Entails and Primogeniture [pp. 172-178]

ENTAILS AND PRIMOGENITURE.
their possessions: for industry cannot make land, although
superior wit and cunning may appropriate to themselves what
they find belonging to others. The war of the wits becomes
universal, because a few own the stakes for which all gamble.
Sometimes the gambling transfers the stakes from the worth less to the meritorious quite as often from the virtuous,
generous, refined, and open-hearted, to the clutches of the cun ning, the ignorant, the vulgar, and the miserly. If these
were the only effects of excessive gambling, trade, and speculation, one, secure in his position, might look on the changes
of luck, the stocking the cards, the loading the dice, and the
trickery and reverses of the game, with philosophic composure. Fortunately, much the larger and more meritorious
part of mankind, the working class, having neither skill nor
capital, have no cards dealt to them, take no part in the game,
yet are sure to lose, no matter who wins. They lose employment and support, no matter what the issue of the game: for
noboby can win unless somebody loses, and that somebody is a
capitalist or employer of some kind, who has immediately to
turn off his operatives.'Tis true, the winner, after a while,
sets up business, or rents his capital to some one who does,
and then the turned-off operatives may again get employ-
ment. Society, for a while, returns to the "status quo ante!
belilum,"' and staggers on in a rickety way, until another run
of the dice makes a fortune, and begets an explosion,' uno
flats," and scatters the operatives, the " disjecrta membra"
of the burnt-up factory, as mercilessly as the exploding engine of a steamer belches forth the unoffending passengers.
Excess of trade is the sole cause of the frequent bankruptcies which torture the rich with apprehension for themselves
or their children, and which makes the working man's life a
mere continuous purgatory. This excess must be restricted
or lopped off. Trading would cease if there were nothing to
trade for. There would be no gamblers if the stakes were removed. Deprive trade of two thirds the pabulum that now
sustains it, and it wili dwindle down into comely and innocuous proportions. Entail lands and houses, and slaves, and all
fixed capital, take them out of the reach of speculation, and
you not only render the owners secure in their possessions, but
you give employment and certain support to a retinue of dependants, laborers, and tenants, twenty times as numerous as
the owners of the entailed property. Society is bound to
insure subsistence to all its working, aged, infant, and infirm
members. It now attempts to effect this insurance through
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