PEOPLE'S EDITION, AND ONLY COMPLETE EDITION OF MOORE'S IRISH MELODIES, WITH THE MUSIC. In course of publication, to be completed iu TD Numbers, published monthly, price One Shilling each, MOORE'S IRISH MELODIES, WITH SYMPHONIES AND ACCOMPANIMENTS FOR THE PIANOFORTE. PEOPLE'S EDITION, IN SMALL QUARTO. EXTRACTS from CRITICAL NOTICES. "A [ESSES. Longman and Co. are " rr.HIS issue, though called a People's '-' i Irish 1 Edition, and though cheap enough to ,;. t mnu- trl AHDIAJf. that, of t!i " THIS is the first number of a scries of * ten of Moore's Melodies, with Symphonies M iU- patronage." OO.K K'S Melodies liave always been ! : from ' ils and I rietors tv/fcTfi* NEWS OF TUB WOELD. "W E ,,; Moore's /(( pleasure nies and Ac- he best aside ind ac- .> '!. i> tn lie " MOORE'S Irish Melodies must ever -"-*- be appreciated by every lover of true me- lody. To obtain a pianoforte airan^cment, how- eyer, has hitherto subjected u to two crcat uilfu-ul- ties on the 0111 : In hand, cl: , . ; ... i; A .IMiOPLE'S EDITION, t*- cheap rate, of Moore's Irish 3 n a desideratum; and the we bids fair to supply the want. ! tain* nvenl-. -fciur .iiiarto I-M..-I s of nni' work will be completed in ton numbers, at one shilling each." BELFAST NEWS LIT "1LTESSES. Longman and Co. have "*- conferred a great boon upon the lovers of true melody by their issue of these beautiful M bo- dies in sii cheap :.! ao< c.-r-iblc .i form. Tao i.rjiv HITS " JOHN BULL. li A TOO'K IvS Irish Melodies are too well U L ., t,, t),o wlmlp worl.l lo iv.niM-P n wnnl "T lived f HE announcement of the People's 1 Iv.lition of Moore's Melodiet, to be coinpieled in ten parts at ^( ; MA X, J',U( ) WX, and CO. ; and ADDISON and C< >, Manchester: IIIAIK and & iiin . Total Retenue. France 27,200,000 50 15,600,000 28 6^20,000 12 54,800,000 Austria 4,500,000 33 4,000,000 29 1,550,000 11 13^00,000 Prussia ' 3,150,000 41 1,800,000 23 1,500,000 20 7,700,000 Gt. Britain 16,000,000. SO 14,000,000 26 21,000,000 40 53,000,000 Thus in England forty per cent, of our revenue is raised by indirect taxation, against twenty per cent, in Prussia, and twelve per cent, in France. One result of this difference in the mode of taxation we can only just intimate here : to enter fully into it would lead us away from our main subject; but it is worthy of deep consideration. In England, and in most 138 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. cases where the chief part of the revenue is derived from customs' duties levied on imported articles, the working man is, or if he pleases, may be, almost wholly exempt from taxation. He pays no direct taxes what- ever. He pays taxes on no article of necessity, except soap. He pays only on articles of luxury : on beer, wine, sugar, spirits, tea, coffee, tobacco. What he pays he pays of his own accord of his own free choice of his superfluity. But this never can be the case in an un-commercial country, and is not the case with the German or French peasant or artisan ; however poor he be, he pays a poll-tax, a trade-tax, a class-tax, often a meat- tax; and if he lives in town, he pays the octroi, which is a tax on all articles of consumption, and most insufferably burdensome. These are taxes which he cannot escape at pleasure. Yet these are taxes which he might escape, if the social condition of the country admitted of raising a main part of the revenue from articles of importation, as with us. The subdivision of land, then, in its full and final operation, by making taxation more burdensome, will necessarily tend more and more to diminish its amount, and thus to curtail the number of servants whom the government, sup- ported by this taxation, can afford to employ. Thus every mode of livelihood is, by the system of equal in- heritance, cut away from under those exiles from the paternal nest, who must exist equally under this system as under the law of primogeniture, if the increase of population is to be suffered to continue. It may at first sight appear a surprising conclusion that a system of which the first and most apparent result is to augment the produce of the soil, and, in con- sequence, the numbers whom that soil is capable of maintaining, should yet, in its ultimate issue, be un- favourable to the increase of those numbers, by destroy- ing at its source the fund out of which other branches LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 139 of industry are to be supported. But our surprise will vanish, and our confidence in the soundness of the con- clusion to which our reasoning has led will be confirmed, when we reflect that the subdivision of landed property is, at least in its secondary operation, directly at variance with that principle of political economy, the most certain and irrefragable which that science has brought to light, which proclaims that division of labour, and the combi- nation of divided labour, are essential to full efficiency of production. In other words, the extra labour which the peasant proprietor and his family bestow upon their land, and by means of which its extra produce is ob- tained, is less effective i. e. produces, ultimately, a smaller return than it would do if otherwise applied ; that the aggregate result of the labour of two brothers, for example, is less where both are employed at home upon minute tillage of the patrimonial estate, than it would be were one of them diverted to the production of some other article which might be exchanged against the labour of the other. In this simple consideration lies, as we conceive, the key to the whole mystery the solution of one of the knottiest, most vital, and most interesting problems propounded to the nineteenth century. To sum up the whole, the law of equal inheritance implies and involves a stationary, or nearly stationary, state of the population a state that with each genera- tion must become more and more stationary, as the yield from a given acreage is brought more and more nearly to the maximum of possibility. It is true that if the population is thus kept stationary, it may exist in great comfort and respectability; but, granted that postulate, so it might equally under the law of primo- geniture. Nay, as we have just seen, the aggregate population that can be subsisted in the same degree of comfort will be greater under the latter than under the former law in the present condition of the world, at 140 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. least ; because the latter is favourable, and the former unfavourable, to that division of employments by which alone their maximum of productiveness can be arrived at. Of all modern writers on the subdivision of land, Mr. Kay* is the most enamoured of its advantages, and the most unconscious of its drawbacks and defects. He sees only its present consequences, and is blind to its ultimate operation. He paints its beauties in glowing colours, and entirely ignores its dangers and deformities. We agree in almost all his representations of fact, but we are inclined to quarrel with his omissions, and to question the justice and completeness of his inferences. He brings an overwhelming mass of testimony to prove the admirable effects which the subdivision of land, and the facility with which small portions of it may be obtained, have produced in Prussia, Saxony, and in many parts of Switzerland, in improving the cultivation of the soil, in raising the condition and style of living among the peasantry, and in promoting habits of fore- thought, economy, industry, and self-restraint, through- out the population generally. The desire to rise into the position of proprietors stimulates the energy of the labourer, renders him cautious, frugal, and sober, and makes him postpone marriage till he is in a condition to maintain a family. In many of these countries, we are told, "the men never marry before the age of twenty- five, and the women seldom till thirty." The average age of marriage in Prussia Mr. Kay states at thirty-five. The desire of the proprietor, again, to retain his position, and if possible to amend it, promotes the growth of similar virtues in him ; while the anxiety to transmit his hardly-earned estate undiminished to his children induces him to limit the number of them. By the joint operation of these motives the rate of increase of the * The Social Condition of the People in England and in Europe. By Joseph Kay, Esq., M.A. Longmans. 1850. LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 141 population is greatly reduced : a position which the author endeavours to strengthen by means of several statistical tables, which, however, contradict one another, and by no means always bear out his conclusions. Mr. Kay also draws vivid contrasts between the pauper- ism of England and the comparative freedom from this sore of several of the continental countries, and between the condition of the peasantry in countries which are differently situated in respect to their social institutions in Bohemia and Saxony, for example, in the Nether- lands and in Rhenish Prussia, in the Catholic and Pro- testant cantons of Switzerland. Now, if we were disposed to lose sight of the main question in a criticism of particular errors, we might show that religion, education, and race, have at least as much to do with these contrasts as the law of equal inheritance. We might remind Mr. Kay that the Saxons and Bohemians are distinct people distinct in blood, in language, in religion ; the former being a Teutonic, the latter a Sclavonic race ; the former being Protestants, the latter Catholics. We might remind him that the small farms of Rhenish Prussia are held by proprietors, and those of Flanders (which are at least equally well cultivated and by at least as prosperous and frugal a people) by rent-paying tenants ; and that the Catholic and Reformed cantons of Switzerland, so contrasted in the condition of their peasants and the state of their agriculture, acknowledge the same law of equal in- heritance. We might remind him that in no country of central Europe is the land more subdivided, or worse cultivated, than in many parts of France, or the Sar- dinian States. We might remind him that a vast improvement in the education of Germany has been coincident with the improvement in the condition of her poor, and may have been as effective a cause of it as the acquisibility of land. But to dwell on these things 142 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. would divert our attention from the heart and marrow of the question, and we therefore pass them by. We will admit that in almost every country, except France, in which small properties prevail, the land is admirably cultivated with extreme care, if with little economy and little science ; we will admit that since the promul- gation of the new system in Prussia, by which feudalism was broken up, and large estates begun to be superseded by smaller ones, the improvement in agriculture and in the condition of the peasant class has been marked, vast, and undeniable. We will concede, moreover, that much of this amelioration is the effect, and the natural and necessary effect, of the change from proletair- ism to proprietorship ; and that, ceteris paribus, land will always yield more to the hand of the owner than to hired labour. But all this improvement is but the first effect of the transition from a system of slovenly to one of careful culture ; from a system which paralysed the energies of the peasant to a system which stimulates them ; from a system under which neither owner nor labourer did their duty to the land, under which it enjoyed the full benefits neither of science nor of in- dustry, to a system under which all unite to develop its capabilities ; it is, in fact, the simple result of a transition from bad farming to good, and might easily have been foreseen. But the question for the philo- sophic statesman regards a future day and a secondary consequence. When the old system shall have been altogether superseded by the new when the whole of the soil shall be in the hands of peasant proprietors when industry, science, and the due subdivision of the land shall have brought it all into that state of minute and perfect cultivation which we observe in many parts of Lombardy, of Flanders, and of Switzerland, and which two generations of peasant proprietorship suffices to effect what then? No new estates can be created, LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 143 for you have reached the limit at which subdivision is compatible with good agriculture or with comfortable subsistence ; no more individuals can be supported from the soil, for its utmost yield has been already extracted from it ; manufacturing establishments have been super- seded by articles produced at home* ; foreign commerce has languished and died under the gradual extinction of exchangeable articles, and available surplus for luxurious expenditure; and the civil and military services have been reduced to a minimum, because only a small revenue can even be raised by direct taxation from a nation which consists only of one vast class of yeomen. Whence, then, are the younger children, the increase of the population, to derive their subsistence ? It is abundantly obvious that no such increase is pos- sible, no such younger children are permissible. Thus we see that the law of equal inheritance, the system of peasant proprietorship, which is recommended by some superficial reasoners as enabling population to augment without peril, and by others, deeper and more clear-headed, as limiting this augmentation, does not solve the great problem of social philosophy : viz., how to reconcile an increasing population with an increasing aggregate or average of comfort. It only cuts the Gordian knot which its votaries conceive it to untie. It is' monstrous to see grown men thus running about * Mr. Kay speaks, in more than one place, in high admiration of the plan adopted by many of the Prussian peasants, of hiring them- selves to adjacent landowners, till, out of their wages, they have laid by a sufficient sum to become proprietors themselves. He entirely forgets that this resource belongs only to a transition state ; and that when all the land is owned in small properties and cultivated by the labour of the family who own it, the landless peasant will find no demand for his services, and, consequently, no access to proprietor- ship. As long as the process is unfinished, all will go well ; it is when it reaches or approaches its completion that the real pressure will be felt. 144 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. to catch their bird by putting salt upon its tail. The plan is recommended to us by its ablest advocates because it leads to the postponement of marriage, and checks the multiplication of mankind. Now, we do not enter here into the question whether this enforced re- straint, and the stationary state which would result from it, be objects to be feared or to be desired. We will riot ask ourselves whether this self-denial, when universally practised and carried to the degree necessary to obtain its end, be not very much propter vitam vi- vendi perdere causas. We will, for the present, put aside the reflection which cannot fail to arise in all our minds, whether the discovery of some system which shall render compatible with prudence and with so- cial duty the early formation of those domestic ties which form the charm and the reward of life, would not be a worthier aim for the philosophic statesman than the establishment of a social state which postpones these enjoyments till existence has begun to fade and wane, till feeling has grown dull, and habit has hardened into unsocial temper and unpliant will. We will pass over all this, and will merely observe that, if this severe and general restraint upon multiplication is to be enforced under the system of equal inheritance, any other system would afford at least as good a chance of a happy and prosperous population. If our labouring classes now would only restrict their numbers as tightly and systematically as peasant proprietors are assumed by their advocates to do (and as they must do in order to succeed), it is certain that their social condition would rapidly become, at least, as enviable and as much improved ; it is even- probable, as we have seen, that a less severe restriction of their numbers would suffice. So much for the strictly economic part of the ques- tion. We now proceed to inquire into its social and LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 145 political results ; and in doing so we shall examine it chiefly as it appears in France, because in that country its operation is more completely unchecked than in any other by the yet lingering influence of those counter- acting institutions which elsewhere serve to conceal its inevitable tendencies, and to postpone the period at which these will be fully consummated and exposed to view. We shall, of course, glance at other continental countries as we go along, for the purpose of showing that the same cause operates everywhere in the same manner, in exact proportion as its tendencies are al- lowed their free and unrestrained development. The desire to possess land, to become actual pro- prietor of a portion, however small, of the globe that we inhabit, seems natural to all classes, and prevails in every country. In England it has shown itself in a thousand ways, and in none more clearly than in the eagerness with which thousands of our industrious and saving artisans rushed forward to immolate themselves to Feargus O'Connor's Land Scheme. In Ireland the same feeling leads to daily bloodshed and murder. In Norway, in Flanders, in Switzerland, in Prussia, the desire for land among the peasantry prevails over almost every other wish. But it is chiefly in the Frenchman that this desire becomes an absolute and blind passion, the stronger that it is complicated with, and confirmed by, his political affections. Even when the property is too small to admit, without mischief, of further subdivision, the co-heirs are, each of them, so unwilling to lose their hold upon it, that the one who ultimately retains it has to buy out the others at a price very disproportionate to the real value of their shares. Often this arrangement is not effected at all, and the consequence may be seen as we pass in a diligence along the road. " A property," we are told, " which has been divided between two or three heirs, VOL. I. L 146 LAING ON PEASANT PUOPRIETOESHIP, ETC. may not, after its division, consist of only two or three distinct portions, but may very probably be divided into six, eight, or a dozen such. This arises from the fact of the co-heirs being all anxious, when the land is of various qualities, and devoted to different purposes, to have a share of each variety ; that is, to have equal portions of rich land, meadow, woodland, vineyard, &c. The extent to which this sort of subdivision is some- times carried would hardly be credited, except upon the highest authority. It appears, for example, from the returns under the official survey, that the commune of Argenteuil, comprising 3830 acres, is distributed into the extraordinary number of 36,883 separate parcels ! This, we presume, may be taken as a spe- cimen of what M. de Tocqueville calls, * grinding the land into the impalpable powder of democracy.' ' The degree in which the natural desire for land has, with the French peasant, degenerated into an un- reasoning passion, is well described by several French writers, but by none more vividly than by Michelet in the opening chapter of his wild and absurd rhapsody called "LePeuple:" " Si nous voulons connaitre la pensee intime, la passion du paysan de France, cela est fort aise. Promenons-nous le di- manche dans la campagne, suivons-le. Le voila quis'en va la- bas devant nous. II est deux heures ; sa femme est & vepres ; il est endimanche ; je reponds qu'il va voir sa maitresse. " Quelle maitresse ? Sa terre. " Je ne dis pas qu'il y aille tout droit. Non, ce jour-la il est libre, il est maitre d'y aller ou de n'y pas aller. N'y va-t-il pas assez tous les jours de la semaine ? Aussi, il se detourne, il va ailleurs, il a affaire ailleurs. Et pourtant, il y va. " II est vrai qu'il passait bien pres ; c'etait une occasion. II la regarde, mais apparemment il n'y entrera pas ; qu'y feruit-il ? Et pourtant, il y entre. " Du moins, il est probable qu'il n'y travaillera pas ; il est endimanche ; il a blouse et chemise blanches. Hien n'empeche LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 147 cependant d'oter quelque mauvaise herbe, de rejeter cette pierre. II y a bien encore cette souche qui gene, maia il n'a pas sa pioche ; ce sera pour demain. " Alors, il croise ses bras et s'arr6te, regarde, serieux, sou- cieux. II regarde longtemps, tres longtemps, et semble s'ou- blier. A la fin, s'il se croit observe, s'il aperoit un passant, il s'eloigne a pas lents. A trente pas encore, il s'arrete, se re- tourne, et jette sur sa terre un dernier regard, regard profond et sombre, mais tout passionne, tout de coeur, plein de devotion." The first consequence of this overweening desire for land, is to run up the price to an inordinate degree. Estates which naturally, and sold as a whole, would only bring twenty-five years' purchase, will, if divided into small plots, fetch readily forty years' purchase. So well is this known, that if a property of any con- siderable size comes into the market, it is almost always purchased by some notary or attorney, who then re- sells it in small lots to peasant proprietors at an enor- mous profit. But as his customers are seldom or never able to pay him the whole of the purchase-money, he retains a mortgage upon all the petty properties for the unpaid portion ; the sum that he receives from them in ready money generally repaying him the whole original outlay, and leaving him still the legal and gratuitous possessor of the soil. Then, as Michelet says, the small landed property of the peasant has this dangerous and fascinating quality : "it is always incomplete ; it always wants enlarging a little corner here, a little addition there, to make it perfect." For this enlargement the peasant sometimes lays by, but far oftener borrows; and this process continues till his debt makes his pro- prietorship little more than nominal. He has no idea of any other mode of investing his savings than by buying more land. Even in Auvergne, where the properties are larger, and the proprietors often pros- perous, whatever can be earned, or laid by, is spent in x, 2 148 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. the purchase of an adjoining field, at a price often far beyond its real value. The habit of borrowing at five or six per cent, to purchase land, which will not yield above two per cent, of return, is very general, and can end only in ruin.* The property must in the end come into the hands of the mortgagees, and the pro- prietor must become a labourer, a pauper, and a mal- content. This passion has not only the effect of turning the attention of the agriculturist from all other in- vestments, and so starving other branches of industry, but it leads him to regard the purchase of land, not as a mode of employing his money which is to yield him a return, but as an outlay for the gratification of fancy ; he buys a field as a wealthy Englishman buys a picture, as the indulgence of a luxurious taste. We see the same effect in other countries, though scarcely in so excessive a degree. Mr. Banfield informs us that along the Rhine such is the rage of the peasants for land, that they do not scruple to give 120/. and 150. an acre for it, and this in a country far poorer than ours. They never, he says, bestow a thought on the interest or the profit to be made by such investments. They look only, like the Irishman, to the means of subsistence it may afford them, however wretched and inadequate this subsistence may be. In fact, it is this exclusive attention to the soil as the sole, or the most agreeable, mode of livelihood, that leads alike to rack- rents in Ireland, and to the absurdly extravagant price of land in many parts of the Continent; and, in both cases, the misery and disappointment of the peasant must equally ensue. Sismondi gives the same testimony as to Switzerland: u Le paysan a vivement le senti- ment de ce bonheur attache a la condition de proprie- tarie. Aussi est il toujours empresse d'acheter de la * See Michelet, p. 24. LAIXG ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 149 terre a tout prix. II la paie plus qu'elle ne vaut, plus qu'elle ne lui rendra peut-etre" Now, it is quite impos- sible that the disappointment and discontent which must result from this habit of giving more for land than it is worth, and, of course, expecting more from it than it can yield, added to the embarrassment and dependence consequent upon the general " indebted- ness " inseparable from the mortgage system we have described, should not produce some of the worst social and political effects effects which, as we shall see, will meet us at every step of our inquiry. There is no point on which the advocates of the sub- division of land dwell more strongly, or with greater confidence, than on its supposed tendency to promote among the people reverence for property, and a spirit of political conservatism. No author makes more of this than Mr. Kay. " Wherever," says he, " this system prevails, we find a general and profound respect for that property in which they are themselves sharers, very different from the habits of injury, waste, and dilapidation so often manifested by the English poor ; and, in addition, a great disinclination to political agitation, and all rash and ill-considered political changes." Mill and Sismondi hold the same opinion. It seems, on the face of it, natural and certain that the possession of property should bring along with it re- spect for the institution of property, as well as regard for what belongs to others. It seems almost equally clear that the more property is spread among the com- munity, the more all classes will be interested in the maintenance of that internal peace and tranquillity by which alone the security of property can be insured, and its resources fully developed ; and that revolutions will be less probable and less frequent in exact pro- portion as the number who may gain by a convulsion 150 LAING ON PEASANT PKOPRIETORSHIP, ETC. is diminished, and the number who must lose by it is increased ; in other words, in proportion as the class of proprietaires multiplies, and the class of proletaires dwindles away. That such results will ensue from the subdivision of land seems, at first sight, so obvious, that we feel disposed to concede the point without examination, and to take for granted the accuracy of the statement. But we are met by the startling fact that, in England, the land par excellence of aristocracy and primogeniture, not only is the highest ground taken by all our writers as to the sacredness of property as an institution, but the most sensitive respect to it, as a fact, is manifested by all classes of our people; and at the first rumour of an attack upon it, either in the abstract or the concrete, the whole population is up in arms. An almost slavish reverence for property distinguishes our law, and pervades our national cha- racter. Whereas, in France, where subdivision of land is carried to its highest point, where jive-sevenths of the families are proprietors either of land or other real property, not only have the most outrageous and in- defensible assaults on the property of individuals and classes been perpetrated in the most recent times ; not only have the savings' banks been robbed and the wealthy mulcted in forced loans, but doctrines the most subversive of the rights and even of the institutions of property have been preached without reprobation, and have been hailed with transport by hundreds of thou- sands of admiring votaries, prepared to carry them into instant practice. The levelling and despoiling theories of socialism and communism have taken a hold on the popular mind of France, unparalleled in any other country. Emile Thomas, in his national ateliers, robbed the rich to lavish on the poor, and the poor to lavish on the still poorer, while Proudhon proclaimed that " all property is theft ; " and instead of being punished LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 151 as a public enemy, or incarcerated as a madman, he is hailed as the founder of a sect, and adored almost as a saint. The supposed conservative and tranquillising ten- dency of the law of equal inheritance meets also, ap- parently, with a similar surprising contradiction. In Switzerland, where the peasant proprietorship had pre- vailed for centuries, and was imagined to have been crowned with the most complete and unalloyed success, the year 1847 witnessed a series of servile insurrections, miniature revolutions, and, at last, actual civil war; the pervading feature of the fermentation being a con- flict between the better and more comfortable classes and those who had little or not enough, and who hoped to mend matters by seizing on the government themselves. Then, in France, in Sardinia, in Austria, and throughout Germany in almost every country, in fact, where the subdivision of land has been carried to any great extent the most complete and often bloody revolutions occupied the whole of 1848 ; revo- lutions, be it observed, less political than social (for we have put aside those cases where popular feeling was complicated with hatred towards a foreign domi- nation) revolutions which consisted not in rebellions against an unpopular dynasty, but in discontent with, and insurrection against, the arrangements of society. During this whole series of political convulsions, Spain and Russia the lands of magnates and grandees were undisturbed save by cabinet quarrellings and ministerial intrigues; while England, where a peasant proprietor is as rare as a black swan, and where even the old class of yeomen is nearly as extinct as the mammoth or the dodo England, full of refugees from every continental country, and swarming with native agitators and Chartist malcontents, saw the storm pass L 4 152 LAING ON PEASANT PKOPRIETORSHIP, ETC. over and around, and yet scarcely raise a ripple on the surface of her tranquil waters. These respective phenomena so different from what would have been predicted so inconsistent with the supposed conservative tendencies of landed subdivision will lead us to look a little deeper into the question, and may aid us in arriving at the truth. Indeed, the explanation of the apparent anomaly does not seem difficult to discover. The subdivision of the land among the community interests in the security of pro- perty and the preservation of order all who inherit and retain a sufficient portion of' this land ; but upon those who are exceptions to this rule upon those whose parents were too poor or too unfortunate to have land to leave them upon those younger branches who, not being able to extract a maintenance out of their fraction of the patrimonial estate, have parted with it for money, and then perhaps spent that money upon all those the operation of the system is diametrically reversed. They find (as we showed in our examination of the economical working of the law) almost every avenue to wealth, or even competence, closed to them, or already choked up by other competitors ; they find all branches of industry and commerce contracted and curtailed under that want of a home-demand for luxuries and manufactured articles, which we have seen to be one of the most certain of the secondary consequences of the law of equal inheritance ; they find the govern- ment obliged yearly to diminish its expenditure, and reduce the number or the remuneration of its servants, as the taxes become more and more difficult to levy from a community of peasant proprietors, whose nature it is to have no surplus available either for the mer- chant or the tax-gatherer. Unless, therefore, popu- lation becomes stationary, the claimants on all the secondary means of livelihood increase, as these various LAIXG ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 153 "means contract or are starved to death by an enforced economy. Year by year these disappointed claimants swell the numbers of that class who are enemies of property because they have none, and to whom any change, any convulsion, offers a prospect of advantage, and can scarcely place in a worse position than before. Thus, the ultimate tendency of the law of subdivision is to make the peasant proprietors the only class in the community who are interested in the sacredness of property, and in the preservation of order and existing institutions. It increases the number of those in- terested in this kind of property, it is true ; but at the same time it strikes at the root of all other property, by destroying the value of all other kinds of labour. It multiplies and satisfies one class, but damages and dissatisfies every other ; and can, therefore, be wholly safe only when the satisfied class comprises the whole community. If there are two sons to inherit a small property, it leaves the one, perhaps, comfortable and contented, but sends the other forth a malcontent by necessity, because otiose and resourceless to swell the ranks out of which Socialists, insurgents, and Red Republicans are recruited, when the day of opportunity arives. But is even the peasant proprietor himself so uni- formly contented and conservative, so imbued with the reverence due to all kinds of property, as he is represented to be? Let Michelet a Frenchman, and a fanatic in this cause answer the question. We shall see that he is at issue with Mr. Kay, with Sismondi, and with Laing ; but we have little doubt he is, in the main, correct. The peasant proprietor, we must remark, is always pinched, and generally embarrassed in his circum- stances. We have seen that he is almost always mort- gaged, having had to borrow (in order either to add 154 to his farm, or to pay off the portions of his brothers* and sisters) " at seven, eight, and ten per cent.," says Michelet ; but we will be content with assuming the usual interest at six per cent. To meet so heavy a drain, his work and his frugality must both be ex- cessive. We quote from Michelet : " Watch him before daylight; you will find him at work, with all his family ; even his wife, scarcely out of her confinement, creeps along the dewy earth. At noon, when rocks split with the heat, when the planter's negro gets repose, the volunteer negro takes none. Behold his food, and compare it with the artisan's ; the latter feeds better every day than the peasant on Sunday. This heroic man thinks that by the power of his will he can do anything even make war with Time. But Time is not to be vanquished ; the struggle continues between usury, which time accumulates, and the strength of man, which it diminishes. The land brings him in two per cent., and usury demands eight Are you now surprised that this Frenchman, this merry singer of former days, no longer smiles ? Are you surprised if, meeting him on the land which devours him, you find him so gloomy ? In passing, you salute him cordially ; he will not see you ; he slouches his hat. Do not ask him the way ; if he answers he may misdirect you Thus the peasant becomes more and more bitter and reserved. His heart is too much oppressed to open it to any sentiment of benevolence. He hates the rich, his neighbour, and the world. Alone, on this miserable property, as on a desert island, he becomes a savage. His in sociability, proceed- ing from the feeling of his misery, is irremediable." A man such as Michelet here describes, proprietor though he be, will be no strenuous defender of institu- tions under which he is what he is. He is exactly in LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 155 the state to lend a ready ear to any wild theorist, any millennial preacher, any designing agitator. He is just in the frame of mind when " the Devil, out of our melancholy and our weaknesses, abuses us to damn us." He is precisely fit to be the easy prey of the socialist emissary or the secret conspirator of the Proudhons, the Louis Blancs, the Fouriers, the Cabets, and the Blanquis. Accordingly, we find in his advocate and admirer the following direct assault on the sacredness of property and the first principles of common honesty. It is M. Michelet, a writer of no small influence, an historian of no mean reputation, a professor of esta- blished rank, who is not ashamed thus clearly to inti- mate that the interest of money, when inconveniently burdensome, ought not to be paid, because it is the peasant who borrows, and the Jew and the banker who lends. " The people is noble ; Europe has remained plebeian. But we must take serious measures for de- fending this nobility: it is in danger. The peasant, becoming the serf of the usurer, will be not only miserable, but will lose heart. Think you that man, a sad, restless, trembling debtor, afraid to meet his cre- ditor, and skulking about, can preserve much courage ? How would it be with a race thus brought up, in awe of the Jew? . . . The laws must be altered; law must undergo this high, moral, and political necessity. If the present state of things continues, the peasant, far from acquiring, must sell, as he did in the seventeenth century, and become once more a hireling. That would be the downfall, not of a class, but of our country. They pay 500 millions (francs) yearly to the State, and 1000 millions to the usurer. . . . " If you were Germans or Italians, I should say, 'Observe the rules of civil equity.' (!) But you are France ; you are not a nation only, but a principle 156 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. a great political principle. It must be defended at any cost. n Is it possible to say in plainer language, " Defraud your creditors, repudiate your debts, rob the bank, trample public and private faith under your feet ?" Truly it does appear to us that property, however widely it may be diffused, is neither safe, nor much respected, nor greatly merited in a country where doctrines such as these can be promulgated, in works addressed to the masses by eminent writers and metro- politan professors such as M. Michelet. And he is far from being single in his misty notions of integrity. Language almost as indefensible may be found in Louis Blanc, and in Eugene Sue and George Sand, the most popular and brilliant novelists in France. The subdivision of land, then, it would appear, may strengthen the reverence of property in one class (though even this is by no means, as we see, uniform or certain), and may augment the numbers of that class, but it weakens this sentiment in all other classes, as long as these classes continue to exist. If there were no younger children ; if all individuals in the commu- nity were proprietors of land, and if all these proprietors were unencumbered, then the system would unques- tionably promote respect for the institution of property. But these are three vital, immense, and probably im- possible postulates. If the subdivision of the land introduces one con- servative element into the constitution of society, it must not be forgotten that it extinguishes another. If it multiplies peasant proprietors, it destroys the aristo- cracy. Now, whatever be the various opinions we may entertain as to the use or desirableness of an aristocracy, we shall none of us be disposed to deny that, where its privileges are not excessive, and where its power is not abused, it is emphatically the conservative element in LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 157 society the most conservative of all the ingredients of which society is composed. Whether, therefore, the law of equal inheritance is to be regarded as favourable or unfavourable to the stability of political institutions, will depend upon our decision of the question, whether a multitude of small proprietors, or a smaller and more combined number of great proprietors, are likely to be most hostile to change, and most powerful to resist it. A numerous body of small proprietors, spread over the whole country, and dividing among them the entire surface of the soil, will, no doubt, where they are pros- perous and contented, form a substantial barrier to any violent or sudden changes in the national government and institutions. But even this proposition can only be admitted with considerable modifications. In the first place, the class of yeomen are seldom distinguished by any extraordinary intelligence out of their own imme- diate department ; they take little interest in political questions, nor do they care about the solution of them, except in as far as they directly and manifestly affect their own position, and come into contact with their daily life. For speculative or party politics, they will trouble themselves but little ; they neither feel the vivid interest in these matters that distinguishes the restless, intellectual, and exciteable population of the towns ; nor have they any of that tenacious devotion to old ideas and associations, which forms the main strength of conservatism among the adherents and dependants of a beloved and respected feudal aristocracy. They do not respond readily, nor awake easily, to any but mere material considerations. Any public convulsion which would imperil their property or augment their taxation, they might be relied upon for resisting, strenuously and doggedly, as soon as they perceived its bearing ; but if they had nothing, or thought that they had nothing, to fear on this head, the expulsion of a dynasty, or the 158 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETOKSIIIP, ETC. change of one form of government for another, are matters which regard and would disturb them in a very slight degree. Again, their resistance to any political changes will seldom be more than passive. They may manifest on occasion wonderful vis inertice, but they will rarely rouse themselves to vigorous and aggressive effort. They are not a body who are accustomed to combined action, or to whom either action or combination would be easy; on the contrary, their whole condition is essentially one of unsociability, self-containment, and isolation. They have nothing of that prompt and energetic esprit de corps which belongs to parties trained by long usage, and compelled by their position to asso- ciate for self-defence against other powerful and con- flicting interests. Hence they are no match for the restless and intelligent citizens of a metropolis, full of mental activity, masters of the whole science of political organisation, devoted to their leaders, and fanatical in their attachment to a watchword or a principle. The conservatism of the class of peasant proprietors, will seldom be more than selfish and inert, and, in conse- quence, limited and ineffectual. It is obvious how inferior in effective strength, in adequacy to meet and hold in check those elements of turbulence and move- ment which always exist in such vigour and abundance among the inhabitants of large towns, this conservatism must be, when compared with that of an hereditary aristocracy of vast possessions, living on their estates, surrounded by attached dependants, who respect them for their individual virtues, as well as for their ancestral name, sharing in all the intellectual activity of the age, versed in political science, trained to public life, to combined action, and to the invigorating discipline of party. It is true that an oppressive aristocracy, one which has alienated the affections, and trampled on the LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 159 rights of its vassals, which has neglected its duties and abused its powers, has a revolutionary as well as a conservative operation ; but the same may be said of an unprosperous and discontented class of peasant pro- prietors, which, as we have seen, may exist. To form a fair relative estimate of the political tendencies of the two institutions, we must compare them under cir- cumstances in which both have been successful in which both have duly discharged their functions and attained their ends. Recent events in France have been strongly confir- matory of these views. The last revolution was effected in Paris without the slightest opposition from the supposed conservative element ; it was accepted by the country without remonstrance, almost with indiffer- ence ; and it was not till property was attacked, till the whole social structure was threatened with destruction, and till new taxes icere imposed, that the rural popula- tion, the class of peasant proprietors, began to rouse itself, like a strong man after sleep, and march to the rescue of society, which, after all, they might have proved inadequate to save, without the exertions and fidelity of the standing army. " It was the old policy of France and Spain," says Mr. Laing, " to draw the nobility from their estates and country residences, where they were powerful, and might be formidable, and to in- troduce them to the expenses, honours, and dependence of a court life. The Revolution proved in France that this state policy had been carried too far. No intermediate body with social influence had been left in the country. Brittany and La Vendee alone had a resident class of nobles or country gentlemen, who were too poor to be attached to a splendid and expensive court ; and there alone was found a class to support the throne. A similar body of landed proprietors spread over France would have mediated as a third element between the throne and the people, and might have averted the horrors and anarchy of the Revolution. Every succeeding movement in France proves the 160 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. want of some third element in the social body, between the executive power and the people. To this want must be ascribed the influence of Paris in all its social action in France. The country has no third element, in its present social structure, be- tween the governing and the governed. Paris alone is this third element for all France." This extinction of an hereditary and powerful aris- tocracy, and the substitution of a numerous class of small proprietors, consequent upon the establishment of the law of equal inheritance, has generally been repre- sented as favouring the interests of freedom. We question whether this is not a superficial, or, rather, a partial view of the matter. Thus much, at least, is certain : that those monarchs and statesmen, like Louis XIV., Frederick II., and Cardinal Richelieu, whose systematic policy it was to weaken, humble, and impoverish the nobles of their respective countries, did not act thus out of any tender regard for liberty or in- dividual right. Their aim in sweeping away the aris- tocracy was to remove a barrier to the establishment of their own despotic power. This also is certain : that, of all old-established states, aristocratic England is the one where personal freedom is the most complete, and the most diffused among all classes ; and that liberty of individual action is fettered and usurped in Republican France and in subdivided Germany to a degree which, to a Briton, would be scarcely distinguishable from slavery. This, finally, is certain : that in the two great crises of our national history, the two great epochas when English liberties were threatened, defended, and enlarged the reigns of John and of Charles I. it was our aristocracy and our country gentlemen who stood forth in the front ranks of the cause of popular rights. The Magna Charta was won by barons ; the question of ship-money was tried by a Buckinghamshire squire ; Pym, Hampden, and most of the leaders of the Long LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 161 Parliament, belonged to what was then termed the country party. The truth we believe to be, that the extinction of an hereditary nobility, by removing the barrier between the people and the government, lays each of these parties more open to the assaults and encroachments of the other : the people will be more easily oppressed, and the government more easily overthrown. Where an aristocracy has been overbearing, cruel, and unjust, as has too often been the case, its destruction is the over- throw of a tyranny, but not necessarily the substitution of freedom : it may be, and often will be, a mere change of oppressors, and the new oppression may be more galling than the old. The stability of the government, as well as the liberty of the subject, depend upon other arrangements. The amount of personal freedom en- joyed by the individual, depends, as we shall presently see, almost entirely upon the question, whether muni- cipal or bureaucratic institutions, self-government or functionarism, pervade the nation. Whatever, there- fore, has a tendency to increase the number or rivet the hold of these functionaries, is, ipso facto, unfavourable to individual liberty ; and this is equally true whether the state is termed a republic or an empire. Now, the law of equal inheritance has a direct and most powerful tendency to increase the number of those public func- tionaries, who already swarm to such an extent in both Germany and France, as to interfere with freedom of action in almost every moment and every transaction of daily life. It is true, as we showed in the early part of this Paper, that the difficulty of levying a sufficient revenue on a community of small proprietors has, by starving the resources out of which these functionaries are paid, a strong counteracting tendency a tendency which may, in the end, overpower the other. But the first effect is what we have stated : the difficulty of VOL. i. M 162 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. finding remunerative employment in trade or handi- craft, on which w.e have already dwelt so fully, creates such a multitude of claimants of mendicants in fact for the poorest post under government, that any reduction in their number has practically been found impossible. The French are compelled to retain their intolerable system of passports, because its abolition would deprive a large number of functionaries of their bread, and cause an outcry which no government dare to face. In the same manner they dare not revise their restrictive commercial policy, because such revision would entail a diminution of their vast army of dou- aniers ; and those who would thus be thrown out of work, would go to swell the already formidable ranks of the turbulent and discontented, because unemployed and unfed, population of the towns the classes dan- gereuses of Paris, Lyons, and Bordeaux. Thus no reduction in the number of the public functionaries can safely take place