e._ bridging the gulf between races
and binding men to men. He had found, since writing _Sartor_, that dear
cotton and slow trains do not help one nearer to God, freedom, and
immortality.
Carlyle's _third_ practical point is his advocacy of _Emigration,_ or
rather his insistence on it as a sufficient remedy for Over-population.
He writes of "Malthusianism" with his constant contempt of convictions
other than his own:--
A full formed man is worth more than a horse.... One
man in a year, as I have understood it, if you lend him
earth will feed himself and nine others(?).... Too crowded
indeed!.... What portion of this globe have ye tilled and
delved till it will grow no more? How thick stands your
population in the Pampas and Savannahs--in the Curragh of
Kildare? Let there be an _Emigration Service,_ ... so
that every honest willing workman who found England too
strait, and the organisation of labour incomplete, might
find a bridge to carry him to western lands.... Our little
isle has grown too narrow for us, but the world
is wide enough yet for another six thousand years.... If
this small western rim of Europe is over-peopled, does not
everywhere else a whole vacant earth, as it were, call to
us "Come and till me, come and reap me"?
On this follows an eloquent passage about our friendly Colonies,
"overarched by zodiacs and stars, clasped by many-sounding seas.
Pages:
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285