The truth is, that Cromwell by leaving the landlords in possession of their instruments of production had, like Macbeth, scotched his snake but not killed it, and its brood remained; and after his death, as we know, a new wave of sentiment, backed by the substance of power which he had really left to the landlords, brought back the old regime of Royalty, Feudalism, and landlord domination, as before. Now Cromwell ought to have seen this, and foreseen its issue, but it so happened that his own following included almost as many landlords as that of the Royalists. For it must not be forgotten that in those days Puritanism had split the Nobility, as well as the Church, into two hostile sections; and it was only during and after the reign of Charles II. that the Nobility closed their ranks again, and ranged themselves almost to a man on the side of Church and King, - leaving Puritanism and Dissent practically to the mass of the people, in whose keeping it has remained to the present day. It is probable, therefore, that even had he seen the futility of taxing the incomes of the landlords while leaving the land itself, - the chief national instrument of production, - intact in their hands, he would have felt himself impotent to proceed further; and as he was neither a leveller, like one wing of his followers, nor could afford to alienate the landlords who formed the other wing, he left the issue, as he was wont to do, to that Providence in whose hands all causes alike were over-ruled for higher ends.

Now, I have introduced this matter here merely as a historical illustration of how immensely the fortunes of a nation are affected politically as well as economically by the question of whether you do or do not tax its instruments of production. And hence, as we have said, the experience of the world has made it a maxim with statesmen and economists, - whether they be Free Traders or Protectionists, - never to lay a tax on an instrument of production except as a last necessity of State, but always to lay it on articles of consumption, - luxuries as first choice, but when these prove insufficient, then on necessities, - and further that when a tax has to be laid on incomes, to let it be laid on that part of them alone which in the ordinary way of life would be spent on luxuries or unproductive consumption generally, and not, if possible, on any part of them which in the usual course of business is likely to be used in extending or enlarging those instruments of production, - whether soil, mines, machinery, or chemical processes, - which are either waiting for capital to open up and develop them, or which will yield an increase great in proportion to the amount of capital that may be still further invested in them.

Or, to sum it up; - the laying of a tax on an instrument of production not only cuts at the roots of the material prosperity of a nation, but indirectly makes it all the more easy for the foreign industrial rivals to invade it by their competition; to lay it on articles of consumption, on the contrary, is a comparatively animportant matter, not only for the permanent wealth of the nation as a whole, but also in the interests of the genuine working classes who co-operate with capital in working these instruments of production. It can only be detrimental to the interests of the idle or incompetent classes of the community, whether of the drawing room or of the slums; for strictly speaking, these are not on the wheel of wealth at all, but have fallen off it, as it were, and lie around its base as a pure tax on its products. having to be kept either as pensioners or paupers from its superfluity or bounty. But the ultimate reason which lies behind all particular arguments is, that a nation's instruments of production are its permanent possession, while the mere amount of its consumption is but a passing necessity; precisely in the same way as a man's brains and hands are during his working manhood his permanent possession, while the particular emotions and alternations of mood which pass across his mind from day to day, - although they are the very stuff of which his life is made, - are shed like falling leaves, which can be reproduced, whilst the tree abides.

And so too with the more or less of food he requires from day to day, which can be reproduced so long as the strength of his arm and hand last-; but with these instruments of production paralyzed, - how then will a man help himself at all? How feed his powers of consumption with any kind of food, - unless he consents to accept it as an act of commiseration or charity!

And now, if I may venture to draw these lines of argument and illustration to a point, I think we shall be fully justified in saying; - that killing a nation's instruments of production by competition and underselling in a free and open market, has precisely the same effect, as far as its influence on the national wealth is concerned, as killing them by taxation; the only difference being in the time it takes to do it in each case respectively; - taxing these instruments having usually the more immediate and direct effect, as well as being the more hopeless and demoralising; while killing them by foreign competition is usually more slow and circuitous in its operation, owing to the number of collateral shifts and expedients to which in its efforts to escape, a free people accustomed to act on its own initiative can turn in its extremity before it succumbs. And further, we may say that the Free Trader's extreme solicitude not to kill an instrument of production by taxation, reduces to a self-stultification, contradiction, and absurdity, his extreme readiness and even eagerness to kill any one of them as quickly as he can (for the sake too of the most trifling difference in cheapness in what the nation consumes) by calling aloud on all the world freely to enter in and do it if possible by any kind of competition, legitimate or illegitimate - whether by the trick of 'dumping,' of 'cornering,' or of concentrating the attack on individual traders until you ruin each in turn by under-selling them, - all of which methods the Free Trader by his principles is equally prepared to allow.