in France ; while in Austria one curious but very natural consequence of the revolution has been actually to augment the pay of many of the officials, and thus very greatly, but also again very naturally, to disgust the tax-paying peasant proprietor. But functionarism will be considered presently ; our only concern with it here is in so far as it is fostered by peasant proprietorship and is inimical to freedom. The following remarks of Mr. Laing have much weight ; though we would not be understood to indorse them all. tf Whatever be the form of government, a third element be- tween the power of the state, and the physical force of the people, is indispensable for the security of freedom, and the sta- bility of social institutions. The aristocracy, or the clergy of the Church of Rome, or both, formed this third element in the middle ages. With us, the class of capitalists, of men of high intellectual and moral character, displayed in situations of im- LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 163 portancc, and the strong prestige in favour of birth, fortune, and manners, and of what we call the nobility and gentry a class very different from the feudal aristocracy of the Continent, and depending for social influence on popular esteem, and not on royal favour constitute this third element in our social structure. But no equivalent class, with social influence to stand between the monarchic and democratic elements in the social body, has formed itself, or can form itself, on the Con- tinent, where the property of land, which is almost, the only kind of property is universally distributed into small and al- most equal portions. Where all are equal, or nearly so, no pre- eminent social influence is accorded to property ; and the only influence remaining is that of military or civil authority held under the Crown or the executive power. The people have no independent representatives ; no leaders or defenders of import- ance and weight, either with their own body or with their rulers ; no influential organs of public opinion ; nothing, in short, to oppose to misgovernment and oppression but physical force. This is a social state much nearer to a military despotism than to a free constitution. If we sit down, and try to sketch that social condition which practically must be, of all others, the least favourable to the establishment and permanence of free institutions, and to the liberty of a people, we come unex- pectedly and unwillingly to the conclusion, that it is the social condition which approaches most nearly to a perfect equality. Liberty and equality ! These are two elements which cannot co-exist in society. ... A military [or civil] aristocracy is the only government applicable, or perhaps possible, in this social state of agrarian equality." Mr. Laing states his conclusions somewhat broadly, but thus much we must admit as unquestionable ; that in almost every country where the aristocracy has been extinguished or sapped by the subdivision of the land, the interference of the civil authorities with individual action is most oppressive and intolerable, and wholly at variance with English notions of freedom ; and that the very same characteristics of inertia, unintellectu- ality, and uncombiningness, which we have noticed as M 2 164 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. rendering the class of small proprietors powerless against the energetic and revolutionary population of the towns, will render them equally defenceless against the en- croaching and compressing influence of the governing powers. But, at all events (it will be said), whether the laSv of equal inheritance be or be not favourable to political stability, and civil liberty, there can be no question that it operates powerfully to spread pacific dispositions among the people, and will in time, if persevered in, put an end to international wars. Nearly all writers, except Mr. Laing, having taken this view of the subject. " They suppose that war never can be the choice of a people generally possessed of property, and having a preponderating influence and voice in their own public affairs; because property, especially landed property, which cannot be concealed, suffers in war equally from friend and foe, by taxation or devastation ; and where the great mass of the people are landed proprietors, having this obvious interest in avoiding war, the most self-willed government must be constrained, they con- ceive, to maintain peace." The view appears plausible at first sight, but we shall see reason to question its soundness when we look a little more closely into the secondary operation of this cherished law. The common error of the writers who have treated of this subject has been to look only at the operation of territorial subdivision upon one class of the community, arid to ignore its effect upon all other classes. We are again driven back upon the inquiry, What becomes of the younger sons? Of those who receive their portion in money, because the patrimonial inheritance will not admit of further morcellement, and who go forth to seek their fortune, many flock to the towns to engage in some branch of industry or trade, and, on arriving there, they find, as we have shown, all these branches LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 165 not only already overstocked, but narrowed more and more every succeeding year by that peculiar operation of peasant proprietorship which we have just traced out in detail. Many more flock to the towns in the hope of obtaining some appointment under government appointments against the number and the remuneration of which, as we have seen, the same peasant proprietor- ship necessarily wages an unceasing war. Michelet, in his work called " Le Peuple," draws a most pitiable picture of both these classes of the disappointment which attends most of the aspirants, and of the paltry pittance on which even the successful competitors must be content to live. It is among these two classes that the war party find their readiest recruits ; it is these who are loudest in echoing the war-cry, whensoever, by whomsoever, and on what pretext soever, it may be raised. Nothing can be more natural, nothing more inevitable ; all other avenues to occupation and to wealth have met their advances with an impassable barrier or a rude repulse. Unless they see a chance of carving their fortune out of civil commotion, military service is the only thing left them to fall back upon. War opens to them a vista of the most brilliant possibilities. Behind them lie penury, obscurity, a hopeless struggle against adverse destiny ; before them a career, bright and beckoning, of advancement, victory, and renown. Even in those cases where the patrimonial estate is large enough to afford a prospective inheritance to all the members of the family, the same result ensues, though by a rather different process. " In almost every peasant proprietor's family," says Mr. Laing, " there are one or two grown-up young men, the sons and heirs of the labouring proprietor, who have no employment at home till the small estate becomes vacant by the death of their parents. Their additional labour is not required for its cultivation while the parent is able to work. It is, however, a secure living to M 3 166 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. look to, and to fall back upon after the parents' death. This mass of population includes a large proportion of all the youth of France and Germany, of an age and habits suitable for military service. In France alone there are 10,282,946 landed proprietors. If we allow one-third of these to belong to heads of families, with sons grown up while the parent is still able to work and cultivate his little property, what a vast body of young men do we find, in this social state, ever ready and eager for military service and warfare I To learn a trade or handicraft which cannot subsist them until they have acquired it, and which they would have to abandon as soon as their little heritages fall to them, is by no means as suitable to their position in life, even in a prudential view, as to enter into military service, in which they are fed, clothed, and lodged from the very first day, are engaged for a term of years which they can very well spare, and are then free to return to their little heritages, or to re-engage according to their prospects. . . . War would thus seem to be a necessary sequence of the social state of those countries in which landed property is generally and almost equally dis- tributed war abroad, or tumult and revolution at home. This is clearly shown in Switzerland. The Swiss youth are scattered over Europe and America in various temporary em- ployments, as servants, innkeepers, adventurers. Switzerland manufactures, also, to no inconsiderable extent, for foreign markets. Yet with all these outlets and employments for her youth, Switzerland furnishes regiments to Naples, Rome, and other Italian States, and keeps, in reality, a very large standing army, in proportion to her population, always on foot, but always in foreign pay. . . . This social state a state, namely, in which temporary employment is more suitable than life-long application to one pursuit ; this social element the youth of a country living in present idleness, yet in certainty of future subsistence, has, in every age and nation, and even in every family, impeded industry and application to the useful and peaceful arts, and engendered a spirit of temporary exertion, and a wild craving for excitement which warfare only can gratify. . . . This prodigious development of an element of warfare in the new social state of Europe, may well make the observer of our times pause before he admits that universal and perpetual peace is a necessary result of a universal diffusion of landed property." LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 167 It is, moreover, a mistake to suppose that even the peasant proprietors themselves the actual holders and cultivators of the soil are necessarily, by interest and position, hostile to war. Not only do they often share the notion that war is a provision for their younger brothers and younger sons and we know how, even in this country, many a sturdy and reluctant taxpayer is a vehement opponent of any abolition of sinecures, or reduction in the army or the navy, if he has a son to be provided for, or a brother to be promoted but the idea that war may be waged at the enemy's cost, as in the early days of Napoleon, is firmly rooted in the minds of a large portion of the community, and is fostered by men from whom better thoughts might be expected. Even M. Michelet, who ought to be ashamed to pander to the selfish and malignant passions of his countrymen, did not scruple to write thus, two years before the revolu- tion of 1848 : "I never saw, in any history, a thirty- years' peace. The bankers, who have never foreseen any revolution, reply that there will be no stir in Europe. The first reason they give is, that peace is profitable to the world. To the world ! Yes : and but little so to us. Others are running, we are walking : we shall soon be the hindmost. Secondly, they say, ' AYar can only begin with a loan, and we will not grant it.' But what if it begun with a treasure such as Russia is accumulating ? What if the war be made to support the war, as in the time of Napoleon ? " Here is M. Michelet, a Frenchman, a philosopher, an advocate of peasant properties, stimulating his countrymen's passion for war, suggesting it as a means of promoting the prosperity of France, and intimating that it can be carried on at the expense of her neighbours. Our survey of this great question, then, has shown much ground for believing that the prevalent opinion as to the social, political, and economic consequences of the M 4 168 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. subdivision of land, is partial, incomplete, and therefore, of necessity, erroneous ; that the law of equal inheritance is by no means as favourable to peace, to freedom, to political tranquillity, or to the general prosperity of the community, as it is commonly represented to be ; that these happy results can only ensue when the possessors of land shall have become the sole class of the commu- nity, having absorbed or superseded every other class ; that, in fine, a nation consisting of small proprietors may ultimately be peaceful, prosperous, conservative, and free, but scarcely a nation merely comprising such a class, especially if that class be preponderating, and artificially fostered and increased ; and that the system of peasant proprietorship therefore, if persisted in, must lead to, and if successful must involve, a population stationary in numbers, and, as we shall shortly perceive, stationary in civilisation also. But we shall not be in a position to pronounce a definite judgment on this mighty question, till we have considered what would be the effect produced on the general tone and character of society by the subdivision of land, when the system had attained its full develop- ment and worked out its final issue what would be its operation on civilisation, using the word in its widest signification, that is to say, on the progress of humanity in the elaboration of its highest capacities, and the achievement of its noblest destinies.* * The following is Guizot's admirable analysis of the idea com- prised under the word " civilisation :" " Pour commencer cette recherche, je vais essayer de mettre sous vos yeux quelques hypotheses ; je decrirai un certain nombre d'etats de societe", et puis nous nous demanderons si 1'instinct general y reconnoitroit 1'etat d'un peuple qui se civilise, si c'est la le sens que le genre humain attache naturellement au mot ' civilisation.' " Voici un peuple dont la vie exterieure est douce, commode ; il paie peu d'impots, il ne souffre point ; la justice lui est rendue dans les relations privees ; en un mot, i'existence materielle, dans son LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 169 Now, in order to see our way clearly towards a reply to these inquiries, we must assume the law of equal inheritance to have completed its work ; we must ima- ensemble, est assez bien et heureusement reglee. Mais en meme temps 1'existence intellectuelle et morale de ce peuple est tenue avec grand soin dans un etat d'engourdissement, d'inertie, je ne veux pas dire d'oppression, parce qu'il n'en a pas le sentiment, mais de com- pression. Ceci n'est pas sans exemple. II y a en un grand nombre de petites republiques aristocratiques ou les sujets ont ete ainsi traite comme des troupeaux, bien tenus et materiellement heureux. mais sans activite intellectuelle et morale. Est-ce la la civilisation ? est-ce la un peuple qui se civilise ? " Voici une autre hypothese : c'est une peuple dont 1'existence materielle est moins douce, moins commode, supportable cependant. En revanche, on n'a point neglige les besoins moraux, intellectuels ; on leur distribue une certaine pature ; on cultive dans ce peuple des sentimens eleves, purs ; ses croyances religieuses, morales, ont atteint un certain degre de developpenaent ; mais on a grand soin d'etouffer en lui le principe de la liberte ; on donne satisfaction aux besoins intellectuels et moraux, comme ailleurs aux besoins materiels ; on mesure a chacun sa part de verite ; on ne permet a personne de la chercher a lui tout seul. L'immobilite est le caractere de la vie morale ; c'est 1'etat ou sont tombees la plupart des populations de 1'Asie, ou les dominations theocratiques retiennent 1'humanite ; c'est 1'etat des Indous, par exemple. Je fais la meme question que sur le peuple precedent : est-ce la un peuple qui se civilise ? "Je prends une troisieme et derniere hypothese. La liberte de chaque individu est tres grande ; 1'inegalite entre eux est rare, ou au moins passagere. Chacun fait a peu pres ce qu'il veut, et ne differe pas beaucoup en puissance de son voisin ; mais il y a tres peu d'interets generaux, tres peu d'idees publiques, tres peu de societe, en un mot ; les facultes et 1'existence des individus se deploient et s'ecoulent isolement sans agir les uns sur les autres, sans laisser de traces ; les generations successives laissent la societe au meme point ou elles 1'ont recue ; c'est 1'etat des tribus sauvages ; la liberte et 1'egalite sont la ; et pourtant, a coup sur, la civilisation n'y est point. " Je pourrais multiplier ces hypotheses ; mais je crois que nous en avons assez pour demeler quel est le sens populaire et naturel du mot civilisation. " II est clair qu'aucun des etats que je viens de parcourir ne cor- respond, selon le bon sens naturel des hommes, a ce terme. Pourquoi ? II me semble que le premier fait qui soit compris dans le mot civili- 170 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. gine the perilous and painful process by which the class of peasant proprietors is to starve out and absorb into itself every other class to have been undergone and over- past ; we must suppose the population to have become almost, or altogether, stationary, and the whole cornmu- sation, c'est le fait de progres, de developpement ; il reveille aussitot 1'idee d'un peuple qui marche, non pour changer de place, mais pour changer d'etat ; d'un peuple dont la condition s'etend et s'ameliore. L'idee du progres, du developpement, me parait etre 1'idee fonda- mentale contenue sous le mot de civilisation. " Est-ce la tout, Messieurs ? Avons nous epuise le sens naturel, usuel, du mot civilisation ? Le fait ne contient-il rien de plus ? " C'est a peu pres comme si nous demandions : L'espece humaine n'est elle, au fond, qu'une fourmilliere, une societe ou il ne s'agisse que d'ordre et de bien-etre, ou plus la somme du travail sera grande et la repartition des fruits de travail equitable, plus le but sera atteint et le progres acccmpli ? " L'instinct des hommes repugne a une definition si etroite de la destinee humaine. II lui semble, au premier aspect, que le mot civilisation comprend quelque chose de plus etendu, de plus com- plexe, de superieur a la pure perfection des relations sociales, de la force et du bien-etre social. II demande le developpement de la vie individuelle, de la vie interieure, le developpement de 1'homme luimeme, de ses faculty's, de ses sentimens, de ses idees. II demande un etat ou, Si la societe y est plus imparfaite qu'ailleurs, 1'humanite y apparait avec plus de grandeur et de puissance. II reste beaucoup de conquetes sociales a faire ; mais d'immenses conquetes intellec- tuelles et morales sont accomplies ; beaucoup de biens et de droits manquent a beaucoup d'hommes ; mais beaucoup de grands hommes vivent et brillent aux yeux du monde. Les lettres, les sciences, les arts deploient tout leur eclat. Partout ou le genre humain voit resplendir ces grands images, ces images glorifies de la nature humaine, partout ou il voit creer ce tresor de jouissances sublimes, il reconnoit et nomme la civilisation. " Deux faits sont done compris dans ce grand fait ; il subsiste u deux conditions, et se revele a deux symptomes ; le developpement de 1'activite sociale et celui de 1'activite individuelle, le progres de la societe et le progres de 1'humanite. Partout ou la condition ex- terieure de 1'homme s'etend, se vivifie, s'ameliore, partout ou la nature intime de 1'homme se montre avec eclat, avec grandeur, a ces deux signes, et souvent malgre la profonde imperfection de 1'etat social, le genre humain applaudit et proclame la civilisation." LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 171 nity to be one uniform body of small, but comfortable and well-to-do land-owners. How or at what cost this transition state can be got through, we confess we do not clearly see ; the problem may prove practically inso- luble; but we will suppose the difficulty successfully surmounted, and the social condition so much desired to be finally achieved ; and we have now to ask ourselves how it will operate on the deeper interests and higher prospects of our race ? It is not to be denied that a state of universal compe- tence, in which there shall be no inordinate wealth and no sordid indigence ; from which extravagance and pauperism shall be alike excluded ; where a redundant population and excessive competition shall no longer condemn the child to premature, nor the man to over- whelming, labour ; where industry and temperance shall be sure of their reward ; where every man shall be happy, " whose wish and care A few paternal acres bound, Content to breathe his native air In his own ground ; " where every man shall " sit under his own vine and his own fig-tree, none daring to make him afraid ; " it is not to be denied that a state such as this is, even in prospect, full of fascination for those who, like ourselves, have been long saddened and perplexed by the multi- tudinous anomalies, the startling extremes, the sore moral maladies, the grievous physical sufferings, which disfigure the actual society around us. We regard with a sense of unspeakable relief the picture of a social state from which are banished nearly all the evils which have so long baffled and amazed us here which have driven the philanthropist to despair, the wretched to rebel, and the religious man to seek refuge in another life against 172 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. the sorrows and sufferings which seem incurable in this. The mere idea that such a comparative Paradise is attainable, disposes us to listen with impatient indig- nation to the doubter who throws cold water on our enthusiasm, by calling upon us to pause and inquire whether this apparent Eden may not have some coun- terbalancing disadvantages which, in our zeal, we have overlooked, and whether it may not have to be purchased at a price which it would be shallow wisdom and sorry economy to pay. Even gold, it is said, may be bought too dear. There is, no doubt, much, very much, to admire in the social condition of the Swiss and the Norwegian, and much, very much, to deplore in our own. It is sad to see the intensity of pursuit which with us, in every line, seems essential to success ; it is sad to see so many thousands, whose whole existence, from the cradle to the grave, is one breathless hurry a race, a struggle, and a strife ; it is lamentable to see one class who live only to toil, side by side with another who live only to squander ; and we are tempted to think how far more enviable is that nation where every one has something, and nobody has much. " Tutus caret obsoleti Sordibus tecti ; Caret invidenda Sobrius aula." But a state of material comfort, though embellished by content and free from the grinding anxieties which too commonly beset a struggling existence, is not the highest position, nor the sole good, for humanity to aim at. A society composed of one uniform class, enjoying a universally diffused competence, will be stationary, not progressive, in its character. Now, progress is the very essence of civilisation. Contentment is a blessed LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 173 thing; but the content which arises from having achieved much, and the content which consists in being satisfied with little, have very different influences on national as on individual development. There is a content which rests in a lazy and unambitious mediocrity, which buries its talent in the earth, acquiesces in a stagnant vegetation, and aspires after no higher existence ; and there is a content which flows out of a just estimate of the objects of exertion and the ends of life, the result of having aspired after attainable and worthy aims, not of having been devoid of aspirations altogether. The one is the last and noblest victory of the ripened mind ; the other is the most fatal enemy to the amelioration and maturity of the race. There are two sources which foster in the bosom of a nation the elements of the higher civilisation ; the stimulus of necessity, and the stimulus of leisure. In a community of peasant proprietors both these will be absent. Men who are secure of finding in the quiet culture of the soil a maintenance adequate to their few requirements, and who see no prospect and no motive for rising above the level mediocrity of their neighbours, are wholly without that spur to strenuous exertion which works such miracles in less monotonous and less comfortable communities, which so often makes the poor man fight his way to wealth, and the industrious man to leisure, and the uneducated man to the loftiest heights of poetry and science. An assured competence, however small, is, of all the foes to energy and success, the most fatal, and the most paralysing. Accordingly, we find that sameness and stationariness characterise nations among whom peasant proprietors predominate and give the tone. " This state of society," says Mr. Laing, " is necessarily stationary at a certain attainment of well-being. It is not, and cannot be, progressive. It admits of no advance in the means and ways of living, acting, or thinking, beyond a certain fixed 174 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. hereditary standard ; and one generation cannot afford to acquire or to gratify any higher tastes or wants than those of the gene- ration which preceded it. In the countries or districts in which this social state has been established for ages, as in Swit- zerland, the Tyrol, Norway, Flanders, the man of the nine- teenth century is the man of the fourteenth. His way of living, his way of thinking, his diet, dwelling, dress, his tastes, wants, and enjoyments, his ideas, his civilisation, are stereotyped. . . . The having enough for the most simple wants and tastes of a working agricultural life, the contented- ness of a whole population with this enough, and the legal impediment, from the equal division of property among the children, to any class in the community attaining permanently more than this enough, may be a very happy social state, and altogether in accordance with the spirit and precepts of ancient philosophers ; but it is a philosophy of barbarism, not of civili- sation a social state of routine and stagnation, not of activity and progress. . . . Hereditary wealth is too rare for the in- dividuals possessing it to form a class in society. . . . The want of such a class with more than the bare means of living, and with the leisure to apply to higher material or intellectual objects than the supplying of their household wants by their own household work, is not favourable to the progress of society. The material objects and interests must predominate over those intellectual and moral ones which dignify man as motives to action, but which must remain almost dormant in society if there be no class free from the cares of daily sub- sistence, and with the education and leisure which only an opulent class can command, to cultivate and act on them. Education of an ordinary kind may be widely diffused in this social state, reading, writing, and useful acquirements may be imparted to all the population, and yet education may be very defective and uuinfluential, and may lose in depth what it gains in breadth. Few in this social state are in a condition to enter into those higher studies and sciences which not only elevate the individual to a high pitch of mind, but give society itself the language, ideas, and spirit of a higher intellectual condition." In fact, without necessity to stimulate talent in the mass, and without an opulent and leisure class to culti- LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 175 vate and to reward scientific and literary eminence, the very elements and conditions of the nobler civilisation will be wanting. Intellectual cultivation will be mono- tonous and mediocre, even if it do not become wholly utilitarian : the abstract, the profound, and the poetic, will be in imminent danger of being starved out of existence by want of the encouragement on which alone they can thrive. Moreover, a society of equals, with no hierarchy of gradations to cement them into one mass, will be a mere aggregation of independent units, isolated and self-contained, with no mental collision, and little varied interchange of thought. All being occupied in the same pursuits, and living in the same intellectual and moral atmosphere, there can be little of that diversity of view and opposition of ideas by which truth is elicited and intelligence aroused. It is not out of a nation of peasant proprietors, though it may occa- sionally be out of their class, that poets, artists, phi- losophers, or astronomers can come forth. Where, among such, could Shakspere or Dante, Phidias or Canova, Plato or Bacon, Copernicus, Galileo, or La Place, find the appreciation upon which they live, the reward to which they aspire, or the sustenance and stimulus without which they could not struggle into being ? No ! Material well-being, the absence of want, a diffused uniformity of comfort, are valuable attainments, and amply worth much effort to compass ; but there is something beyond and above all these something for which a portion of these may wisely be emperilled and sacrificed ; that perpetual progress, namely, that cease- less aspiration, that illimitable striving after loftier and still loftier heights in knowledge, in wisdom, in concep- tion, in achievement, which constitute at once the nobility of the individual, the glory of the nation, the hope and the grandeur of the race. Even the favourable picture which we have adopted 176 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. from the advocates of peasant proprietorship of the state of material comfort, steady industry, and security of social position which it engenders, has its reverse side. Security has its injurious as well as its service- able action on the character and habits ; and men who do not strive to rise will not always be able to prevent themselves from falling. There is much truth in the following remarks, though we are not prepared to adopt them without allowance. " The security afforded by the possession of a patch of land is often worse than inse- curity. Granting that its owner is aware that, in ordi- nary seasons, its produce will suffice to support himself and his family, he cannot fail to be at the same time im- pressed with the conviction that his destiny is fixed and irrevocable ; that he has no means of advancing himself; and that he and his successors must continue to pass their days in the same unnoticed obscurity and poverty. And it is scarcely possible that he should have this conviction without being listless, and the slave of routine practices. The happiness of peasant proprietors seems very much akin to that of oysters : they are ignorant and satisfied. . . . Their security is not a source of activity and wealth, but of indolence and poverty, and goes far to extinguish that desire to excel and to rise to a higher station which is the origin of all improvement, and of whatever is refined and exalted. ' The small proprietors and farmers of France (says Dr. Birkbeck) having no means of improving their condition, submit to necessity, and pass their lives contentedly.' It is customary at this moment, in several of the southern departments of that kingdom, as it was 3000 years ago, to thresh corn by treading it out by horses and oxen."* The fact is, we fear, that, from the law of our imperfect nature, content and progress can rarely go together, nor competence and laborious ambition. The fate of * M'Cullocb, " Treatise on Succession," p. 90. LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 177 the yeomen class in England especially of those " states- men," as they are termed, who still linger in Cumber- land and Westmoreland is a confirmatory comment on this text. Their fifty or sixty acres of hereditary land, though amply sufficient to maintain them in homely abundance, is not enough fully to employ their time, or arouse their dormant energies. In a deplorable proportion of cases they become dawdling and inactive, suffer dreadfully from the tedium vitce, take to drinking, get into difficulties, and are ultimately compelled to sell their patrimonial estate to some wealthier and more energetic neighbour. The class is fast dying out. To set against these considerations, we must observe that there is one kind of intelligence which will usually be more highly developed in a community of small proprietors than in one where civilisation is more syste- matic, and where division of labour has been carried to perfection ; that kind of intelligence, we mean, which consists in fertility of resource, and a wide range of adaptability of the faculties possessed. The result of the system of division of labour, when carried to that height at which it produces the most astonishing miracles of industry and art, is to confine the faculties of the individual, as the price paid for their perfect development in one direction. The continental peasants and the same is true to some extent of their artisans also can do a little in many lines, but can do nothing in a first-rate style. Hence they are very inferior to the English labourers as ploughmen, as blacksmiths, as carpenters, but they make better colonists. They are more miscellaneously clever, and can make themselves more "generally useful." Mr. Laing observes, with much justice, " The exercise of the faculties by the application of the mind to a variety of operations, the invention, the ingenuity, and judgment called forth, the resources to be found for want of VOL. i. N 178 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. skill, tools, and co-operative aid, make the production of an article by single-handed or by family work much more in- tellectual and improving, although the article produced be very much inferior and more costly than if it had been produced by factory-work. The product in the latter case is better, but not the producer. His mind is less exerted, his faculties less exercised, by his day's work, than the man's who has to apply himself every day to various occupations ; who perhaps has to make a nail, forge a horse-shoe, nail it on, yoke his cart, mend it, drive it to market, and sell a load of corn of his own sowing, reaping, and threshing. The individual doing one single opera- tion all his life, in the subdivision of work to which he belongs, will scarcely be a man of such mental powers at least his work will not make him so as this individual of multifarious occu- pations. The working peasant proprietor in Switzerland, who sits down in winter, after his crops are reaped, to make a clock or a gun, will not certainly produce a time-piece like Dent's, or a fowling-piece like Smith's; but his faculties and thinking powers are more exercised by his work than those of any one operative employed by Mr. Dent or Mr. Smith in making the one separate part of their more perfect machines which he is bred to make. ... As far as a man's daily occupations in- fluence his mental condition, factory- work tends to lower, not to raise, his intellectual powers." This is very true : confinement to one fractional di- vision of industry has an unquestionable tendency to cramp and dwarf a man's intelligence; and the coun- teraction must be sought in that general mental culti- vation for which the superior productiveness of assorted and combined labour ought to purchase leisure and means. We have now gone fully into the consideration of this momentous and deeply interesting social problem ; and we will sum up the results in a few brief sentences. We believe that the compulsory (or universally custom- ary) partition of land would, in the end, lead to a state of society which neither the philosopher nor the states- man could regard with complacency; a state which LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 179 appears attractive only where its first operation is exclu- sively seen, and its ultimate consequences are kept out of view; a state which, after the effects of its incipient and incomplete application have been reaped, must be hostile in its further progress to peace, to freedom, to political tranquillity and permanence ; a state which, when en- tirely reached (if this be ever possible), would be fatal alike to the multiplication and the progress of mankind. At the same time, it is monstrous that industrious men should be unable to obtain land, and to rise into the position of proprietors : not only should all obstacles in their way be removed, but every encouragement should be given them to attempt and to succeed. The subdi- vision of land should be left wholly free should be neither impeded nor enforced by legislation. Entails should be abolished ; the law, which in England confers the real property of an intestate upon the eldest son or the nearest male heir, and that which in France compels the division equally among the children, should be both abrogated. Legislative restrictions once removed, va- riety of individual opinion would then operate to pro- duce a varied social state ; there would be large estates, and wealthy proprietors, and a leisure class, to supply the conservative element and encourage the higher civilisation ; and there would be peasant properties to form the stepping-stone and the reward for those among the labourers who had the desire and the capacity to rise. There would be an educated class to cultivate the nobler fields of intellect and science ; there would be an aristocracy to stand between the people and the throne ; there would be a peasantry contented even when striving and ambitious, because conscious of no injustice, and irritated by no insuperable obstacles ; and there would be a yeomanry to complete and consolidate the social hierarchy. We have hitherto confined our attention to the sub- 180 LAIXG ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. division of landed property, and its operation on the economical, social, and political condition of the Euro- pean nations among which it prevails. We now proceed to investigate the second of those peculiar features which distinguish the social structure of continental countries from that of Great Britain, and which we have called bureaucracy: Mr. Laing calls it function- arism, which is, perhaps, a better name. This is a difference which, even more than that connected with the partition of the soil, pervades the daily and domestic life of the nation, and modifies its whole aspect as pre- sented to the eye of the passing stranger. In England, the civil servants of the government are few, uncon- nected, and unobtrusive ; on the Continent, they are innumerable, omnipresent, and constitute a separate, organised, and powerful class. In England they confine themselves to absolutely necessary functions ; on the Continent they interfere in every transaction and event of life. In England, as a general rule, a man is only reminded of their existence by the annual visit of the tax-gatherer, unless, indeed, he has to appeal to the law, or has rendered himself amenable to it ; on the Continent, scarcely a day passes, scarcely an operation can be concluded, without coming into contact or colli- sion with one or other of their number. Many of the duties performed by officials on the Continent are here performed by elected parish or municipal functionaries, many are left to individual discretion, many more are not performed at all. With us, a man's free-will is limited only by his neighbour's free-will, or his neigh- bour's rights ; in France and Austria, it can be exercised only subject to government permission previously ob- tained. Restriction is the exception here, it is the rule there. Throughout the Continent, a citizen cannot engage in business, build a house, or take a journey, LAING ON PEASANT PEOPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 181 without leave ; and leave is only obtained through an established routine of tedious and annoying formalities. " In France, Switzerland, Belgium, and the constitutional states of Germany," says Mr. Laing, " people call themselves free, because they enjoy more or less of the forms of representa- tive government, and have more or less political liberty ; but they have no more civil liberty, and no more sense or feeling of it, than when they had no constitutions at all. They live, act, and have their being under a system of interference in every man's movements and doings, precisely as in Austria, Prussia, and states without any constitutions or political liberty. . . . The reality of civil liberty in the free use of time, industry, and capital, and in the free action of the individual, is unknown to the continental man. It is amusing to hear a German or a Frenchman discussing constitutional forms of government, universal suffrage, the qualifications of representatives, the equal rights of citizens; and, when he has settled all these points to his satisfaction, in a theory which proves very clearly that we enjoy no real liberty in England, and do not understand its first principles, to ask him to take a jaunt with you to Tours or Marseilles, Cologne or Leipsic. * Oh,' says he, ' I must run to the bureau for our passports. I must get them signed by the proper authorities, countersigned by other proper authorities, viseed by the proper authorities in every town we stop at on our journey, in order to prevent trouble with the police; and I must get this done before the bureaux are shut for the day, or we shall have to wait till to-morrow.' To be free and in- dependent in the sense that the common man in England is freo and independent, seems not to be a want in the mind of the continental man, even of fortune and education. The English traveller in France or Germany, who has gone himself to the Hotel de Ville or the passport office, to have his passport viseed and signed, instead of leaving it to his valet de place, and who has seen the crowd of tradesmen, country dealers, travelling artisans, and peasants from the neighbouring villages, who have been at the fair, standing for hours to have their papers ex- amined and signed, will return with a pretty distinct idea of the difference between political and civil freedom, between the mind n 3 182 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETOKSHir, ETC. spirit, character, and social state of the English, and of the con- tinental people." In order to make the operation of this system of bureaucratic supervision and interference intelligible to those among our readers who have never resided on the Continent, we will mention a few facts with regard to Austria, derived from personal knowledge. Under the old regime, if a man wished to build a house, he must first apply to the chief officer of the district, who re- quired him to furnish exact plans of the intended edi- fice. All his neighbours were then called upon to say whether the proposed building, or any portion of it, would trench upon their rights, comfort, or conveni- ence. If it would, the applicant was obliged to meet and neutralise their objections. The municipality were then summoned to examine whether they saw any objection to the erection. The plans were then sub- mitted to the official engineer of the district, who was desired to report especially on the points of the solidity of the construction and the danger from fire. After all these preliminaries were satisfactorily gone through (during which time the entire building season some- times slipped away, though there was seldom any needless or vexatious delay), the man was at liberty to proceed to action. But he was compelled to adhere strictly to his plan. If, either during the progress of the erection, or at any subsequent period, he wished to alter the construction of a fireplace, or the position of a chimney, the same formalities had to be repeated, and leave again asked and obtained. If he wished to esta- blish a manufactory, the same process had to be gone through ; and his business was carried on subject to the constant supervision of the customs or excise officers. In the case of a silk or cotton factory, all goods sent off in any direction were leaded, and travelled with a cer- tificate. It may well be conceived how vexatious and LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 183 onerous all this would be, besides being a direct ex- pense. In one establishment, this operation alone cost the proprietors 150. a-year of direct outlay, paid to the government officials, for stamps, leading, &c. ; very little of which found its way into the coffers of the state. Besides this, there is a constant inventory and taking of stock by the officials, which requires consider- able labour and book-keeping on the part of the esta- blishment, to make every such entry as is required. There are various other matters in which individual action is either interfered with or supervised. If you wish to add a kitchen, a bed-room, or a cow-shed to your house, you must again give notice and lodge plans. Your house is visited every six weeks to ascertain if there be any new risk from fire. The baptism and ino- culation of your children is watched over and insisted on. If you keep dogs, you must send them once a year to be examined, to see if they are in a healthy and safe condition. In short, everything proceeds upon the assumption that individuals are not to be trusted with the regulation of their own proceedings, or the super- intendence of their own safety, but that they are, in fact, minors and wards of the state. It might be ima- gined that all this would have been swept away, or at least greatly modified, by the revolution. But it is not so. Although the political condition of the empire has been changed to its foundations, and the courts of justice remodelled, all these details, and their old mode of action, remain ; and the Germans may well despair of seeing them changed in our days. There is no doubt that much of this system is now kept up for the benefit of the officials, rather than of the public, as we hinted in a former Paper ; and the difficulty of changing it will be proportionally great. A glance at the relative numbers of the public func- tionaries in England and on the Continent, will give us N 4 184 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. an idea of the extent of the difference. In Prussia we have no means of .ascertaining the truth. In Austria, with a population of thirty-six millions, they are stated at 120,000. In France, also, with a population of thirty-six millions, they are variously given by dif- ferent authorities, according as these take in only the regular and permanent paid officials, or add to these the unpaid, the occasionally paid, and the retired ; but the lowest estimate exceeds 350,000. We believe the fol- lowing will be nearly an exact list of the actual em- ployes under each department, who are paid in some shape or other, leaving out the pensioners and the municipal authorities. It is taken from a recent report to the Legislative Assembly : Ministry of the Interior - - 344,000 Justice - - - - - 11,100 Worship and Instruction - - 50,000 Public Works, Commerce, and Agriculture - 10,000 Foreign Affairs 632 War and Marine - - 43,633 Finance, Customs, and Excise - 76,000 535,365 Compare this enormous army of paid officials with the modest government provision in Great Britain, which has a population of thirty millions. In 1835, the whole civil service of the state was conducted by 23,578 persons ; and since that period, we believe, the number has rather diminished than increased. But this is not the only difference, nor perhaps the most important. In this country, the civil officers of government form no distinct class : they are merely individual members of the higher or of the middle orders. They are no more a separate and organised body than are merchants, manufacturers, or authors. LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 185 But on the Continent, the public functionaries are a trained, disciplined, and compact band, as completely an army as the naval or military force as regular a hierarchy, as distinguishable a class, as the clergy. They form, as Laing expresses it, the third element in the social system. They are subjected to a strict and established discipline, and are united by a strong esprit de corps. They stand apart from their fellow-citizens, and may generally be distinguished by their manners and their dress. " We should be rather surprised," observes Mr. Laing, " to hear our own beamptenstand our collectors, controllers, asses- sors, tide-waiters, gaugers considered as a high and influential class in our social body, or considered as a class at all, in any way distinct from the respectable middle class in which they are merged. In Germany it is different. . . . There the func- tionaries are under a semi-military discipline. In Bavaria, for example, the superior civil officer can place his inferior officer under arrest for neglect of duty or other offence against civil functionary discipline. In Wurtemburg the functionary cannot marry without leave from his superior. Voltaire somewhere says, that the art of government is to make two-thirds of a nation pay all they possibly can for the benefit of the other third. This is realised in Germany by the functionary system. The functionaries are not there for the benefit of the people, but the people for the benefit of the functionaries. All this machinery of functionarism, with its numerous ranks and gradations in every district, filled with a staff of clerks and expectants in every department looking for employment, ap- pointments, or promotions, was intended to be a new support to the throne in the new social state of the Continent a third class, in close connection Avith the people by their various official duties of interference in all public and private affairs, yet attached by their interests to the kingly power." Mr. Laing conceives the bureaucratic system to have been a recent and artificial creation of the conti- nental sovereigns to meet the hiatus produced in social life by the absorption or extinction of the feudal aris- 186 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. tocracy. But this is far from being the case. Though much extended of late, it is a product and a relic of the old despotic and paternal governments, when it was thought right, possible, and necessary for the central authority to direct and control the daily life and habi- tual actions of its subjects. Bureaucracy is less the antagonism of the aristocratic than of the municipal and self-governing element in society. It is no new prin- ciple. The different ideas which lie at the root of the two systems may be thus stated : A certain amount of wis- dom is required for the conduct of affairs, and the management of associated life. This requisite wisdom is supposed by functionarism to reside in the rulers, and by municipality to reside