having, to a great extent, gone into the pockets of an unfeeling capitalist; then the charm of all this much eulogized industry vanishes at once, and we are almost disposed to envy the comparative indolence of the Italian. The proverbial dolce far niente of the latter, is certainly preferable, in this state of the case, to the never-ending labor of the former.

And if we extend our view a little farther, and look into the miserable hovels of the Irish laborers-the great mass of the Irish population;— their poor and scanty food, often wholly insufficient to sustain life itself; their children crying aloud for bread or potatoes, which the agony-stricken parent, with all his hard and ceaseless toil, is not able to bestow; and when we reflect that all this misery is the natural result of that heartless and griping avarice which is for ever crying out to the poor-work! work! work!: we are tempted to execrate a system so utterly at variance

with the dictates of humanity,—a system which fattens on the weary labor of the poor, and makes the wealth of a nation compatible with the misery, verging even on the starvation, of the great mass of its population. Better far have a people less industrious, less commercial, and less enterprising, and, at the same time, less avaricious and less laborious, and withal better clothed, better fed, and more happy.

What calm and impartial observer will say, that the mass of the Italian population is a whit worse off than that of Ireland, or even that of Scotland or England? Laying all prejudice aside, and looking into things as they really are, we cannot fail to come to the conclusion, that the laboring class in Italy is as well fed, and as well clothed, as the similar class in Scotland or England itself; and, at the same time, much more cheerful and happy in their humble condition: while between their state and that of the poor crushed and starving Irish operatives there is no comparison whatever. Few are the Italian laborers who have not a sufficiency of bread, wine, oil, and cheese, throughout the year. These articles may, indeed, be of inferior quality; but they suffice to appease hunger, and the people are satisfied with them. Even the poor beggar is not generally destitute of these necessaries or luxuries of life; and instances of downright starvation in Italy are very rare indeed. The Italian peasant may not have the luxury of meat as often as the English laborer; but he has it as often at least as the Irish, and besides he is content to do without it. His climate does not require so gross or so abundant a food as does one farther north; and he can therefore afford to be content with less. He may not, indeed, be so free, in a political point of view, as his English brother, and he may not boast so much about his political rights; but, withal, he is as content with his lot. He is in a condition of political thraldom, generally of a mild and paternal character, which does not at least tantalize him with the vision of a freedom beyond his reach; the English laborer, politically free and boasting of his rights as a freemen, is often, in reality, bound by much more galling chains of servitude. Money and capital are more exacting and cruel task-masters than the worst political despotism. It is not those who talk most of liberty, who are in reality the freest.

Let us see what Mr. Laing himself says on this subject. Speaking of the Tuscan population about Florence, he remarks:

"Without, within, and around the gates of Florence, you hear on all sides the busy hum of men. The suburbs of small houses, the clusters of good, clean, tradesmen-like habitations, extend a mile or two. Shops, wine houses, market carts, country people, smart peasant girls, gardeners, weavers, wheelrights, hucksters, in short, all the ordinary suburban trades and occupations which usually locate themselves in the outskirts of thriving cities, are in full movement here. The laboring class in Florence are well lodged; and from the number and contents of the provision stalls in the obscure, third rate streets, the number of butcher's shops, grocers' shops, eating houses, the coffee-house for the middle and lower classes, the trav eler must conclude that they are generally well fed and at their ease. The laborer is whistling at his work, the weaver singing over his 'oom.”

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