RETROGRESSION IN AMERICA.
[To THE EDITOR OP THE " SPECTATOR."' Sut,—Your article under this heading in the Spectator of November 6th is one which must arrest the attention of thoughtful minds ; but as an optimist, I cannot regard the present social aspect of the world with the despondency which your article suggests.
In the history of the world there have been innumerable uprisings of the lower against the higher classes of society ; but all these uprisings have been ultimately suppressed, because property, backed by intelligence and order, must always in the end be more powerful than anarchy, without capital, intelligence, or order.
Alarming as the recent Socialistic vote in New York seems, it is not so alarming as it appears on the surface, because apparently not one-half of the constituency exercised their privilege ; but were property really in danger, the vote would probably be about 300,000, as against George and his 60,000.
Still, there is doubtless a danger, and the question is how to reduce that danger to a minimum. I think the first way to redace the danger is to increase as far as possible the number of those directly interested in property by encouraging frugality among the masses, and the investment of their savings in Government securities, land, and houses.
This is a process which for many years has been steadily progressing in importance, and which, with increased education and the promised assistance in this country of the present Ministry, must continue to progress ; and if it should do so at the present ratio, the great majority must at no distant day become logically and liberally conservative in principle and action.
You strike the right nail on the head when you indicate that our real danger arises from the decaying power of religion and morality, or rather, perhaps, the increase of a self-satisfied scepticism in the world. But this condition I regard as the temporary fluidity of a transitional period. Men have daring the last century been more and more throwing off the con- trolling power of superstition, and science has not yet risen beyond Agnosticism. But to me it seems clear that there is a luminous cloud appearing on the horizon, at present no bigger than a man's hand, which is destined to envelope the earth as
the waters cover the channel of the sea ; and we may only be waiting the "completion of the circle," when suddenly a universal spiritual illumination will regenerate the human race.
Meantime, if men could only see that in the spiritual as in the natural world, "action and reaction are equal," and believe that in love to God—the Supreme Good—and in love to all out- side ourselves, consists the whole of the Law and the Prophets, and that as we mete to others it must be meted to us again, the axe would be laid to the root of that prevalent instinct of the lower nature—the desire for spoliation or self-indulgence—which has always existed alike among rich and poor, and has been the root of all social evils and discord.—I am, Sir, &c.,
GEORGE WILD, M.D.
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