in the people. In Eng- land and America we assume that every man under- stands his own interest and can direct his own business better than any government can do it for him. In France and Germany they assume that the people are unknowing and incompetent, and will mismanage both their own private affairs and all associated business unless supervised and directed by the superior know- ledge and experience of a trained and educated class of rulers. The fundamental notion on which the super- structure of continental bureaucracy is built, is not only that the government is wiser than its subjects, but that the wisdom of its subjects is inadequate to the ordinary cases of individual or social action. Now, it is evident that this assumption has an alarm- ing tendency to realise and justify itself. The incapa- city which is presumed will sooner or later be created. A people that is always regarded as in a state of pupil- age, and kept in leading-strings, can never emerge into mature manhood. It is undoubtedly true that trained functionaries may often be able to manage each indi- vidual department better than municipal or parochial LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETOESHIP, ETC. 187 amateurs could do. It is probable that they may give useful advice, and that they will often avoid those multitudinous failures, those abortive experiments, and those monstrous and costly blunders, through which a self-governing people struggle onward to sensible and wise results at last ; but, in the first place, that invalu- able national education which is carried on during the pro- gress of these efforts, and the elimination of these errors, is entirely lost under the bureaucratic system; and, in the second place, the plans adopted not being wrought out by the people, but being forced upon them from without, will seldom either be well adapted to their wants or have so strong a hold on their affections. The incapacity for self-government which bureaucracy has engendered among the continental nations was strongly shown in 1848. They threw off their sovereigns, they proclaimed republics, or substituted other dynasties ; but they had no ability to organise new institutions, they could not emancipate themselves from the old army of civil func- tionaries, because they were unable to dispense with them; and thus, one by one, they gradually fell back under the old regime. Whereas in California, peopled by a sudden influx of emigrants, wild in their tempers, law- less in their habits, greedy for gold, thirsty for sudden opulence, without chiefs, without guidance, without control, the innate and ineffaceable genius of a race of men long accustomed to govern and to guide themselves has enabled them, with an almost miraculous rapidity, to educe order out of the chaos, and to establish some- thing like a civilised and legal community, without the smallest assistance or interference on the part of the central authority. In England, were our complicated government of king, lords, and commons, swept away to- morrow, we could soon re-organise the ruling hierarchy, perhaps on a better footing than before ; because every town, and almost every village, could afford us most of 188 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. the materials, and much of the experience, required. But in 1848 and 1849 all the collective wisdom of the bureaucratic countries of Germany and France, with a clear field before them, were able to strike out little that was sensible, and nothing that was new. We have said that a government will generally manage each particular in national affairs better than the people, more judiciously, at less expense, and with fewer blunders and false steps. But this is by no means universally the case. There is much truth in the following remarks of Mr. Laing. " In France, Germany, and all over the Continent, whatever may be the form of government, the spirit of self-government is equally dormant among the people. It is the state that does everything ; whether in form this state power be consti- tutional or autocratic. The state alone plans and executes all works of general or local interest, by its own functionaries, and independently of the judgment of those locally interested. Roads, canals, bridges, quays, and public buildings, are conse- quently constructed, not in a commensurate and due propor- tion in extent and expense to the want to be provided for, but upon a disproportionate scale, and with an excess of magnifi- cence and expenditure ridiculously in contrast with the impor- tance of the object and the actual or possible wants of the com- munity or locality. . . . This disproportion between cost and the advantage to the public is the great characteristic of public works in all states in which the people have no con- trol or voice in the management of their own affairs. It is the architectural style of despotism." A comparison of British and continental road-making brings to light another weak point of the bureaucratic as contrasted with the municipal system. England is covered with good roads in its most remote as in its most populous and central districts. France has a few magnificent highways branching out from her metro- polis; but the cross roads in the less frequented dis- tricts are scanty and infamously impassable. LA ING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 189 " It is curious," says Mr. Laing, " to see what, in a century and a half, has been the difference of the results in the two countries the difference between the centralisation of the funds, management, and execution of all roads, bridges, and public works in the hands of a state department, employing officials of the highest skill and scientific attainments, men regularly bred for the duties of this department, and the non- centralisation of this great and all-important national business, the leaving it to the public to plan, execute, and manage for them- selves, through their own trustees and undertakers, and under their own control, what in each county or locality was considered useful or necessary, without superintendence or interference by any government functionary. The question of centralisation or non-centralisation is here brought to the test of experience." In 1828, it was officially reported to the government, that the highways in France extended to 25,752 miles; of which one half were in a state of good repair, and one half in a state of dilapidation ; and that to complete and repair the main lines of communication, or royal roads, as they are termed, the sum of eight millions sterling would be required. In England, within an area of 58,335 square miles, we had (according to a parlia- mentary paper of 1848) 22,382 miles of good turnpike roads, besides parish roads not turnpike ; while France, with an area of 148,840 square miles, had only 10,716 miles of roads reported as good. " Under the English system of non-centralisation, and non-interference, one square mile in England contains on an average a greater number of good roads than any ten in France or Ger- many, and with more traffic on them." The history of railroads affords the most favourable view of the foreign as contrasted with the English mode of procedure. In this country, the waste, extravagance, and want of consideration displayed in these construc- tions has been monstrous and disgraceful. Vast sums of money have been lavished in parliamentary contest and litigation ; lines have been made at twice the necessary 190 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. cost ; they have been made where none were needed ; and two have been made where one would have sufficed. Altogether, it is probable that the same actual accom- modation to the public might, under a wise system, have been attained at half the cost. In France, though the government has not made the railways, it has leased to different companies, after the most elaborate and tedious investigations, the right of making them, and working them for a term of years, after which they are to become national property ; and will then be a most prolific source of revenue. In Belgium and Germany they are, we believe, state undertakings, and have been constructed at about one third their cost in England. In Russia, when railways became the order of the day, the Czar acted with a degree of sound sense which freer governments would do well to imitate. He sent a com- mission of experienced engineers to visit France, Bel- gium, England, and America, to examine the railway systems of these respective countries, and report which of them was best suited for adoption in Russia. They have reported in favour of the cheap and rough system of the United States. So far we are fain to admit that the superiority of sense and wisdom has lain on the side of the continental nations. But the result of the whole is, that the railway communication of England has been commenced and perfected within twenty years, while that of the Continent is still partial, scanty, incom- plete, and fragmentary ; and while in America the most municipal and uncentralised of countries it is as complete as in England, and has been as cheaply managed as in Belgium and Bavaria. Another consequence of the bureaucratic system is thus referred to by Mr. Laing: "The direct effects of functionarism have undoubtedly re- duced the people of Germany to a state of pupilage ; they are not accustomed to act for themselves. The indirect effects have LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETOESHIP, ETC. 191 deteriorated the character, and retarded the industry and pros- perity, of the German people as much as its direct working on the social body. The numbers of small functionaries provided for at the public expense, in the departments of the law, the finance, the Church, the educational affairs, the police, the passport establishment, and all the other branches of public business springing from the principle of the state's interference in all social and individual action, keep almost the whole youth of the country in a state of dependence upon favour for the appoint- ment in some public office, instead of depending upon industry and exertion in the useful arts. Every second or third young man in the middle class is an expectant of office. . . . He is sent to study at a university, in order to be qualified for office. After the bread-studies, as they are called in Germany, are gone through, the young man hangs on, often for many years, an idle expectant for office, and may possibly [this possibility, it is fair to state, is in time a certainty] get employment at last in a government bureau, at a salary which can only help to maintain him along with the little allowance w T hich his father can afford him. A great proportion of the small capitals gathered by tradesmen, shopkeepers, farmers, functionaries, and clergymen, and others in the middle station of life, is thus expended without being utilised. The same small capitals with us would be applied in extending the business in which they were ac- quired, or in placing the sons in some similar business. In Germany they are applied to supporting the sons at a uni- versity, half students, half vagrants, for many idle years ; and then supporting them in some inferior office in a state depart- ment, until, by seniority, favour, or merit, a higher step is attained, with a salary on which the functionary can subsist. The prospect of office in the vast functionary system turns away the industry and capital that might be employed with more advantage to the country and the individual in the humble paths of trade or reproductive labour." The effect of functionarism on education is especially deserving the study of those who, in this country, advocate the assumption by the state of the instruction of the nation. We are not blind to the benefits which would result from such a system of general education 192 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. as might be established in England if the views of this party were to prevail ; but no one who has watched the operation of the principle in Germany can be blind to its mischiefs and its dangers too. At present, the education of our people is, no doubt, deplorably defec- tive, though yearly becoming less so ; but, at least, it is varied, expansive, and improvable. Any one who has a peculiar view, a new theory, a bright idea, a promising amelioration to suggest, can put it in prac- tice, and work it out at once, without asking anybody's leave. If it succeeds, it is adopted with or without modifications by other schools and teachers ; if it fails, it is an error more exploded and disposed of. Systems the most opposite, but each, perhaps, adapted to par- ticular characters, aptitudes, or objects, are in simul- taneous operation side by side, and their results can be contrasted and compared. But in Germany the schools are all conducted by teachers, and controlled by functionaries, who are brought up at the same gymnasium, finished at the same university, trained in the same system, exercised in the same books, ini- tiated and hardened into the same ideas. Everything is uniform, and everything is stereotyped. If some original genius suggests an improvement on the old routine, he has all the inertia of corporate laziness and corporate prejudice against him ; his scheme is almost certain of rejection, rarely certain even of examination ; or if, by dint of talent and perseverance, he succeeds at length in inducing the heads of the department to adopt it, it is then enforced upon all the subordinates alike. It is either summarily rejected, or tyrannically introduced. " The functionarism of education," says Mr. Laing, " the centralisation, under a department of government, of all edu- cational establishments, from the university down to the ABC school ; the appointment of all teachers, inspectors, and pro- LAIXG ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 193 fessors by the state ; and the requirement that all who teach shall have gone through a certain course of education and examination, and the prohibition of all teaching and school- keeping by any other than those licensed and approved of eduactional functionaries has turned out a branch of the system dangerous to the state, and injurious to the character of the people. It has enabled a conclave of professors at the German universities to form the public mind on their own views and theories in politics, philosophy, and legislation, to indoctrinate all the youth of Germany all who are to be public functionaries, from the highest to the lowest all clergy, lawyers, teachers, schoolmasters, all of whom must pass through their hands as students in order to be qualified for office with the same theories and speculations in religion, philosophy, and political and social science. The youth come out of this pre- paratory formation of mind for real life imbued with the very same opinion on all subjects, slaves of the lamp of one genie. . . . This is imminently dangerous to the state, because public opinion is not formed by the public, but by a junta of professors, who have the formation of the public mind. The ministers and all under them are formed as students in one school, over which the government has no control, for the members of the government are themselves formed in this school ; yet, from want of educational freedom, no counteracting opinions can be formed in the public mind." The bureaucratic system presents an almost insu- perable obstacle to any improvement in the civil or political institutions of the continental nations. In order to hold any office in the vast army of function- aries, a university education is required. Every employe, every writer, every thinker, must have gone through precisely the same training, must have sat at the feet of the same professors, and received the elements of his education in schools formed on the same model. Hence, if the people desire a change, the functionary class, who comprise nearly the whole education of the people, render it impossible to establish it, except at the price of a revolution, in which, whatever else may VOL. i. o 194 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. be overthrown, functionarism still survives. If the sovereign wishes to effect any material administrative innovation, he finds himself nearly as powerless as his people, if the innovation involves any radical change of system. " He has, in fact, no class to choose his ministers from, even for the highest state offices, but men bred in the same principles and views as their predecessors, men originally burschen (students), after- wards employes. They are the only class in the social body from whom the sovereign can select qualified servants, no other class having the influence, interest, or knowledge necessary ; and this class is formed in the same school, and with the same political education. He may change men, but not measures or principles, in his cabinet." But though the class of functionaries offer a powerful element of stability and resistance to change, as far as ideas and systems and their own existence are con- cerned, they appear by no means so when dynasties and forms of government are in question. They con- stitute a species of administrative machinery which may be worked as well under one chief as under another; under the president of a republic as under an autocratic sovereign, under a foreign usurper as under a legitimate monarch. According to Mr. Laing, when Germany was occupied by the French under Napoleon, the established functionaries were found the ready and almost mechanical instruments of the most grievous exactions, which, without their organisation, French commissioners could scarcely have carried through. Only a few of the heads of departments had to be removed, and the rest of the machinery worked as effectively as ever. " This beamptenstand" says our author, " are ever ready to support any hero of the hour who has the good fortune to get hold of the reins of government at the point at which they are cen- LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 195 tralised. It is an element in the social state as dan- gerous to the sovereign as it is oppressive and burden- some to the people. Louis Philippe was deposed and set aside as easily as any chef -de-bureau. He was but a chef-de-bureau to his people, who knew only func- tionaries of one bureau or another as the leading class, and to his functionaries, who knew no other motive of action than promotion in their several departments by subserviency to their immediate chiefs." Neither can the functionary class act the part of an aristocracy, in protecting the rights and freedom of the people against the encroachments of the crown. Their predominant idea is, necessarily, obedience to their immediate superiors; and this through every grade. They must execute the orders they receive. The slightest opposition or demur is punishable by removal, and removal is generally ruin. They are servants of the crown, and must obey the will and pleasure of their master. In one country only, so far as we know, where the bureaucratic system is established, has this evil been avoided. " In Norway, a functionary once appointed, has, by the constitution, a property, a vested right, in his office. He cannot be dismissed without free trial, nor removed from one locality to another without his own consent ; his income cannot be diminished, nor his duties increased without adequate com- pensation ; he cannot be passed over in his turn for promotion without due cause assigned. In all these rights he has a court to appeal to, which is entirely independent of the executive, the legislature, or the department in which he serves. . . . The system works well in the limited circle of Norwegian affairs. We see functionaries speaking, voting, writing, and taking a leading place in opposition to or in favour of the measures of government, as freely as other people ; and, during the reign of Bernadotte, which was a perpetual struggle to undermine or overturn the constitution, and establish auto- cracy, this independent body of functionaries was the third 196 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. clement between the kingly power and the population of peasant proprietors, keeping both in their right constitutional places." From what we have said, it is perfectly evident that republicanism and functionarism are incompatible ex- istences ; they are based on irreconcilably opposite and contradictory assumptions. The one assumes that the people can govern themselves, the other that they cannot ; the one supposes the people to be wiser than their rulers, the other supposes the rulers to be wiser than the people ; the one implies that each individual will manage his own affairs, and look after his own safety, better than any one else can do it for him, and that citizens are capable of uniting to do whatever must be done in concert, the other implies the reverse of all this. Now, either assumption may be true, or one may be true of one nation, and the other of another nation. But the two cannot be true at the same time, and of the same people. The ablest chapter in Mr. Laing's book, is that which treats of the Prussian military system and its social consequences, as contrasted with that prevalent in this country. Since the abolition of the feudal system, and the establishment of standing armies, three different modes of recruiting the military force have been adopted in Western Europe; and the respective operation of them will well repay a careful study. The system of voluntary enlistment is that adopted in England. The entrapping plan is now abandoned ; at least, each raw recruit is, as soon as he declares his desire to become a soldier, taken before a magistrate, who questions him as to his reasons, and explains to him the conditions of the service, and discharges him if he wishes to rescind his engagement ; and it is not till these formalities have been gone through that the enlistment is complete. The soldier may enlist for fourteen or twenty-one years, LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 197 or for any indefinite term ; but, generally speaking, when once a soldier, he is a soldier for life, or for all the active and efficient part of it. If he retires after a sufficient length of service, he is allowed a pension ; if wounded or unfit for active duty, he is pensioned when- ever he is discharged. This system has many obvious advantages: it relieves the great mass of the citizens from all military duties, and leaves them free to follow pacific and industrial occupations without injurious in- terruption ; and it secures in the soldier the highest possible degree of efficiency as a military instrument. It has another signal advantage : in every country there are a number of unquiet spirits, men of turbulent tempers, unruly passions, idle and dissipated habits, who, if left at large, would be a constant source of trouble and disturbance to the community, and many of whom would go to augment the criminal population ; but who, when drafted in the army where their vio- lent dispositions find, if we may say so, a legitimate vent and subjected to that severe discipline which alone is adequate to subdue and utilise their wilder qualities, become really serviceable members of society, which they could not be made in any other line, or under any other system. An army composed, as ours mainly is, of such ingredients, must evidently require a far stricter training, and a far sterner control, than one which is selected indiscriminately from all classes and all characters the rich and the poor, the educated and the uneducated, the gentle, the cruel, and the stupid. And this is the reply to those who propose to assimilate our military discipline to that of the Continent : the two cases have no parallelism whatever. The second plan is that of conscription, which prevails in France and Austria, where every year the required number of recruits are drawn by lot from the young men of suitable age and of every rank. They may, if o 3 198 LAING ON PEASANT PKOPKIETOKSHIP, ETC. they wish and are able, pay for a substitute. These recruits serve in the ranks of the standing army for seven years, when, unless they wish to remain, they are discharged, and are re-absorbed into the general com- munity, or lie, an unemployed, dangerous, and burden- some class, upon it. The Prussian system Mr. Laing thus explains : There is a small permanent standing army, which is composed of those officers and men who have embraced the mili- tary profession, and which forms the nucleus of the vast military force of the country, and its training-school. " Every male, without exception, in the whole population, is bound to serve three years, between his twentieth and twenty- fifth years, as a private in the ranks of a regiment of the line. Property, rank, occupation, business, give no claim to exemp- tion; and no substitutes or remplacants are admitted, as in the French conscription system. Every man must serve as a private in the regiments of the line, whatever be his social position. . . . After three years' service in the line, the young man is turned over to his district landwehr regiment of the ersten aufgebot, or, as we should call it, first for service. This division of the landwehr force is considered the army proper ; it is liable, like the standing army, to serve in or out of the country ; but in time of peace, to save expense, it is only embodied for manoeuvre and exercise for a few weeks yearly. Its staff only is in constant pay. The division of the second aufgebot consists of all who have served their three years in the line and their two years in the first division of the landwehr, and are under forty years of age. These are considered trained soldiers, and men settled in peaceful occupations; and are, therefore, in time of peace, only assembled in small divisions, and in their own localities, for a few days' exercise each year. The landsturm consists of all not in the service, or discharged from it by the completion of their term of service in the other divisions ; and it is mustered and organised as well as the other divisions of the landwehr force. The principle of the system is, that every Prussian subject, without exception, shall pass through a military training of three years in the ranks of a LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 199 regiment of the line, and shall then be available during his whole life as a trained soldier in one or other of the divisions of the landwehr force, according to his age and fitness for military duty. The perfection of all the arrangements of this vast and complicated system, and the general fairness, im- partiality, and economy with which it is worked, must raise the admiration of every traveller. But is it a good military system ? Is it a good social system ? " The first consideration that strikes us is, that this system is by no means so economical as it appears at first sight. It is true you have an available trained force of at least 500,000 men, of which number little more than one-fifth are in receipt of regular pay. In 1835, however, the budget of the Prussian ministry-at- war exceeded 3,500,000^., while all the other state ex- penses (exclusive of the debt) did not reach 2,900,000/. In the same year, the army and ordnance departments of Great Britain cost 7,500,000/., out of a total of 20,000,000/. This does not look like great economy in the Prussian system. But this is very far from being the whole cost of it to the country, as is thus admirably explained by Mr. Laing : " The financial resources of every country depend upon the productive industry of the people, out of which alone taxes pro- ceed ; and if the productive industry of the people be diminished by three years of their time and labour being taken up in military service, by so much are the means of the state di- minished. The productive as well as the military time of a man's life begins at twenty and ends about fifty years of age. These thirty years are his capital stock ; and whatever he con- tributes to the finances of the state, directly or indirectly, must be earned within these thirty years. If one-tenth of this time be taken from him, and consumed in military service, he is so much the poorer, and the state is so much the poorer. The indirect loss to both is probably as great as the direct loss ; for a man cannot turn at once from the habits of a military life to the habits of steady industry, and the sedentary occupations of civil life. If he has gone through an apprenticeship, and learned o 4 200 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. a trade, before beginning his three years' service in a regiment, he must almost have to learn it over again, after three years' disuse of his working tools and working habits. He can never become an expert, quick workman in any handicraft. But, besides his three years of continuous service at the age most im- portant to form the habits of the working man, his time is broken in upon, and his industry deranged, every year by his six or eight weeks' military service in his landwehr regiment. One-sixth, probably, of his year is consumed before he can return to his working habits.* All this is a dead loss to the state as well as to the individual. It diminishes the capacity of the aggregate body of individuals the nation to furnish the taxes necessary to move the numbers embodied and kept up as a landwehr in any military operation." It is not easy to say how much of the inferiority of the continental to the English workman, in almost every department, is to be attributed to this mischievous in- terruption of his working education and his industrial habits. Secondly. It is quite certain that in everything that regards the perfection of a military force, the Prussian system is very inferior to the English. It can never make either as perfect an individual soldier, nor as effective and wieldy an entire army. There may be more national enthusiasm ; there may be a purer and higher moral tone ; there may be a superior standard of education ; there may be greater sympathy with the citizen, and an intense love of freedom, but there cannot be the same esprit de corps, not the same thorough dis- cipline and subordination, nor the same perfect forma- tion of soldierly ideas and habits. " Three years' continuous service in the ranks of a regiment may, no doubt, be quite sufficient to train the soldier in all that * When the landwehr was called out in the month of November, the transactions of one large commercial house in Rhenish Prussia were entirely and suddenly suspended, in consequence of all the clerks having been summoned to join their regiments. LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 201 regards drill, manoeuvre, appearance, and what may be called the physical attainments; but what is of more importance, the morale of the soldier, his habits, mind, and character, if formed, cannot be kept up in civil life after his three years of service expire. The soul and spirit of military life, the tie between the soldier and officer, the knowledge of and confidence in each other, the tie of comradeship between soldier and soldier ? the ties of attachment to the corps, its character, its honour, its colours, cannot be formed, or, if formed, cannot be kept up, by six weeks' parade and review exercise. The officers (who be- long of necessity to the permanent army) become a distinct class, having no interest in the men of whom they lose sight after three years' service ; and their regard and partiality naturally fall on the enlisted soldiers of their regiments who are always under their command." Then, again, discipline inevitably suffers, as appeared more than once in 1848, from this false relative position of officers and men the latter often being of the higher social rank. " In such a military body as the landwehr, with all the people of social importance, education, and respectability in the ranks, and the officers, and non-commissioned officers especially, inferior in all those respects to the men they command, the sub- ordination, the prompt, willing, blind obedience to even the inferior officers, which is the cement that holds together the units of a military force, cannot be relied on. It is not in human nature that the man of fortune, social importance, and edu- cation, the professional man, the merchant, the manufacturer, should look up to as his superior and implicitly obey, both on parade and in barracks, his corporal or sergeant, who may have been his own menial servant, journeyman, or labourer; or who, though a good drill-officer, may be an indifferent member of civil society. The autocratic government may place men of such incongruous stations and culture in a row, and call them an army, but it cannot amalgamate them into an efficient body for ordinary warfare. A war of enthusiasm, indeed, such as that of 1813 1814, may fuse such discordant materials into one mass so long as the heat is kept up. But wars of enthusiasm are among the rarest in history; and it 202 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. is discipline, stern discipline, that is alone worth anything when enthusiasm is wanting." The Prussian government seem to have perceived some of these objections, and have done their best to obviate them by a general education, which considerably diminishes the distance and the contrast between dif- ferent ranks, and also by the care it has taken to secure that the chief officers shall be chosen exclusively from the noble class, by requiring from them a scientific edu- cation such as few but nobles can afford ; but still the evil exists and is felt. A third weighty objection to the landwehr system is thus put by Mr. Laing, though we think he somewhat unfairly omits to state how much this is obviated, or rather mitigated, by the diffusion of education through the whole people, and through the ranks of the army also. " The demoralisation of the youth of a nation by three years' service in a regiment of the line is one of the greatest evils of the system. Soldiers are not necessarily immoral men ; but the enlisted soldier engaged for life, or for a long term of years, is generally a man whose character and conduct have ejected him from the ordinary occupations of civil life. His habits of steady application and industry are gone. He is demoralised in all that makes the useful, quiet, respectable citizen. He is too often a man given to debauchery and excess, when it does not interfere with his military duty. Think of a father or mother, in some country village, who have brought up a son in moral and religious habits, in innocence of evil, and in ideas suitable to their station and to the humble trade he is to live by, being compelled to send him for three years, at his outset in life, to join a regiment of the line in a large dissipated city like Berlin or Cologne, to associate with such companions! The moral tyranny of the system exceeds what was ever exercised before by any European government, and may well excuse the dis- content of the Prussian subjects." A fourth objection yet remains, which applies equally LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 203 to the conscription and the landwehr system to any system, in fact, which sends back the soldier, after a limited or brief period of service, to mix and be ab- sorbed into the rest of the community. His habits and character are formed by his military career irrevo- cably formed if he has seen war, or served for seven years. He brings back habits and ideas wholly un- suited to the pacific and industrial occupations of civil life. He brings back the manners, the language, the desires of the garrison or the camp, and helps to diffuse these among his fellow-citizens, till the whole nation is at length leavened with the noxious influence. It is true that he also brings with him habits of order, neatness, and regularity, which are serviceable and compensating qualities ; but carries back with him, likewise, as the most formidable enemy to the peace and well being of society, warlike ambition, readiness in organisation, and military skill. The country is overrun with hundreds of thousands of men admirably trained " for treasons, stratagems, and wiles," fit to bear their part in any civil war, fully competent to drill, discipline, and lead their fellows, and, in case of tumult, riot, or insurrec- tion, able to meet the forces of the government and the friends of order on equal terms. An insurrection in England is put down by the military (in those rare cases where the civil authorities are unable to cope with it) easily, promptly, and almost without bloodshed or resistance. An emeute in Paris or Berlin becomes a bloody battle, because the malcontents are either them- selves disbanded soldiers, or find thousands who are, to organise and lead them. On the Continent, an insur- rection soon swells and degenerates into a civil war. We cannot have forgotten the commentary on this truth which was afforded by the sanguinary contest which deluged the streets of Paris in June, 1848 (and, 204 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. indeed, by almost every tumult which has ever taken place in France), as well as by the scenes in Berlin two years ago. It is no doubt true that this universal military training will enable a people the more effec- tively to resist despotic encroachments on the part of their rulers, as well as legal restraint, and justifiable authority ; but this object, as the experience of England shows, may be attained in a safer and a wiser way ; and it is not easy to see how any government can be safe under the continental systems, until sound know- ledge, sober views, and love of peace and order shall be as widely diffused among the people as military organi- sation. As Mr. Laing justly remarks, " Military organisation, extended beyond a class, and spread over the whole population, has ended, as it deserved to end, in making them dangerous subjects without making them good soldiers. The people, trained to be an army, are a people with wrongs to redress, and in a position of discipline and armed antagonism to their autocratic governments. The land- wehr system is, in reality, a step backwards both in policy and civilisation, replacing society in the nineteenth century on the ground on which it stood in the middle ages. . . . Where the parliament holds the purse [and where the Mutiny Bill is an annual enactment], as in our constitution, the danger of a sovereign or military commander using the standing army as a tool for the subversion of liberty is altogether visionary. We are two centuries past such a possibility. The advantages of a standing army, as compared with a landwehr, are obvious ; it sets free other classes of society from military services. Stand- ing armies, instead of the personal military service of the whole able-bodied male population, are, in fact, one of the great steps in the progress of modern civilisation." In conclusion, a careful examination of the three great points in which the social structure of continental nations differs from our own, does not incline us to take a leaf out of their book. We do not find in their system any permanent guarantee from the evils which LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. 205 afflict us here ; while we see in it actual disadvantages from which we are exempt, and prospective perils which we have not to fear. In political liberty and in personal freedom, we are already far before them ; and as to the diffusion of material well-being, in which their supe- riority seems at first sight most manifest and decided, we see in their system the certain elements of deteriora- tion, and in ours, the possible elements of improvement and emancipation. We are not insensible to the at- tractiveness of many points in the structure of conti- nental society ; but we cannot shut our eyes to the fact, that this attractiveness belongs only to its state of transition ; and in the goal to which it is tending, we can see no attractions for a mind alive to the capabi- lities, and ambitious for the destiny, of the race. We are not blind to the social suffering which lies around us in our own land, to its wide-spread moral maladies, to its imminent and deadly perils. But we think that those miseries will be most surely cured, and those dangers most surely averted not by the imitation of our neighbours, not by the adoption of a remedy wholly unsuited to our constitution, and containing within it the certain seeds of a different and a worse disease but by following out, without fear and without reserve, to their full legitimate results, those principles of justice and freedom which hitherto we have obeyed with only a divided allegiance and a doubting mind ; by adhering unswervingly to those laws of political and economic science, of which every succeeding year, every renewed investigation, every fresh experiment, demonstrates the unassailable stability and the unimpeachable wisdom, but to which sinister interests and disloyal misgivings have, till now, prevented us from allowing fair play. It is in the persistence, not in the rescinding, of her course of progress in the development of her own genius, not in the adoption of a foreign and unharmo- 206 LAING ON PEASANT PROPRIETORSHIP, ETC. nising model, that England must look for safety and amelioration. She has much to do, and more to undo. She has many false steps to retrace, many unjust laws to repeal : but it is in the removal of old restrictions, not in the imposition of new ones, in the invigoration of the municipal, not in the adoption of the centralising, principle, that her prosperity and progress must be sought. Without seeking aid from any foreign inter- mixture, she has within her own system the means and materials of rescue from the errors of the past, by prompt and unflincing loyalty to those eternal prin- ciples of justice and freedom, which work ill only when they work in chains, which seem questionable only when seen in fragments or in disguise, which never lead backwards and never lead astray, except when followed partially, timidly, and with a halting and unstable mind. Six or eight years ago, when Mr. Laing published his first " Notes of a Traveller," he was a zealous admirer of much of the continental system, which he now, after a second visit, and on mature consideration, has learned to condemn. Let us hear the conclusions of his ripened understanding. " The traveller who desires to form a sound opinion of the social condition of the continental people should visit the Conti- nent repeatedly, and at various points. His first impressions will require revision ; for they are generally magnified and em- bellished by novelty, or perhaps distorted by ignorance and pre- judice. . . . The three new elements which have entered into, and become predominant in, the social system of the Continent since the French Revolution viz., the diffusion of landed pro- perty, functionarism, and the landwehr institution have not certainly as yet promoted the well-being, liberty, peace, and good government of the continental people. The tendency at the present day of these new social elements is to a retro- gression of society in civilisation, and not to an advance." 207 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY.* PERHAPS the two features which have most distin- guished the public inind of Britain during the last few years are, a quick perception and conscientious sense of our social evils, and an entire want of system and philosophy in our mode of treating and regarding them. Till the continental convulsions of the last twelve months threw for the time all other matters into the shade, the public attention seemed to be fixing itself upon the miseries and maladies of our population with an almost morbid intensity ; and with an impatience of endurance, and a craving for action, as alarming to the philosopher as it was encouraging and consolatory to the mere phi- lanthropist. Most of the topics which had formerly absorbed the interest of the nation were settled and forgotten. The agitating questions of foreign policy, parliamentary reform, and religious toleration, were well nigh disposed of; and the vast field of colonial policy which for some years to come will probably occupy the front rank in popular and parliamentary interest, had as yet scarcely been opened. No wonder, therefore, that the regular campaigns of party warfare, from the absence of those great subjects which had divested them of their littleness, were beginning to be trite and wearisome. In the pause from conflicts, both internal and external, * From the " Edinburgh Review." 1. Political and Social Economy, its practical Applications. (From " Chambers's Instructive and Entertaining Library.") By JOHN HILL BURTON. Edinburgh: 1849. 2. Evils of England, Social and Economical. By A LONDON PHYSICIAN. London: 1849. 3. Tactics for the Times. By J. C. SYMONS. London : 1849. 