men.

Firbolg, De-Dananns, and Fomorians appears to be a Gaelic counterpart of what we see in Greek mythology, the war of the rough and untamed powers of earth, sea, and fire, against the orderly cosmos of the Olympians; the war, in short, of the giants and Titans against Zeus and his brothers. The Firbolgs may be, therefore, looked upon as the earth-powers; too much stress need not be laid on the fact that they and their brethren, the FirDomnans, were wont to dig the soil, make pits, and carry earth in bags to make flowery plains of bare rocks; but it should be noticed that they always meet the Tuatha-de-Danann as natives of the soil repelling invaders. The gods of the soil often belong to a pre-Aryan people, while the greater gods, the Olympians and the Tuatha-de-Danann, are intrusive, the divinities of the new-comers into the land, the patrons of warriors and sea-faring Behind these last there often stand deities of older birth, those who had been worshipped in ancient days by the simple and settled folk of the land. Such were Pan or Hermes of Arcadia, Dionysus of Thrace, and Demeter and Dione. The Firbolgs may, therefore, be looked on as either the homely gods of preceding tribes of the non-Aryan races, or as answering to the giants and Titans of kindred Aryan races. "The King of the Feru-Bolg," says Mr Fitzgerald, "Eothaile-whom we shall find reason to suspect to be a fire-giant-fled from the field when the day was lost, 'in search of water to allay his burning thirst,' and by the water of the sea he fell on Traigh-Eothaile, ‘Eothaile's Strand,' in Sligo. His great cairn, still standing, on this strand was one of the wonders of Ireland, and though not apparently elevated, the water could never cover it." If we turn to the Fomorians, we shall find quite as easy an explanation. The meaning of the word is "Sea-rover;" it has always been derived from the words "fo," under, and "muir," sea, and the meaning usually attached to the combination has been "those that rove on the sea." The Fomorians are, therefore, sea-powers: the rough, chaotic power of the Atlantic Ocean. They meet the "Tuatha-de-Dannan in the extreme West of Ireland, on the last day of summer, that is, November eve: the fierce ocean powers mect the orderly heaven and air gods on the Atlantic borders. when winter is coming on, and the latter do not allow the former to overwhelm the country. Balor of the Evil Eye, whose glance

can turn his opponents into stone, and who, in some forms of the legend, is represented as having only one eye, is very suggestive of Polyphemus, the giant son of the Grecian ocean god. To this we may compare the Gaelic tale of the Muireartach, where the Atlantic Sea is represented as a "toothy carlin," with an eye in the middle of her forehead. The Tuatha-de-Dananns will, therefore, be simply the gods that beneficially direct the powers of sky, air, sea, and earth; they will correspond exactly to Zeus, Poseidon, Pluto, and the rest of the Grecian god-world, who benignly rule over the heavens, the sea, and the shades. The Milesians will accordingly be merely the main body of the Gaelic people, whose gods the Tuatha-deDanann are. Why there is no more open acknowledgment of the Tuatha-de-Danann as the pagan gods of the Gael may easily be accounted for. The accounts we have are long posterior to the introduction of Christianity; and it was a principle of the early Christian Church to assimilate to itself, following the true Roman fashion, all native religions. The native gods were made saints (especially the female divinities, such as Brigit), fairies, demons, and kings. Christianity was about five hundred years established before we have any native record of events; the further back we go the nearer do the Tuatha-Dé come to be gods. Even in the 8th century an Irish monk could still invoke Goibniu and Diancecht, the Tuatha gods answering to Vulcan and Arsculapius, for relief from, and protection against, pain. (To be continued.)

THE GLASGOW LOCHABER HIGHLANDERS.-The fifteenth annual meeting of the Natives of Lochaber, and their friends, was held in the Queen's Rooms, Glasgow, on Friday, 14th December, Mr Charles Fraser-Mackintosh, M.P. (who delivered a very interesting address on Lochaber, its history and people), in the chair. On the platform were the Rev. L. Maclachlan, of St Columba; Rev. William Thomson, Greenock; Donald Macphee, Procurator-Fiscal, Glasgow, and President of the Association; Hugh Austin, Vice-President; Alex. Mackenzie, Editor of the Celtic Magazine; Alex. Kennedy and A. C. Macintyre, Joint Secretaries; A. W. Macleod and Hugh Macleod, representing the Skye Association; Henry Whyte, Charles M. Ramsay, of the Citizen, and Peter Stewart, representing the Invernessshire Association; and several others. Mr Mackenzie and Mr Macphee delivered short addresses, the former speaking both in Gaelic and English.

THE ETHICS OF POLITICAL ECONOMY.

Concluded.

X.-DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE.

