Page:Crotchet Castle - Peacock (1831).djvu/191

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THE VOYAGE.
179

creasing in it the quantity of things which are produced by labor: no matter what they are, no matter how produced, no matter how distributed. The greater the quantity of labor that has gone to the production of the quantity of things in a community, the richer is the community. That is your doctrine. Now, I say, if this be so, riches are not the object for a community to aim at. I say, the nation is best off, in relation to other nations, which has the greatest quantity of the common necessaries of life distributed among the greatest number of persons; which has the greatest number of honest hearts and stout arms united in a common interest, willing to offend no one, but ready to fight in defence of their own community, against all the rest of the world, because they have something in it worth fighting for. The moment you admit that one class of things,