208 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. which ensued, people had leisure to look at home, and to inquire into their domestic position. And what they saw might well stagger and appal them. Meanwhile, benevolent individuals had long been busy in examin- ing and exposing those particular grievances or suffer- ings which had severally attracted their imagination or their pity. Each philanthropist had his pet evil. Some mused and discoursed on that congeries of undi- gested symptoms which they termed " The Condition- of-England Question." Others, less comprehensive in their sympathy, or less ambitious in their zeal, were content to divide the labours of social reformation. One man considered the factory population as his pecu- liar charge. Another took coal mines under his espe- cial protection. A third organised a crusade against drunkenness ; a fourth occupied himself with the sta- tistics of education ; a fifth affected juvenile criminals ; a sixth paupers ; a seventh looked after slaves ; an eighth threw his aegis over the natives in remote colonies ; till the unfortunate agricultural peasants were the only portion of our population that seemed neglected and forgotten. No " Protector of the Aborigines " sprung up for them : For those on whom this office should naturally have devolved, were busy in other fields. Two great benefits have resulted from this wide-spread and irregular activity. In the first place, we have col- lected an invaluable mass of information on the condition, moral and physical, of nearly every branch of the poorer classes, to guide us in our efforts for their amelioration ; and, secondly, we have at last penetrated the public mind with the sincere conviction that these matters possess for us a personal, paramount, and urgent interest with which no question of foreign policy or party struggle can for a moment vie. The task of restoring health and soundness to a society so fearfully diseased as ours unquestionably is, is on all hands acknowledged UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 209 to be at once the noblest, and the most imperative, to which citizens or statesmen can now direct their energies. But the mass of dismal and disheartening facts which these investigations have brought to light, has a strong tendency to disseminate an impression at once mis- chievous and untrue. We hear it frequently assumed, that these evils are novel and increasing; that our social condition is fast degenerating; that we are na- tionally on the brink of a precipice, from which time is scarcely left us to draw back. Now, that this impression is not only untrue, but the very reverse of truth, is unquestionable, to all who have either read history in detail or who have been long actively engaged in the labours of philanthropy to all, in fact, but those whose attention to these subjects has been of recent date, and whose knowledge of the evil has therefore burst upon them suddenly. Those who have been longest, most profoundly and practically conversant with " the wounds and bruises and putrefying sores" of the body politic who have been well aware that, " from the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness therein" are the last to be dissatisfied with our progress hitherto, or to despair of our progress in future. It is not Arkwright or the elder Peel who would quarrel with the present discipline and ventilation of our fac- tories. It is not Howard or Mrs. Fry who would now be horror-struck at the condition of our prisons ; nor Romilly or Mackintosh who would complain of the atrocities and enormities of our actual criminal juris- prudence. Mr. Macaulay's admirable remarks in the third chapter of his History, on comparisons of this kind so often loosely made to our disadvantage, deserve the deep consideration of those who have been startled either into terror or despondency by the pictures of vice and wretchedness which recent inquiries have laid bare. VOL. i. p 210 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. " The more carefully," says he, " we examine the his- tory of the past, the more reason we shall find to dissent from those who imagine that our age has been fruitful of new social evils. The truth is, that the evils are, with scarcely an exception, old. That which is new, is the intelligence which discerns and the humanity which remedies them. The more we study the annals of the past, the more shall we rejoice that we live in a merciful age, in an age in which cruelty is abhorred, and in which pain, even when deserved, is inflicted reluctantly, and from a sense of duty. Every class doubtless has gained greatly by this great moral change : but the class which has gained most is the poorest, the most dependent, and the most defenceless. " The general effect of the evidence seems hardly to admit of doubt. Yet, in spite of evidence, many will still image to themselves the England of the Stuarts as a more pleasant country than the England in which we live. It may at first sight seem strange that society, while ^constantly moving forward with eager speed, should be constantly looking back with tender regret. But these two propensities, inconsistent as they may appear, can easily be resolved into the same principle. Both spring from our impatience of the state in which we actually are. That impatience, while it stimulates us to surpass preceding generations, disposes us to overrate their happiness. It is, in some sense, unreasonable and ungrateful in us to be constantly discontented with a condition which is constantly improving. But, in truth there is constant improvement, precisely because there is constant discontent. If we were perfectly satisfied with the present, we should cease to labour, to contrive, and to save with a view to the future. And it is natural that, being dissatisfied with the present, we should form a two favourable estimate of the past. " In truth we are under a deception similar to that UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 211 which misleads the traveller in the Arabian desert. Beneath the caravan all is dry and bare; but far in advance, and far in the rear, is the semblance of refresh- ing waters. The pilgrims hasten forward, and find nothing but sand, where, an hour before, they had seen a lake. They turn their eyes and see a lake where, an hour before, they were toiling through sand. A similar illusion seems to haunt nations through every stage of the long progress from poverty and barbarism to the highest degrees of opulence and civilisation. But if we resolutely chase the mirage backward, we shall find it recede before us into the regions of fabulous antiquity. It is now the fashion to place the golden age of England in times when noblemen were destitute of comforts, the want of which would be intolerable to a modern footman, when farmers and shopkeepers breakfasted on loaves the very sight of which would raise a riot in a modern workhouse, when men died faster in the purest country air than they now die in the most pestilential lanes in our towns, and when men died faster in the lanes of our towns than they now die on the coast of Guiana. We, too, shall in our turn be outstripped, and in our turn be envied. It may well be, in the twentieth century, that the peasant of Dorsetshire may think himself miserably paid with fifteen shillings a week ; that the carpenter at Greenwich may receive ten shillings a day ; that labour- ing men may be as little used to dine without meat as they now are to eat rye bread ; that sanitary police and medical discoveries may have added several more years to the average length of human life ; that numerous comforts and luxuries which are now unknown, or con- fined to a few, may be within the reach of every diligent and thrifty working man. And yet it may then be the mode to assert that the increase of wealth and the pro- gress of science have benefited the few at the expense of the many ; and to talk of the reign of Queen Victoria as p 2 212 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. the time when England was truly merry England, when all classes were bound together by brotherly sympathy, when the rich did not grind the faces of the poor, and when the poor did not envy the splendour of the rich." Vol. i. p. 426. But the impression of which we speak is not only in- correct ; it is noxious, as all incorrect conceptions are. It was a profound remark of Augustus Schlegel's, " The illusion of a past golden age is one of the greatest hindrances to the approach of the golden age that should come. If the golden age is past, it was not genuine." The idea that we are degenerating that our national evils and our social maladies are increasing upon us can scarcely fail to have a paralysing influ- ence upon our energies. If the exertions of the last generation which, though often misdirected, were sincere, indefatigable, and sometimes almost gigantic- failed to mitigate the intensity, or arrest the progress, of these ills, there is reason enough to drive the boldest among us to despair. "What are we, that we should hope to succeed where predecessors, at least as able, as strenuous, as benevolent as ourselves, have utterly and signally failed! But the truth is, that the efforts of these our predecessors were crowned with an appropriate measure of success. So have been our own. And it is only by cherishing this faith, that we can effectually nerve ourselves for the further toils and struggles of our continued war with evil. But this incorrect impression as to the remoter past is injurious in another way. It misdirects our efforts. It disposes us to try back. If our ancestors were really happier, wiser, more successful than we, if the condi- tion of the people were really more satisfactory in those days than in these, there would be a powerful argu- ment for attempting to retrace our steps, and striving to replace society in the position it occupied in generations UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 213 past. A double blunder, this : for not only would the operation prove an impossible one but, if achieved, would be only an aggravation of our difficulties. As long as these ideas are confined to secluded and specu- lative thinkers, they produce merely feeble poetry and faulty philosophy. When, however, as in our days, they penetrate the arena of actual statesmanship, and endeavour to force their way into life and action, they not only divert attention from a sounder channel, but lead to practical mistakes of the worst kind. The crude and boyish theories, the vague and declamatory lan- guage, of the Young England section of our legislators, have given us the measure at once of the wild impracti- cability and unsoundness of their views, and of the mischievous confusion which might be anticipated if they were to take strong hold of the national mind. The error of these men is, that they carry the concep- tions of poetry into the unsuitable atmosphere of public life. Policy, with them, is not a matter of science, but of taste ; and their opinions are selected according as they harmonise with fancy, not as they square with fact. They dream of a beautiful past which had no existence and would compel the actual present into conformity with that unreal and shadowy vision. Moreover, this erroneous notion of our deterioration has a further mischievous operation, it puts us in a hurry. It generates the impression that there is no time to be lost ; that evils are increasing upon us with such frightful rapidity that, if we do not act at once, action will come too late ; that there is no space nor leisure for deliberation, for experiment, for caution. To speak colloquially, the public gets into a fuss. We act hastily, and therefore we act wrong.* In states- manship, more than in any other branch of practical * Lord Melbourne used to say that the only thing that thoroughly alarmed him was, to hear people say, " Something must be done." v 3 214 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. science, is the most patient and profound deliberation needed ; for in none is a false step so difficult to be retraced; in none are its consequences so ramified, so far reaching, and so irreparable. It is, therefore, our firm belief that our present, with all its gloomy shadows and its difficult enigmas, is yet a marked improvement on the past ; and that one of the surest signs and proofs of this, is our sensitiveness to, and our impatience under, those disorders and distresses which our ancestors either did not observe, or acquiesced in as normal, unavoidable, or unimportant. And it is with a profound conviction that our progress hitherto has been, on the whole, satisfactory, and that it depends only on ourselves to make our future advance far more rapid, steady, and illimitable, that we venture to point out a few of the mistakes which have rendered many of our efforts less fruitful of good than they might appear to have deserved. Zealous, energetic, indefatigable benevolence is extant in overflowing abundance. It needs only the guidance of sound principle to produce effects of which statesmen and philanthropists scarcely yet dare to dream. The great difficulty is happily got over already. Our attention is fully awakened on the subject; our sym- pathies are almost nervously alive ; our ears are eagerly open to any suggestions even from the most incapable and inexperienced; for both our fears and our humanity are effectually alarmed. But unfortunately, though an eminently humane, we are not in general a philosophic, nor a systematic people. In this respect we and our neighbours the French are at the opposite poles of the intellectual world. Their minds are scientific and mathematical to a fault ; ours are practical and empiric to a fault. They are for ever recurring to first principles on the most trivial occasions; we eschew all reference to such, UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 215 even in the most momentous matters, with a shrinking 7 O instinct which partakes of conscious incapacity. In the common arrangements of their household or their family, in the conduct of the most paltry cases in their courts of law, in the formation or amendment of their constitutions, the French proceed by line and square, to a degree which appears to an Englishman to savour both of the pedant and the schoolboy. They love to have everything in seipso totus, teres, atque rotundus. In all discussions upon social questions the Frenchman starts from the " laws of nature " and the " rights of man." The Englishman seldom goes further back than the precedents which his own history can furnish him. He is afraid to adopt the most valuable and incontest- able improvement unless he can find some warrant for it in the past ; and the surest way of inducing him to go forward, is to persuade him that he is going back- ward. The French commence their national ameliora- tions ab initio, and upon principle ; we attack our social maladies zealously indeed, but singly and empirically, not scientifically. We dread all systematic steps ; we mistrust everything that proceeds upon, or seems to confirm, a theory. We are not only satisfied with, but actually partial to, patchwork ; and are for ever putting a new piece into an old garment. Of two extremes this is unquestionably the safest and the best : but still it is an extreme, and therefore an error. We attack each evil as it arises, or rather as it first strikes our view, as if it stood single and isolated, without reference either to its causes or its context. We seldom dream of tracing back, as we easily might do, a host of social mischiefs to one common source or seed, and then, by removing that, leave the manifold consequences to die out for want of nourishment. The plan we adopt is the idle, shallow, and wasteful proceeding of cutting off each head of the ever-growing hydra as it appears. p 4 216 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. Hence the voluminous, confused, and contradictory character of much of our remedial legislation. We have ten edicts where one would have sufficed ; we have many that are inconsistent with each other, and many that aggravate the virulence, while they suppress or vary the symptoms, of the disease. The particular tendency to error apparent in the prevalent social philosophy of the day, to which we wish to direct special attention, lies in the unsound, ex- aggerated, and somewhat maudlin tenderness with which it is now the fashion to regard the criminal and the pauper. This feeling is in itself so amiable, so Christian (on a superficial glance at least), and has so much of justice and rectitude for its foundation, that not only has it a natural aptitude to degenerate into excess, but we are disposed to regard the excess itself as a virtue, and are therefore little likely to guard against it. Self- ishness is so instinctively felt to be the besetting sin, "the epidemic malady of human nature" that it is peculiarly difficult to persuade ourselves that we can ever be acting wrong when we know that we are acting unselfishly. And gentleness to the errors, and com- passion towards the sufferings of others, are such adorning excellences in the individual, and in domestic life, that we listen with impatience and mistrust to the moralist, who would teach us that these sentiments, when carried into public affairs, and systematised in legislation, may often become eminently mischievous, and therefore highly culpable. Yet it is unquestionable that, though individuals may allow charity and com- passion to guide them without going very far astray, yet the state, if it wishes to maintain a straight and safe career, must act upon principles as stern, as steady, and as comprehensive as those of Nature herself. And while, with pardonable pride and self-gratulation, we contrast the prying and impatient humanity of the UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 217 present day, with the hard and brutal indifference which characterised a former age, we are prone to forget, or to ignore, how much of selfish tenderness to our own feel- ings may lurk in this morbid and pampered sensitive- ness to the inevitable or the medicinal wretchedness of those around us. " It is pleasing to reflect," says Mr. Macaulay (vol. i. p. 424.), " that the public mind of England has softened while it has ripened ; and that we have, -in the course of ages, become not only a wiser, but also a kinder, people. There is scarcely a page of the history or lighter literature of the seventeenth century which does not contain some proof that our ancestors were less humane than their posterity. The discipline of work- shops, of schools, of private families, though not more efficient than at present, was infinitely harsher. Masters, well born and bred, were in the habit of beating their servants. Pedagogues knew no way of imparting knowledge but by beating their pupils. Husbands, of decent station, were not ashamed to beat their wives. The implacability of hostile factions was such as we can scarcely conceive. Whigs were disposed to murmur, because Stafford was suffered to die without seeing his bowels burned before his face. Tories reviled and in- sulted Russell, as his coach passed from the Tower to the scaffold, in Lincoln's Inn Fields. As little mercy was shown by the populace to sufferers of a humbler rank. If an offender was put in the pillory, it was well if he escaped with life, from the shower of brickbats and paving stones. If he was tied to the cart's tail, the crowd pressed round him, imploring the hangman to give it the fellow well, and make him howl. Gentlemen arranged parties of pleasure to Bridewell on Court days, for the purpose of seeing the wretched women who beat hemp there whipped. A man pressed to death for re- fusing to plead, a woman burned for coining, excited 218 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. less sympathy than is now felt for a galled horse, or an overdriven ox. Fights, compared with which a boxing match is a refined and humane spectacle, were among the favourite diversions of a large part of the town. Multitudes assembled to see gladiators hack each other to pieces with deadly weapons, and shouted with delight when one of the combatants lost a finger or an eye. The prisons were hells on earth, seminaries of every crime, and of every disease. At the assizes, the lean and yellow culprits brought with them from their cells to the dock, an atmosphere of stench and pestilence, which sometimes avenged them signally on bench, bar, and jury. But on all this misery society looked with profound indifference. Nowhere could be found that restless and sensitive compassion which has, in our time, extended a powerful protection to the factory child, to the Hindoo widow, to the negro slave which pries into the stores and water-casks of every emigrant ship, which winces at every lash laid on the back of a drunken soldier, which will not suffer the thief in the hulks to be ill-fed or overworked, and which has repeatedly en- deavoured to save the life even of the murderer. It is true that compassion ought, like all other feelings, to be under the government of reason ; and has, for want of such government, produced some ridiculous and some deplorable effects." This sensitive aversion to the infliction or the sight of pain is, in truth, the characteristic, and the especial peril, of the practical social philosophy of the day. There is a general disposition to regard all the wretched as simply unfortunate ; to shrink at once from the in- fliction of the punishment which the law assigns to crime, and from the spectacle of the punishment which nature has allotted to idleness, imprudence, and excess. This is an amiable extreme, undoubtedly, but still an extreme to be avoided ; and not the less dangerous for UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 219 the gentle aspect it puts on. Let us set aside for the present our treatment of criminals, and devote a few pages to the consideration of the errors in the prevalent views of pauperism. The original idea of a Poor-law was, an arrangement to compel idlers and vagrants to work : the modern form which the conception has assumed, is a machine to support them out of the earnings of those who do work. The three wants of man the only wants of his which strictly deserve the name of necessaries the only wants indispensable enough to a tolerable existence, to scourge the indolent from sloth, to rouse the stupid to vivacious toil, or to stimulate the savage to those exer- tions which gradually lead him on to civilisation, are food, shelter, and clothing. The Poor-law, according to the popular view of it, is an arrangement for supplying these gratis, to all whom want of will, want of capacity, or want of forethought has left destitute of them. It is a contrivance for relieving every one, as soon as his privations reach the point of actual want of any of those requirements, want of which is the original stimulus to all exertion. It assumes, as its axiomatic foundation, that the idle have a right to share the earnings of the industrious, provided only that their idleness shall have brought them to destitution. It lays down a principle which, logically reasoned out, is socialism ; and which, legitimately and consistently followed out in practice, would speedily work its own cure, by the manifestation of its intolerable and fatal consequences. In England we are slow to perceive the error of our theoretic views because national good sense, and national good feel- ing, generally interpose to prevent them from being carried out to those extremes of practice which would demonstrate their unsoundness. But in Ireland there is no such corrective, and no such screen ; a legislative blunder, once launched, is there allowed to sail on un- 220 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. checked, till landed in its inevitable absurdity ; and in the operation of the law in that unhappy country, we may read, ere it be yet too late, a warning for our own. We say that the principle of our Poor-law sanctions the appropriation of the earnings of the industrious to the maintenance of the idle. For we must never lose sight of the momentous truth, which, in fact, lies at the foundation of the sacredness with which property is regarded, both by the common law and the common feeling of mankind, that all property is, in some form or other, actually or virtually, in the immediate or in the remote past, the result of industry and saving. It is, in short, the produce of two great social virtues: the virtue of exertion in the first instance, and the virtue of self-denial in the second. Take away those cases in- finitely rare, in this country, at least in which pro- perty has been either seized by the strong arm of power or appropriated by fraud, and transmitted to the lineal descendants of the original despoilers, and the assertion admits of no dispute, and no exception. The present possessors may, in many cases, be drones ; but they have inherited from the bees. The actual owner of a vast estate may be a dissolute and worthless spendthrift, and may squander his existence and his property at Paris or Vienna ; but he inherited from an ancestor who earned it in the service of the commonwealth, in the army, or at the bar. The princely estates of the present Lord Eldon, the present Duke of Marlborough, or the future Duke of Wellington, are, surely, as truly the produce of honourable industry and Avorthy services, as the accumulations of the merchant, or the hoardings of the peasant. And the wealth of the great manufac- turer, the successful lawyer, or the ennobled banker, is the meed, either in the existing or the bequeathing generation, of toils and sacrifices which the husband- UNSOUXD SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 221 man or the handicraftsman would admit to constitute a valid title. But, in truth, it is not only those massive properties that we assume the right of mulcting for the support of the pauper. The smallest realised savings of the ener- getic and frugal artisan are tithed by the overseer, for the maintenance of the destitute, the indolent, and the drunken. Let us look at a few cases, not only of real but of daily occurrence. A knife-grinder, at Sheffield, with better education, better feeling, or better sense than his fellows, resolves that he will employ the high wages which his trade affords him, to raise himself in the social scale. He works steadily six days in the week, denies himself all the luxuries and wasteful re- creations in which most of his brother- workmen indulge, and, at the end of a few years, is able, by unremitting diligence and unflinching self-denial, to purchase the cottage that he lived in, and to add to it a couple of acres of land. The overseer immediately claims from him three shillings in the pound, for the support of a man who worked in the same shop with himself, who earned a guinea a-day, but who was always drunk four days in the week, and who is, of course, now on the parish! The cotton-spinner, or warehouseman, of Bolton or Manchester, who earns much, spends little, and abstains from marrying till he has invested a suffi- ciency in some fixed security, is rewarded for years of frugality and toil, by having to pay towards the support of the wife and children of the weaver who married at twenty, and deserted his family at thirty. It is folly to suppose that he does not feel bitterly the injustice of such a claim. The mechanic, who, in good times, laid by a fund to maintain him when work should be scarce and wages low, and denied himself many comforts in order to do so, finds his fellow-mechanic, who exercised no such prudence, and refused himself no indulgence, 222 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. supported by parochial aid; and he feels what a sad and mocking comment this is upon the exhortations to economy and forethought he so often hears. Two men, both able artisans, start with the same advantages, in the same trade each e'arning thirty shillings a- week. The one is steady, industrious, and frugal, lives long single, improves his mind, lays by two- thirds of what he earns, and accumulates property rapidly. The other marries at twenty, spends all his income, drinks occa- sionally, is disabled by sickness, or loses his place by imprudence and irregularity. At thirty-five years of age, the one is paying parochial rates the other is receiv- ing parochial aid. These contrasts are very frequent ; the result of them is very demoralising ; and the prin- ciple which upholds them clearly indefensible. The Poor-law, as at present constituted, has a noxious operation of another sort. It has an irresistible tendency to vitiate the very essence and beauty of that Christian humanity whose functions it usurps, by degrading charity from a voluntary gift to a legal obligation. Charity is no longer a willing contribution from the affluent and able to the wants of the needy and infirm : it is a socialistic mulcting of the rich or independent, for the benefit of the poor, a communistic decimation of the savings of the industrious for the maintenance of the idle. The Poor-law asserts, in its nakedest and broadest form, the doctrine of Proudhon and Louis Blanc, that want is, in itself, a claim, that those who have nothing, possess, in virtue of that very destitu- tion, a full title to the property of others. It poisons the very fountain of Christian charity, by making it an indefeasible right on the one side, and an inescapable tax on the other. The man who knows that the law enables him to demand a portion of the income of his more fortunate or more industrious fellow-citizen, is not likely to be shy in asking, or grateful in receiving, the UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 223 niggard and reluctant boon. And the man who has a tenth of his income forcibly taken from him, to relieve a poverty which, from the mode of its bestowal, it helps to foster and create, will generally be both unable and unwilling to bestow another tenth in assisting those cases which deserve, and would otherwise have excited, his ready and active sympathy. The Poor-law, according to the modern theory of it, is, in principle, a virtual abrogation of natural laws. It interposes between the cause and its consequence. The laws of Nature which are the ordinances of Providence, and therefore the embodiment of unerring wisdom have decreed that idleness and improvidence shall incur destitution : we assume to ourselves a dispensing power, and pronounce that they shall not incur destitution ! But, it will be answered, and with great truth, idleness is not the only cause of destitution : many are destitute who are willing and anxious to work. Under all cir- cumstances, casualties will often superinduce destitution, Men in the prime of life are stricken with sudden inca- pacity; the premature death of an industrious and thriving workman will often leave his family with no provision against want ; fluctuations in fashion, changes in the channels of trade, which no prudence could have foreseen, will often reduce hundreds to poverty. More especially is this the case under our complicated system of society, teeming as it is with anomalies and difficulties which have descended to us from our forefathers, entailed upon us by their errors, and aggravated by our own clumsy or selfish legislation. Many of the burdens under which the labourer sinks, many of the impe- diments to the success of the industrious, many of the checks which make it difficult for the artisan to find em- ployment, are of our own or our ancestors' creation. Destitution is not always avoidable, even by the ener- getic and the well-conducted. Society, therefore, which 224 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. may have caused the mischief, must not call upon the individual sufferer to bear its unmitigated pressure. We admit the plea ; and we admit it the more readily because it leads us straight to the heart and marrow of the question. For, while admitting the propriety of a provision for the destitute in some form or other, under actual, existing circumstances, we deny in toto the ab- stract right of the poor to assistance from the funds of others, as a claim. A provision for the destitute, on our view of the matter, is not a duty which, as a general proposition, society owes to its poorer members, but a debt that a society which has wronged its poorer members owes them as compensation and amends. We cannot conceive on what other rational basis the poor can have a claim upon the possessions of the rich, or the idle on the earnings of the industrious. The poor man, like the rich man, has a right to the produce of his industry, and to his realised property, (which is the produce of his industry, or of the industry of some one who has bestowed it upon him) ; he has a right, like every other member of society, to what he possesses, and to what he earns, but to nothing more. The naked demand of the poor to share the wealth of the rich, is, as we have said before, simple, undisguised communism. The demand of the labourer for employment his notion that he has a right to have work found for him, and that, if he is willing to work, he is entitled to be fed is, when submitted to the test of reason, a clear ab- surdity. If the Devonshire ploughman has a right to a customer for his ploughing, or the Sheffield mechanic for his scissors, the manufacturer must have an equal right to a customer for his cloth, and the poet for his verses ; the farmer to a remunerating purchaser for his corn, the lawyer to his brief, and the clergyman to his cure. How many diligent and hungry barristers are at least as anxious after employment as the peasant or the UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 225 artisan ? But do they ever commit the folly of de- manding it as a right ? of insisting that a client shall go to law in order that they may gain a living by con- ducting his case ? or even of requiring their overworked brethren to give them a portion of their labour and their fees ? How many hundreds of Manchester cotton- spinners or Leeds clothiers have their warehouses crammed with goods, which they desire only to sell at the most paltry profit, or often even at prime cost ? But do they ever stultify themselves by requiring the state to compel unwilling customers to purchase from them articles which they do not want ? And is the day- labourer at all more rational in demanding work from a farmer who does not need his services, and has already as many hands as he can profitably employ ? To compel the employer to use and pay for labour which he does not want, i. e. to give wages against his will, is ob- viously the same injustice, and the same oppression, as to compel the labourer to sell his labour against his will, to work for an employer when he would prefer to be idle, or thinks he can dispose of his exertions to greater advantage elsewhere. In the one case you forcibly seize upon a man's money, in the other case upon his toil ; in both cases you are guilty of the robbery of obliging a man to part with his property against his will, and without an adequate equivalent. Let us look this matter, then, honestly and boldly in the face ; and no longer allow ourselves to be deluded by words which have no corresponding ideas attached to them. Labour, like corn, calico, or broadcloth, is a commodity, which, like any other commodity, will follow the usual laws of supply and demand will find pur- chasers when it is wanted, and in the quantity in which it is wanted : and to compel people to purchase it who do not want it, is as patent a tyranny, and to ask for this compulsion is as blind a selfishness, in the case of VOL. i. Q 226 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. this commodity, as in the case of any other. The only circumstance which can complicate the question, the only circumstance which can cloud the crystal clearness, or invalidate the irrefragable soundness of the conclu- sion, occurs when either the supply of labour has been artificially increased, or the demand for it artificially di- minished. Such artificial interference the interferers may be justly called upon to compensate, to counteract, or to undo. In this nutshell, to our apprehension, lies the whole question of a Poor-law. We shall be much aided in arriving at a clear view of the merits of the case by a very simple subdivision. There are three classes of destitute (i. e. of those poor who need aid in order to enable them to live ; first, those whom society has made destitute by selfish or in- judicious legislation, by sins of commission or neglect ; secondly, those who have become destitute through their own fault, or that of their parents ; and, thirdly, those who have become destitute through unavoidable casualty, through calamities which could not reasonably have been anticipated. by the visitation of God, as we may say. Each of these classes requires a special and appropriate treatment ; whereas both public law and public feeling at present lump them together, and deal with them as a homogeneous mass. I. And, first, as to those of whose destitution society must bear the blame. Towards these unhappy indivi- duals the duty of society is clear. It must redeem the past neglect, correct the past mistakes, unmake, in short, or efface the class, as speedily as possible, and assist to support it till effaced. There are three ways in which society may promote and create destitution; by absorbing in taxation an undue proportion of the produce of industry, by undue encouragement to population, thereby augment- ing the supply of labour, and by improper restrictions UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 227 on trade and industry, thereby diminishing the demand for labour. It is impossible to deny that in England we have been guilty of all these injustices. But it is equally certain that we have retraced our steps, and that we now offend in these ways no longer. In the first of these errors the poor were necessarily passive, and therefore innocent ; in the two others they must share with the state the blame and the penalty ; since, however injudicious or restrictive be the policy of the government, it is always in the power of the people themselves to insure a due remuneration for their labour, by restricting the supply to the demand, by refusing, in spite of encouragement, to increase the population beyond those numbers, whom industry and enterprise can employ at remunerative wages. This amount of good sense and self-denial, however, we have perhaps scarcely a right at present to require from them, when we remember how deplorably the spread of sound education among them has been re- tarded by our miserable sectarian animosities, how little has been done to teach them those elementary economic laws, on the sedulous observance of which their worldly welfare depends, how much is still done in an opposite direction in many parishes, by farmers and poor-law guardians to favour the married at the expense of the single, how many of our provincial clergy and philanthropists, and how preponderating a proportion of the periodical press, are occupied, even at this day, in preaching up slavish dependence upon charity, and in crying down the virtues of providence and self-reliance, with a mingled recklessness and fana- ticism which deserves the strongest reprobation. This, however, must be left to the natural correctives of time and circumstance. Now that the state has unfettered industry, and removed all unfair and oppressive taxa- tion from the poor, all that justice can further claim Q 2 228 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. from it is, that it shall, in the most judicious way that can be suggested, maintain those who really can find 110 employment, till, in the progress of prosperity, a period arrives (which, to judge by the rapidity with which our national resources are developed, cannot be far distant) when the demand for labour shall have overtaken the supply ; and then to announce, that for the future the fate of all must depend on their own foresight, and their own exertions. II. The second class is by far the most numerous; and it is in dealing with this class, that the radical error of our social philosophy is most apparent and most in- jurious. The idle, the dissolute, the dawdling, the Irish peasant, who will beg for a penny rather than work for a shilling; the Irish fisherman, who burns his boats for firewood, and pawns his nets, instead of using them to fish with; the agricultural labourer, who waits listlessly in his hovel till work finds him out, instead of diligently setting out to seek it in every di- rection for himself, and who remains a burden on his parish, when manufacturing enterprise in the next town is hampered and delayed for want of hands; the Sheffield grinder, who being able to earn a guinea a- day, will only work two days in the week, and drinks the other five ; the spinners and weavers in manufac- turing towns, who waste hundreds of thousands of pounds in strikes for higher wages, which always end in the impoverishment of both themselves and their em- ployers, and in leaving numbers of them permanently unprovided; the unionists, who, like the weavers of Norwich, the shipbuilders and sawyers of Dublin, and the lace-makers of Nottingham, have, by violence and unreasonable demands, driven away trade from their respective localities ; and, finally, the thousands who, in spite of exhortation, in spite of the bitter warnings of experience, persist in spending every week the last UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 229 farthing of their earnings, as if prosperity, and youth, and health could always last : all these are the laborious architects of their own ill fortune, all these are desti- tute by their own act, their own folly, their own guilt. Those parents, again, who marry with no means of bringing up a family, with no provision for the future, no sure and ample support even for the present; those who (like a hand-loom weaver whom we knew) bring up eleven children to an overstocked and expiring trade, which, even to themselves, affords only insuf- ficient earnings and unsteady employment; and those who spend in wastefulness and drinking wages which, carefully husbanded, might secure a future maintenance for their offspring; these all bring into the world paupers, who are destitute by their parents' culpability, and the sins of the father are visited upon the children. Xow, with regard to these classes, whatever aid the sentiments of Christian charity may prompt us, as indi- viduals, and in each individual case, to administer, or however it may be occasionally necessary for the state to interpose for the actual salvation of life, it is im- portant to pronounce distinctly that, on no principle of social right or justice, have they any claim to share the earnings or the savings of their more prudent, more energetic, more self-denying fellow-citizens. They have made for themselves the hard bed they lie on. They have sinned against the plainest laws of nature, and must be left to the corrective which nature has "in that case made and provided ; " a corrective which is certain to operate in the end, if only we do not step in to coun- teract it by regulations dictated by plausible and par- donable, but shallow and short-sighted, humanity. But let us not lose sight of the indubitable truth, that if we stand between the error and its consequence, we stand Q 3 230 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. between the evil and its cure, if we intercept the penalty we perpetuate the sin. Nor can it be said that, in contending that impro- vidence, idleness, dissipation, and early marriages should be allowed to encounter their natural fruit and salutary punishment among the poor, we are guilty of any par- tiality or special harshness. We demand no more from them than from all other classes. Privation and wretchedness are the allotted consequences and cor- rectives of these vices in all other ranks, why should the lowest be exempted from the common law ? Why should we enact that the poor alone should be idle and imprudent, yet never come to want ? should be reck- less and wasteful, and yet be fed at the cost of the sober and the frugal ? why should they alone be allowed to marry without the smallest actual or prospective pro- vision for a family, yet be guaranteed that their children shall never sink into lower poverty than themselves ? Let us not be misrepresented. We are not contend- ing that the poor should not marry, because they are already too numerous for the labour market to draft off. We contend only that the poor, like nearly all the middle classes like the majority even of the higher classes should not marry have no right to marry till they have made some provision for the maintenance of the expected family. Marriage is an enjoyment, the claim to possess which must, in every rank, be purchased by previous industry, economy, and prudence. No respectable shop-keeper, no merchant's son, no educated lawyer, no younger branch of an aristocratic family, thinks of marrying till he can support a wife in decency and comfort. If he does, his whole life is probably one long penalty one drear repentance. Thousands ac- cordingly remain unmarried through life, from inability to procure the means which alone would make marriage justifiable. Is it right to call upon such to support UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 231 those who have spurned at all similar feelings of justice and self-restraint ? Can any reason be assigned for making a distinction between the classes for imposing this restraint upon the rich, and exonerating the poor ? " ' Every one has a right to live.' We will suppose this granted," says Mr. Mill (Pol. Econ. vol. vi. p. 428.). " But no one has a right to bring creatures into life to be supported by other people. Whoever means to stand upon the first of these rights must renounce all preten- sions to the last. If a man cannot support even himself unless others help him, those others are entitled to say that they do not also undertake the support of all the offspring which it is physically possible for him to summon into the world. Yet there are abundance of writers and public speakers, including many of most ostentatious pretensions to high feelings, whose views of life are so truly brutish, that they see hardship in preventing paupers from breeding hereditary paupers in the very workhouse itself! Posterity will one day ask, with astonishment, what sort of people it could be among whom such preachers could find proselytes. " It is conceivable that the state might guarantee employment at ample wages to all who are born. But if it does this, it is bound, in self -protection, and for the sake of every purpose for which government exists, to provide that no person shall be born without its consent. If the ordinary and natural motives to self- restraint are removed, others must be substituted. Re- strictions on marriage, at least equivalent to those existing in some of the German states, or severe penalties on those who have children when unable to support them, would then be indispensable. Society may feed the necessitous, if it takes their multiplication under its control ; or it may leave the last to their discretion, if it abandons the first to their own care. But it cannot take half of the one course and half of the other. Let u 4 232 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. it choose that which circumstances or the public senti- ment render most expedient. But it cannot with im- punity take the feeding on itself, and leave the multi- plying free." III. If the two first classes of destitute persons were dealt with on sound principles, the first by removing the causes which have induced or which excuse their destitution, and assisting them till time shall have effaced them, or till national prosperity shall have absorbed them; the second, by allowing the natural consequences of their folly to arouse them to prudence and exertion, aided only by such uncertain yet liberal succour as private benevolence will always be ready to afford to the struggling and the sober, the third class, the destitute by casualty, will be found reduced to a very narrow and manageable compass. Such destitution from accident or unavoidable misfortune is not unfre- quent in any class: even in the middle ranks, in proportion to their numbers, such afflictions are pro- bably as frequent as in the lowest. Those whom Mr. Wakefield ingeniously designates as "the uneasy classes," contribute largely to it. The skilled artisan, in receipt of high wages, in constant employment, possessed of moderate savings, whose circumstances and prospects might have seemed to justify him in marrying, but who is cut off in the prime of life by inevitable accident, or disabled by uninduced disease, leaves his wife and family among the destitute by casualty. The naval or military man, debarred by illness from all chance of advancing in his profession, or whose prospects are ruined by the death of an influential relative, may be classed under the same category. The merchant, who has been reduced from affluence by the roguery or the bankruptcy of others ; the single ladies, whose income has been secured on turnpike trusts or West India estates ; the clergyman, whose professional career has, UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 233 from any unforeseen occurrence, been suddenly closed may all be considered to belong to the same classifica- tion. This class the destitute who have fallen from a higher fortune, not by their own fault, but by the visitation of God furnish accordingly the highest and the best field for the exercise of Christian charity for the display of that active, restless, indefatigable, benevo- lence, which is the proud characteristic of our age and country ; and which (were all less valid and legitimate claims upon it negatived and put aside by the operation of the principles we have advocated) would not only amply suffice to meet all such demands, but would, by being confined within its proper channel, and directed to its fit recipients, rapidly recover all its readiness, all its beauty, all its reflex action on the donor. The man who is compelled to contribute a large portion of his income to the support and encouragement of idleness and self-indulgence, is both less able and less willing to relieve more deserving cases of distress, and becomes more surly and suspicious with regard to all such cases. The application of sound and unwavering principles to the two first classes would ensure the more complete and effective relief of the third. The destitution of the former would soon be effaced by the natural operation of unchecked economic laws; while the destitution of the latter would be relieved as rapidly as it appeared, by that individual kindliness which nature and Christianity have alike allotted as its cure. Our philosophy will by many be termed stern and harsh ; but if it be sound, there can be no question that it is the truest and the tenderest mercy. That phy- sician shows the most genuine sympathy with the patient who resolutely adopts the treatment which will soonest and most effectually eradicate his malady : and that assuredly is the truest philanthropy which exerts itself, not to relieve suffering, but to prevent it; that 234 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. the truest and most high-minded charity which labours assiduously to render its recipients independent of itself. It is not only a false philosophy, but a spurious benevolence, which would blink the difficulties of our social problems which would slur them over rather than solve them which would seek for peace in fallacies and compromises whence peace can never spring which would shrink from the truth because the truth seems to be severe which would tacitly persuade the poor that they may with impunity violate natural and economic laws, and that they can sow the seeds of improvidence, indolence, and waste, without reaping the appointed harvest of squalid wretchedness and moral degradation which encourages them to marry without means, because it seems harsh to pro- hibit or postpone the great solace of life to those who have so few others, " as if (says Mr. Mill) it w r ere not a thousand times more hard-hearted to tell human beings that they may, than that they may not, call into existence swarms of other creatures, who are sure to be miserable, and most likely to be depraved." We had proof enough under the Old Poor-law of the immense ag- gravation of pauperism and degradation caused by our morbid softness and our false philosophy. We have had proof enough since, in Ireland as well as here, that Ave cannot operate ab extra; we cannot raise the mass out of their misery they must raise themselves. State interference is omnipotent for evil very impotent for good; powerful to make and multiply paupers very powerless to relieve them. Our duty consists in encou- raging the exertions of the people, in removing every obstacle, and affording every facility. More than this, in reality, we cannot do : and if they are once convinced that this is our doctrine, and that it will be unswerv- ingly applied ; that, while no grievance and no impe- diment shall remain which legislation can remove, yet UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 235 that the state will no longer, in their behalf, stand between the cause and its consequence will no longer exonerate the poor from the burden of those virtues by which alone in all other classes comfort and respec- tability can be purchased we may hope soon to see a mighty change, in a society otherwise so vigorous as ours a change, the nature and extent of which will amaze those who, from having always let down their net at the wrong side of the boat, have toiled through the night of years, and yet taken nothing. In dealing with these matters, however, we must again most distinctly and anxiously announce, that we do not urge we deprecate any barbarous or indecent haste. All that we are now anxious for is, to super- induce a healthier tone of public feeling on the subject than at present prevails. Let us once arrive at a sound view of things ; and, even if we put this view in practice timidly, languidly, tardily, and partially, the " war with evil" is already half accomplished. Let us set and keep our face in the right direction, and the slowness of our progress need then be a matter of comparatively slight regret. We have hitherto erred in our view and our treatment of social maladies, from neglecting to study Nature (by which we mean always the Author of Nature) in her mode of dealing with them. We have been habitually too tender and too hasty. We have wanted nerve, and we have wanted patience. We have for- gotten to observe that Nature cures the sins and follies of man by means of the penalties which she attaches to them, as at once their consequence and their corrective. Our tenderness has shrunk from the permission of the penalty and we have wondered that the cure has not been wrought! Evils, such as those inveterate and deeply-rooted ones that now pervade our social system, cannot be removed without long time and much suffer- ing ; it is, therefore, no argument against a plan of cure 236 UNSOUND SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. that it works slowly, and works " through much tribu- lation." Awakened reflection will show that Nature, in working her cures, is impatient of no needful slowness, and appalled at no needful suffering: And we must learn our course by watching hers. We must first satisfy ourselves that we are on the right tack : and then urge on the process with unshaken nerves, and await the final result with untiring patience and unfaltering trust. 237 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION.