Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
balance of evil so great, as to lead the greatest admirers of our manufactures and commerce
to doubt the advisability of their further development. It will be said: 'We cannot stop it;
capital must be employed; our population must be kept at work; if we hesitate a moment,
other nations now hard pressing us will get ahead, and national ruin will follow.' Some of
this is true, some fallacious. It is undoubtedly a difficult problem which we have to solve;
and I am inclined to think it is this difficulty that makes men conclude that what seems a ne-
cessary and unalterable state of things must be good—that its benefits must be greater than
its evils. This was the feeling of the American advocates of slavery; they could not see an
easy, comfortable way out of it. In our own case, however, it is to be hoped, that if a fair
consideration of the matter in all its bearings shows that a preponderance of evil arises from
the immensity of our manufactures and commerce—evil which must go on increasing with
their increase—there is enough both of political wisdom and true philanthropy in English-
men, to induce them to turn their superabundant wealth into other channels. The fact that
has led to these remarks is surely a striking one: that in one of the most remote corners of
the earth savages can buy clothing cheaper than the people of the country where it is made;
that the weaver's child should shiver in the wintry wind, unable to purchase articles attain-
able by the wild natives of a tropical climate, where clothing is mere ornament or luxury,
should make us pause ere we regard with unmixed admiration the system which has led to
such a result, and cause us to look with some suspicion on the further extension of that sys-
tem. It must be remembered too that our commerce is not a purely natural growth. It has
been ever fostered by the legislature, and forced to an unnatural luxuriance by the protection
of our fleets and armies. The wisdom and the justice of this policy have been already
doubted. So soon, therefore, as it is seen that the further extension of our manufactures and
commerce would be an evil, the remedy is not far to seek.
After six weeks' confinement to the house I was at length well, and could resume my
daily walks in the forest. I did not, however, find it so productive as when I had first arrived
at Dobbo. There was a damp stagnation about the paths, and insects were very scarce. In
some of my best collecting places I now found a mass of rotting wood, mingled with young
shoots, and overgrown with climbers, yet I always managed to add something daily to my
extensive collections. I one day met with a curious example of failure of instinct, which, by
showing it to be fallible, renders it very doubtful whether it is anything more than hereditary
habit, dependent on delicate modifications of sensation. Some sailors cut down a good-sized
tree, and, as is always my practice, I visited it daily for some time in search of insects.
Among other beetles came swarms of the little cylindrical wood-borers (Platypus, Tessero-
cerus, &c.), and commenced making holes in the bark. After a day or two I was surprised to
