This is a hasty, very hasty, and imperfect account of the organization, obtained by a glance at the Constitution, without leisure for examination, or explanations, from those who are most interested in, and best acquainted with it.

The main object is to effect the exchange and purchase of necessaries, and save to the consumer the profits usually paid to the exchanger, in the form of 5 per cent. on the amount purchased at the end of the year, and an equitable dividend of the resulting profits at the end of five years. Incidental advantages will be derived by the management of the concern to the mechanic who may find steady employment and fair wages for his work from the Union. The "beneficial" feature added, makes it a health assurance also, and the contingent fund is a provision of benevolence.

It is difficult to reason from first principles upon schemes which are not broad enough for all the purposes of society, and yet are so far complicated as to embrace a considerable number of its functions and interests. The general policy of guaranteeism has demonstrated its efficiency in a great number of single interests; but those enterprises which include productive industry and exchanges together, are as yet matters of experiment; and integral association, which first principles alone would safely and certainly direct, has never been fairly attempted. Communism has had repeated trials, and frequently attained and enjoyed such success as it aimed at for considerable periods, but it never was self-sustained, and it never can sustain itself. The coarsest and lowest necessities of life may be secured on the lowest level of our common nature, but provision for the development of the whole man and the growth of the race, must respect the individualism that corresponds to the natural differences of

men.

We are not offering any opinion or venturing any predic

tion upon the principles and prospects of Protective Unions. It would be rash as unavailing to do so. Every thing new must be learned, which is as true for the experimenter as for the thinker.

If there were or could be enough people engaged to supply the whole variety of uses on which we all depend for our daily wants; and if the exchanges of service, and products of skill, capital and industry, were effected so as to prevent speculation and antagonism of the money power, we could answer in a word for the success of the scheme. But to a partial and incomplete one, there attaches the difficulty of guarding it against the power of all that is necessary to it but not within its control, nor linked into its harmonies. This, however, is only a difficulty, and there is wisdom and virtue enough somewhere to meet it

The world is busy all around us in the preparatory studies and experiments of which this is an example. Guaranteeism is the marked character of the era. Odd Fellows, Sons of Temperance, Beneficial Societies, and other voluntary associations with practical ends in view, under a hundred names and forms, and embracing, perhaps, a million of our countrymen, indicate the transition from hostile and indifferent individualism to the societary organization which the nature and necessities of man demands and predicts.

People are beginning to understand that it is association which builds magnificent churches for the parish which cannot afford a single fine dwelling-house for any one of its members that by accidental association of the community a man can ride twenty miles an hour in a floating palace for a shilling-that by the contribution of a trifling sum, security against want in sickness can be had, or a little fortune laid up for the family, bereaved of its support by death; and men, however slow to understand their own experiences

and learn their largest applications, will at last employ them for the most beneficent, and the grandest purposes-just as the long neglected power of steam has been elaborated into omnipotence, and the simple phenomena of galvanism are made to answer the purposes of omnipresence.

It was necessary-it is orderly-that the physical triumph should be first achieved, and then the social becomes possible, obvious and necessary. From the isolated savage to the associated man there lies a long infancy of error, suffering and resulting education. The world has some hard lessons to learn yet, but it is very busy just now with its studies, and will at last reach the Q. E. D. of the great problem of human existence.

1848.

THE PROGRESS OF THE AGE, in its material aspect, as well as in its intellectual and moral, rightly interpreted, means association, neighborhood, brotherhood, unity-DISTANCE is the enemy to be overcome.

The American Railway Guide reports that on the 1st of January, 1853, there were in the United States, 13,227 miles of completed railroad; 12,928 miles of railroad in progress of construction; and about 7,000 miles under survey, which will be built within the next three or four yearsmaking a total of 33,155 miles; which at the average cost of $30,000 (a well ascertained average) for each mile, including equipments, etc., will have consumed a capital of $994,650,000; in round numbers, one thousand millions of dollars.

Add to this the canals and navigable streams in the nation, and the telegraph lines, of which we had 16,729

miles in December, 1852, and the post-routes traversed in the year to the extent of fifty-nine millions of miles, and we have some idea of the apparatus provided for the intercourse of the people of the Republic. Twenty-five millions of people have invested at least fifteen hundred millions in the ways, and perhaps five hundred millions more in the means or vehicles, of inter-communication-eighty dollars a head invested by the people in the routes of travel and transportation (railroads, canals, turnpikes, plank roads, and river improvements). One hundred millions is the interest of two billions, at five per cent.; and if the stock is worth par in the average, one hundred millions is the expense of travel and transportation to the good people of the Union. Nine millions more is the cost of the General Post Office, and four dollars and a half is the apportioned expense of each individual, for all the advantages of intercourse in all these ways secured to us. One hundred and ten millions per annum, the aggregate cost of our war with space.

By some of these routes, Time is almost annihilated; by others, he compromises for about five hundred miles a day; while on others, he still holds us at the old jog trot inconvenience. But materialism is everywhere giving way, and the sovereignty of mind is rapidly getting itself absolutely established. The hostile forces of geography hold but little against us, except its mountain fortifications; but ere long it will be driven from these, also, and have no real resting-place but in the atlas. It will always make a show in maps, but in the fact it will amount to nothing.

Time and space are nothing to disembodied spirits. When we have disembodied them, our own bodies will be less troublesome, and much more convenient for our use. Bishop Berkeley denied the existence of matter; but even those who, by his philosophy were able to overcome their preju

dices, were none the better able to get over the distances which it interposed. The German metaphysicians think that time and space are mere forms of the understanding. Well, no matter about the logic that undertook so to dispose of the matter; we are hopefully busy working out the fact, which will answer our purposes something better.

CALIFORNIA GOLD FEVER-LUXURY-ASSO

CIATION.

THERE are at least twenty vessels at New York, getting ready to sail for California. New Orleans is as much excited and as active in the enterprise, and the same may be said of every city and perhaps every village in the country, each in its degree. It is plain enough that the business of colonizing will go bravely on, and the gold country will be crowded with adventurers as quickly as travel and transportation can possibly effect it. Will the workers of those mines, and the laborers who furnish their supplies, permit themselves to be under-worked by slaves? Will not the colorophobia of the adventurers, itself, begin to work for the cause of freedom? And will not the emigrants carry with them enough of sense and principle to take care of themselves in this respect? It seems to us that there is a clear streak of light breaking out on the coast of the Pacific. What a glorious recognition of the right it will prove, if all our acquisitions in Mexico turn out at last as so much advancement of truth and freedom.

The gold and silver of the whole earth, emptied out into our lap at once, need not work to our injury. Give us free men-free principles-justice, honesty, and equality—give