* THE English are noted for never doing more than one thing at a time. The national mind does not seem large enough to embrace more than a single interest at once. We attack the enemies of our social well-being in succession, and cut them off in detail. We take up public questions seriatim, devoting to each as it arises the whole force of the national will ; and resenting as an intruder, or eschewing as a bore, whoever would direct into other, and intrinsically perhaps equally important channels, any portion of the general atten- tion. Upon each grievance to be remedied, and each abuse to be swept away, we concentrate for the moment the whole intensity of our hatred, the whole energy of our zeal : we speak and feel as if it were the sole evil in existence, or, at least, as if all others were utterly insignificant in comparison ; and, for the time being, all others are permitted to flourish unchecked and un- regarded. This national idiosyncrasy, which is the despair of all whose topics of interest or abhorrence are not those of the present phase of the popular mind, and who find themselves in consequence contemptuously pooh-poohed and set aside, is estimated at its full value by philosophic politicians, who know, not only that * From the ' North British Review." 1. Taxation and the Funding System. By J. R. M'CtJLLOCH. London : 1845. 2. Principles of Political Economy. Book V. By J. S. MILL. London: 1850. 3. Financial Reform Tracts. Liverpool: 1850-1851. 4. Bulletin des Lois. Nos. 300. 303. Paris: 1831. 238 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. it is the means of securing far greater efficiency to the operation of the reforming spirit, than it could hope to attain were it frittered away upon a hundred objects, but that it ensures all questions "becoming kings in their turn," and reaping in due time and order the full benefit of this exclusive and predominating zeal. As one battle after another is fought with antiquated error and injustice, as one victory after another, over the forces of the social enemy, is added to the records of national achievements, the subject is relegated to the past, and buried in oblivion for ever, and " the goodly fellowship of our reformers" marches onward to another conquest. Since this career began in Britain we have won the hard-fought fields, first, of religious liberty, then of civil freedom and parliamentary reform, and then of commercial emancipation. Each in its turn occupied the nation for years ; each was magnified as the sole and special interest of the day ; each occupied for a time an inordinate share of the public mind, utterly disproportionate to its real magnitude; and each in turn, when its day was over and its cause was gained, gave place to a successor as unduly and un- reasonably favoured. New candidates for popular at- tention are now coming on the stage. Besides the various questions of the vast field of sociology, three topics especially promise to become prominent, colonial policy, law reform, and the principles of taxation. Which of these will take precedence, and engross to itself the undivided political spirit of the country, it is hard to say. It may be that, contrary to our wont, we may be able, to a greater or less extent, to entertain the three topics simultaneously, and that while the public mind is acting upon one of them, it may be ripening for action on another. We propose, even at the risk of finding that our voice is as that of one crying in the wilderness, to call attention to the last PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 239 of these matters the science of taxation as one of which the interest is pressing, perpetual, and yearly renewed, and which comes home, more closely than either of the others, to the business and bosoms of every individual among us. Till very recently, the science of taxation may be said to have had no existence. That which has per- formed its functions, and sometimes usurped its name, has been a mere art of extortion. A certain revenue was required, and it was to be got by hook or by crook y in the readiest and easiest way possible. That tax which yielded the most with the least difficulty to the collectors, and the least outcry among the influential part of the community, was ever the favourite. " Plu- mer la poule sans la faire crier" was the highest aim of the chancellors of the exchequer. The certainty of distant evils, the dread of collateral consequences, the chance of killing the goose that laid the golden eggs, were alike disregarded. In earlier times, the coarse and ready expedient of a poll-tax, or a hearth-tax, or the prima facie fair one of a land-tax, was most usually resorted to. In more recent days, as society became more complex, and as commerce and manufactures were developed, more circuitous and silent, but not less unscientific or inequitable modes of transferring the property of the subject into the coffers of the state, came gradually into vogue. Each new branch of in- dustry, as it raised its head, was pounced upon by the quick-sighted detectives of the revenue, and made to pay for license or protection ; each fresh article of taste or consumption brought from foreign countries by our indefatigable merchants, was burdened with a special import duty; funds were sought and extracted from the most incongruous and opposite sources, from the necessaries of the pauper and the luxuries of the mil- lionaire ; from the most healthful and the most noxious 240 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. indulgences ; from the poison that generates a disease, arid from the drug that cures it ; from salt and from eau-de-Cologne ; from tea and from gin ; from rhubarb and from tobacco. No principle of private justice or public advantage was laid down or kept in view ; one sole rule seemed to be followed whatever was squeez- able was to be squeezed ; rem, quocunque modo rem. This state of things has in a great measure passed away : our legislature has awakened to the necessity of juster and more judicious impositions. But though im- mense improvement has been effected in the art of taxa- tion, next to no progress has taken place in the science. We were empirical and tentative in laying on taxes we continue to be empirical and tentative in taking them off. Statesmen have arisen from time to time who have discovered that such and such a duty was injurious to industry, unproductive to revenue, or was becoming intolerable to the altered feelings of the people ; and it has been repealed accordingly. Sudden emergencies have led to the invention of new imposts, which remain, as a matter of course, till public indignation kicks them off. A deficient revenue is met by a loan, a new tax, or the augmentation of an old one, according to the fancy or ingenuity of the actual chancellor. A surplus revenue occasions the repeal of some branch of revenue, which is selected for sacrifice, not for its mischievous- ness, but for its unpopularity. But still no step has been taken towards a systematic decision of the general principles which regulate the imposition or the repeal of taxation. The subject, it is true, has been much discussed in the writings of economists, and is often touched upon in parliament; but the public at large, which in the end settles all these questions, has not yet arrived at any clear comprehension of the question at issue, or any predominating opinion upon it. Writers of authority and statesmen of ability are ranged on PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 241 all sides ; but it is still a moot point whether taxation ought to be direct or indirect ; whether it ought to be levied on all, or only on men of property on ter- minable and professional as on perpetual and idle in- comes ; whether men should pay in proportion to their income or to their expenditure, in proportion to their means or to their requirements ; what, in fact, are the qualities and consequences, by reference to which a tax is to be approved or condemned. We propose to con- tribute our mite towards the formation of a public opinion on this weighty subject, especially upon that branch of it the controversy between direct and in- direct taxation on which the chief interest is now felt. Before proceeding to this task, however, we wish to notice one or two fallacies, which have still a strong hold on the popular mind, and one or two principles which have been clearly elicted in the course of our irregular and floundering experiments, It has long been the custom of English demagogues to represent the English people, as not only the most heavily taxed people under the sun, but as actually ground down to the earth by the weight of their bur- dens, and suffering thereby under a process of gradual and accelerated extinction. It has long been our custom to swallow these representations with implicit credulity, and even to listen to them with a species of savage and insane delight. Yet, nothing can be more certain than that both assertions are not only greatly exaggerated, but utterly untrue. The fact is, that the cuckoo note of the popular agitator has not varied since the beginning of the century, though the circumstances which gave rise to it have been in a state of perpetual alteration, so that what was substantial truth then, is the opposite of truth now. It will, astonish most of our readers to be told not only that our taxation, fairly cal- culated, is lighter than that of several other countries, VOL. I. R 242 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. but that it has long been steadily and rapidly diminish- ing. We are no optimists ; we are far from imagining that our public burdens are not deplorably heavy ; we are far from believing that a wiser course in former days might not have enormously lessened them ; we are far from despairing of a great mitigation of them, by a judicious course in future; but we protest against the childish and untruthful habit, so dear to the grumbling temper of our countrymen, of perpetually representing ourselves as the most ill-used and trampled-upon of mortals. We presume it will be allowed on all hands that the burden of taxation must be reckoned, not by the gross amount paid into the national treasury, but by that amount compared with the ivealth and the numbers of the nation. Looking at the matter from this comparative point of view, we find that in 1801 the population of the United Kingdom was 15,800,000, and the revenue paid into the exchequer (exclusive, of course, of loans) was 34,113,000?., giving an average of 43. a head. In 1815, the last year of the war, the population was 19,000,000, and the revenue 72,210,000?.; but as twenty per cent, must be allowed for the depreciation of the currency, the average will be found to have risen to 60$. a head. In 1821, after five years of peace, the population was 21,200,000, and the revenue 55,800,000?., or 51$. a head. In 1850 the population was 27,000,000, and the revenue 52,300,000?., or 39$. a head. That is, the pressure of taxation upon each Briton is actually less by one-tenth than it was fifty years ago ; less by one-fifth than it- was thirty years ago ; and less by one-third than it was during our Buonapartean wars. But this is not all. Taxation must be estimated not according to numbers only, but according to wealth also and indeed chiefly since it is our wealth that gives us the power of meeting it. An equal amount of PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 243 taxation is obviously only half the burden, ceteris paribus, to a man of a thousand a year, which it is to one of five hundred a year. Now, we have no means of ascertaining with precision the increase of national wealth (i. e., capability of enduring taxation) since the beginning of the century, but there are on record a few significant facts*, which suffice to show that it has been certainly much greater than the increase of population. The real property of Great Britain was valued in 1803 at 967,284,000*., and in 1842 at 1,820,000,000*. The total amount of incomes (as assessed) derived from trades and professions was in 1812, 21,247,600*., and in 1848, 56,990,000*., being nearly a threefold increase in thirty-six years. The amount of capital subject to legacy duty sprung up from 4,122,000*. in 1800, to 16,622,000*. in 1812, and to 44,348,000*. in 1845, or a tenfold increase in the half century. The sums in- sured against fire were 232,000,000*. in 1801, and 722,000,000*. in 1845. We think we shall be within the mark, if we assume that the wealth of the country has increased threefold since the beginning of the century, while the taxation has increased in the same period only from thirty-four to fifty-two millions; or in round numbers, the one has increased at the rate of 200 per cent., and the other only at the rate of fifty per cent. Mr. Norman, whose authority few will be inclined to dispute, after a careful examination of the whole question, and an ample allowance for the change in the value of money, sums up as follows: "The reader will recollect that it has been shown, supposing the increase of wealth to have kept pace with that of the population, that a diminution of pressure arising from public burdens has taken place since the peace to * See Porter's Progress of the Nation. Norman on Taxation. K 2 244 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. the extent of 53 per cent. ; but on reading the foregoing observations, he will probably be of opinion that the reduction thus exhibited falls far short of the real truth. By how much short, can only be a matter of conjecture. If we say that the real reduction has been 67 per cent., or two-thirds, we shall probably be still too low ; and, taking all things into calculation, it seems probable that we shall not be far wrong in fixing it at 75 per cent., or three-fourths. In other words, it may be assumed on highly probable grounds, that an individual with a given income, who in taxes and loans paid 100/. to the state in 1815, would now pay only 25/." If the public burdens of England are greatly dimi- nished and diminishing, when compared with her wealth, which affords the only fair criterion of their severity, it is equally certain that they are not, when estimated by the same standard, so heavy in comparison with those of other European countries as it is usual to represent them. In England, it is true, the taxation amounts to 39s. a head, against 295. Id. in France ; 375. 3d. in Holland ; 215. Sd. in Belgium ; and 205. in Spain. In France, indeed, it has recently reached 335., and in the first year of the Revolution was 405. a head. But will any one pretend that the wealth of England does not exceed the wealth of every one of these countries in a far greater ratio than her taxation ? Is not England more than twice as rich as Spain ? is she not probably ten times as rich ? Is she not more than one-fifteenth richer than Holland ? not more than one-fourth richer than France ? With regard to the latter country, Mr. Norman calculates, from premises " which give his conclusions the force of moral demonstration, that the per centage of the national wealth abstracted for state purposes, is more than double what it is in England. In other words, that a Frenchman pays out of his in- come or fortune, more than twice as much as is paid by PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 245 an Englishman who may possess a similar income or fortune." But the case of the United States of America is generally cast in our teeth as a specimen of the light taxation of a country where the people govern them- selves. Let us inquire into the facts of the case, before sitting down quietly under the reproach. Let us as- certain the state taxes, and the local taxes, as well as the national or federal taxes, which commonly are alone taken into consideration by popular haranguers. We find that in Great Britain, in the year ending January 5th, 1850, The total state expenditure was - - 55,500,000 The Poor Rates - 7,250,000 The Local and County Rates - - 4,000,000 Total - 66,750,000 Now, as the population was twenty-seven millions, this would give nearly 505. a head. But the real property in Great Britain now assessed to the income-tax, amounts to 2,382,000,000/.*; and this exempts not only all estates svhose income falls below 150. a year, but the whole of Ireland. The personal property, as gathered from the Legacy Duty returns, is about 2,118,000,000^., making a total of realised property of 4,500,000,000^. Now sixty-six millions is equal to a tax of T46 per cent, upon this sum. In the United States, the national expenditure, as stated in the last Report of the Secretary of the Treasury, averaged forty millions of dollars during the last six years.f The population is now 23,674,000 ; * See Johnston's N. America, vol. ii. p. 251., from which this com- parison is taken. j" Three of these were years of war (with Mexico), and three were years of peace. They afford, therefore, a fair comparison with this country, of whose expenditure one half goes to defray the interest of war loans. B 3 246 PEINCIPLES OF TAXATION. but during the average of the six years, it may be taken at 22,000,000. The national taxes, therefore, amount to about 7s. Sd. a head. In the state of New York, according to Mr. Johnston, the state and local taxes amount to two dollars, or 85. 4.d. a head. The total taxation may therefore be taken at 16s. Man for man, therefore, it is clear that the Englishman is taxed three times as heavily as the American. But what is the case when we come to estimate the relative wealth of the two countries ? We may take the national taxes paid in the state of New York (chiefly derived from custom duties) at four millions of dollars in the last six years.* The state, county, and township taxes were 5,500,000, making a total of 9,500,000, on a valuation of 666,000,000 of dollars of realised property. Great Britain, therefore, with realised property valued at four thousand five hundred millions of pounds, endures public burdens to the extent of sixty-six millions, or 1'46 per cent. The state of New York, with real pro- perty valued at six hundred and sixty-six millions of dollars, is burdened to the extent of nine millions and a half, or about 1/42 per cent.f If, then, our taxation, fairly estimated, is not as heavy as is commonly alleged, neither is it levied as inequitably as we are accustomed to hear it represented. It is not true, as it is so habitually asserted, that it falls chiefly or disproportionately on the poor. Here, as elsewhere, we are satisfied with the careless and most unconscien- tious repetition of an ancestral war-cry. We are using language which was, to a great extent, true at the be- * It is true that Mr. Johnston takes these at 3,000,000 of dollars, but his estimate of the total national taxes is taken at 30,000,000 of dollars, which is 10,000,000 less than it has recently been. \ A certain amount of every man's property is, we believe, ex- empted in America, which may be set off against our exemptions under 1507. PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 247 ginning of the century, during the war, and before the Reform Bill, but which is simply and culpably false now. Almost every year during the last twenty, has witnessed the relief of the unpropertied classes of the community from some fiscal burden. The tendency now is, in our opinion, even to exempt them unwisely and unfairly. Incomes under 150?. are exempted from the income-tax ; houses under "201. are exempted from the house-tax. That is to say, six-sevenths of all dwellings, and nine-tenths of all incomes in the country, are allowed to escape from direct taxation altogether. Between 1830 and 1850, 21,568,000?. of taxes have been repealed, and 7,925,000?. have been imposed. But those that have been repealed were almost exclusively taxes which pressed upon the masses ; and those which have been imposed (in order to render the repeal of the others possible} are taxes which are paid almost exclu- sively by men of property. Of the 7,925,000?., 5,500,000?. are raised by the income-tax alone. All taxes have been removed from the raw materials of that industry which employs the poor. All taxes have been removed from those necessaries of life which feed the poor. Corn comes in free ; butchers' meat comes in free. Two taxes only exist of which the poor man cannot avoid paying his share the excise on soap, and the duty on timber. But the duty on timber only raises the cost of erection of the poor man's house 45. 3d.*, and his yearly rent, therefore, only by about B^d. The excise on soap varies from Id. to l^d. a pound ; and on the consumption of a poor man's family * The quantity of timber used in the construction of a cottage, costing about 100/., is 212 cubic feet. The duty on American pine (the sort used for such houses) is 1*. a load of 50 feet. The duty, therefore, adds 4*. 3d. to the original cost of the cottage. If Baltic timber were used (the duty being 3s. 9d.), the addition would be 15s. Wd. II 4 24:8 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. will amount to about 4s. 6d. a year.* These are literally the sole taxes which, in this country, are not optional with the poor man. Except in these items f, no poor man need pay one farthing to the revenue unless he please. But the rich man cannot so escape. The poor man may say, as Benjamin Franklin said, and as hundreds of wise and good men have done, " Spirits are poison : I will not use them. Tobacco is nasty : I will renounce it. Sugar and tea are needless : I will dispense with them;" and he slips through life almost as untaxed as the Red Indian. But the upper and middle classes might renounce all these noxious arid superfluous luxuries in vain ; they would still have to pay 18,000,000/. into the national, and 11,000,000/. into the local, exchequer. In no other country, and on no other system of taxation, could the working classes escape so easily, or pay so little. But we shall be told that this is not a fair way of looking at the matter ; that sugar, and tea, and beer, are now rather necessaries than luxuries, and that, whether they are so or not, the poor man has as much right to his luxuries as the rich. Unquestionably he has : we would be the last to grudge them to him. But we cannot think that he has a right to them untaxed any more than the rich man. Benevolence, and perhaps justice, seems to prompt that, as far as may be, our revenue should be levied on a man's superfluity, not upon that portion of his means which is essential to * The average consumption of soap per family, in that rank, as we have taken pains to ascertain, is less than 1 Ib. a week. This is con- firmed by M'Culloch (" Account of British Empire," vol. ii. p. 396.). See also Porter (" Progress of Nation," vol. iii. p. 76.). The quantity of soap consumed in the United Kingdom in 1849, was 186,000,000 Ibs., or 6'75 Ibs. a head, which, at five persons to a family, would give 37 Ibs. a year ; and this, at l^d. a Ib. duty, would amount to 4*. 7d. f Perhaps we ought also to except the advertisement duty. PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 249 subsistence. But if a man has a superfluity, and spends that superfluity on sugar, which is pleasant to him, on beer, which is needless to him, on spirits or tobacco, which are mischievous to him, by that act and that possession he ceases to be a poor man, and voluntarily steps into the tax-paying class. If he has a surplus to expend in luxury, he is no longer entitled to sue in forma pauperis ; he ceases to be an object of charity or of exemption. If he drinks his gallon of spirits, or smokes his pound of tobacco, why should he not pay on that gallon or that pound as much as the rich man would do ? If the rich man indulges, as he is able to indulge, in a double quantity, he pays a double tax. There can be no inequity in this. But, as a matter of fact, is an unfair proportion, even of taxes on the consumption of luxuries, paid by the working classes ? Do they, on the whole, contribute to the revenue at all more than, regard being had to their number, they ought to do ? Let us look a little into detail. It is impossible to ascertain with accuracy what proportion the propertied classes in this country bear to the labouring classes, or proletaires, as they are called among our neighbours, or how far the distinction between the two is a valid one ; for there are compara- tively few among the rich who do not work, and in- creasingly few among the poor who possess no property of any kind. But, from several indications*, there is * We will put down here a few of those known facts from which we have felt ourselves warranted in drawing the inferences in the text. We are aware that these inferences can scarcely reach beyond highly probable conjectures, but we are desirous that our readers should not imagine them to be mere random guesses. 1. The number of registered electors in the United Kingdom was, in 1850, by official returns, 1,050,187. Now, it is probable that the number of non -electors in the propertied classes would be about balanced by the number of electors among the proletaires. If we suppose all, or nearly all, of these to be heads of families (or those 250 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. reason to believe that we shall not be wide of the mark if we reckon the former at one-fourth and the latter at three-fourths of the community. There are certain items in the customs and excise duties which we know are paid wholly by the rich. There are other items of which the rich consume, and on which, therefore, they pay, far more per head than the poor : such are tea, sugar, and coffee. Now, an examination into the detail of the expenditure of different families in various grades who are not to be equal in number to the women, not registered, who are), this would give a total population of the propertied classes (at five to a family) of 5,250,000. 2. By the census of 1841 we got returns of the occupations of 7,850,000 persons in Great Britain, out of a total of 18,850,000. Of these, 760,000 (or those who are returned as independent, educated persons following miscellaneous pursuits, professional men, govern- ment civil servants, local, church, and law officers) clearly belonged to the middle and upper ranks. Of the remaining 7,090,000 (con- sisting of those employed in commerce, agriculture, army and navy, domestic servants, common labourers, &c.), we cannot be wrong in supposing that naval and military officers, farmers, master manufac- turers, merchants, clerks, and shopkeepers, would amount to at least 1,000,000. This would give in all 1,760,000, out of 7,850,000, as belonging to classes above the condition of day labourers and pro- letaires, or neai'ly one-fourth. 3. The class of domestic servants reached 1,135,612 in 1831, and in 1841 had increased to 1,691,679. We shall not, therefore, exceed the mark if we take their numbers now at 2,000,000. These are, of course, entirely confined to families of the upper and middle ranks ; and the whole of the indirect taxes levied on their consumption of taxed articles is paid by those ranks. The propertied classes pay not only on their own consumption, which is much larger per head than that in the lower ranks, Jbut on the consumption of two millions of the lower classes besides. Once for all, be it observed, we give these estimates, and others that follow, merely for what they are worth. They are carefully made; but we know from long use in statistical calculations how liable such are to error, and we therefore give our readers not only the results but the data on which we base them, so that they may judge for themselves. PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 251 on these articles, leads us to believe that three-fourths of the tea and coffee that pay duty, and two thirds of the sugar, are consumed in the houses of the propertied classes. This is the result of careful and extensive private inquiries. Among the agricultural poor, the men scarcely ever touch either tea or coffee, and we have ascertained, from personal inquiry, that the quan- tities purchased by the women for their own drinking are excessively small. Among the artisan population the consumption is much greater. But in the case of the rich and easy classes, not only is the consumption great individually, but they pay for the consumption of their servants. Now, the annual consumption of tea in Great Britain is, per head of the whole population, 23 oz. The consumption of families in the upper classes, where there are three or four servants, is 8 Ibs., or 128 oz. per head. The usual allowance to servants is 6 Ibs., or $6 oz. per head, just four times that of the average. In the case of sugar the average annual consumption throughout the country is 24 Ibs. per head. But the male agricultural population use scarcely any, while the usual consumption of the shop-keeping and higher artisan class is 26 Ibs. ; that of the middle class 50 Ibs. ; that of the higher 70 Ibs. per head. Now, let us construct an approximate table on these data, admitting freely that they are scarcely more than careful and con- jectural estimates. Total Produce of the Ordinary Revenue levied in 1849. Customs - 22,268,864 Excise - - 15,003,098 Stamps - - 7,013,267 Taxes - - 4,522,910 Income Tax - 5,564,833 Post-Office, (Net) 832,000 Carryover - - -55,204,972 252 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. Brought over - - 55,204,972 Poor-Kate, England, 5,395,000 Scotland, 501,000 Ireland, 1,359,000 7,255,000 County-Rate, England, 1,317,000 Ireland, 928,000 Highway, England, 1,698,000 Constabulary, Ireland, 34,000 3,977,000 11,232,000 66,436,972 Paid by the Propertied Classes entirely. Poor-Kates and County Rates, 11,232,000 Income-Tax, and Assessed Taxes, 10,087,743 Stamps, (except Advertisements and Licenses,) - - 6,660,000 Customs Duties on Books - - 7,748 Embroidery - 12,301 Flowers - - 13,058 Lace - 7,943 Plate - 1,360 Eau-de-Cologne - 2,084 Brandy - 1,639,464 Wine - 1,767,558 3,451,516 Paid by the Propertied Classes in Part. {Tea - - -4,471,420] Coffee - - 642,520 \ 3,883,965 Oranges 64,680 J fds Sugar - - 4,126,500 2,751,000 fths Post-Office - - 832,000 693,334 38,759,558 {Of the remaining Customs, ~| Stamps, and Excise, say \ 6,884,687 27,538,748 -J 45,644, 245 20,792,727 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 253 In round numbers, that is, the comparatively few people of property pay two and a half times as much taxation as the comparatively many proletaires. The working classes, who constitute three-fourths of the community, pay twenty millions, while the propertied, or upper and middle classes, who amount only to one- fourth, pay forty-four millions, or, as our total popu- lation is about twenty-eight millions, the former pay not quite II. a head, while the latter pay 6Z. 105. 6d., or six and a half times as much. This scarcely sounds like the inequity complained of. The working classes then clearly pay far less in pro- portion to their numbers than the higher and middle ranks : do they not pay less also in proportion to their incomes ? Here, again, we are thrown back upon the region of plausible conjecture ; for we are without the data to enable us to ascertain accurately the relative in- comes of the different ranks. A few considerations, however, may serve to show that the above question is not so irrational as it may at first appear. 1. The incomes of those who have more than 150/. a year appear by the income-tax returns to amount in Great Britain to 185,000,000^. 2. The number of domestic servants in Great Britain (excluding Ireland, as in the last case) is above 1,400,000, and their incomes, male and female (including keep, or board wages), cannot be less than 35/. each (Porter, vol. iii. p. 16.), or above 50,000,000/., the sum yielded by Schedule D. Their money wages alone will be about 13. a head. 3. The population of Great Britain (in all these cal- culations we are obliged to leave Ireland aside) is now twenty-one millions, of whom the working classes, ac- cording to our previous data, will form about fifteen millions and three quarters. Deducting from these the domestic servants, there will be left above fourteen 254 PRINCIPLES or TAXATION. millions and a quarter, or about three millions of families. Now, what is the income of these families on an average, taking into account all the trades and occu- pations into which they are divided, agricultural labourers, artisans, mechanics, factory hands, journey- men tailors, shoemakers, engine-drivers, &c. &c. ? From the Official Report on the employment of women and children in agriculture, it appears that the actual earn- ings of a family of peasants are much greater even in the worst paid districts than it is usual to represent them. The lowest seems to be 10s. a week, and they often exceed 20s. or 25s.* It is difficult, after reading that report, to believe that 13s. a week is not rather below than above the yearly average. In the manu- facturing districts, many single artisans earn double this sum women and children often more than half many families three or four times as much. Hand- loom weavers, no doubt, are below this ; journeymen tailors, shoemakers, and other handicraftsmen generally much above ; mechanics, and engine-men, colliers, men employed in iron works, greatly above. On the whole, we believe we shall be below the mark in taking the average earnings of a family at 20s. a week, or say, 501. a year. But, as we are aware that at first sight our calculations will appear extreme to many, whose opinions have been formed from speeches and writings of popular or party controversialists, and as we wish to be always within the mark, we will, at the suggestion of the first statistical authority in England, take 40. instead of 501. as the average. This, for three millions of families, would give 120,000,000^., to which we must add 20,000,000^. for the mere wages of the class of domestic servants. (We take their wages only, not their main- * Those who are startled by a statement so much at variance with their preconceived impressions, will find our view fully borne out by the careful investigations of the Official Commissioners referred to. PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 255 tenance, because the taxation on the articles they con- sume is paid by their masters, and our present object is simply a comparison between the tax-paying income of the several classes.) We thus arrive at 140,000,000/. as the aggregate income of the working classes of Great Britain. 4. The income of the class who are above the working classes, and yet below 150/. a year, we can only guess at. Probably we shall not be far wrong if we take it at 50,000,000^ This we must add to the 185,000,000^, the income of those who have more than 150/. a year. This gives a total income for the middle and upper classes of 235,000,000^. 5. But we have just seen that the working classes pay only (leaving Ireland, as before, wholly aside, and supposing no class there to contribute anything) 20,000,000^. out of a revenue of 66,000,000^. Now 20,000,000/. of taxes on an income of 140,000,000/., is about 14 per cent. But 45,000,000/. (the amount paid, as we have seen, by the propertied classes) on an income of 235,000,000^., is not 14 per cent., but nearly 20. In the course of our empirical proceedings in fiscal matters, though nothing like system or science has yet been developed, our experience has brought about the recognition of two or three important truths. Of these the most valuable are the connection between a flourish- ing revenue and a cheap and abundant supply of the necessaries of life, and the superior productiveness of moderate over high duties. The almost invariable con- comitance between a low price of corn, and an increased consumption of exciseable articles, not only directed public attention to the discovery, that the one is a logical sequence of the other, but enabled even Chan- cellors of the Exchequer to draw the conclusion, that as food and clothing must in the expenditure of all classes take precedence of any other articles of consumption, it 256 PKINCIPLES OF TAXATION. is only on the surplus, after these are supplied, that the state can effectively levy its demands. Hence we may hope that it will henceforth be one of the principal objects of all governments to keep provisions cheap, and that even in our times of most pressing emergency, we shall never again see any proposal for imposing taxes upon food or other articles of first necessity. The many remarkable instances, also, which our financial history affords of a rapid rise in the revenue, arising from duties on articles of general consumption, follow- ing upon a great reduction of those duties, have fairly established the theory, and are fast entailing the practice, of moderate rates. The operation of a reduc- tion of duty is twofold : it increases the consumption of the taxed article, in consequence of the reduced price bringing it within the reach of a larger number of consumers, and enabling former consumers to purchase more abundantly than before; and it causes a larger proportion of what is consumed to contribute to the revenue, by removing or lessening the motive to illicit importation or production. The various fluctuations in the tax on sugar, on coffee, on tea, on wine, on spirits, and on letters, and their immediate and invari- able consequences, which have been so often brought before the public, have raised the enriching tendency of reduced duties so nearly to the rank of an axiom of financial policy, that scarcely any one except a Chan- cellor of the Exchequer would hesitate to act upon it. The same history, however, which has taught us this prolific truth, has brought to light two exceptions, which are sometimes pointed to by financiers of little faith, as invalidating the general law. The usual result does not ensue when the article is not one of general consumption, but a mere luxury or fancy of the few. Thus, no reduction in the tax on hair-powder or four- wheeled carriages would so increase the use of either as PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 257 to compensate for the change. Neither does the usual result ensue where the reduction is inadequate to the purpose, and neither materially reduces the price to the consumer of the duty-paid article, nor greatly diminishes the temptation to smuggling. It is obvious, that where the duty on an article of moderate bulk, and in great demand, is 800 per cent., the reduction of this to 600 per cent, would only reduce the price to the consumer, and consequently affect the consumption to an inap- preciable extent, and thus the revenue would probably lose the whole amount of the reduction. It is obvious, also, that the smallest of these duties would still leave the stimulus to smuggling so enormous as to ensure its continuance to the utmost practicable extent. The reduction would leave the disadvantage of the fair trader virtually untouched. The experience of the items of tea and tobacco have well illustrated both these principles, the duty on the former being about 200, and on the latter about 700 per cent. These two practical facts form, however, pretty much the sum total of financial wisdom, on which all parties may be said to be agreed. Nearly every other rule is adhuc sub judice. Even our first authorities on these matters, Adam Smith, Ricardo, M'Culloch, and Mill, are by no means always in harmony ; and if they were, our senators and statesmen are far from having studied them, or imbibed their principles. A new school, and a very active one, has now sprung up in Liverpool, and its votaries have formed themselves into an association for the avowed purpose of advocating direct taxation, as the only sound, innoxious, and equitable system. AVe shall not attempt to enter into any abstract disqui- sitions on the knottier branches of the subject, but shall endeavour to elucidate a few general propositions which may naturally aid us in gaining a clear conception of its larger bearings. VOL. i. s 258 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. A perfect tax if perfection can be predicated of a thing whose ineradicable essence is evil would be one which should press equally upon every individual in the community ; which should hamper no industry and curtail no commerce ; which should offer no temptation and leave no opening to fraud ; which should be levied in such a manner as to create no irritation, but should be paid as it were unconsciously, or at least un- grudgingly ; and which should take no more from the subject than it put into the exchequer. But such a tax, though conceivable, is obviously unattainable ; and practically, therefore, we must be content to adopt such taxes as most nearly approximate to the fulfilment of these conditions, or of the most important of them. It will help us much if we fairly face the inevitable dilemma. A large revenue must be raised. Taxation, therefore, must be submitted to. But all taxes are objectionable. It is impossible, we believe, to name a single impost against which a case more or less strong might not be made out. Every tax diminishes the wealth of the country, because every one is unproductively expended. Almost every one we ever heard of is either inequitable in its nature, or fetters commerce, or stimulates to fraud, or is costly in the collection, or is irritating to the temper, or combines several or all of these objec- tions. All that is left to us is a choice of evils. It is no sufficient reason, therefore, for rejecting or repealing a tax, that it is open to one or more of the above charges. Neither, on the other hand, is it any valid ground for preferring or imposing a tax, that it fulfils one of the above requirements, if it violates others equally or more important. It is no conclusive recommendation of a tax that it is equitable, if it be intolerably irritating or needlessly impoverishing. It is no adequate defence that it is cheap and palatable, if it be at the same time unfair or demoralising. We must not judge taxes by a PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 259 standard of ideal perfection, which none of them can satisfy, but by the degree in which they approach to the most essential requirements of that standard. Let us now dive at once into the heart of the matter, and consider the chief recommendations alleged in favour of a system of direct taxation. " Direct taxation, we are told, is the most equitable of all systems. Under the existing mode the poor pay more, and the rich less, than their fair share. Under direct taxation this injustice would be remedied. " Under what system of direct taxation would the adjustment be equitable? and what is a " fair share ? " What is equity ? Simple equity the dictates of rigid justice, would seem to require that men should pay to the state in proportion to the services it renders them, those who benefit most paying most. Xow the class which derives the greatest benefit from the protection of the state is clearly that which would suffer most from the withdrawal of that protection, viz. the ignorant, the feeble, and the helpless. The class which profits most by the active beneficence of the state (when its functions are not merely negative and pro- tective) is clearly the same, viz. the poor, the weak, and the incapable. Simple equity, therefore, would appear to require that those should pay the largest amount of taxation who are least able to pay a conclusion which, however strictly deducible from admitted premises, it is alike impossible to adopt or carry out Other lovers of equity contend that, as every man has life and liberty to be guaranteed, but every man has not property, a poll-tax should be levied as an equivalent to the former, and that the rest of the revenue should be raised on property, and according to property. There is a certain shallow plausibility in the distinction which will recom- mend it to many minds. But a single question will show how inadequate and unsatisfactory is the solution it affords. How are you to estimate the relative value of s 2 260 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. life, liberty, and property, so as to decide what proportion of the revenue shall be raised by a poll-tax, and what by a property tax ? According to general feeling the latter would be infinitesimally small. " Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. " Again, is every man to pay the same amount of poll-tax ? the man to whom life is sweet and valuable, with every charm which health, happiness, and affection can shed around it, and the man to whom it is a burden and a malady. Others urge that the relation between the state and its citizens is too wide and too sacred to be thus treated as a bare contract for protection on the one side, and payment on the other ; that it is the key-stone of a union in which all have entered with a view to the general good ; and that every man should contribute, not in proportion to his needs, but in proportion to his means. But practical difficulties apart on what principle are a man's means to be estimated ? By " means," do we intend to signify his property or income, or his ability to pay? Is he to be taxed according to what he has, or according to what he can afford? If the latter which clearly ought to be the reply how, by the resources of direct taxation, is it possible to ascertain it ? If the former, as is contended by the parties whose arguments we are considering, what rule could be more ^equitable ? For, of three men with 1000. a year each, it is as certain that their incomes are equal, as that their means are unequal. The income of the first is derived from fixed property, and is permanent and bequeathable, and he may spend the whole. The income of the second is a life annuity, and he can only venture to spend what remains after he has purchased an insurance policy for his surviving family. The income of the third is derived from severe professional exertions which cannot be continued for ever, and he can only spend what remains after the additional PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 261 purchase of a deferred annuity as a provision for old age. Are all these men to be taxed equally, on the plea that their incomes are equal ? If so, your equitable plan leads to the commission of a manifest injustice ; for it is clear that a man can only afford to pay in pro- portion to what he can afford to spend ; and though you levy the same amount of tax on each of the three men, the pressure of that tax will be very different. We will assume, however, that this objection is met, as many political economists contend that it should, by taxing permanent, terminable, and professional incomes by a varying scale. Still other difficulties as insuperable in the way of a really fair assessment remain behind. How will you deal with the case of men who, with equal fixed incomes, have most unequal demands upon those incomes, and therefore in truth most unequal means ? Tt is abundantly clear that a man having 1000/. a year, and ten children, cannot afford to pay as much as a man having 1000. a year, and neither wife nor child. A tax of 10 per cent., which would be scarcely felt by the latter, or, at the worst, would only debar him from some noxious or needless luxury, would actually pinch the former, perhaps drive him into a smaller house, and probably compel him to stint his family in clothes or education. In order in some measure to meet this objection, Bentham recommended, and Mr. J. S. Mill endorses the recommendation, that taxation should only be levied on a man's surplus income, i. e. on that portion of it which remains after the absolute necessaries of life are provided for. In pursuance of this idea, he advises that all incomes under 50/. should be exempted altogether, that a man with 100/. should pay upon 501 only, and a man with 1000/. upon 950/., and so on. We see no ob- jection to the proposal as a practical boon ; but it is obvious that this could afford only a very rough ap- s 3 262 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. proximation to justice : 50Z. a year would more than supply a bachelor with food, shelter, and clothing, but would be inadequate for a man with ten children. Moreover, it would leave the real difficulty untouched which is to provide an income-tax which shall be truly and not nominally equitable which shall not press on one man more heavily than on another? We arc not here arguing, be it observed, against an income-tax as inadmissible ; we merely wish to show that it does not, any more than those taxes which it is proposed to discard in its favour, fulfil the requirements of equity. It does not make, and cannot be arranged to make, every man pay his " fair share " towards the burdens of the state. There is little doubt that many of the objections to the existing income-tax might be removed or mitigated, but several we believe to be inherent in its essence. At present it combines nearly every possible bad quality that a tax can have. It is only half as productive as it might be made ; it is inquisitorial and irritating to the last degree; it is brimful of obvious and hidden injus- tices, and it offers overwhelming inducements to fraud. It is impossible to point to any principle on which the exemption of all incomes under 150/. can be defended. If the propriety (above stated) of leaving untaxed a sufficient portion of a man's income to provide him with an actual subsistence be urged on its behalf, then we reply that the exemption is far too wide, and should have been confined to incomes under 50/. If the plea be brought forward that the class whose incomes fall between 50. and 150/. bear an inordinate proportion of the indirect taxes, as is suggested by Mr. Mill, then we reply that the exemption does not extend nearly far enough, for the people whose income ranges from 100/. to 300. are far the most heavily taxed portion of the community. They pay house-tax, they pay poor-rates PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 263 and county-rates, they pay a considerable portion of the stamp duties and the advertisement duty, and they con- tribute fully more than their share to the customs and excise. Moreover, the exemption reduces the yield of the tax, according to the best opinions, fully one half. Finally, as the recent parliamentary investigation is said to prove beyond question, it opens a wider door to petty fraud than any other provision of this baneful impost.* Those acquainted with the practical working of special taxes declare, that if there be one rule which their ex- perience points to as admitting of less doubt and fewer exceptions than any other, it is, that all exemptions are mischievous. Even if all the obvious and admitted inequalities of the income-tax were rectified, it would still be in practice the most unfair of all imposts, from the utter impossi- bility of assessing with any certainty the actual incomes of the contributors. Rents, salaries, annuities, divi- dends, &c., may be accurately ascertained ; but pro- fessional gains, and the profits of trade, can be estimated on no other ground than the declarations of the contri- butors themselves. No productions of books, no demand for minute and detailed returns, though these are often called for to a most vexatious and troublesome extent, can enable the collectors to prevent fraud where fraud is intended. Xot only therefore does the tax fall heaviest on the most conscientious the worst species of inequality but an almost irresistible temptation is held out to subtle casuistry, to self-favouring decisions in all cases where the shadow of a doubt exists, to all those petty tamperings with integrity which gradually sear the tenderness of the moral sense, and pave the way * In 1844 the claims for exemption were 82,854, of which the commissioners were obliged to admit 75,500. The amount returned on these claims was 69,100/. s 4 264 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. for bolder and larger infractions of justice and of law.