of their purchases? Nothing; but, on the contrary, lose that amount while they fondly imagine they gain it.

The general public know this secret, and do not deal with those amateur traders.

We are afraid that this glorious fortune-making system has seen its best days,-nay, we are quite sure of it. Any of Mr. Tidd Pratt's official returns will supply irrefragable proof of this assertion.

One of them, in our possession, supplies the following facts, which speak volumes against the general and successful adoption of the theory.

Out of 557 "industrial co-operative societies," 314 had sent in returns, stating the progress made, financial position, &c. ; 192 were winding up, or in such a condition as not to be able to report progress; while 51 had passed through the regenerator provided for them by the Winding-up Act. The progress of some of the societies is of a very doubtful character: here is a sample:-An "Industrial Co-operative Store," established in 1863, can boast of 47 members. During the last twelve months of its existence there has been an accession of one member, while eleven have seceded in the same period.

This is only one of many examples of the "wonderful success of co-operation;" further statistics we have no doubt may be had on application to Mr. Tidd Pratt.

We might advance many more arguments in support of our view of the question; but we refrain, believing that the facts and figures already quoted are quite enough to prove that the theory of cooperation, as now understood and applied to commercial enterprises, is altogether incapable of general adoption and success.

HORACE.

REFORM AT OXFORD UNIVERSITY.

THE sub-committee of Oxford University appointed to consider the question of the extension of the University, with a view especially to the education of persons needing assistance and desirous of admission into the Christian ministry, have made a report to the effect that a new college or hall must he opened to give the benefit of the University to a class of men who cannot now enter in the proposed establishment. They suggest that the charge for tuition be £4, for furnished rooms £3, for battels £4, and £10 a term, Easter account terms to count as one, making £51 per annum. The payments for each term to be paid in advance. In the battels would be included breakfast, plain luncheon, dinner, and the general lighting of the college. Another regulation is that breakfast and dinner be in common, the principal and tutors being for the most part present at these meals. Economy being the essence of the scheme, it is provided that if any member contract debts beyond a certain amount, or be found to be forming expensive habits, he be requested to move to some other college or hall, as not being the character for which this foundation is instituted. Facilities are also to be given for remaining in residence out of term.

Politics.

IS AN ARISTOCRACY ADVANTAGEOUS TO SOCIETY ?

AFFIRMATIVE ARTICLE-I.

"The more noble, the more humble."-Carlyle.
"Desire of greatness is a godlike sin."-Dryden.

IN those days when great reform agitations for the political enfranchisement of the working classes on a more extended scale, are at work throughout Great Britain and Ireland-when Members of Parliament themselves doff their allegiance to seeming Liberal causes, and put their constituencies in quandaries respecting their Liberal principles-when the working men, and no other men, form the great incubus that hangs from the roof of our very Parliament, ready to fall and crush the heads of the votaries of true Liberalism, we may well ask, "Is an aristocracy advantageous to society?"

It appears to me that the true definition of an aristocrat is not understood always to be a man of affluent circumstances (although this is one of the necessaries requisite to form the full meaning of the question), but a man that is possessed of a noble mind, humble, erudite in learning, generous, just, and exemplary in his actions through life, possessing pecuniary means of carrying out to a greater or smaller extent the welfare of his less privileged brothers. Compare the merchant, the tradesman, or the working man with a real noble English aristocrat, and the difference in favour of the latter is at once apparent. True, we find many gentlemen in mercantile life possessing undoubted abilities and learning, yet the lack of the complacent and humble bearing of the aristocrat is invariably discernible. Were it not for the example we have from our aristocracy-were it not for the great and unsullied nobility of many of our best families, where could we plant the standard of distinction-to whom could we look for instruction in the polished manners of élite society? Surely not in the mushroom-sprung merchant, or the inflated tradesman made rich by the impartial hand of luck, can we expect to find the grand and noble characteristics of the gentleman. True, we may do without the "tinsel trappings of a bloated aristocracy;" yet, as the workman is in the social scale below the merchant, so must the merchant be beneath the aristocrat with respect to position; and as the aristocracy are, as it were, the branches of the Crown, so shall they remain so long as the Crown is the stem of our governmental institution. It may be urged that the greatest of our men were not indebted to the most noble descent of blood, yet this does not alter the social position of the aristocrat.

Wherever we have found that intelligence, perseverance, and learning have acquired for themselves wealth and the admiration of the world through a man of unusual ability, that man has invariably lived in every respect up to the éclat of the aristocrat and the polished etiquette of the gentleman. Hence we find that a man endowed with superior attributes by nature, gradually ascending the heights of learning, encouraged by the praise of men, and exalted in the social scale of life, when, through his innate nobility and intelligence, he has brought himself within the patrician scale of the aristocrat, then we find that, when all the actions of his life have met with the admiration and general approval of his less-gifted brothers, the position of aristocrat meets with the same admiration from the world. An aristocracy is one of the essential elements of life: the law for the poor is the law for the rich; and why the existence of such a class should be disadvantageous to society I cannot well see, especially when we consider that the power of the aristocrat can never endanger the liberties of the plebeian, or compel the latter by any arbitrary rule. What we want is the "aristocratic talent" amongst the poor. Give every facility to education; make the poor understand their position with the rich, and be able more fully to govern by granting their political rights, then the proper check will exist, and political grievances would be more easily settled. Carlyle says, on the subject of aristocracy, in his "Chartism Past and Present, "-" Aristocracy and priesthood-a governing class and a teaching class: these two sometimes separate, and endeavouring to harmonize themselves, sometimes conjoined as one, and the King a pontiff king,-there did no society exist without these two vital elements, there will none exist. It lies in the very nature of man; you will visit no remotest village in the most republican country of the world where virtually or actually you do not find these two powers at work. Man, little as he may suppose it, is necessitated to obey superiors. He is a social being in virtue of this necessity; nay, he could not be gregarious otherwise. He obeys those whom he esteems better than himself, wiser, braver; and will for ever obey such, and even be ready and delighted to do it."

