China has been long one of the richest, that is, one of the most fertile, best cultivated, most industrious, and most populous countries in the world. It seems, however, to have been long stationary. Marco Polo, who visited it more than five hundred years ago, describes its cultivation, industry, and populousness, almost in the same terms in which they are described by travellers in the present times. It had perhaps, even long before his time, acquired that full complement of riches which the nature of its laws and institutions permits it to acquire:The poverty of the lower ranks of people in China far surpasses that of the most beggarly nations in Europe.

People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contr…

China is a much richer country than any part of Europe.

We rarely hear, it has been said, of the combinations of masters, though frequently of those of workmen. But whoever imagines, upon this account, that masters …

Economists, firstly, regard only one part of man's nature, and treat him simply as a money-making animal; secondly, they disregard the influence of custom, and…

Ne provincialibus quidem matrimoniis abstinuisse vel hoc disticho apparet iactato aeque a militibus per Gallicum triumphum: 'Urbani, servate uxores: moechum ca…

'The shame is compounded by the failure of developed countries to commit enough of their wealth and resources to helping poor populations from developing count…