THE GOSPEL OF TRADE.

Waikato Times, Volume II, Issue 101, 21 December 1872, Page 3

THE GOSPEL OF TRADE.

Not live years ago Elihu Burritt was making one of his tours, giving out tho old platitudes, talking of commerce (which lins frequently been u prime cause of bloodshed among civilized mil ions) ai tin- grand pacifier, hiding out of sight .such unpleasant, facts nsthut certain commercial .States l)ix'fcrrod war to IVrc tnidt:. Nor will the events of two years ago hinc cured such men, though it scums patent enough that trade and commerce, and the growth of wealth, diil not do much for J'Yaneo, antl llitiL the Germans, commercially, have nmdo a very good tiling of war. The fact is, that people who care not a whit about tho gospel of trade (the supposed connect ion, i.e., between trade and the peaceful progress of limn,) like this sort of talk just as tho Jews in E/.ekiel's days liked to have smooth things talked to them. They arc determined to make money in their own way ; and they arc delighted if anyone 'proves' that their "way of growing rich is conducive to the world's good. Not that they would leave oil' if tho reverse was made plain to them : no ; if you ahow that their way of growing Queensland (;otton or Fiji arrowroot is destroying the islanders as fast as they can he destroyed, they will talk about ' rotting races ' in tho spirit of tho backwoodsman, who ' improves his Indians oil' the fiico of the oiiifth. If you show that, besides tho Hying •jut. of a whole race, its poor remnants are bv the tricks of their devil's missionaries, turned hopelessly against that (Jhri.stiiinity which might else be their eomibrt in their decay, they will cither warn ym against listening to meddler's talcs, Qr ejso, with brazen hypocrisy, they will assert that it is really a good thing for "the poor Polynesian to be torn from his island and taken to tho

hibour-lield and tliu harrack, because there 'he will bo drought in contact with the influence of a Christian civilization. We repudiate such it repitition of subterfuges, which good I'i-ihop Jns Casus in his latter days bitterly repented having given way to. Heroin it is that Polo's narrative coiil rusts ho well with those of too many moderns; there is nothing unet;uoi|s nhout it. He is straightforward as Ctesar in his Commentaries ; and this, we know, is the great advnntgc of knowing the Classics--that they never write sham philanthropy, mid tnlkof' tho bli-wings of civilization,' when describing some bloody conquest. Polo has nothing to say in the way of moralising ; it seems quite natural to him thnt the khan should have 2(1,000 dogboys ; he is not scandalized lit llii! degradation of millions for the glory of one—not more (ban our i:mnn dr Iα crime, is at the sy.-.tem which produces it at, the cost of much ' human refuse. . We, on the (•milmry, luive to be always on our guard against sham philanthropy. How diil'urcntly tho Compcigne hunts and Tiiileries' brills, and ffausmuimn/.uig were described in the I'Yciich Miid Kiiglish papers from that in which Polo tells us of tiic kluin's hawking parties and feasts, and of the building of L'ambalijc. What a glorification of (bo sagacity which prompted c:ieh successive display. And yet under all this outward magnificence of the second Kmpire, festered, unenrcd'for (except in the way of repression), that, muss of misery and discontent which showed itself in March, 1871, and to'which tho Polos could

rcrlninly nnl, haw (bund a purallel in tlie China of their day. Kiiblai was of no religion in particular; or else, doubtless, he would have found in his clergy the same servile adulntion (servile, because combined with u slave's impudence) which Louis Huounparte got from nearly all Mm clergy in Franco; they would have proved that his having four wives, iind concubines innumerable---carefully picked, by what I'olonrtl Yule quaintly calls competitive examination, out of a provineo fumed for female beauty—was fur the glory of Clod, us well iw for the welfare of the empire ; they would luivo taught that nil this magnificence and rockiess eviienditure proved him !o be 'the saviour of society.' Hut ICuhlai was spared nil that; and Polo, while telling, run tiwoi'fiy nil iibont his gnindcur, never adds a word by way of moral reflection. ■-■-Mureo L'ulo's Travel,*, in British Qit'irtcrhf.