* The surveyors and commissioners feel themselves baffled by the deliberate and consistent assertions of the steady knave, and they repay themselves by subjecting the honest tradesman to an amount of vexatious and insult- ing cross-examination which amounts to absolute perse- cution. They openly charge him with having made a false declaration the law gives them power to do this with impunity ; they remand him day after day for fresh examination ; they require returns of details and parti- cular transactions for three years back, which it is some- times impossible to furnish, which waste his time and sour his temper : when he either cannot or will not do this, or when, wearied out with contumely and annoy- ance, he abandons the contest in disgust, they confirm the surcharge which brands him as a would-be but baffled deceiver : and if, from a dread of meeting similar inso- lence and torture every year, or from feeling that no * Defrauding the revenue is too commonly regarded as scarcely a moral offence at all. Thousands will cheat the exchequer who would on no account cheat a fellow subject ; and the conduct of the government in upholding, and the language of Sir Charles Wood in defending, a tax so replete with manifold injustices as the existing income-tax, have done much to promote this misty, ohlique, and exceptional morality. We scarcely know any didactic and pro- fessorial teachings as to the veniality of fraud to be compared with the speeches of the Chancellor of the Exchequer on this subject. He has repeatedly argued that the income-tax is just because it is unjust to all that it is so rotten and indefensible in all its details that you cannot meddle with it without risk of its falling to pieces altogether, that he must have the money, that he is cheated more than he cheats, &c. &c. If the Chancellor of the Exchequer declares that he cannot help being unjust, the tax-payer will naturally reply that he cannot help being dishonest. If the chancellor pleads, in defence of an unfair tax, that he must fill his coffers, the subject will reply that he must protect his purse. It becomes a simple battle between extortion on one side and evasion on the other. PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 2G5 mere sum of money can make it worth while to submit again to such an irritating process, he consents to com- pound at the amount thus unjustly assessed, they point to his consent as an acknowledgment of his intended fraud. These cases are deplorably frequent ; we speak from long and painful experience, and our own obser- vation has been confirmed by some of the commissioners themselves, who blushed at the amount of bullying and insult inflicted by their colleagues on the unfortunate appellants. Now, a tax which enables the fraudulent to cheat the collector, and the collector to rob the honest, can be rendered endurable and defensible by no amount of supposed theoretical perfection. A tax, too, which leads to so much irritation of temper, and so much bitter indignation, that many of those who pay it would will- ingly contribute, in order to escape from it, double the amount in any other form, is surely open to one of the most fatal objections that can be alleged against any impost. Of the five requirements enumerated above, as characteristic of a perfect tax, a direct tax on income fulfils scarcely one. It is peculiarly and incurably un- fair, it is excessively irritating, it is lamentably demoral- ising, and, if all things be taken into consideration, it is by no means unexpensive in the collection. Mr. Mill, even, " with much regret, " considers the first of these objections as insuperable. " It is to be feared," he adds, " that the fairness which belongs to the principle of an income-tax can never be made to attach to it in practice ; and that this tax, while apparently the most just of all modes of raising a revenue, is in effect more unjust than many others which are primd facie more objectionable. This consideration would lead us to concur in the opinion Avliich, until of late, has usually prevailed that direct taxes upon income should be reserved as an extraor- dinary resource for great national emergencies, in which 266 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. the necessity of a large additional revenue overrules all minor considerations."* The argument in favour of direct taxes on property and income, which has so often been alleged of late, viz. that they fall upon the rich rather than on the poor, we have already partially considered. We have shown that it is at least questionable whether, in simple equity, the poor ought to be so largely exempted from taxation. We have shown good ground for believing that the poor, in this country and under our existing system, pay less than the rich in proportion to their incomes, and enormously less in proportion to their numbers. We have also shown that the working classes with us are relieved from all taxation but that which is self-imposed^ to an extent which can be affirmed of no other country in the world. We have shown that our revenue - may be said, without exaggeration, to be almost wholly levied either upon property, and chiefly upon the larger properties, or upon luxuries. But on this branch of the question, there is one other very im- portant consideration to be adverted to. Direct taxes are now popular with the masses and their writers, only because the masses are exempted from them. Now, were we to decide upon raising our revenue wholly or mainly from direct taxes, this exemption could no longer be maintained. A large amount of taxation can * " The truth is that a fair income-tax is a desideratum which is not destined ever to be supplied. After the legislature has done all that can be done to make it equal, it will still remain most unequal. To impose it only on certain classes of incomes, or on all incomes without regard to their origin, is alike subversive of all sound prin- ciple. Nothing, therefore, remains but to reject it, or to resort to it only when money must be had at all hazards, when the ordinary and less exceptionable methods of filling the public coffers have been tried and exhausted, and when, as during the late war, Hannibal is knocking at the gates, and national independence must be secured at whatever cost." M'Cnlloc/i, p. 137. PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 267 never be levied on the few. If, therefore, this plan were adopted, all must pay. In countries where it is adopted, all do pay. In most countries on the Con- tinent, in France, in Germany*, where customs and excise duties form a far less important part of the revenue than here, there is a per centage levied on all personal as well as real property ; there is a capitation- tax, a hearth-tax, a trade-tax, a salt-tax, often a bread and meat-tax, besides the vexatious and burdensome octroi. From these burdens few or none are exempted. And so it would have to be here, were the prospects of the Liverpool financiers adopted. - Taxes on luxuries, if they are luxuries confined to the rich, can never be productive. Even a house-tax, if levied on the absurd principle of the new one which out of 3,700,000 dwellings, proposes to exempt all under 20/., or six- sevenths of the number would yield a most insig- nificant return. Even an income and property-tax, confined to the middle and upper ranks, however heavy it might be, would soon show the working classes that, whatever be the first incidence of an unfair impost, the due share of it must finally fall on them. By no jugglery of direct taxation can the many, ultimately or permanently, shift their burdens on to the shoulders of the few. The rich, like the poor, can neither spend nor pay more than they possess. Nine-tenths of them already live up to their income, or as nearly so as they deem prudent; in other words, they spend as much as they safely can. Take the case of a man with an income of 1000. a year. He pays, we will say, 200/. a year in taxes, direct and indirect ; the remaining 800/. meets his personal expenditure. He keeps three ser- vants, besides a groom and a horse. A new system of * Much of this is derived from private information sent us by the best informed parties on the Continent. For confirmation, see Laing's " Observations on Europe in 1848 and 1849." 268 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. taxation increases his taxes to 400. a year, and of course diminishes his available income to 600/. His tea, coffee, and sugar, will cost him less than before, owing to the abolition of customs and excise duties. But the difference will be so slight, that he must diminish his general expenditure materially. He can only do so by paying less wages, or by purchasing less of those articles whose production gives employment to the poor, i. e. by diminishing that portion of his expenditure which was spent, directly or indirectly, in the payment of labour. He dismisses his groom and sells his horse. His groom in the first place, his saddler and blacksmith in the second, and the farmer who supplied him with hay and oats, in the third, are the sufferers. He gives up wine, and deprives of employment the artisan who used to produce the article of export which was formerly sent abroad to purchase his wine. He reduces the expenditure of his family in clothes: the tailor, the shoemaker, the spinner, the weaver, the dyer, feel the effect of his increased taxa- tion. They have their sugar, their tea, their tobacco, their beer, cheaper than before ; but the poor groom has lost all his means of purchasing these luxuries, and the other artisans have had their means greatly cur- tailed. Almost the whole expenditure of the ricli man goes, in one form or another, in the employment of labour often, it is true, in a most unwise employment of it ; and when this truth is fully apprehended by the working classes, they will understand that every dimi- nution of the rich man's income, by partial taxation, must recoil upon the poor, not by a law of parlia- ment, but by a law of economic science, against which parliamentary enactments contend in vain. If this were fairly stated and fully comprehended, what would be the feeling of the mass of our population on the subject of direct taxation ? How would they PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 269 who never see the face or hear the unwelcome knock of the tax-gatherer, from the cradle to the grave who, perhaps, scarcely ever pay a farthing to the revenue at all, or at all events would never find out that they did it, if they were not told how would they endure to be called upon, year by year, for a house-tax of five per cent,, for five per cent, of their wages, or for five shillings a head upon every member of their family ? Direct taxes, like any other taxes, are sure to be popular with those who do not pay them. But if the choice were fairly placed before them, between indirect taxation as it now exists, and direct taxation, of which they must bear their fair share, between a tax on income, which they could not escape, and a tax on luxuries, which it was optional with them to pay, who can doubt what would be their instantaneous and unanimous decision ? Hitherto, the people have been systematically blinded as to the real question at issue, both by their own misleaders, and by a misjudging legislature. How could they form a just estimate of the relative merits of direct and indirect taxation, when they knew the former only as an income-tax which spared their in- comes, and a house-tax which spared their houses, and the latter as a burden which poisoned every pipe they smoked, soured every glass of beer they drunk, and embittered every cup of tea they sweetened ? But when the question is honestly propounded to them : Not "Which do you prefer a tax which the rich pay and you escape, or one which you pay in common with them ?" but, " Which do you prefer a tax which you pay only when you like, if you like, and to the extent you like ; or one which, though perhaps smaller in amount, is yet taken from you periodically, inexorably, and however ill you can afford it ?" we are satisfied that the advocates of direct taxation will find few sup- porters. 270 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. "We cannot but think that much moral mischief has been done, and serious political danger incurred, both by the custom recently adopted or extended of exempt- ing the lower classes and the smaller incomes from taxation, and still more by the language in which this custom has been advocated. No man has sinned more deeply in this particular than the present chancellor of the exchequer, Sir Charles Wood. We have already had occasion to animadvert upon his lax and slipshod morality. In recommending his new house-tax, on the ground of its exempting all houses under 2QL a year, (or, 3,000,000 out of 3,500,000,) he spoke thus : " In all the commercial and financial measures I have sub- mitted to the House, my principle has been one and the same. I have never turned to the right or to the left to consider what would be a benefit to one class or another ; but I have looked to that which would be most beneficial to the great body of our labouring population. They are, in my opinion, the special ob- jects of the care and solicitude of government, government being instituted for the benefit of the many, not of the few." It is sad to see a man high in office utter, before a grave assembly, charged with the destinies of millions, twaddle indicating such sad mistiness of view. In the first place, while professing to eschew all class legis- lation, he adopts a class legislation of the most sweep- ing, flagrant, and demagogic character. He will not turn aside to consider what will benefit this class or that, but yet he will make it his main object and con- sideration to benefit the largest class of all. He will inquire, not what is just and fair to all classes, but what will be most desirable for that class whose interests he especially desires to serve. In laying on a tax on dwell- ings, he will levy it on half a million only, out of three millions and a half, because he desires to benefit the PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 271 class who live in the exempted three millions, at the expense of the class who live in the taxed half million. He will lay the burden on the few, not on the many, " because government was instituted for the benefit of the many, not of the few." Was it? we had always understood that government was instituted for the benefit of the many and of the few. We have always conceived that the distinction here drawn was the essential blunder and vice of vulgar democracy. In proportion to the sinallness of that portion of the com- munity on which taxation is imposed, does it assume the character of confiscation. In proportion as one class or section is singled out for bearing the burdens of the state, does taxation approach the essence, put on the garb, breathe the poisonous doctrine of pillage. We would go to the furthest point of the most thorough democrat in removing every impost which pressed unfairly, injuriously, or oppressively upon the mass of the community; we would apportion the public bur- dens on the most rigid principle of equity, wherever that can be discovered, and as far as it can be ap- proached ; but those who encourage the people to believe that taxation ought to be or can be made to fall upon the upper classes exclusively or disproportionately those who adopt the course and use the language of the Chancellor of the Exchequer are laying down a doctrine of the most fatal tendency, and the most flagrant immorality ; a doctrine, in fact, which differs only in the extent to which it is proposed at present to apply it, from the doctrines of Jack Cade, Barbes, and Blanqui, of the plunderers, spoliators, confiscators, and " equitable adjusters " of all times. One of the arguments in favour of direct taxation, most relied upon by its advocates, is its superior cheap- ness. When compared with indirect taxation, it is alleged, it takes less out of the pockets of the people, in 272 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. proportion to the amount it puts into the coffers of the exchequer. AVe admit the truth of the allegation to a certain degree ; but that degree has been enormously overstated. The relative cost of collecting the different branches of the revenue in Great Britain is as follows*: customs, 51. 6s. 4d. per cent.; excise, 4/. 16s. 9c?. ; direct taxes (assessed and income), 31. 3s. 3d. In other words, the direct taxes cost three and one-sixth per cent., and the indirect taxes five per cent., in col- lecting, leaving an advantage of not quite two per cent. in favour of the former. On the first blush of the matter, then, it would appear as if the entire sub- stitution of the former for the latter would effect a saving of nearly one million a year to the country. How far this would be a sufficient equipoise to the vast addition of irritation and inconvenience which such substitution would entail, may well be doubted. But would the saving be even as great as it appears? This is more than doubtful. In the first place, a wiser ad- justment of our customs and excise duties repealing those which yield little and cost much, would reduce the expense of collection most materially. Already we can trace a commencement of such reduction arising from the judicious changes which have been introduced from time to time. Thus we find that in the years from 1830 to 1833, the cost of collecting the customs' duties in Great Britain averaged 5/. 19s. Id. per cent. In the last four years it has only averaged 51. 7s. 3d. ; and in 1850 was only 51. 6s. d. In the five years from 1835 to 1839 the cost of collecting the excise averaged 6Z. 6s. 4c?."; in the last five years it has only averaged 51 7s. 2d., and in 1850 was only 41. 16s. 9d. But there is another consideration. It is true that the direct taxes are now levied at a collecting cost of three and one-sixth per cent., because they are levied * Finance Account, 1851. Parl. Papers. PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 273 on comparatively few individuals, and in comparatively large sums. But if they became our sole taxes, or even the main basis of our taxation, they must, as we have shown, be extended to all classes, they must be levied upon all individuals, however humble. Instead of Schedule D being demanded from 147,659 individuals (as it was in 1848), it would have to be demanded from probably upwards of a million. Instead of the revenue being collected in sums of 100Z., it would have to be collected in sums of I/, and under. Instead of a col- lector calling once and upon one man for 50/., he would have to call a hundred times, and upon a hundred men. Instead of gathering the house-tax from 500,000 houses, it would have to be gathered from 3,500,000. The 205. a year which the working man (according to our previous estimate) now pays indirectly and uncon- sciously, and which the collector never has to call upon him for at all, would then have to be wrung out of him by painful pressure, under a variety of heads, and at repeated visits. The collector now gathers the tax on tea or sugar, for example, from about one thousand importing and unmurmuring merchants, who pay it as a matter of course, and without demur. Under the direct svstem, the same sum would have to be drawn in w small amounts from thirty millions of resentful and blaspheming contributors, who would make a point of giving as much trouble as they could. Under such circumstances, is there the least probability that direct taxes could be collected for three and one-sixth per cent., or perhaps for three times that amount?* Is it not evident that to obtain a large revenue you levy it * In confirmation of this, it is important to notice that previous to 1842 (when the income-tax was imposed, which presses on so few), the direct taxes cost nearly as much as the customs and excise in col- lection, or above five per cent. VOL. I. T 274 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. from the many, to obtain it cheaply you must levy it from, or rather through, the few? We do not therefore see any reason to believe that direct taxes, fairly imposed, would be at all less costly in the collection than indirect ones, judiciously selected and adjusted. We have met boldly, and in the face, the principal recommendations usually urged on behalf of those imposts which are now bidding so high for popular favour. We have shown that when they take the form of an income and property-tax they are inhe- rently and incurably unfair ; we have shown that it is very questionable whether they are economical, and that it is beyond question that they are not equitable, and cannot be made so. There are, however, three classes of direct taxes which have our unqualified ap- proval the assessed taxes, and the house-tax, and the legacy duty. The assessed taxes, now that the window duty has been repealed, seem wholly unobjectionable. They are easily levied ; they allow little, if any, room for evasion and deceit ; they are taxes on expenditure, not on income ; they are taxes on needless luxuries, and if a man wishes at any time to escape the tax, he can do so by foregoing the luxury. If he can afford to indulge in the luxury, it is certain he can afford to pay for it, and should not grudge doing so. Of all taxes a house-tax, fairly levied on the assessable value of the dwelling, and admitting no exemptions, unites most merits, and is open to fewest objections. It is liable to no evasion or dispute ; it creates no irritation beyond that which paying away money for an unseen reality unavoidably causes in nearly all minds ; its pressure is more equitable than that of any other, since the value of the house in which a man chooses to live offers a criterion of what he can afford to spend (and therefore to pay), not, indeed, perfect and universal, but certainly more accurate than any other test. We particularly PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 275 recommend to our readers' attention the section of Mr. Mill's work which he devotes to the consideration of the house-tax, in which he briefly, but most tri- umphantly, disposes of all the current objections which are urged against it, showing how frivolous most of them are, and how entirely all that have any validity or weight apply not to the principle of the tax itself, but to the faulty and inequitable mode in which it was formerly levied. Now that this tax has been re- imposed, we trust to see it made permanent, universal, equal in its pressure, and greatly increased in amount. It may then become as we hope it will a substitute for the present income-tax, almost all the recommenda- tions of which it may claim, and all the fatal allegations against which it avoids. A ten per cent, house-tax, laid not on 500,000 dwellings, but OIL 4,500,000*, would yield a large, steady, and unobnoxious revenue, and possesses, besides this vast supplementary merit, that the rate might be raised or lowered according to the yearly necessities of the exchequer, and thus save that constant alteration, repeal, imposition, and re- imposition of taxes, which is one of the great mischiefs of our present empiric, unscientific, and hand-to-mouth system. Now, if there be a deficiency, the chancellor has to set his wits to work to devise some new tax that can be laid on with the least outcry, or to select from the old ones that which will best bear an increase ; and in doing this it is scarcely possible for him to hit upon one which will not be more or less injurious, or more or less partial in its augmented pressure, and an alteration of which will not, therefore, fairly lay him open to the charge of injustice. If, on the other hand, there is a surplus revenue, the chancellor is immediately assailed with the deafening clamour of twenty rival claimants * I.e., 3,467,611 in Great Britain, and 852,389 (probably) in Ireland. T 2 276 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. for relief ; and whatever tax he selects for repeal, it is scarcely possible for him to avoid favouring one class of the community more than the others, and thus in- curring the accusation of partiality. All changes in taxation are in themselves bad, because all involve an unsettlement of time-adjusted pressure. Taxes, what- ever be their nature and first incidence, have a certain tendency, in the course of years, to rectify their own original inequalities, and spread themselves with tolerable fairness over the community. This is one of the most indisputable axioms of economic science, though writers differ as to the rapidity with which the process is effected. But of the inherent faculty of taxation, however partial its imposition in the outset, to place itself gradually and in due proportion on the right shoulders, there can be no controversy. Every change, therefore, every new tax laid on, every old one repealed, disturbs the natural adjustment which has been thus effected, and introduces, for the time, a fresh inequality of pressure, requiring a fresh process of ad- justment. But if we had once removed the taxes really injurious to morals and to trade, it would be of in- estimable benefit to have no further alteration, to have all taxes settled and permanent, but to meet the vary- ing redundancies or deficiencies of the revenue, as they occurred, by varying the rate per cent, of that one impost which pressed equally on all. This, we conceive, would be the greatest practical improvement which could be introduced into our fiscal system. The legacy duties, in the form in which they are now imposed, are utterly indefensible. Their partiality is gross and flagrant. In the first place, they exempt a vast proportion of the property of the country alto- gether ; in the second place, they tax small properties at a higher rate than large. From the probate duty, which is levied on the entire personal property devised PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 277 by will, from the duty on letters of administration, which is levied on the entire personalty of parties dying intestate, and from the legacy duty, which also falls on personalty, but at rates varying according to the degree of consanguinity of the legatee, all real property is exempt. Railway shares, bank stock, stock in trade, ships, gold, bills of exchange, &c., all pay: land does not. Again, the probate duty, which averages rather more than 2 per cent, on all sums under 2000/., is only about H per cent, on properties of 20,000/., and not much more than 1J on estates of 100,OOOJ. or 1,000,000*. The duty on letters of administration is 3 per cent, on the smaller amounts, and only from 2 to 2 5 on larger ones. These monstrous injustices have led to a feeling of hostility to a tax which, when fairly imposed and levied, is one of the most equitable and least burden- some that can be devised. In judging the principle of a legacy duty, we must consider it not in the imperfect and objectionable form which it may have assumed under the sinister operation of class interests, but in the form it would assume in the hands of just legislators. Now, if the probate and administrative duties were re- pealed, and the legacy duty imposed upon all property passing by inheritance, at a rate varying, as at present, according to the degree of relationship, from 1 to 10 per cent., we do not see any tax to which so few objec- tions could apply. It is little liable to evasion by dona- tion inter vivos, and a slight alteration of the law might still further diminish this liability ; it affords scarcely any opening to fraud, because the legal formalities necessary in the due performance of the duties of an executor would give ample means of ascertaining the amounts bequeathed or inherited ; it fulfils admirably Adam Smith's third requisite of a good tax (that it should be levied at the time when it is most convenient for the individual to pay it), inasmuch as it is demanded T 3 278 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. from him at the very moment when he is receiving a considerable accession of property ; and, finally, it is paid with less irritation and reluctance than any other fiscal burden, because it is called for when this acces- sion of property has improved his circumstances, and may be supposed to have put him in good humour. Moreover, there seems a special equity in the tax on a separate ground. It may be regarded as an equivalent paid for the protection of the law under circumstances when an individual is disabled from protecting himself. A man's power over his property naturally ceases with his life ; without the intervention of the state he could not secure its reversion to those whom he desired to endow. The state, however, steps in, and says to him, " We will carry out your posthumous wishes with re- gard to the disposal of your estate when you are help- less and departed, on condition of a moderate and reason- able fee." Thus he pays the ordinary taxes to purchase protection during his lifetime : he pays the legacy duty to purchase a posthumous power over his property, a power which only an executor like the state can bestow. If there be no property to bequeath, there is no tax paid. Mr. Mill's estimate of the justice and incidental merits of this tax is so high that he would carry it much further than many will feel prepared to go along with him. He conceives that "the principle of graduation (as it is called), that is, of levying a larger per centage on a larger sum, though its application to general tax- ation would be a violation of first principles, is quite unobjectionable as applied to legacy and inheritance duties." He would, moreover, limit the power of be- quest to a fixed amount, making the state residuary legatee in all cases where the property left exceeded this amount to each recipient ; and he would make col- lateral inheritances ab intestate cease altogether, and the property escheat to the state. The arguments by which he defends these proposals have, we confess, failed to PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 279 satisfy us altogether of their wisdom, but they are well worthy of consideration. They are to be found in the first chapter of his second book. In comparing the respective merits of direct and in- direct taxation taxes on income and property, and taxes on commodities much stress is laid by the advo- cates of the former on its superior economy, on its taking less than its rival out of the pocket of the people, in proportion to the sum it puts into the coffers of the state. We have already considered this point so far as mere cost of collection is concerned ; and we have shown that the alleged cheapness of direct taxation in this par- ticular, is rather delusive than genuine rather acci- dental and fluctuating than permanent and essential. But another expense attaches to taxes on articles of consumption, which it is important to estimate at its real magnitude. Duties on commodities (it is said) being usually paid by the producers or importers before the commodities are sold to the consumers, increase prices, not only by the amount of the duty, but also by the amount of the profits on that portion of the pro- ducer's or importer's capital which was expended in advancing the duty. That is, if the usual and fair profits on capital employed in trade are ten per cent., the article in question reaches the consumer charged not only with the duty, but with the addition of ten per cent, on the amount of that duty ; nay more, with an additional ten per cent, laid on by every tradesman through whose hands the article passes. Sismondigoes so far as to say that a tax of 4000 francs, paid originally by the manufacturer or importer, whose profits were ten per cent., would, if the article passed only through the hands of five different persons before reaching the consumer, cost the latter 6734 francs. If this state- ment were true, or even approached the truth, it would T 4 280 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. amount to an indictment against indirect taxation, which scarcely any or all of its acknowledged recommendations would suffice to countervail. But it is obvious that this blundering calculation proceeds upon the assumption that the tax accumulates by compound interest, not at the rate of ten per cent, per annum, but at the rate of ten per cent, at each step of its progress. If each one of the transmitters retained the article a year in his possession, and it was, therefore, jive years in reaching the consumer, Sismondi's reasoning would be correct ; but if only one year elapsed and the actual time is seldom so long then an addition to the original duty of 400 francs instead of 2734, would give a rate of ten per cent, per annum to all parties through whose hands the commodity had passed, whether they were five or fifty. But even when we have thus reduced this objection from the gigantic magnitude to which M. Sismondi's oversight had swelled it, a further and most material deduction must be made. We will assume that a year elapses between the payment of duty by the importer or manufacturer, and its repayment to him by the con- sumer ; the consumer will then pay it with the addition of ten per cent. But he pays it a year later than he would otherwise have done: the state required the money at the time it levied it from the importer ; if, in place of an indirect, it had been levied by a direct tax on the consumer, he must have paid it in January instead of in December. The money, therefore, has been left in his hand for a whole year, during which period it has yielded him, we may presume, five per cent. The real addition to the consumer is, therefore, not ten per cent, but jive ; since whether he pays the tax plus five per cent, in January, or plus ten per cent, in December, the actual sum taken out of his pocket is the same. The state wants 1001. from the tax-payer, PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 281 whose money is invested at five per cent, interest ; and, taking this by indirect taxation, it takes from him HO/., but it does this a year later than it would have done by direct taxation; and whether it takes 105/. from him now, or 110/. twelve months hence, must be a matter of complete indifference. But is there any reason to believe that a year, or any time approaching to it, elapses in ordinary cases between the payment of the duty by the importing merchant, and its recovery from the ultimate consumer ? In former days it might have been so ; but since the system of bonded warehouses was introduced, the case is altogether changed. Now the merchant can leave his goods under the queen's key, and does not pay the duty till he takes them out for delivery, not indeed to the consumer, but to the dealer who supplies the consumer. The additional capital required, and on which he has to charge his supposed profit of ten per cent., is only needed for the few days or weeks which elapse between his payment to the revenue oificer, and the shopkeeper's repayment to him : the shopkeeper, again, has only to charge profit on the same capital for the few days and weeks which elapse between his payment to the mer- chant, and his customer's payment to him. If all parties paid ready money, the whole additional cost to the consumer would be confined to ten per cent, profit on the duty, for the time during which the goods lay unsold in the dealer's shop, which time he would of course render as short as possible, by holding small stocks and applying to the merchant only a very short time before his previous supply was exhausted. If cither vendor give credit to either vendee, then the addi- tional price which this credit obliges him to charge for the commodity, is a simple remuneration to him for consenting to remain so long out of possession of his capital. It is interest on money lent to his customer; 282 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. and it is mere misrepresentation to speak of it as an ad- dition to the duty advanced by the importer. The indirect expense of indirect taxation, then, which loomed so large in the distance, turns out, when closely analysed, to be very insignificant; not, as Sismondi conceived, 70 per cent., not, as Ricardo seemed to admit, 10 per cent., not even, as for the sake of argu- ment we assumed, 5 per cent., but probably not above 1^ per cent., or three months' interest on the amount of the original duty. The enormous cost to the country of many taxes on imported commodities (conjectured to have been in the case of sugar five millions, and in the case of corn twenty millions, annually), arising from their effect in forcing production into unnatural and in- judicious channels, and compelling us to buy from one country what we could have procured far more cheaply from another need not be spoken of here. They are discredited, condemned, and almost swept away. Duties strictly and fairly imposed for the sake of revenue, have nothing in common with duties which are either pur- posely or incidentally protective ; and the ill repute justly attaching to the latter, can by no legitimate process be made to recoil upon the former. Neither need we combat the objections derived from the evil of excessive or ill-selected duties which, like that on tea, curtail consumption, tempt adulteration, lessen by so doing their own productiveness, and diminish the pro- duction of those labour-employing articles of export which are used to purchase the commodity so in- juriously over- taxed. All arguments drawn from such cases are of weight, not against the principle of indirect taxation, but against its injudicious and clumsy appli- cation. They merely show, that the financier who lays himself open to such charges, does not understand his business. They are what logicians call fallacia acci- dentis. They are specimens of the sophism, a dicto PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 283 secundum quid ad dictum simpliciter, which argues from what is true under particular circumstances, as if it were true nakedly and altogether. They are directed solely against the separable accidents, not against the inherent essentials, of the system. AVe pass over with a mere enumeration several minor advantages of indirect taxation, as our limits warn us to draw to a close. Such as the convenience of the time at which the tax is paid by the consumer, which con- sideration Adam Smith places so high in his list of requisites. Such as its self-adjusting qualities, enabling a man to do for himself what it is one great, but uni- formly unattained, object of the science of finance to do for him, namely, to proportion his fiscal burdens to his capacity of bearing them. Such as its light and evanescent pressure on the poor man, so soon as he becomes poor enough to be obliged to dispense with luxuries. Such, finally, as its liability to be thrown, in part at least, on foreigners, the possibility of which, and the modus operandi of effecting it, involves so subtle and intricate a train of reasoning, that we shall not attempt to enter upon it here, but shall content ourselves with referring to the argument of Mr. J. S. Mill, as confirmation of its practicability.* The most weighty objection brought against customs and excise duties, is their alleged demoralising tendency. They encourage smuggling, and tempt to fraudulent adulteration. It is impossible to deny the accusation. But two pleas may be urged in mitigation, which will go far to prevent sentence of condemnation from being passed. In the first place, the charge is valid against excessive, not against moderate, duties. If the duties are so high as to leave the profits of the smuggler all risks included decidedly greater than those of the * Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii. p. 405. Essays on some unsettled Questions of Political Economy. 284 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. fair trader, such duties are not only demoralising, but suicidal. But these immoderate duties have long been condemned, and in the majority of cases abandoned. Our experience in the case of the excise on spirits and the duty on silks, as in many other instances, proved the effect of the lowering of the duty in discouraging and knocking up the smuggling trade, and thus clearly showed that this argument, like others we have just disposed of, bore not against indirect taxation, but against enormous and abortive taxation, not against import and excise duties per se, but against such inju- dicious and ineffective duties as no financier who was master of his profession would dream of imposing. To impose a duty which rendered smuggling and adultera- tion overpoweringly attractive which gave higher in- ducements to the smuggler than the tradesman's native preference for honesty and the vigilance of the coast- guard were competent to countervail would be to impose a duty which failed of its purpose, and the im- position of which, therefore, would be a proof of the incapacity of the statesman who laid it on. It is true that we have not yet fully carried out the maxims of fiscal wisdom which our experience has taught us ; and that in the case of tea and of tobacco we still retain duties which offer irresistible temptations to the smuggler and adulterator ; but their operation is now well understood, and their death-warrant is already signed as far, that is, as refers to their self-defeating and illegitimate excess. In the second place, tempta- tions to evasion are inherent in the nature of every tax, in proportion to its disagreeableness and the severity of its pressure. We know the subterfuges often resorted to in the case of the assessed taxes ; we have seen some- thing of the enormous stimulus to fraud arising from the income-tax ; the revenue is defrauded in the several departments of the Legacy Duty, the Stamp Duties, and PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 285 the Post Office; and, while fully admitting the va- lidity of the objection in question, when urged against excise and customs duties, we hold that it is one of those objections which, as we have seen, inevitably attach to things so intrinsically evil in their nature, as all taxes are ; and that, where the duties are moderate in amount and judiciously selected, they are as little open to it as almost any direct tax that can be named, except a house-tax, and far less open than many that might be specified, such as an income-tax. "\Ve now come to the final consideration, on which we are at issue with, and diametrically opposed to, the popular declaimers against indirect taxation, viz., the comparative ease with which it is levied, the compara- tive unreluctance approaching to unconsciousness with which it is paid. This the Liverpool financiers regard as its decisive demerit : this we regard as its crowning recommendation. Horace says of poems : " Non satis est pulchra esse poemata, dulcia sunto." We hold this to apply in the case of taxes also. They should be, as far as possible, not only theoretically beautiful, but practically sweet. If an impost must be levied, let it be done with as little irritation and annoy- ance as the thing will admit of. When a painful ope- ration has to be performed, it is surely desirable to effect it while the patient is under the influence of chlo- roform. If the life-blood must be extracted from a man, it is unquestionable mercy to throw him first into a deep sleep. " Not so (say the financial reformers) : this would remove the most efficient check on the ex- travagance of government. If taxes are made pleasant, or even endurable, there is no limit to the amount that maybe extracted from the people if, by the perfection of art, they are reduced to a kind of insensible perspir- ation, the patient may be bled to death before he is 286 PEINCIPLES OF TAXATION. aware. The best security we can have for the econo- mical expenditure of the public money, is to make tax- ation so disgusting and burdensome, that the people will grudge every farthing they are called upon to pay." Surely this argument is very childish and very shallow. Englishmen are scarcely such infants as to require to be treated in this way. If the taxation be not needed for the due furtherance of public objects, it is wrong to levy it, and weak to pay it ; if it be needed, it is silly to grudge it, and would be double silliness to raise it in any but the least objectionable way. But let the matter be argued on its own grounds : let us tie our government down in the strictest mode we can devise to expend the public money for none but the most just, important, and valuable purposes ; let us, by the closest vigilance, compel them so to manage, as to obtain these purposes as cheaply as they can ; but let us not adopt so blind, clumsy, empirical a way of reaching our end, as the excitement of a needless detestation of taxation, which will be equally likely to cut down or to refuse the best as the worst employed revenue. If the physic is unnecessary, why take it at all ? if it be necessary, why make it superfluously nauseous ? The truth is, that at present the danger is all the other way. Partly from the natural dislike to pay away money for which no immediate and visible equi- valent is received, partly owing to the violent, thought- less, and often uncandid and unfair language of that section of politicians, who for years have been urging retrenchment upon the government as its chief duty, and exciting the hostility of the people against taxation as their chief grievance, the difficulty is becoming yearly greater of raising revenue sufficient for the maintenance of the national credit, the vindication of the national honour, and the improvement and efficacy of the national institutions. This is the natural and PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 287 inevitable consequence of the language habitually held, and the line of argument pursued for many years back, by the more demagogic of our public men, and at times also, and for party purposes, by statesmen whom we should be loth, even in thought, to class with these. There is no road to temporary popularity so easy, so low, or so inconsiderate as that which is offered by an appearance of excessive vigilance over all drafts upon the public purse, by leading the onslaught upon this or that obnoxious impost. But neither is there any road which more certainly leads to ultimate failure which entails a more sure or more richly merited retribution. All taxes are unpopular ; and necessarily so. None can be devised by the wit of man which do not press inconveniently, and often painfully, upon some classes, or upon all : abuse of any tax is, therefore, sure to meet with ready sympathy from millions. No tax can be discovered to which there may riot be urged some serious and valid objections : a severe exposure and hostile criticism of any tax, therefore, will find an echo in the reason, as well as in the feelings, of all hearers. Taxes in their best estate are only necessary evils ; they are all, more or less, directly burdensome, and inci- dentally mischievous : if a proof of their objectionable nature were a sufficing argument for their removal, it would be impossible to raise a revenue at all. But our popular financial reformers have been too much in the habit of representing the government as a body hostile to the people, and fond of bleeding them for some selfish purpose of its own ; forgetting that, though there have been times in our history when this repre- sentation was in a great measure true, those times have long since passed away; and that the traditional lan- guage of agitating orators, which befitted the days of AYalpole and Pelhain and Pitt, is out of place and un- becoming now. They have too often incautiously 288 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. spoken as if taxes were things which could be dispensed with ; evils to be escaped altogether, not evils to be chosen among ; and the masses have listened greedily to lan- guage which harmonised with their sentiments, and seemed to j ustify their discontents. It is, we seriously think, high time to make a sys- tematic and determined stand against the mischievous consequences of these inconsiderate and uncandid re- presentations. It is essential to our future safety and good government that all leaders of public opinion, whether in parliament or in the press all on whom now rests, or may hereafter rest, the duty of ruling the country, or of influencing those who rule it should take a deliberate view of the solemn responsibilities attached to their position, and, warned by indications of the dangerous tendency of an opposite course, should resolve to abstain in future, whatever temporary triumph they may thereby have to forego, from arousing that " ignorant impatience of taxation" which, if carried much further, and persevered in much longer, bids fair to end in rendering the wise and safe administration of this great empire a task almost impossible. Already it is difficult to modify or exchange a tax without raising a storm which no cautious Chancellor of the Exchequer will readily encounter. Already it is difficult to main- tain inviolate sources of revenue which every man, with the slightest insight into public business, knows to be perfectly indispensable. Already, on more than one occasion, legislators, whose class sympathies overpowered their sense of imperial necessities, or whose thirst for popularity was stimulated by an approaching disso- lution, have voted the repeal of taxes which it was im- possible to spare, and have been compelled to rescind the idle and disreputable vote. Already the most valuable and important schemes have been relinquished, from the unwillingness of the country to submit to the PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 289 slightest additional expense for their promotion, or still more from the dislike felt by the government of the day to risk the unpopularity of proposing such addition. Already questions of the widest range, and the most vital moment to the grandeur and stability of our em- pire colonial questions, European questions, judicial reforms are discussed, not as matters involving high statesmanship and philosophic patriotism, but as they bear upon the financial prospects of the year, as portion of the details of the army and navy estimates! In April last, Lord Truro distinctly alleged the unwilling- ness of the House of Commons to vote the necessary funds, or, as it afterwards appeared, the reluctance of ministers to ask for them as a ground why he dare not propose those Chancery reforms which every lawyer and every statesman concurred in declaring absolutely indispensable. He is reported to have said, " His noble friend seemed not aware of the extreme jealousy with which that House looks upon any increase in the ex- pense of the judicial departments of the state. There lies the evil. The temper of the present time is not dis- posed to make the necessary sacrifice for the administration of justice. The business of the Court of Chancery has greatly increased ; it is, in fac.t, extremely heavy. There is not sufficient judicial strength there ; and it is very doubtful whether the House of Commons would add to that judicial strength."