If, forsooth, the aristocratic element amongst us is disadvantageous to society through its undue privileges, why not separate the chaff from the wheat, and enact laws to regulate the proper balance? The "double element" is wanted; and until the indefinite idea of the working mass is altered from chaotic clamour to calm and educated thought respecting political questions, the jealous eye will always turn towards the aristocracy, as if its members were the authors of all miseries. Nature never intended every man to be equal, but she intended every man to be great: the higher mind will always rule the lower; and if each of us individnally do not struggle to attain the true nobility of the soul, the aristocrat is not to blame. The moneyed or landed aristocrat can never cope with the man of aristocratic soul; the former is enriched from the descent of feudal lands, the latter emanates from the throne of the

All-good. We may not all be wealthy; we may all be noble and as rich men will always undoubtedly exist and receive the hollow title of aristocrat, we can never deem his position disadvantageous; but when richness of purse is added to the richness of a noble mind -such as many of our aristocracy now have,-we may justly be proud of their possessors. We may all be aristocrats, but we cannot all belong to the aristocracy; yet the one is an auxiliary to the other, and each is essential to the other: while the one exists the other must exist; and whether disadvantageous or not, the aristocracy must always remain the magnet of all moral excellence. There are many aristocrats amongst us, and if the pecuniary element were sufficiently prolific, a question of this nature might not arise. What we want is, as Carlyle calls it, the "aristocracy of talent; and until the aristocracy of the purse is checkmated by the former, discord and indiscrimination will always exist. Why envy the acquisition of wealth, if its possession brands you with the title of a disadvantageous aristocrat? The very nature of man urges him towards the acquirement of wealth and power; this mundane faculty comes upon him with untutored force, and almost stops his ears with her transitory allurements against the continual entreaties of an all-important eternity. If all, or nearly all men are subject to this strange delusion of nature, how can we, in common conscience, call a class disadvantageous whom we all endeavour to emulate in power, wealth, and learning?

"All men are possible heroes ;" and since this continual thirst for power will insist itself into our very nature, this " itching palm" can bring within its reach the hero, the scholar, or the aristocrat. Were the landed aristocracy destroyed or defunct, the blended aristocracy of wealth and learning would still remain the nucleus of the grand and noble, so that an aristocracy will exist, whether in its present state or in a state of mere normal change. The nonexistence of an aristocracy is chimerical; divest it of its present emoluments and power, and it will again establish itself, and will establish itself through the immutable laws of an omniscient God. Being satisfied that an aristocracy must exist, our duty is to regulate its influence to the advantage of the mass, and make it remain the chief corner-stone to all moral advancement.

"For innovation is the blow of fate.

If ancient fabrics nod, and threat to fall,

To patch their flaws, and buttress up the wall,
Thus far 'tis duty: but here fix the mark;
For all beyond it is to touch the ark.
To change foundations, cast the frame anew,
Is work for rebels, who base ends pursue;
At once divine and human laws control,
And mend the parts by ruin of the whole.
The tampering world is subject to this curse,
To physic their disease into a worse."

ACKLINGTON.

NEGATIVE ARTICLE.-I.

A

Of course, if we are to take the etymological signification of the word Aristocrat, there is little or no ground for debate. negative paper would not be easily written in that case to prove that an aristocracy is disadvantageous to society; though even then some available arguments would demand consideration.

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But words, especially names, are to be tested by facts, and not by etymologies. Disraeli, in a paper on "The Influence of Names," in his Curiosities of Literature," says, "Names, by an involuntary suggestion, produce an extraordinary illusion ;" and this fact he illustrates very fully by anecdotes of names: but we all know how much fallacy lies lurking in class names, and in few has this fallacious element been so cunningly hidden as in this same word Aristocracy. Aristos signifies, in Greek, best, bravest, noblest; and Aristocratia means the rulership of the best. Our word Aristocracy is used as a generic term, in a sense it never had among the Greeks, to mean the titled, the ennobled, the members of the Upper House of Parliament. But it is always used as if it conveyed in its signification that those persons were by some mysterious qualities separated and marked off from all others as having a perfect right to be regarded as in themselves the best of the race to which they belong a fallacy in a name which produces much error.

This word Aristocracy, which is so deceiving in itself, is equally deceptive in its historical reference. Aristocracy in Greece was a government by the best, and they became the best through the worth of the deeds they did. Aristocracy in Rome, Venice, Holland, &c., meant skilful and prudent men, specially trained to take part in the administration of the government, and whose antecedents, training, and official life enabled them, after laborious preparation, to undertake the duties of office. In Prussia, aristocracy implies a skilfully organized number of highly educated and experienced men, chosen on account of their worth primarily out of the many, and incorporated with the official few. In France and England, aristocracy implies not so much worth as wealth and property-a special few claiming the entire land and honours of the country as specially and peculiarly theirs, and only permitting occasionally a stray member of any other class to pass upward into their favoured number. Our aristocracy avowedly occupies its place, not for what its members are and do, but for what they have. They display as a class no superior wisdom, superior morality, loftier patriotism, or grander capacities of administration. They are the puppets of fortune, not at all inheritors of just renown, for renown cannot be inherited. Our aristocracy rests its claims upon power gained by conquest, and upon rewards bestowed upon the ancestry of the present members of that class. Without any

evidence of fitness for engaging in legislation, each has his hereditary right to vote, and in his vote he is quite independent of any regulating responsibility. This is highly absurd in itself. In its