commercial witnesses before the select committee, spoke of ribbons and
other ornamental manufactures, which were only produced in perfection
in establishments where the energies of the designers were roused by
the possession of a share in the business, and in its management, as
_gérants_. Coinciding with these practical witnesses, the theorists on
political economy who were consulted on the occasion--such as Mr
Babbage and Mr J.S. Mill--held that many inventions that might be
patented and used, and many ingenious discoveries made by men of the
operative class, were lost to the world by the defective state of the
law. They would often get those who, richer than themselves, have
reliance on their judgment, to aid them in carrying out their
inventions or improvements, were it not for the law of unlimited
responsibility.

We can even anticipate, from anything that will facilitate fruitful
investment by the working-classes, a still wider--we might say, a
political effect. The chief defect in our otherwise sound social
system, is the want of fusion between the class of employers and
employed. As some other countries are subject to the more serious evil
of being without a middle-class between the aristocracy and the common
people, so we want a sub-grade, as it were, between the middle and the
working classes. It is too much the practice to consider them as
separated from each other by interests, tastes, and feelings. It is,
on the contrary, the real truth that their interests are indissolubly
united; but if there were a less broad line separating them from each
other, this would be more apparent. The true way to fill up the gap
happily for all parties, is not for the middle-class to descend, but
the working-class to rise. Nothing could better accomplish this, than
imparting to them facilities for entering into business on a small
scale on their own account. The hopelessness with which the workman