* There is terrible and stinging sarcasm in all this ; and the temper here pointed at is fraught with menace and with mis- chief. We shall scarcely be accused, by any who have watched our course from the beginning, of being ad- * The House, we rejoice to say, vindicated itself from this charge, in as far, at least, as it voted the salaries of two new judges without remonstrance. But the timid and hesitating way in which Lord John Russell proposed the vote, and his evident reluctance to do so, and dread of its probable reception, spoke volumes. VOL. I. U 290 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. vocates either of lavish expenditure or of needless tax- ation : we have fought in the ranks of retrenchment and reform too earnestly and too long not to have earned the right to speak our thoughts now, and to be listened to with patience and candour when we say, that England can well bear, and ought not to grudge, any expenditure needed for the maintenance of the national credit, for the completion and consolidation of the national interests, for the perfecting of our judicial in- stitutions, for the collection of that full and close sta- tistical information without which rulers must often be working in the dark, and for the remuneration of those public services which, where truly, ably, and consci- entiously rendered, it is not easy to overpay. We warn the country that the danger is imminent and serious, when a low and bastard economy has become the god of our idolatry, when a Lord Chancellor can utter with- out shame, and without clear untruth, such a plea for misgovernment as we have quoted. What ought to be done, dares not be done (we are told), because our senators take a narrow, partial, short-sighted view of their duties, and forget that they have other and higher functions th/in that of mere guardians of the public purse. They forget Jhat they are intrusted with the money of the nation, in order that they may purchase therewith those blessings which the nation needs, and on which its happiness, reputation, and prosperity de- pend. They forget that their duty is so to dispense the public revenue as to further most effectually those objects which the public has at heart, and for which the community consents to be taxed ; and that, if the first of these be defence against foreign foes, the second, at least, is the administration of prompt, easy, and im- partial justice at home. In proportion as Lord Truro's charge is true and it is impossible entirely to gainsay it, in proportion as ministers shrink, and are ex- PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 291 disable in shrinking, from applying to the House for needful funds for important and righteous purposes, out of a dread of its parsimonious temper; and in pro- portion as this temper has been fostered by the class of financial reformers to whom we have referred, are we justified in saying, that the sticklers for " cheap govern- ment " are unconsciously perhaps, and unintention- ally the supporters of maladministration ; that matters have reached a point at which reform or re- trenchment no longer go hand in hand, but are pitted against one another ; that, in a word, those who would save the money of the people, and those who would spend it well, are no longer identical, but distinct, at issue, and antagonistic. Economy in the public ex- penditure is a great object, and a sacred duty; but there are aims yet worthier and nobler, and obligations yet holier and more imperative. The education of our brutal and neglected masses is one of these. The promotion of those sanitary reforms on which health, life, decency, and morality so essentially depend, is one of these. The amendment of our judicial system, till it becomes in fact what it claims to be in theory, is another. The reform of our prisons, of the provision for juvenile criminals, of our whole arrangements for secondary punishments, is again an obligation of paramount mag- nitude, and clamorous for immediate initiation. The maintenance of those colonial interests which bind our distant dependencies to the mother country, on which hangs the future spread and permanence of our special and highly valued form of civilisation, is another of those mighty objects with which no mere considerations of immediate parsimony can be allowed to come into com- petition. And, finally, a prior and more sacred claim than any pecuniary saving, is the unimpaired preserva- tion of those effective elements and external manifest- ations of national strength and vigour, which will not 292 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. only secure Great Britain from personal danger, but will enable her to speak -with decision and with in- fluence, when she speaks at all ; which will render her in future, as in the past, the protectress of the weak, and the refuge of the oppressed ; which will enable her, when civilisation is endangered, when humanity is out- raged, when morality is trampled under foot, to remon- strate in that language of disgust and indignation which could not be rashly disregarded ; which, in a word when one sovereign tramples out the guaranteed and consolidated freedom of his subjects, as in the case of Hesse ; when another summons in the savage succour of a barbarous power to aid him in crushing the liberties of a generous arid long-descended people, as in the case of Hungary ; when a third violates every promise, ravishes every right, sanctions every cruelty, sets at nought every decency, as in the case of Naples ; or when the uncontrolled citizens of a powerful state do not scruple to turn pirates, and invade an unoffending neighbour, simply because they covet her possessions, as in the case of Cuba will empower her, when such iniquities are perpetrated, to step forward, fearless of the consequences, and bold in her conscious capacity to meet them, and say, " These things shall not be !" These considerations appear to us so important at the present juncture, and in the actual state of the public mind, that \ve are glad to fortify ourselves by the opinions of a writer whose deep popular sympathies it is im- possible to doubt, and whose deliberate and searching wisdom has won him the first place among social philo- sophers, we mean Mr. J. S. Mill. The intense dis- satisfaction which would arise were our whole revenue "of fifty millions raised by direct taxes, would," he conceives, " be productive of more harm than good. Of the fifty millions in question nearly thirty are pledged, under the most binding obligations, to those whose PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 293 capital has been borrowed and spent by the state ; and while this debt remains unredeemed, a greatly increased impatience of taxation would involve no little danger of a breach of faith similar to that which, in the defaulting States of America, has been produced, and in some of them still continues, from the same cause. That part, indeed, of the public expenditure which is devoted to the maintenance of civil and military establishments, is still in many cases unnecessarily profuse ; but though many of the items will bear great reduction, others certainly require increase. There is hardly any public reform or improvement of the first rank, proposed of late years, and still remaining to be effected, which would not probably require, at least for a time, an in- creased instead of a diminished appropriation of public money. Whether the object be popular education, emigration and colonisation, a more efficient and acces- sible administration of justice, a more judicious treat- ment of criminals, improvement in the condition of soldiers and sailors, a more effective police, reforms of any kind which, like slave emancipation, require com- pensation to individual interests ; or, finally, what is as important as any of these, the entertainment of a suf- ficient staff of able and highly educated public servants to conduct, in a better than the present awkward manner, the business of legislation and administration ; every one of these things implies considerable expense, and many of them have again and again been prevented by the reluctance which exists to apply to parliament for an in- creased grant of public money, though the cost would be repaid, often a hundred-fold, in mere pecuniary advan- tage to the community generally. I fear that we should have to wait long for most of these things if taxation were as odious as it probably would be if it were exclu- sively direct."* * Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii. p. 418. i- 3 294 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. It is time to sum up, and bring this long paper to a close. We have seen that there is no tax to which valid objections do not apply, no tax which is not, more or less, inequitable in its pressure, injurious in its operation, and annoying in its collection. This objection, though from its universality not decisive against any particular tax, is decisive against making it the only one. It is in a variety of imposts that we are to look for the solution of the great problem of the Finance Minister how to make taxation equitable and endurable. We have seen that the apparent merits of direct taxation are apparent only. We have seen that it does not fulfil all the re- quirements of Adam Smith's " good tax " better than the indirect system, and that it scarcely fulfils any of them better. It is at least as unequal in its incidence, as unfair in its severity, as prolific in stimulants to fraud and immeasurably more irritating and vexatious. It is even questionable whether it is more economical in the collection. It is the first, the easiest, the coarsest mode which suggests itself to rude and uncivilised financiers. The paramount duty of a government in fiscal matters, is to levy the revenue fairly : This takes precedence over all other considerations. But next to this, if its first duty is to levy taxes so as to cause least injury, its second unquestionably is to levy them so as to cause least irritation. We have seen, finally, that taxation, whether direct or indirect, cannot be, and ought not to be, confined to the few ; that to approach this verges upon confiscation, that to recommend it is to preach Jacquerie and spoliation. At the risk of exposing ourselves to the sarcasms with which the actual Chancellor of the Exchequer loves to reward those " amateurs " who offer him useful sugges- tions ; or hint that there is a Science in his Art which he has not fathomed, and principles in fiscal policy which he either has not mastered or habitually sets at nought, PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. 295 we shall venture to enumerate those sources of revenue on which following out the views above developed we think it would be safe, just, and prudent to rely. The first of these is a house-tax, which, taking a pivot of 20 per cent., should vary from 15 to 25 per cent., according to the exigencies of the exchequer. This should be levied on all the 4,500,000 houses in the kingdom, without exemption. Of these it is estimated that about 500,000 are above 20/., a year rent, and the rest under.* The former we may fairly take at an average rent of 45^., which, at 20 per cent., would yield 4,500,000/. : the latter, at an average rent of 5/., would yield above 4,000,000/. more. The legacy duty, on personal property only, now yields 1,400,000^. : if levied at the same rate on all property, it would bring, it is calculated, 3,000,000^. into the exchequer. The land and assessed taxes in Great Britain, leaving out the window-tax, reach 2,835, 0001. : If Ireland were in- cluded we might take them at 3,000, 0001. So much for * The data of the above calculation are as follows. The total inhabited houses in Great Britain are (in 1851) 3,647,611, to which we may add for Ireland 852,389. [The actual number by the last census is 13,828,839; but a very large proportion of these are mere cabins.] Now, till 1824, we had a house-tax in Great Britain levied on all houses (except farm-houses) above 51. a year rent. In that year there were Houses. Rent. Average Rent. Above 51 and under IOL, 171,522 1,161,667 6/. 15*. Od. 101. and upwards - 375,410 10,516,550 28/. Os. Od. In the same year there were under 207. - - 361,513 3,537,742 9/. 15s. Od. above 201. - -185,419 8,140,475 43/. 15*. Od. In that year all houses under 101. were exempted. In 1833, just before the en- tire repeal of the tax, the case stood thus From IOL to 201. - 227,604 2,997,524 13/. 35. Od. 201. and upwards - 214,438 9,606,388 447. 15s. Od. u 4 296 PRINCIPLES OF TAXATION. direct taxes The tax on tea should be reduced cer- tainly to Is. a pound, perhaps still lower, but would probably, according to all analogy, yield at that rate as large a revenue as at present. The tax on spirits and tobacco, there can be no reason for reducing below the point at which smuggling and illicit distillation could be prevented. Probably this might entail some loss on the article of tobacco. Our budget would then stand thus taking the receipts of 1849 as our standard : DIRECT TAXES House Tax - - 8,500,000 Legacy Duty - - 3,000,000 Assessed Taxes - *' - - 3,000,000 14,500,000 INDIRECT TAXES British Spirits - 6,000,000 Malt - 5,000,000 Tobacco - - 4,400,000 Wine and Foreign Spirits - 4,600,000 Tea - 5,500,000 Sugar - - 4,000,000 Coffee - 500,000 Miscellaneous Articles of Luxury 1,000,000 Post Office - 1,000,000 32,000,000 46,500,000 46,500,000^., out of the 50,000,000/. needed, is thus pro- vided for. The remainder might be raised by a con- tinuance of the present modified stamp duties, till the augmented consumption of the above articles, which would ensue as our population increased and improved, rendered them superfluous ; or, as Mr. Mill suggests, by raising 10,000,000^. instead of 8,500,000^. from the house- tax, and by a higher legacy duty. 297 ENGLAND AS IT IS.* THIS book is a somewhat undigested mass of valuable matter, interspersed occasionally with reflections of much interest, and observations of considerable origin- ality. The author is unquestionably a man of talent ; he writes with vigour and smartness; he has taken pains in the collection of most of his materials ; and his statistics are arranged with great care, and managed with unusual skill. In this point he is much superior to his prototype and apparent master, Mr. Alison. But his range of topics is too wide to allow of his doing justice to any one of them, and his book is disfigured with an unwieldy series of quotations from blue books, newspapers, and reviews ; from publications that never had authority, and publications that have long been superseded. An enumeration of the heads of some of his chapters, will give an idea of the extent of ground which he careers over: " Population ;" " Occupations of the People ; " " Taxation, Revenue, Expenditure ; " " Theory of Progress ; " " Condition of the People ; " " Crime ; " " Manners, Conversation ; " " Rich and Poor ; " " Railways ; " " Sir Robert Peel ; " " The Press;" " The Tenth of April ;" The Church;" " Soli- citors and Attorneys ;" " Supply of London with Meat ;" " Drinking Habits ; " " The Poor Law ; " and many others. All these grave topics are disposed of in a positive off-hand manner, and in the tone we might * From the " Edinburgh Review." England as it is ; Political, Social, and Industrial, in the Middle of the Nineteenth Century. By WILLIAM JOHNSTON, Barrister-at- Law. London : 1851. 298 ENGLAND AS IT IS. expect from a man of lively and inquiring mind, whose Tory predilections and protectionist opinions are often so one-sided, as to show us as much of " England as it is not," as of " England as it is." The book, on the whole, however, is decidedly read- able, though, besides its discursiveness, it has two rather serious faults. If we except two or three chapters, the writer has no personal or practical knowledge of any of the subjects which he treats. The chapters devoted to law and the legal profession will be interesting to the unlearned, because there the author is comparatively en pays de connaissance ; and from the same cause, the chapters on Manners and Conversation are about the best in the book, because society that is, London literary, legal, and political society at least in one of its many-coloured aspects, appears to be familiar to him ; not so life in the provinces, and society among the middle classes. While, of the people of the com- ponent parts of our social structure in detail of the character, feelings, and position of the masses he knows practically nothing, having looked at them through the medium of books alone. His source of information on these points is sometimes the " Times " newspaper ; sometimes an obscure pamphlet ; sometimes a party review ; sometimes a blue book. He speaks as a barrister from his brief, who makes the most of the materials furnished to him, but who has never come into personal communication with his client, or seen the premises or machine on which he descants so flu- ently to the jury. The second great fault of the book is the absence of any distinct purpose or object. It is not easy to under- stand why the author should have been at the pains of writing it, unless with the view (which he seems to have entertained at the beginning) of giving a general picture of England to some foreign friend. For this, ENGLAND AS IT IS. 299 however, the work would be at once redundant and im- perfect. For any more definite aim it is decidedly defective. The want of a back-bone of a central idea, to connect and bind together the miscellaneous matter of which the book consists of some clear principle or set of opinions to be illustrated and enforced of some distinct object to be achieved, is strongly felt by the reader as he goes on ; and we wonder it did not mani- fest itself to the writer likewise. As far, however, as any one prevailing idea can be detected in the book, it is that England is going to the dogs : as far as any distinct purpose can be traced, it is to prove our national peril and retrogression. It would be unjust to class " England as it is," with the absurd and malignant work of Ledru Rollin (" La Decadence de 1'Angleterre ") ; but there are some undeniable re- semblances between them. Both authors are disposed to paint English society en noir, to think that our im- perial star is on the wane, that pur national maturity is past, and that old age and decrepitude are at hand. It is natural that a foreigner of virulent passions and dis- appointed ambition, an exile and a fugitive, should thus gloat over the fancied ruin of a rival nation, even while he owes to its generous and powerful hospitality his security from the vengeance of his own countrymen : it is, perhaps, natural also, that an English politician, seriously attached to the party so long dominant, and so recently and signally defeated, should distrust the success and dread the consequences of a course of policy which he has all his life conscientiously opposed, and that he should be seen mistaking the discomfiture of his party for the ruin of his country ; but we were scarcely prepared for the easy indifference with which Mr. John- ston enumerates the symptoms of our national decay, and the quiet complacency with which he accepts our decline as a settled historical fact. For ourselves, we 300 ENGLAND AS IT IS. have better trust and stronger faith ; we believe that we flourished and advanced under Tory ministers and a restrictive tariff; and we are not without hopes that we shall continue to flourish and advance even under a Whig government, and a free commercial policy. And since we entirely disagree with Mr. Johnston as to the decay, both actual and prospective, of Great Britain, we propose to join issue with him on this, the prominent conception of his book. His idea concerning our national prospects and con- dition, may be gathered from the following laboured prophecy which he quotes from Mr. Alison, and seems to adopt in its entireness : " A survey of the fate of all the great empires of antiquity, and a consideration of the close resemblance which the vices and passions by which they were distinguished at the commencement of their decline bear to those by which we are agitated, leads (?) to the melancholy conclusion that we are fast approaching, if we have not already attained, the utmost limit of our greatness ; and that a long decay is destined to precede the fall of the British empire. During that period our population will remain stationary or recede ; our courage will, perhaps, abate ; our wealth will certainly diminish ; our ascendancy will disappear ; and at length the queen of the waves will sink into an eternal, though not forgotten, slumber. It is more likely than that these islands will ever contain human beings for whom sus- tenance cannot be obtained, that its fields will return, in the re- volutions of society, to their pristine desolation, and the forest resume its wonted domain, and savage animals regain their long lost habitations ; that a few fishermen will spread their nets on the ruins of Plymouth, and the beaver construct his little dwell- ing under the arches of Waterloo Bridge ; the towers of York arise in dark magnificence amid an aged forest, and the red deer sport in savage independence round the Athenian pillars of the Scottish metropolis." The warning symptoms of this impending desolation, Mr. Johnston traces in the deteriorating material posi- ENGLAND AS IT IS. 301 tion of our working classes ; in the decay of friendly intercourse between them and their superiors; in the increase of crime ; in the excessive toil and struggle for existence everywhere manifest around us ; in the scoff- ing and frivolous tone of society ; and in the dwarfed and degraded spirit of our statesmanship; signs and menaces which, if their existence could be clearly proved, would go far to justify his gloomiest and worst surmises. In most of these points, however, we differ with him as to fact ; in some, as to causes ; in others, as to the inference to be drawn from them. Let us take them in succession. First, as to the Physical Condition of the Masses. Mr. Johnston quotes largely from a pamphlet by Dr. Kay, published twenty years ago, describing the unpaved streets and unhealthy dwellings of the poor in many parts of Manchester, at a time when sanatory arrange- ments had not yet commanded that degree of public attention which they have now received ; from a report by Mr. Symons, published fifteen years ago, depicting a similar state of things in Glasgow; from a statistical inquiry about the same date, showing that 35,000 of the population of Liverpool lived in cellars, which have since been prohibited as dwellings by Act of Parliament most injudiciously; and, after adding a few similar testi- monies, he proceeds, " From all this evidence I conclude that, as regards the great mass of the people, there is no reason for congratulation upon the progress of wealth, virtue, or happiness. The mercantile middle class become opulent through the use of cheap substitutes for labour, but the labourers sink in the scale of social ex- istence. In the acquisition of wealth the nation has made great progress, but in that distribution of it which seems best calcu- lated to impart moderate comfort on the one hand, and to abate the pomp of superior position and the insolence of riches on the other, the science of modern times is at fault, while the selfish- 302 ENGLAND AS IT IS. ness connected with it revels, for the present, in unabated triumph." In another place he says : "We regard with admiring wonder the inventions of science, and our respect for human ingenuity is vastly increased ; but when we inquire. how far the use of them has benefited the great mass of the people, we are compelled to dismiss all sense of triumph in their achievements. ... It seems to me that there can be no doubt of the total failure of the working class to accomplish any advance at all. ... I do not find it specifi- cally denied by any class of politicians that since 1819 the rich have been growing richer, and the poor more poor." Now all these statements we hold to be utterly un- true. Mr. Johnston has fallen into the common error of writers who treat of subjects of which they have not enough personal cognisance to enable them to read with judgment and discrimination. There is evidence enough that is, printed assertions always to be found in favour of every theory and every opinion ; and an ad- vocate, therefore, who merely pleads from his brief, is at the mercy of the particular set of documents which may chance to be put into his hands, since he has no independent knowledge in virtue of which he can decide upon their value. He may form a perfectly honest and a perfectly sound judgment as far as the data before him are concerned ; but unless these data contain all that is required for the formation of a just opinion, or unless his own acquaintance with the case can supply the deficiency of the documentary evidence supplied him, he may be led into the strangest fallacies, and his decision may be utterly worthless. From Mr. Busfield Ferrand's harangues, from Mr. Sadler's Committee, and even from Lord Ashley's speeches, Mr. Johnston might derive, by the strictest arid fairest process of deduction, notions- upon the wretchedness and sickness of the factory population, which a walk through a cotton mill, ENGLAND AS IT IS. 303 a conversation with an operative, or a study of the blue books issued by the Factory Commission and the Factory Inspectors, would dissipate into thin air. Written evi- dence, whether statistical or other, is only available and safe in the hands of a man who can sift and test it. In the present case it has led Mr. Johnston grievously astray ; for it is not difficult to show that the in- ventions of science, so far from having been turned to the exclusive service of the rich and great, have been directed in a paramount and peculiar manner to comfort and facilitate the daily existence of the working classes ; that the augmentation of national wealth has been participated in to a remarkable degree by all ranks in the community, and has added greatly to the comforts of the poor and needy; and that there is abundant reason for suspecting the common assertion of "the rich growing richer, and the poor poorer," to be the reverse of true. We are not disposed to draw a picture couleur de rose of the condition of our people, any more than we are willing to accept our author's silhouette en noir. We have been too long and too near witnesses of their struggles and their sorrows, to feel any temptation to ignore them, or make light of them. But we must re- member that the question is not now, whether our present state is satisfactory ? but, Is it improving or deteriorating ? Are we advancing, or retrograding in civilisation and well-being ? Is our actual progress so slow, as to make us despair about the future ? or, worse still, Is our improvement confined to the outside, the surface, and the summit, while all within is hollow, and a varnished decay is busy at our vitals? Admitting then, and deploring, as we do, that the condition of the masses is far from the ideal we might form, far even from a point at once desirable, attainable, and due, we affirm that it has improved, and is still improving, 304 ENGLAND AS IT IS. with a rapidity, and in a direction, which, viewed aright, justify the most sanguine anticipations. " The inventions of science have not benefited the poorer classes." Have they not? Look at railroads, the great scientific marvel of the age, which, in the course of twenty years, have brought the remotest parts of our islands within twenty-four hours of each other, which have quintupled our locomotive speed, and multiplied the amount of our locomotion in a ratio that baffles calculation. Who have been the chief gainers by them ? Clearly the poor, to whom, formerly, locomotion was a thing almost impossible ; who, for the most part, passed the whole of life in the narrow circuit of their native hamlet, or the town in which they were ap- prenticed ; who frequently lived and died without visit- ing the next valley, or crossing the range of low hills which were ever before their eyes ; who, if compelled by dire necessity to travel, trudged painfully on foot, weary, limping, and heavy-laden ; who, on their rare holidays, could find no recreation but wandering in familiar fields, or boozing at the wonted tavern. The wealthy could always travel in luxurious carriages with spirited post-horses, which carried them along at the rate of eighteen pence a mile. The middle classes in- dulged their restless or curious propensities on the top of the mail coach, a mode of conveyance to which even now they look back with affection and regret. But the poor, till this great application of science to their use, were absolutely rooted to their place of birtli : they heard of London, or York, or the mountains, or the lakes, as distant scenes replete with wonders and attractions, but as inaccessible as Paradise to them. Now, every fine Sunday, every summer holiday, sees hundreds of thousands of artisans rush from the smoky recesses of Liverpool or London to make merry with their friends, or refresh themselves after a week of toil ENGLAND AS IT IS. 305 with the gay verdure and invigorating air of the country. For the smallest sums, they are carried in cheap trips to see York minster, or to wander on the cliffs of Scarborough, or bathe in the sea at Dover; they are poured out in multitudes on the shores of AVindermere ; and conveyed, almost without any inter- vention of their own, to London, to Dublin, to Paris, at a cost which few among them cannot, by an effort, manage to afford. What these new facilities must have done to counterbalance and compete with the low pleasures of intemperance and gambling, how they have interfered with the cock-fight, and unpeopled the race- course, and replaced the bull-bait, may be easily con- ceived. A " cheap trip " is now, with the artisan class, the established mode of passing a leisure day. In 1848, the number who left Manchester alone, in Whitsun week, by these excursion trains, was 116,000; in 1849 it had risen to 150,000; and last year it reached 202,000. Mr. Johnston himself gives a table (vol i. p. 285.) which should have prevented him from penning the rash sentence we have quoted from him on the uselessness of scientific improvements to the poor. In 1849 the number who travelled by railway were as follows : Passengers. Receipts. First Class - - 7,292,811 1,927,768 Second - 23,521,650 2,530,968 Third and Parliamentary 32,890,323 1,816,476 Thus it appears that the poorer classes travelled by railway to the number of nearly 33,000,000, and could afford to spend in that mode of recreation nearly 2,000,000^. They outnumbered the middle classes in the proportion of four to three, and the wealthier classes in the proportion four to one. " The condition of the working classes has deterio- VOL. i. x 306 ENGLAND AS IT IS. rated, and their command over the comforts of life has diminished." Has it? Let us look at facts again. At the close of the last century, rye, oaten, and barley bread were extensively consumed throughout the country : according to one authority, rye bread was the habitual food of one-seventh of the population: it is now entirely disused, and the use of wheaten bread is almost universal among even the poorest classes. To what extent their consumption of this has increased, we have no means of knowing with any approach to ac- curacy. According to the calculation of Lord Hawkes- bury, the consumption of wheat in the kingdom in 1796 was 6,000,000 quarters; it is now estimated by the most careful authorities (but of course, as we have no agricultural statistics, this is merely an estimate) at 15,200,000 quarters. The growth of wheat in England is known to have enormously increased ; and besides this, the amount of wheat and wheat-flour imported and retained for home consumption, which was 2,317,480 quarters in the five years ending with 1800, had in- creased in the five years ending with 1850 to 15,463,530 quarters. Vast as has been our importation since, it has all gone into consumption as fast as it was landed. Of course, the difference between our population at the several periods is to be taken into account. But, all things considered, probably the price of grain may be the best proximate test of the command of the working classes over this the first necessary of life. Now, a compa- rison of the past and present gives us a conclusive result ; and it is a fair comparison, because the potato-disease and the famine of 1847 form an ample set-off against the bad harvests at the beginning of the century. The average price of wheat during the first ten years of the century was 83s. 6d. ; during the last ten years it Avas only 53s. 4c?. The same earnings therefore which in the last generation could command only five quartern ENGLAND AS IT IS. loaves would now purchase eight. The fall in the cost of other articles of daily consumption among the poor has been nearly, if not quite, as great. Coffee, which fifty years ago was selling at 200s. a cwt., may now be purchased, of equal quality, at 117s.; tea, in the same period, has fallen from 5s. to 3s. 4d. a Ib. ; and sugar from 80s. to 41s. a cwt. In articles of clothing the reduction is even more remarkable: a piece of printing calico, 29 yards long, which is made into three gowns, and which as late even as 1814, cost 28s. in the wholesale warehouse, is now sold for 6s. Qd. r and two years ago sold as low as 5s. A piece of good 4-quarter Irish linen (13 quality) bleached, sold in 1800 at 3s. %d. a yard. Goods, the nearest to the same kind now made, sell at 14d. Grey 4-quarter shirting (20 quality), which cost 5s. Qd. a yard in 1800, and 3s. 6d. in 1830, now sells for Is. Gd. ; and the cost of bleaching it is reduced in the same propor- tion, viz., from 12s. a piece in 1800 and 8s. in 1830, to 3s. fid. in the present year. These facts prove that the poor have the power of purchasing a larger quantity of food and clothing than formerly with the same sum. But we can go a step further than this, and can show, in the case of many articles, that they actually do supply themselves more liberally than formerly. We have seen that they do so with wheat. The average consumption of coffee (in spite of the great adulteration with chicory) has risen from one ounce and a tenth per head in 1801 to twenty- eight ounces in 1849 ; tea from 19 oz. to 23 oz. ; sugar from 15 Ibs., which it was in 1821, to 241bs. in 1849, against 22J Ibs. in 1801. Now it needs no elaborate argument to show, that increased cheapness of the principal necessaries of life must redound to the essential benefit of the poorest and most numerous section of the community. Of X 2 308 ENGLAND AS IT IS. such articles as bread, sugar, coffee, calico, and linen, the wealthy and easy classes will always allow them- selves as much as they desire or need ; and a reduction in price will seldom induce them, as individuals (apart, that is, from their servants and household), to increase their consumption. It allows them, indeed, a larger surplus to spend on luxuries or elegancies : but that is the sum of its benefit to them : to the poor it makes all the difference of a scanty or an ample meal, of warm or insufficient clothing, of an anxious or a care-free mind, of a vigorous and healthy or a pining and sickly family. Mr. Johnston, indeed, seems disposed to deny these con- clusions, and has made a curious discovery. " If the labourer," says he (vol. i. p. 136.), "were more a con- sumer than a producer, this cheapening of the produce of labour would be a prudent policy; but as the labourer is more a producer than a consumer, the policy is manifestly inimical to his interests." As this is a fallacy which, though not often so clearly expressed, is at the root of many of the notions and feelings of conservatives and protectionists, it may be worth while to spend a few sentences upon it, though it has been already frequently exposed. In what way is the labourer in what way can he be more a pro- ducer than a consumer ? Is he not a consumer par excellence? Is not a larger proportion of his total income expended in articles of consumption than is the case with any other class? The middle class man purchases out of his earnings books for his library, ornaments for his chimney-piece, railway certificates for the investment of his savings. The nobleman spends half his income in foreign tours, in costly pictures, in vast conservatories, in strange exotics. The poor man spends all his income in food, in clothing, or in rent. How should he not be more benefited than any other, when these are cheap and plentiful? "Because," says Mr. Johnston, "he is himself the producer of them." ENGLAND AS IT IS. 309 Here lies the fallacy. In what sense, producer? When a poor man is working on his own account and not for wages, he is owner of the article which he produces, and it is in his character of owner, and not as the in- strument of production, that he has a direct interest in its price. Suppose him to be a maker of calico, and that calico and all other articles fall equally. He makes and sells calico ; but he purchases hats, shoes> bread, bacon, sugar, and tea. He exchanges a piece of cheap calico against cheap hats, cheap bread, cheap sugar; instead of exchanging a piece of dear calico against dear hats, dear bread, dear sugar: this is the most favourable statement of the case for Mr. Johnston's theory. Yet, even on this statement, cheapness could be no " imprudent policy " for the poor man, since, in both cases, he exchanges what have been his whole earnings for his whole expenditure ; and a man who does this can never be more a producer than a consumer. But take the case of a poor man working for wages. The only way in which the cheapness of the article he produces can be a disadvantage to him, is in the degree to which his wages are affected by it. "We will not stop to inquire at present, whether the employer of manufacturing labour or of agricultural is most likely, under a general fall of prices, to be able to meet the fall in the article which he produces without a re- duction in the money wages of his labour. The ques- tion before us, on a comparison of prices and wages, is one of fact. Have the wages of the labourer fallen, pari passu, with the price of the article at which he labours or of the main articles of his consumption? Now, will any one pretend to say that this has been the case? Have the wages of the agricultural peasant fallen in the proportion of 83 to 53? Have the wages, of the calico weaver fallen in the proportion of 28 to 6? Have the wages of either of them fallen in the propor- x 3 ENGLAND AS IT IS. tion of tea, coffee, or sugar? Is there any ground for believing that their wages have fallen at all? Let us inquire a little into this. We admit at once that this is a point on which we cannot speak with the authoritativeness of distinct and positive knowledge : neither can our opponents. We have our strong convictions as they may have theirs ; but neither we nor they have any documents by which we can force others to adopt them. The inquiry into the relative earnings of different trades and occupations in this and the last generation is one of singular diffi- culty, and one respecting the results of which those who have taken the most pains with it will speak with the most diffidence. We have examined all the in- formation which Mr. MCulloch and Mr. Porter have been able to collect, and all which we ourselves have been able, from various sources, to bring to bear upon the question ; and we avow ourselves quite unprepared to speak dogmatically. The following, we believe to be the truth : The wages of agricultural labour have fluctuated greatly at different times, and even now vary immensely in different counties, and for different qualifications ; but we q lestion whether any general change has taken place either for better or worse. There is no rule respecting them. There are districts where the earnings are only 75. a week ; there are others where they are 12s. ; some where they are 15s. ; and we have heard of cases where a first-rate plough- man or thresher received 20s., and where the farmer said it answered to him to pay this. There are certain occupations in which wages have fallen from special causes, as that of the hand-loom weavers, where ignorance, want of enterprise, and love of a domestic occupation have combined to induce them to continue a hopeless competition against improved machinery ; as that of the tailors, deranged in some degree, some ENGLAND AS IT IS. 311 years since, by the consequences of foolish and un- warrantable strikes, but affected seriously, we believe, only in the case of show shops and the like ; as that of bad needlework, where the ease and collateral ad- vantages of the employment have tempted into it ex- cessive numbers. With these exceptions, we believe that the wages of labour i. e. the amount earnable in a given number of hours have rather risen than fallen during the last fifty years. So much for our belief, which, perhaps, may be worth no more than the belief of others. The following, however, are facts ; and comprise, we believe, all the actual information extant, and to be relied on. Mr. Porter has ascer- tained from the Tables kept at Greenwich Hospital, that the wages of carpenters had risen from 18s. a week in 1800, to 29s. 3d. in 1836; of bricklayers, from 18s. to 26s. 9d. ; of plumbers from 19s. to 30s. In the same period the earnings of London com- positors in the book trade had risen from 33s. to 36s. : we have ascertained that they remain the same. The earnings of compositors employed on the morning Papers had risen from 40s. to 48s. a week : they are now at the latter amount. From evidence published by a Committee of the House of Commons in 1833, added to such information as we have been enabled to obtain up to the present period, we give, as fully reliable, the following table of the earnings of a spinner of cotton yarn, No. 200 at these several dates. Weekly net Earning. Pounds of Flour these would purchase. Pounds of Flesh Meat these would purchase. Hours of Work. s. d. In the year 1804 32 6 117 62 74 1833 4-2 9 267 85 69 1850 40 320 85 60 x 4 312 ENGLAND AS IT IS. In this case we see that in a trade more exposed than almost any other to severity of competition, a gradual rise of wages has been accompanied by a gradual reduc- tion in the hours of labour, and a gradual, but decided, fall in the price of food. These, we believe, comprise all the facts known and to be trusted ; and assuredly they fully make good our position. Mr. Johnston returns to the charge (vol. i. p. 136.) thus: " The working classes have allowed themselves to be made the instrument of the middle orders or men of business, and have been led away by the delusion of accomplishing political changes, from which practically they could derive no advantage," Is this true ? Have they derived no advantage from the political changes which have taken place during the last twenty years ? Has parliamentary reform led to the remission of no taxation which pressed heavily upon them ? Has com- mercial reform, rendered possible only by the great Act of 1832, brought no addition to their comforts, no plenty to their hearths, no spring to their industry, no demand for their productions ? In what state would they have been, if our exports in 1850 had been the same as our exports in 1840 ? Has municipal reform relieved them from no burdens and no injustice ? Have the county courts afforded them no facility for the re- covery of their small debts ? Has the increasing atten- tion now paid to those sanatory arrangements which peculiarly concern the poor, no connection with the augmentation of the popular element in our government consequent upon parliamentary reform ? Is the vast improvement which has taken place in the schools for the working classes in no degree traceable to the same influence ? Has not, in fact, the whole of our legislation for the last fifteen years been marked above all other characteristics by attention to the wants, interests, and comforts of the poor ? Let Mr. Johnston look at our ENGLAND AS IT IS, 313 fiscal legislation alone, and blush for the injustice of his charge. It is scarcely too much to say, that since 1830 the chief occupation of the Chancellor of the Exchequer has been the removal or reduction of taxes which pressed upon the mass of the people. We know how distasteful figures generally are both to hearers and readers, and we shall therefore be merciful in our use of them ; but, we have collected a few which are too speaking to be withheld. Since the peace in 1815 (leaving out that year), we have repealed, up to 1846, taxes which pro- duced annually 53,046,000?. ; and we have imposed taxes to the amount of 13,496,000?. ; leaving a clear balance of relief to the country of 39,550,000?. a year. From 1830 to 1850, 21,568,000?. of taxes have been repealed, and 7,925,000?. imposed, showing a relief to the country since that period of not less than 13,643,000?. But these figures, though showing the extent to which the country has been eased, give a very inadequate concep- tion of the extent to which the working classes have participated in that relief. Of the 7,925,000?. of tax- ation imposed since 1830, 5,100,000?. is furnished by the income-tax, from which they are wholly exempted. In 1830, there were taxes on all the raw materials of our industry ; now, all these come in free. In 1830, there was a prohibitory duty on foreign grain, foreign meat was excluded, and heavy customs' duties were levied on all imported articles of food. Now corn comes in free ; butchers'-meat comes in free ; the duty on colonial coffee has been reduced from 9d. and Qd. per Ib. to \.d. ; the duty on foreign sugar was prohibitory, it is now 1 5s. Qd. a cwt. ; the duty on colonial sugar was 245. a cwt., it is now 11s. In 1830, the poor man's letter cost him from 6d. to 13c?., he now gets it from the furthest extremity of the island for a penny. In fact, with the single exception of soap, no tax is now levied on 314 ENGLAND AS IT IS. any one of the necessaries of life ; and if a working man chooses to confine himself to these, he may escape tax- ation altogether. Whatever he contributes to the re- venue is a purely voluntary contribution. If he confines himself to a strictly wholesome and nutritious diet, and to an ample supply of neat and comfortable clothing, if he is content, as so many of the best, and wisest, and strongest, and longest-lived men have been before him, to live on bread and meat and milk and butter, and to drink only water; to clothe himself in woollen, linen, and cotton ; to forego the pleasant luxuries of sugar, coffee, and tea, and to eschew the noxious ones of wine, beer, spirits, and tobacco, he may pass through life without ever paying one shilling of taxation, except for the soap he requires for washing an exception which is not likely to remain long upon our statute-book. Of what other country in the world can the same be said ? The discontented, the factious, and the agitating still go about, telling the working man that he, the heavily- taxed Englishman, cannot compete with the lightly- taxed foreigner ; speaking, as they might have been justified in some respects in speaking in 1800, or in 1815, or in 1829; using language which may have been true then, but which is simply false now. But in a work like Mr. Johnston's, carefully prepared for the press, such unfairness and unveracity should, in common decency, have been avoided. In no country in Europe is the peasant and artisan so free from all enforced tax- ation as in England. The French peasant pays a salt- tax, a contribution personelle et mobiliere ; a licence-tax ; and, if he live in a town, the vexatious and burdensome octroi. The German labouring man pays a poll-tax, a class-tax, a trade-tax, and sometimes a meat-tax ; and in certain parts an octroi also. The English working- man pays no direct taxes whatever. He is taxed only for his luxuries ; he pays only on the pleasures of the ENGLAND AS IT IS. 315 palate ; if he chooses to dispense with luxuries, none of which are essential and few of which are harmless, he dispenses with taxation too ; if, on the contrary, he chooses to smoke his pipe and drink his glass, to sip tea from China, and sweeten it with sugar from Jamaica, he at once puts himself into the category of the rich ? who can afford these superfluities ; he voluntarily steps into the tax-paying class, and forfeits all title to sue or to complain in forma pauperis. We are far from wish- ing to intimate that he should not indulge in all harm- less luxuries to the utmost limit that he can afford ; but most indisputably, in thus leaving it optional with him whether he will contribute to the revenue or not and subjecting him to no actual privations if he decline to do so Parliament is favouring him to an extent which it vouchsafes to no other class in the community, and to which no other land affords a parallel. His earnings are decimated by no income-tax, like those of the clerk ; his cottage is subject to no window-tax, like that of the struggling professional aspirant ; very gene- rally he does not even contribute to the poor-rate ; he pays, like the rich man, to the state only when he chooses to imitate the rich man in his living. In a very valuable paper, read by Mr. Porter before the British Association in August 1851, on "The self- imposed Taxation of the Working Classes," he shows in a very striking manner how far less liberally they are treated by themselves than by the government which their advocates so unfairly accuse of neglect and injus- tice. He there clearly proves that the working classes tax themselves every year, in three needless and noxious articles alone, to an extent equal to the whole yearly revenue of the kingdom ; these articles, too, (which is the worst and most selfish feature of the case,) being consumed almost entirely by the heads of families, to the exclusion of their wives and children. Mr. Porter, 316 ENGLAND AS IT IS. after a careful calculation, in which all exaggeration is anxiously eliminated, gives us the yearly expenditure of the people in the items of British and Colonial spirits, beer and porter, tobacco and snuff; leaving out brandy, as mainly used by the rich ; leaving out all beer brewed in private families; leaving out English-made cigars, and all foreign manufactured tobacco, which is chiefly the higher priced snuff and Havannah cigars, not used by the poor. The sum total is as follows: Rum, gin, and whiskey - 20,810,208 Beer and porter - - 25,383,165 Tobacco and snuff - 7,218,242 53,411,615 Let those who speak of working men as an oppressed, impoverished, and extortionised class, reflect what a magical change in their condition a very few years would effect were this vast sum, thus worse than thrown away, either expended in adding to their comforts, or laid by to raise them into the class of capitalists, whom they so much envy and thoughtlessly malign. " Vast as has been the increase of the national wealth of late years, its distribution has been far less satis- factory." So avers Mr. Johnston. " Property is more and more coagulating into large masses. The rich are becoming richer, and the poor poorer. No class of poli- ticians denies this." We deny it in toto: there is no evidence to support the assertion ; and, thanks to Mr. Porter's industry and research, there is considerable evi- dence to disprove it. It is obvious that when the savings of the working classes the sums they accumulate and lay by are increasing, it cannot be said, with any truth, that the poor are becoming poorer. Now, we have no means of knowing, with any certainty, what the total amount of these savings are, because so large a portion of them are in the hands of friendly societies and Odd ENGLAND AS IT IS. 317 Fellows' clubs, of whose investments no summary is published. We only know that they are largely in- creasing. The number of these friendly societies regis- tered was, in 1846, not less than 10,995 ; and the amount deposited by them in savings' banks, and directly in the hands of the National Debt Commissioners, was 8,301,560?. In 1849, in spite of the severe pressure and high prices of 1847 and 1848, this sum had increased to 3,356,000/. This, however, by no means comprises the whole. Mr. MCulloch informs us that, in 1815, these societies were said to have numbered 925,429 mem- bers. If this be correct, they must now, he says, reach 1,200,000. But leaving these figures, over which some doubt may be thrown, let us come to Savings' Banks, where we have official documents to rely upon. In England, Wales, and Ireland, the depositors, who numbered 412,217 in 1830, had increased to 970,825 in 1848 ; and the amount deposited had sprung up from 13,507,568/. to 27,034,026^. The following will show the increase in the deposits as compared with the popu- lation, for England, Wales, and Ireland. In Scotland, owing to the greater facilities and the more liberal in- terest afforded by the ordinary banks, savings' banks have not till recently been much used. s. d. In 1831 the amount deposited was 12 8 per head. 1836 16 4 1841 19 10 1846 24 In 1848, the amount had fallen off to 205. lie?., owing to the distress occasioned by the potato-rot, and the high price of provisions : it has since again increased. It is, however, sometimes asserted that the bulk of depositors in these institutions do not belong, properly speaking, to the working classes, but are composed of domestic servants and small tradesmen. As regards 318 ENGLAND AS IT IS. friendly societies this assertion is certainly not true : as regards savings' banks we cannot speak so decidedly, since the callings of the depositors are not regularly classified and published. But we have lying before us a return from the Manchester and Salford Savings' Bank, in 1842 from which it appears that out of 14,937 depositors, 3,063 were domestic servants, 3,033 children, whose parents had invested money for them, only 2,372 tradesmen, clerks, warehousemen, porters, artists, and professional teachers, and the remainder were labourers and handicraftsmen in various branches of industry. The official accounts of the dividends paid to fund- holders afford much valuable information, strongly con- troverting the idea of the present tendency of property to concentrate itself into few hands. They show that while the larger fundholders are diminishing, the smaller are increasing. More persons hold to the half-yearly value of 5/., fewer to the half-yearly value of 500/. Fundholders receiving at each Payment. 