OF RENT AND TAXATION.-I. In the introduction to his Manual of Political Economy, Mr Fawcett remarks:-" Political economy, if kept within its proper limits, does not provide a code of social ethics which will enable us to decide what is right or wrong, and what is just or unjust." It is, perhaps, as difficult to define the limits of political economy as it might be to write a code of social ethics, and as the principles of the former science do not command universal assent, it may be safely asserted that the politics of the country are likely to be shaped in future more for the public benefit, if governed without such aids, by a mere sense of what is right or wrong, and what is just or unjust. If such claims of exactness and accuracy were not put forward in support of a science which has been thrown into confusion by unsettled theories, it might appear an ill-natured remark to make, that we should not regret the absence of a code of ethics if it supplied a good system of logic. The introduction of a false theory into the reasoning of political economy is like a repeating error in a mathematical computation; it vitiates every conclusion. The Ricardian theory of rent, of which Mr Fawcett is a very stout advocate, is one of these confusing hypotheses, but as I have discussed it at some length in a former article, I shall now merely point out the remarkable way in which Mr Fawcett applies it. He says

"From Ricardo's theory of rent there can be adduced the very important proposition, that rent is not an element of the cost of obtaining agricultural produce. A no less eminent writer than the late Mr Buckle has assured his readers that the proposition just stated can only be grasped by a comprehensive thinker; we, however, believe that it may be made very intelligible by a simple exposition. If rent is not an element of cost of production, food would be no cheaper if all land were arbitrarily made rent full."

It is not necessary to quote the argument at greater length, as the last sentence embodies the whole substance of it. The reader will remember that Mr Buckle referred to the passage in the "Wealth of Nations," where it is stated that rent "enters into price" or

forms a component part of it, and he (Mr Buckle) mentioned that the question was the corner stone of political economy. We could hardly charge Mr Fawcett with a wilful misrepresentation of eminent authors, and must suppose that a zealous adherence to this theory led him into an unconscious error. As rent is a surplus over the "cost of production," it is a self-evident fact that it cannot form a part of the cost. If I heap a bushel of corn, and draw the roller over it, the surplus cannot be contained in the measure. The surplus constitutes the rent that the producer can afford to pay, and if this is the important conclusion that may be drawn from the theory, it only proves that land affords a rent, and shows how well its advocates can argue in a circle. This is putting the case as it stands between the landlord and the farmer, with regard to whom the question does not assume all its importance. It must be observed that price and "cost of production" are not synonimous terms, and do not represent the same class of individuals, as the producer and consumer are not, in political economy, the same person. It is the consumer who pays the price which includes cost of production and also rent, and what the school to which Mr Fawcett belongs really wants to prove is that rent does not form a component part of price, because, as these economists say, if all land were arbitrarily made rent-free, it would not make the price of produce any lower, and there they are satisfied to leave the question. But what Mr Buckle actually did say is as follows:

"I may mention the theory of rent, which was only discovered half a century ago, and which is connected with so many subtle arguments that it is not yet generally adopted, and even some of its advocates have shown themselves unequal to defend their own cause."

2. This theory is not so well known to the ears of general readers as the Malthusian theory of population. These theories favour the materialistic views of economists who regard the phenomena of nature and of human life as resulting from mere physical causes, and it would seem to be repugnant to the science, and perhaps to their own notions, to rise to the contemplation of preestablished laws of design, as manifested in the adaptation of external nature to the wants of man, on the one hand, and on the other they overlook those intellectual and moral attributes which are so liable to be affected for good or evil by political

institutions. But whilst the Malthusian theory of population has been so eagerly seized upon, and applied in a way which that celebrated and humane author little thought of, his theory of rent has been considered so little scientific that it has been relegated to ethics, of which political economy takes no account! Mr Malthus says:—

"It seems rather extraordinary that the very great benefit which society derives from that surplus produce of the land which, in the progress of society, falls mainly to the landlord in the shape of rent, should not yet be fully understood and acknowledged. I have called this surplus a bountiful gift of Providence, and am most decidedly of opinion that it fully deserves the appellation."

3. It is clear from the reasoning of Aristotle in his chapter on distributive justice, referred to in a former article, that he regarded the rent of land as common property, and refers to it as a mean proportion.—

"Now, it is clear," he says, "that disjunctive proportion implies four terms; but continuous proportion is in four terms also; for it will use one term in place of two and mention it twice; for instance, as A to B so is B to C; B has, therefore, been mentioned twice. So that if B be put down twice, the terms of the proportion are four."

Political economy might be more accurately termed the Science of Social and Economic Ratios, for society is naturally constituted by gradations of ranks and positions. The reward of every man must clearly be in some proportion to worth, and Adam Smith made labour, or human effort, the foundation and only real standard of value. Now, with regard to rent, it is obvious that the misconception of the economists arises from not recognising the truth that the world of man, and its government, must conform to the pre-established law which awards nothing to the idler in respect of the soil, for it is impossible to believe that benificent nature could have made an exception, without the privilege becoming a burden upon society in some form or other. This surplus, or residuum, arises from trade and commerce, for which man was designed, and of which Price is the collective expression, or Mercury, and it has always been regarded in every age of the world as the revenue of the State, and appropriated for the support of the Church and civil administration. From the above reasoning, it appears that rent is a mean proportion, which is in ratio with cost of production, and capable of bearing the same ratio with Price, or cost of living to the whole of society. When