as cotton-cloth at twopence an ell was—­till men set about making it.  The inventive genius of great England will not for ever sit patient with mere wheels and pinions, bobbins, straps, and billy-rollers whirring in the head of it.  The inventive genius of England is not a beaver’s, or a spinner’s, or a spider’s genius:  it is a man’s genius, I hope, with a God over him!”—­P. 246.

And hear our Diogenes on the often repeated cry of over-production:—­

“But what will reflective readers say of a governing class, such as ours, addressing its workers with an indictment of ‘over-production!’ Over-production:  runs it not so?  ’Ye miscellaneous ignoble, manufacturing individuals, ye have produced too much.  We accuse you of making above two hundred thousand shirts for the bare backs of mankind.  Your trousers too, which you have made of fustian, of cassimere, of Scotch plaid, of jane, nankeen, and woollen broadcloth, are they not manifold?  Of hats for the human head, of shoes for the human foot, of stools to sit on, spoons to eat with—­Nay, what say we of hats and shoes?  You produce gold watches, jewelleries, silver forks and epergnes, commodes, chiffoniers, stuffed sofas—­Heavens, the Commercial Bazar and multitudinous Howel and James cannot contain you!  You have produced, produced;—­he that seeks your indictment, let him look around.  Millions of shirts and empty pairs of breeches hang there in judgment against you.  We accuse you of over-producing; you are criminally guilty of producing shirts, breeches, hats, shoes, and commodities in a frightful over-abundance.  And now there is a glut, and your operatives cannot be fed.’

“Never, surely, against an earnest working mammonism was there brought by game-preserving aristocratic dilettantism, a stranger accusation since this world began.  My Lords and Gentlemen—­why it was you that were appointed, by the fact and by the theory of your position on the earth, to make and administer laws.  That is to say, in a world such as ours, to guard against ‘gluts,’ against honest operatives who had done their work remaining unfed!  I say, you were appointed to preside over the distribution and appointment of the wages of work done; and to see well that there went no labourer without his hire, were it of money coins, were it of hemp gallows-ropes:  that formation was yours, and from immemorial time has been yours, and as yet no other’s.  These poor shirt-spinners have forgotten much, which by the virtual unwritten law of their position they should have remembered; but by any written recognized law of their position, what have they forgotten?  They were set to make shirts.  The community, with all its voices commanded them, saying, ’make shirts;’—­and there the shirts are!  Too many shirts?  Well, that is a novelty, in this intemperate earth, with its nine hundred millions of bare backs!  But the community commanded you, saying, ’See that the shirts are well apportioned,