When the great question of the Corn-Laws came up at a later period, Chalmers was in favour of the repeal; not chiefly for any important economical results that he expected from that step, but because it would, as he used to say, 'sweeten the breath of society.' He would have been surprised at the remarkable commercial results which the abolition of the Corn-Laws, and the institution of the system of Free Trade have produced on the resources of the country.
In addition to these considerations, another ground of his opposition to the Reform Bill was his respect for an aristocracy and the influence of an aristocracy, as contributing important elements to the welfare of a country. He held that 'in every land of law and liberty, with an order of men possessing large and independent affluence, there is better security for the general comfort and virtue of the whole than when society presents an aspect of almost unalleviated plebeianism.' But, 'it is not for the sake of its ornaments and its chivalry alone that we want the high rank of our aristocracy to be upholden.' It was for the spirit that they circulated through all ranks--a more noble spirit, he thought, than either France with its 'Citizen King,' or the United States with their universal social equality, could inspire. In his intercourse with the aristocracy, it was the best and most congenial of them that admitted him to their society, and nothing charmed him more than to find a combination of rank and wealth with Christian principle and philanthropic activity, along with the charm of refined and gentle but unassuming manners. Such movements as the Reform Bill he deemed hurtful to the influence of the aristocracy, and therefore disadvantageous to the welfare of the country. It was a different set of aristocrats, and a different kind of policy he had to criticise when, on occasion of his last visit to London, he gave evidence to a Parliamentary Committee in connection with the hardships suffered by congregations of the Free Church from the refusal of sites by aristocratic landowners.
Undoubtedly the main activity of Chalmers during his Edinburgh life was connected with the work of the church. But before proceeding to this, it may be well to advert to his literary activity, which, amid all his other occupations, was very remarkable. We have already noticed his Bridgewater treatise, afterwards reconstructed in his _Natural Theology_. We have also noticed his volume on the subject of the Poor-Laws. It was during this period that he completed and published in four volumes his _Lectures on the Epistle to the Romans_, which had been begun but not finished as pulpit discourses in Glasgow; regarding which the late Mr. Isaac Taylor gave his judgment that they would probably be the most enduring of his writings. In this period likewise he collected and edited his whole works, amounting to the goodly number of twenty-five volumes. Of a large number of his pamphlets, introductory essays, articles in reviews, and other miscellaneous writings, our space allows us to say nothing. But the work of this period which Chalmers himself thought most of was, his treatise in two volumes on _Political Economy_. The subject had an attraction for him ever since his attendance on certain classes in the University of Edinburgh in 1799-1801. His first published volume had been on one of its topics. In the University of St. Andrews he had given a course of lectures upon it. It may seem strange that, after his change of views and intense consecration to spiritual work, he should still have felt so lively an interest in a subject usually considered the driest and most secular in the whole round of the sciences. But, as he remarked in his preface, there were two ways of presenting political economy. One was merely to expound its doctrines; the other, along with this, to consider its applications. It was with this latter object in view that Dr. Chalmers bestowed so earnest attention on the subject. On the doctrines of political economy, indeed, he held and expounded many original views,--views which were treated with undeserved contempt by the _Quarterly Review_, but of which so high an authority as Mr. Stuart Mill wrote in a very different spirit. Accepting it as the great aim of political economy to make the most of a country's material resources, and advance to the utmost the comfort and prosperity of its people, Dr. Chalmers urged with great earnestness that all its methods were in themselves incompetent to secure this end. Without due provision for the moral and spiritual nature, the true welfare and the true comfort of men could never be achieved. Besides this, he held that society was ever tending to a condition which could not but defeat the very ends which political economy had in view. It was the constant tendency of population to increase, and thus outgrow production--outgrow the provision for the supply of its material wants. However much production might be increased, it could not be increased in the ratio of population, so that at length a time must come when, in spite of every expedient, destitution must set in. The only safeguard against this was to raise the intelligence and the moral habits of the people, to inspire them with a desire for a more civilised kind of life, to give them a taste for higher enjoyments, and induce them to cultivate the industry, the skill, and the self-control by which these might be attained. But how would this check population? Dr. Chalmers was in this respect in sympathy with Malthus; he wished to check early and improvident marriages, and the best means of doing this was to elevate the standard of living, so that marriage should be delayed until the means of reaching this standard were realised. It must be owned, we think, that this was a one-sided view. There are undoubted moral risks of a very serious kind involved in the delay of marriage until an age when the passions have somewhat cooled down. It was the habit of Chalmers to let his mind dwell at one time on but one aspect of a subject, and not give full weight to counterbalancing considerations. Most readers will agree thoroughly with him in his view that improved taste and enlarged views must bring in their wake increased comfort and a higher social standing; but the system of political economy that rested on the Malthusian principle is not entitled to be placed much higher than other systems; and the only security for moral improvement lies in that Christian education and Christian influence on which Chalmers laid so much stress, and which came not from political economy, but from the Gospel of Jesus Christ.