1831. 1848. Increase per Cent. Diminution per Cent. Not exceeding 5 88,170 96,415 9-35 10 44,790 44,937 0-33 50 98,320 96,024 - 2-33 100 25,694 24,462 - 4-79 200 14,772 13,882 - 6-02 300 4,527 4,032 - 10-93 500 2,890 2,647 - 8-41 1000 1,398 1,222 - 12-59 2000 412 328 . 20-38 Exceeding 2000 172 177 2-90 281,145 284,127 The increase in the last item is caused by the insurance offices, which invest largely in the funds. The income-tax returns lead to a similar conclusion : the smaller incomes have increased faster than the larger. ENGLAND AS IT IS. 319 "While the number assessed between 150/. and 500. have increased between 1812 and 1848, 196 per cent.; those assessed upwards of 500/. have increased only 147 per cent. The probate duty lists give the same result. Between 1833 and 1848 Per Cent. The amount assessed on estates up to 1,500 had increased 15 '56 between 1,500 and 5,000 9'21 5,000 and 10,000 16-38 10,000 and 15,000 6-36 of upwards of 15,000 7 -20 While the amount of duty received on estates of 30,000/. and upwards has been steadily though slowly de- creasing. Driven from all these lugubrious and malcontent positions, Mr. Johnston takes refuge in the assertion that, in spite of wealth, in spite of civilisation, in spite of education, the moral condition of the people of England has retrograded in recent years. We will not now follow him through all the details he brings for- ward in proof of his statement. We will give one as a sample of the rest. He affirms, first, (vol. ii. p. 247.) as a matter which has fallen under his personal obser- vation, that the greatest curse and source of crime and degradation among the labouring classes of England is drunkenness ; and secondly, that this vice is on the increase, and " that from whatever cause, the consump- tion of ardent spirits has far from diminished." We admit his first assertion : we entirely deny the second. The decrease of habits of drinking among the middle and higher classes has long been matter of notoriety and of congratulation. Mr. McCulloch states the aver- age consumption of wine in the United Kingdom to have fallen since the close of the last century from three bottles a man to one and one-third ; and from the last returns published we deduce the following figures : ENGLAND AS IT IS. Per Head. From 1795 1804 we consumed 0-52 gallons of wine a year. 18211824 0-22 in 1842 0-18 in 1849 0-22 This is a most satisfactory result ; but it is not gene- rally known that the official documents relating to the consumption of beer and ardent spirits show one not less satisfactory with regard to the increasing temper- ance of the poor. For the first quarter of this century the high duties on British spirits caused such an enor- mous amount of illicit distillation that no comparison can be instituted with that period. Since 1830 the following table shows the annual consumption per head in the kingdom. British Spirits drunk per head Colonial Foreign 1831. 90 15 05 1-10 1841. 77 09 04 1849. 84 11 08 90 1-03 The following table is still more clear and satisfactory, as showing that there has been a large and, on the whole, a continuous decrease in the use of ardent spirits in England and Ireland, and that the sole increase has been in Scotland. Home made Spirits charged with Duty. 1831. 1836. 1843. 1846. 1849. England - Scotland - . Ireland U. Kingdom Gallons. 7,732,000 6,007,000 9,004,000 Gallons. 7,875,000 6,621,000 12,249,000 Gallons. 7,720,000 5,593,000 5,546,000 Gallons. 5,634,000 9,560,000 8,333,000 Gallons. 5,318,000 10,445,000 8,117,000 22,743,000 26,745.000 18,859,00023,527,000 23,880,000 The diminution in the consumption of malt liquor appears to have kept pace with that in the use of spirits. ENGLAND AS IT IS. 321 In 1830 the beer du'y was taken off, and a great increase in the number of licences was the result. The beer shops increased till 1838, when they reached their maxi- mum. Since that time they have steadily declined. The licences granted in that year were 45,717, or one for every 566 persons; in 1849, they were 38,200, or one for every 720 persons. Consumption per Head in the United Kingdom. British Spirits. Gallons. Bushels of Malt. In the year 1831 1841 - 1849 - 90 77 84 1-63 1-35 1-32 It will be alloAved, we think, that these figures effectu- ally dispose of Mr. Johnston's rash assertion as to the increase in the consumption of intoxicating liquors among our increasing population. We trust that the picture we have drawn of the .un- deniable improvement of our population as a whole, and of our progress in all the departments of national well- being, will not be held to indicate want of knowledge of the amount of social suffering which still exists, nor want of the deepest sympathy with the sufferers. We are fully cognisant of the existence in our great towns of a class of beings below the working classes, per- manently and almost hopelessly degraded. We are not blind to the pressure, the privation, the penury, the occasional starvation, even, prevalent among many craftsmen, especially, perhaps, among sempstresses and tailors. We admit and deplore the depressed and im- poverished condition of the agricultural labourers over many parts of England ; and we look upon this feature in the social state of England with almost more anxiety than any other, because, more than any other, an air of wretchedness and of inability to rise would here appear VOL. I. Y 322 ENGLAND AS IT IS. to be characteristic of a whole section of our population. But we do not chvell upon these painful facts here, not from wishing to ignore them, nor from feeling them to be irreconcilable with our theory of progress, but be- cause unless they can be shown to spring out of our advancing civilisation, or to prevail now to a greater degree than formerly they are, in our controversy with the asserters of our national decay, to a great extent irrelevant considerations. The existence of wide-spread distress is undoubtedly a proof that our civilisation is imperfect, and our social system incom- plete ; but that this distress is more extensive or more severe than it has been, will not, we think, be de- liberately held by any one who is aware how similar complaints, as angry and unmeasured, stretch back through the whole half century ; how much more sensitive to suffering, how much more quick to detect and prompt to pity misery, the public mind has of late years become ; and how many phases of wretchedness formerly hidden in secrecy and silence are now made known through a thousand channels. If there are among us any classes whose inability to live in comfort or to rise out of their bondage is justly chargeable upon the arrangements of society, this is an impeach- ment of our civilisation, and a fatal flaw in the struc- ture of our political community. But if, as we believe, all these cases of misery and degradation where they are not those casual exceptions which must always exist in human, and therefore imperfect, societies are dis- tinctly traceable to the former neglect of natural laws which are now beginning to be studied and obeyed, and to a violation, by the last generation, of principles which have been taken as the guide and the pole-star of the present, then this impeachment can no longer be justly sustained. It is the law of nature that children should suffer for their father's faults : it is the law of nature that indolence, improvidence, recklessness, ENGLAND AS IT IS. 323 and folly should entail suffering and degradation; and it is no just ground for the condemnation of our social arrangements that they carry out this law ; nor any argument against the progress of an age that the action of this law is legibly Avritten on its face. If, indeed, (in any but exceptional instances, which no system can ever meet,) the industrious, the frugal, and the foreseeing whose parents before them were industrious, frugal, and foreseeing also not only cannot maintain their position or rise above it, but are sinking lower and lower in spite of their exertions, then the construc- tion of society is somehow, somewhere, in fault, and our boasted progress is a mistake and mockery. But who will affirm such cases to exist except as rare anomalies ? One remark more, and we will quit this branch of the subject. Much has been written of late respecting the privations of the 30,000 needlewomen and the 23,000 tailors of the metropolis, and of the destitution and squalor of the peasants in rural districts : shocking individual pictures have been drawn of the sufferings of these classes ; and, exaggerated as some of them may have been in tone and colouring, we do not deny their truth in the main. They are true as scenes ; are they true as general delineations ? Are they specimens, or exceptions? How deep do these miseries go? Are they characteristic of a class, or only of individuals of that class ? There is, moreover, one weighty con- sideration entirely left out of view by those who draw rapid generalisations from these harrowing descriptions, which we can only just indicate here. How small a redundance of numbers in any branch of industry will suffice to give to that branch the appearance, and even, for the time, to cause the reality, of general distress? If, in the cotton trade, there is regular employment, at ample wages, for 50,000 spinners, and 50,500 are seeking for work, though it be only this extra one per T 2 324 ENGLAND AS IT IS. cent., who are properly speaking destitute or in distress, they may easily succeed not only in actually making the other ninety-nine sharers in their privations, but in giving a general character of destitution and unem- ployedness to the whole class. If there are 31,000 needlewomen in London, and only 30,000 are wanted, the surplus thousand, by their competition, their com- plaints, their undeniable destitution, will inevitably pro- duce on the superficial observer the impression of starvation and inadequate employment pervading the whole denomination. Apply these remarks to the clothing trades. Now, if we are right in this, with what justice can sufferings of this character be urged to show that society is retrograding or out of joint ? How can privations, however sad, however clamorous for cure, resulting from the surplus of a few thousands and properly belonging only to those few be adduced in disproof of the progress and increasing comfort of a population of 20,000,000 ? The excessive toil required in nearly every occu- pation the severity of the struggle for existence the strain upon the powers of every man who runs the race of life in this land and age of high excitement, Mr. Johnston regards as a great counter-indication to the idea of progress. Unquestionably it is a great drawback, and a sore evil. But it is by no means confined to the lower orders. Throughout the whole community we are all called to labour too early and compelled to labour too severely and too long. We live sadly too fast. Our existence, in nearly all ranks, is a crush, a struggle, and a strife. Immensely as the field of lucrative employment has been enlarged, it is still too limited for the numbers that crowd into it. The evil is not peculiar to the peasant or the handi- craftsman perhaps even it is not most severely felt ENGLAND AS IT IS. by him. The lawyer, the statesman, the student, the artist, the merchant, all groan under the pressure. All who work at all are overworked. Some have more to do than they can do without sacrificing the enjoyments, the amenities, and all the higher objects of existence : others can scarcely find work enough to enable them to keep body and soul together. No one can be more keenly alive than we are to all that is regrettable in such a state of things. But we doubt whether the mischief is increasing : we know that many efforts are making to diminish it ; that some progress has already been achieved in this direction ; and that while the evil is felt and admitted, we are also beginning to perceive in what quarter its eradi- cation must be sought. Shorter hours of labour have already been enforced in factories ; among tradesmen, and shopmen, and milliners there is a popular move- ment supported by an organisation of considerable extent, called " The Short-time Movement;" and in the legal, and we believe in the medical profession likewise, employment is more diffused and less monopolised by a few than was the case a few years ago. The Com- mittee of the House of Commons which sat last session to inquire into official salaries, elicited some valuable information on this subject from the then Attorney- General, and other leading counsel, to the effect that owing to the establishment of County Courts and other legal arrangements, many more barristers are employed now than formerly; and that while there are fewer colossal fortunes made at the bar, there are a greater number of lawyers in the receipt of moderate pro- fessional incomes. Further progress in the cure of this pervading malady must be sought in the diffusion of simpler habits and more moderate and rational desires ; in sounder views of the objects of life, and a juster estimate of the T 3 326 ENGLAND AS IT IS. elements of true enjoyment; in the stronger develop- ment of individual volition, and in a growing emancipa- tion from senseless and tyrannical conventionalities. To enable us all to work less intently and less in- cessantly, it is only necessary that we should be content to live more humbly and be satisfied with less: we must all alike purchase leisure by frugality, and by contentment with a lowlier and less ambitious lot than we have hitherto striven after. This is the only coin by which the pearl of great price can be bought. The labourer who aspires after continental ease must be satisfied with the privations and parsimony of con- tinental living; the merchant must be content to pur- chase the delights of domestic society and unanxious nights at the price of dying fifty thousand pounds poorer than he once expected ; the physician or the lawyer, if he cannot easily refuse the practice which flows in upon him in such overwhelming abundance, can at least, by limiting his desires to the accumulation of a more modest fortune, retire earlier from the struggle, and devolve his business upon his less suc- cessful brethren. If we could all be suddenly endowed with wisdom to perceive how few of the worthier objects of earthly existence require wealth for their attainment, how truly all the real happiness, even of refined and intellectual life, is within the reach of an easily-acquired competence, how seldom the rich are free, even in the expenditure of their riches; how generally how almost universally the affluent are compelled to lay out their envied wealth, not in adding one iota to their own enjoyment, but in obedience to the tyrannical dictation of the world in which they live *, we should discover that the excessive toil and the severe struggle * The late Lord Dudley used to observe that, " the only real com- petence was to have 10,000/. a year, and for the world to believe that you had only 5000?. You would then have 50001. for yourself." ENGLAND AS IT IS. 327 of life which we all unite to deprecate and deplore, is, in truth, a self-imposed necessity, like the taxation of the poor. If the English people could all at once be induced to lay aside their luxurious, wasteful, and showy mode of life, and adopt the frugality and temper- ance of the Spaniards, the simple habits of the Tyrolese, and the unostentatious hospitality of the Syrians, how few among us would not find a superfluity at their disposal ! We rejoice to believe that this more rational and homely spirit is spreading among us, especially in detached localities; and we do not think that a good citizen could render any more valuable service to his country than in promoting it, by argument and example, wherever his influence extends. It is, however, incumbent upon those who, by a shorter process than that of national enlightenment, would bring about less strenuous exertion and shorter hours of labour in all industrial occupations, to consider what the attainment of their purpose signifies, and would involve. Less labour signifies less produce : shorter hours of work mean a diminution in the quantity of all those articles of necessity and comfort which work creates. The Provisional Government of France, after the last Revolution, issued a decree reducing the hours of daily labour by one-third ; but they soon found, by actual results, what a fatal and shallow blunder they had made, looking to the object they had in view. If the peasant works eight hours instead of ten, he has so many fewer quarters of wheat to exchange with the artisan ; if the weaver works eight hours instead of ten, he has so many fewer shirts or coats to exchange against the bread of the agricultural labourer ; there is less food and less clothing for the community at large ; all articles rise in price, and therefore none of the producers benefit by the advance, while society, as a whole, is worse provided than before. We are far from saying y 4 328 ENGLAND AS IT IS. that the leisure thus purchased may not be well worth its cost ; but we must not imagine that it can be had for nothing, or that it can be obtained at any cheaper rate. It is only by being, as a nation, contented with less, that we can safely venture to take measures for producing less. If we diminish labour, we must put up with diminished supplies ; unless, indeed, we can employ our labour on more fertile and productive fields. Yes ! say the votaries of " organisation," there is a third alternative. In general we work too much but there are many among us who do not work at all : set the idle to work. Alas ! this expedient would go but a small way towards meeting the difficulty. How many unemployed are there in Great Britain ? and what proportion do they bear to the total population, the great mass of whom are alleged to be overworked ? Among the middle classes there are some, among the higher there are many, who do nothing. But how infinitesimal a proportion do these form of 20,000,000 ? In the manufacturing districts we hear of few unem- ployed artisans ; and in the metropolis the complaint is of the multitude of the overworked, not of the idle. In the agricultural districts even, the number of able-bodied unemployed is small and diminishing. The number of adults so described was, on January 1. 1849, 201,644; in 1850, 170,502; in 1851, 154,525. It is pretty certain that if all the unemployed in all ranks were set to work, they would not relieve the overworked to the extent of half an hour a day. If, indeed, as some have suggested, all who are occupied in supplying the or- naments and luxuries of life were to be employed in producing necessaries, the result might be very different ; but this would have serious evils of its own ; and be of use only as far as it should bring us back to the remedy we have shown to be the true one, simpler and more frugal habits diffused through the community. ENGLAND AS IT IS. 320 Mr. Johnston devotes a careful chapter to the ex- amination of the Criminal Returns for the last fifteen years ; and seems strongly disposed to draw from them an augury favourable to his notions of the deterioration of our social state. Except, however, in the single and very painful instance of the increase of murders, which cannot be gainsaid, we do not see that his statistics bear out his impressions. A comparison of the total com- mitments for various classes of offences during the last fifteen years, gives the following results. Nature of Offences. Five Years ending Five Years ending Five Years ending Increase per Cent, between First and Last 1839. 1844. 1849. it j Murder - 315 347 365 15-8 Attempts to murder and manslaughter - 1,763 2,210 2,153 22-1 Total offences against the person 9,559 10,885 10,318 8- Violent and malicious offences against pro- perty ... 7,666 11,340 8,958 16-8 Simple ditto 90,172 113,047 111,804 24- Total of all commitments 112,864 142,389 136,408 - 20-8 Yearly average - 22,573 28,478 27,282 20-8 Now, notwithstanding the marked decrease in all of- fences except murder between 1844 and 1849 ; notwith- standing, also, the consideration that, against an in- crease between the first and last periods here given for comparison (an increase varying from eight to twenty- four per cent.), there has to be set an increase of popu- lation amounting to fourteen per cent. ; still we are quite ready to confess, that, at first sight, the result presented is the reverse of satisfactory. But there are two or three considerations which, when duly weighed, will do much to mitigate our disappointment. And, 330 ENGLAND AS IT IS. first, let us inquire into the relative heinousness of the offences committed, in these three periods, as indicated by the severity of the sentences passed upon them by the judges. Many crimes necessarily classed together under the same general denomination may be marked by very different degrees of guilt ; and, where no ma- terial change has taken place in our penal laws, between the periods to be compared, we do not know that any fairer estimate can be obtained of the relative enormity of crimes than that afforded by the view taken of them by those who were judicially cognisant of all the cir- cumstances attending their commission. Sentences. Five Years ending Five Years ending Five Years ending Increase per Cent. Decrease per Cent. 1839. 1844. 1849. since since 1839. 1839. Death 1,627 yes 282 _ 82 Transportation for more than 15 years 2,646 1,162 493 - 81 Tr. from 7 to 15 5,087 9,766 6,173 21 Tr. for 7 years - 10,864 15,110 12,668 17 Imprisonment above 2 years 72 76 15 - 80 Tm. above 1 year 1,775 2,395 2,208 24 Im. 1 year and under - 56,341 77,501 81,979 45 Thus it appears that while the offences judged worthy of death and transportation for life have diminished since 1839, 81 per cent.; and those judged worthy of shorter terms of exile have increased somewhat faster than the population, the vast increase which has taken place has been in those offences punishable by a year's imprisonment, or even less. A comparison between the last five years and the five years immediately pre- ceding, shows a diminution in all offences except those visited with the mildest penalties. There are, however, other circumstances which render ENGLAND AS IT IS. 331 the increase or diminution of committals for crime a very inadequate and often deceptive criterion of the moral progress of the community. In the first place, the varying skill and activity of the police will go far to modify any conclusions we might draw from criminal returns. An increase in the number of committals is often only an indication of a better system of detection. The number of offenders brought to justice is often no more complete or accurate test of the number of of- fences committed, than is the number of fish caught of the number swimming in the river. If every year a larger proportion of existing criminals be not brought to light, our police cannot be improving as it ought. It is, therefore, obvious that an increase in the crimes made known may easily co-exist with an actual decrease in the crimes committed. In the second place and this is a point to which we wish to call special attention crime is, for the most part, committed, not by the com- munity at large, but by a peculiar and distinct section of it. A great portion of the crimes of violence, and most of the crimes of fraud, are due to professional criminals ; and an increase of offences indicates rather increased activity in this criminal population, or increased facility for their depredations, or, at most, an increase in their numbers, than any augmented criminality on the part of society in general. The inmates of our gaols, the culprits in our docks, belong habitually, in an over- whelming proportion, to a class apart, a class whose occupation and livelihood are found in the commission of offences ; who are compelled to this trade because they know no other, and because no other is in vogue among the people with whom their lot is cast ; and who are in many cases trained to it as regularly as others are trained to weaving, to ploughing, or to tailoring. The increase of crime, therefore, generally bespeaks, on tlie worst supposition, an increase of the criminal popu- 332 ENGLAND AS IT IS. lation ; and in no degree militates against the idea of the progress of morality and civilisation among all other classes, though it shows, with painful distinctness and with startling emphasis, that society has not succeeded in removing the motives which stimulate to a criminal career, or in redeeming and absorbing those classes from which the criminal population is recruited. While it is one of the beneficial effects of a good police, to separate more and more the light from the darkness, our swollen return of crime is undoubtedly a blot upon our es- cutcheon and a drawback on our progress ; not as im- peaching the general honesty and virtue of the nation, but as showing the existence of a class among us which the advance of civilisation ought to have eradicated or suppressed. These reflections may suggest an explanation of the mistake both of those who, finding the great majority of criminals to be uneducated, conceive that their cri- minality is due to their ignorance, and will be removed by their instruction ; and of those, also, who, finding no regular and steady ratio (or only an inverse one) be- tween the spread of education and the decrease of crime, infer that instruction is not an efficient ally of morality or a natural antagonist to crime. The criminality of the inmates of our gaols and convict ships, though found in almost invariable concomitance with ignorance, does not spring from it ; but the concomitance is to be ex- plained by the reflection that absence of all proper training and instruction is only one of the many cha- racteristics of the class in which habitual and profes- sional criminals are found. No education will eradicate their criminality unless it should raise them out of the class from which they have sprung, or otherwise alter the surrounding circumstances which hem them in, and point their course with an imperious and overpowering hand. Also, under these circumstances, it is evident ENGLAND AS IT IS. 333 that no national education, however improved in its quality, or excellent in its direct results, can be reason- ably expected to produce any decisive effect upon our criminal returns, as long as it stops short of our pro- fessional criminal population. Crime cannot be dimi- nished by any moral influence bearing only upon the non-criminal classes. Another count of Mr. Johnston's indictment against the present age is the want of cordial and kindly in- tercourse between different ranks : " The separation between rich and poor the dissympathy and isolation of classes, is the great social evil of the time. Institutions for scientific and literary teaching by lectures, at the cheapest possible rates, are established ; parks for the re- creation of the lower orders are planted ; even clubs, upon something like the aristocratic model, where conveniences and luxuries are supplied at low prices; but all this seems to be un- successful. What one wants to see a mutual and hearty re- cognition of the differences of condition, a kind and cordial condescension on the one side, and an equally cordial, but still respectful, devotedness, on the other appears to make no pro- gress." Vol. i. p. 131. This is a common and natural, but we think an in- considerate complaint. It is "a longing, lingering look behind," cast after the characteristics of an era that has passed away. It is the hankering which pervades the Young-England party. It is the secret regret indulged in by the more amiable portion of our aristocracy. The truth is, that that kind of friendly intercourse between the higher and lower orders seductive as we feel it to be in description beautiful and touching as it often was in reality belonged to feudalism, and is simply impracticable and incongruous in a democratic age. It arose from and depended upon a relative position of the two classes which no longer exists. It could not be ingrafted on their present relations. The theory of 334 ENGLAND AS IT IS. generous protection on the one side, and grateful and affectionate dependence on the other, can no longer form the basis on "which the social hierarchy rests. If still cherished among the aristocratic rich, it is repu- diated by the labouring poor ; and if the former were to attempt to act it out, they would be met by ridicule, repulsion, and rebellion, from the latter. To explain fully the nature of the change in the relations of the two parties, and the precise point in the change which English society has now reached, would require us to copy whole pages from Mill's philosophic chapter on " The Probable Future of the Working Classes," and from the fourth volume of Tocqueville's " Democracy in America." The error of those who thus seek to recall the attachments and sympathies of feudalism "lies in not perceiving that these virtues and sentiments, like the clanship and hospitality of the wandering Arab, belong emphatically to a rude and imperfect state of the social union. We have entered into a state of civilisation in which the bond that attaches human beings to one another must be disinterested admiration and sympathy for personal qualities, or gratitude for unselfish services not the emotions of protectors to- wards dependents, or of dependents towards protectors. Of the working classes of Western Europe, at least, it may be pronounced certain that the patriarchal or paternal system of government is one to which they will not again be subject. They have taken their interests into their own hands."* The unsatisfactory nature of the intercourse now subsisting between rich and poor arises mainly from the fact of the relations between them being in a state of transition ; neither of the two parties having alto- gether discarded the old ideas, nor wholly embraced * Mill's Political Economy, vol. ii. p. 317. ENGLAND AS IT IS. 335 and comprehended the new. Both are still somewhat under the influence of feudal associations ; and confound in their minds the rights and duties of the past relation, with those of the relation which has superseded it. The bond between the two classes, and their mutual obligations, are as clear and imperative as ever; but these obligations have changed their character, and require to be defined anew. Till they are so defined and thoroughly realised by both, the intercourse be- tween the classes can never resume a perfectly simple and satisfactory footing. At present, circumstances and recollections combine to make it impossible to mix cither on the old footing of feudalism, or on the new footing of equality. The great repudiate the one ; the lower orders repudiate the other. There are three relations in which capital and labour, the rich and the poor, the noble and the peasant, may stand to each other. There is the relation of slavery, the relation of vassalage, the relation of simple contract. In the first there is absolute dependence and absolute control; in the second there is a modified submission and partial protection and command ; in the third there is theoretic equality, and simple service is balanced against simple payment. In Egypt and in Carolina, the first of these relations subsists ; in Russia and Hungary the second ; in France and Pennsylvania the third ; and in none of these countries is there any misunderstanding or con- fusion on the subject. In England, on the contrary, we are stepping from the second to the third of these re- lations, but have not yet quite realised or got accustomed to the change. Neither the higher nor the lower classes see clearly, or feel invariably, in which of the two re- lative positions they stand, or wish to stand. Each party borrows some of the claims of the former relation, but forgets the correlative obligations. The peasant and the artisan conceive that they are entitled to claim from 336 ENGLAND AS IT IS. their master the forbearance, the kindness, the protection in danger, the assistance in difficulty, the maintenance in distress and destitution, which belong to the feudal relation ; but they forget to pay the corresponding duties of consideration, confidence, and respect. On the other hand, the master is too apt to forget that his servants, and the nobleman that his tenants, are now, in the eye not only of the law but of society, his equal fellow-citizens ; and he is still sometimes seen exacting from them, not only the stipulated work and rent, but that deference, devotion, and implicit obedience to which only virtue, justice, and beneficence on his part at present can entitle him. Now we are not disposed to regret that the relative position of the classes has been thus changed : the matter for regret is that the change is not fully felt or compre- hended, and that it has come upon us before both parties were perfectly prepared to meet it. In the new relation properly regarded and conscientiously adopted with all its corollaries, there may be, if less that is picturesque and poetical, more that is elevating, than in the old. We confess that, in spite of the seductions of fancy, we have no hankering after the past paradise of serfdom. We believe that the reciprocal dependence and fostering of feudalism have been replaced by something better, worthier, and more hopeful. There is no longer the same frequent and devoted attachment on the part of individuals among the rich to individuals among the poor (and vice versa), But there is, what was unknown in feudal times, regard, care, and compassion for the poor as a class : sympathy for them and a sense of duty to them, as being an integral, acknowledged, vital portion of the community. In the regretted days of aristocracy and vassalage, the servant revered and loved his lord, and the lord was kind to the dependants who belonged to him, and was in daily intercourse with them ; ENGLAND AS IT IS. 337 but justice to the labouring masses, compassion to the aggregate poor, a desire to elevate and improve the con- dition of the people as a whole, were sentiments as yet unborn. Xow, it is true, we see but seldom those at- tachments of superior and serf, lasting, not only through a long lifetime, but through many generations which so beautified and hallowed the social life of mediaeval times. We do not so often witness the sports and feasts of peasants in the parks of our nobility, en- couraged and presided over by the benevolent and con descending'great. Instead, however, of all this we have signs of interest and regard more substantial, if less at- tractive ; we have sanatory commissioners ; we have factory and mine inspectors ; we have organised educa- tion ; we have official investigations into every reported abuse ; and charitable associations for relieving or pre- cluding every possible variety of wretchedness. But feudalism has found a still more valuable substi- tute and successor. Self-reliance has replaced, or is fast replacing, among our working classes, the enthralling, enfeebling habits of dependence on the protection and guidance of another, which was distinctive of past times. Among the agricultural peasantry the old feelings and the old habits may linger still ; but among artisans and handicraftsmen of every denomination, among the dwellers in the great hives of our industry which are re- plenished from the rural districts, and who must in time communicate their own spirit to the homes from which they spring, a proud sense of self-dependence, a reso- lution to owe their well-being and advancement to them- selves alone, a surly and contemptuous thrusting back of charitable aid or guidance from above, are rapidly spreading, and manifesting themselves sometimes in forms which we might resent and deplore, were not the substance which gives rise to them so beyond all price. The duties which the higher ranks of society owe VOL. i. z 338 ENGLAND AS IT IS. to those below them in the social hierarchy, are not obliterated or discharged by this change in their rela- tive positions, which modern times and political reforms have brought about : but the nature of these duties is materially altered. To distressed individuals of every description and of all ranks we all owe tender compassion and charitable aid : while to the lower or- ders, as such, we owe not charity but justice, not so much the open purse, as the equal measure. Advice, as far as they will receive it ; guidance, as far as they will submit to it ; control at times, as far as the un- bounded freedom of the English constitution will enable us to exercise it ; education of the best quality and to the utmost extent that our unhappy sectarian jealousies will permit us to bestow it. We owe them fair play in everything ; justice of the most even-handed sort, full, unquestionable, and overflowing ; the removal of every external impediment which prevents them from doing and being whatever other classes can do and be. We owe it to them to employ our superior capacities, our richer opportunities, our maturer wisdom, in cheering their toil, smoothing their difficulties, directing their often misguided and suicidal energies. We owe to them every facility with which we can surround their con- flict with the obstacles of life, facility to obtain land, to obtain employment, or obtain colonisation; facility to acquire temperate habits, to accumulate savings, to employ them wisely, to invest them well: facility, above all, to acquire that which is at once the key and crown of all, solid and comprehensive instruction in all the things which belong both to their earthly wel- fare and their future peace. Our duty to them as a class, may be comprised in a single sentence ; we should enable them to get everything, but should give them nothing, except education ; and if we give this to one generation, the next may safely be trusted to get it for themselves. Compassion to the afflicted, encouragement ENGLAND AS IT IS. 339 to the strgugling, aid to the feeble, succour to the desti- tute, these man owes to man, independent of rank or station, creed or colour, according to the measure of need on the one side and capacity on the other. The chapter which is devoted to Sir Robert Peel is one of the most interesting in the book. Mr. Johnston regards that eminent and lamented statesman from an opponent's point of view, but in no hostile spirit. He considers that to speak of him as " the embodiment and type of the age in which he lived, implies no com- pliment, if the age be (as he evidently conceives it) essentially unheroic an, age of compromise and artifice an age more prolific of prudence than of elevated feeling an age in which generous enthusiasm is dead." Again, he is inclined to account for the high and sincere encomiums passed upon Sir Robert Peel by leading men of all parties, " by a vitiated state of the general mind, so far as regards public affairs ; by the want of heroic attachment to high principle, by the fact that we have at present upper classes at once disdainful and mean, and middle classes worshipping what is safest, or what seems so." Now though we do not think that Mr. Johnston is altogether just to the character of Sir Robert Peel, still it is not our province to undertake his defence at present, except in as far as the grounds on which he is con- demned would ensure the condemnation of nearly all the statesmen of the age ; and besides, would indicate a want of appreciation of their peculiar difficulties, and a misconception of the qualities of character and the course of conduct exacted from them by the nature of representative governments and the circumstances of modern times. It is a common complaint among the laudatores temporis acti, and our author echoes it in more than z 2 340 ENGLAND AS IT IS. one passage that the race of great statesmen has died out, that their modern representatives are dwarfed and dwindled, and that statesmanship itself has become low, time-serving, and mediocre. The sentiment is no new one : as the men of our days look upon Pitt, and Fox, and Burke, the men of their times looked back on Bolingbroke and Chatham ; these in their turn on Halifax and Clarendon ; and these again on Walsingham and Burleigh. But the truth is that the statesmen of one age or country are unsuited to the requirements of another ; and it is from failing to bear this in mind that we are so generally unjust to the men of our own day, so needlessly desponding about our future, and so apt unduly to extol the great leaders of the past. Our age demands very different qualifications in its public men from those which made men eminent and serviceable in the times of our forefathers. The statesmen of an autocratic government, like Austria or Russia, would scarcely be more out of place in a constitutional govern- ment like ours, than the statesmen of Elizabeth, or Charles, or Anne would find themselves in the reign of Victoria. The magnificent powers of Sully and Richelieu, even of Stein and Hardenberg, would be mis- placed in the latitude of London. Marlborough and Godolphin would be impeached for corruption; the domineering genius of Lord Chatham would cause him to be shelved as an " impracticable " man, with whom it was impossible to act ; the imperious temper of Hyde and Strafford would be much more promptly fatal to them in our days than they at last became even in their own ; and even a Cecil or a Bacon could scarcely manage to govern with a reformed parliament as " viceroy over them." The very qualities which made men great in public life formerly, would bar them out from public life now. A vast change has taken place in the nature of the statesmanship required ; and it is still in pro- ENGLAND AS IT IS. 341 gress. The statesmanship required now is far less initiative and more administrative than formerly. A public man in the present day cannot decide upon his principles and purposes, and carry them out by the mere force of the high position to which his sovereign may have raised him. He is debarred from the glorious power which belongs to the rulers of autocratic states, of deciding in his own mind on the measures suited to ensure his country's grandeur or well-being, and enacting and enforcing them, regardless of the opposition of parties less far-seeing, less profound, less patriotic than himself. He cannot place before him a great object, and say, " This my position as prime minister enables me to attain, and I will disregard present hostility and blame, and trust to future results to justify and vindicate my wisdom." He is denied that noblest privilege of the wise and mighty that which gives to statesmanship its resistless fascination for the ripened mind the right to elaborate, "in the quietness of thought," a system of policy, solid in its foundations, impartial in its justice, far-reaching, fertilising, beneficent in its operation, and to pursue it with unswerving and imperturbable resolve. He cannot, like Peter, systematise the civilisa- tion of a barbarous empire ; he cannot, like Richelieu, by the union of high office and indomitable will, subdue and paralyse a haughty and ancient aristocracy; he cannot, like Colbert, reconstruct the finances and com- merce of a great kingdom ; he cannot, like Stein, by an. overpowering fiat, raise a whole nation of proletaires out of serfdom into civil possessions and civil rights. He is powerless except in as far as he can induce others to agree with him. He has not only to conceive and mature wise schemes, he has to undergo the far more painful and vexatious labour of persuading others of their excellence, of instructing the ignorance of some, of convincing the understandings of others, of com- z 3 342 ENGLAND AS IT IS. bating the honest prejudices of one party, of neutralising the interested opposition of another; he has to clip, to modify, to emasculate his measures, to enfeeble them by some vital omission in order to conciliate this antagonist, to clog them with some perilous burden in order to satisfy that rival, till he is fain to doubt whether com- promise has not robbed victory of its profit as well as of its charms. These are some of the difficulties which statesmen have to overcome in a country where parliament is omnipotent, and where every citizen is a dogmatic and self-complacent politician. Though modern statesman- ship may call for other qualities than those needed in former days, the qualities are assuredly neither fewer, less lofty, nor less rare. A thorough mastery of facts, a clear purpose, a patient temper, a persevering will ; a profound knowledge of men, of the motives which ac- tuate them, of the influences by which they are to be swayed ; skill to purchase the maximum of support by the minimum of concession ; tact to discern the present temper and the probable direction of the popular feeling ; sagacity to distinguish between the intelligent and the unintelligent public opinion, between the noisy clamour of the unimportant few, and the silent convictions of the influential many, between the outcry which may be safely and justly disregarded, and the expression of the mind of the country which it would be wrong and dan- gerous to withstand; these are surely qualifications which demand no ordinary combination of moral and intellectual endowments. The statesman of to-day re- quires as comprehensive a vision and as profound a wisdom as in former times, with intenser labour, and a far wider range of knowledge ; but he requires other gifts which formerly were scarcely needed. For, he now has not only to decide what ought to be done, and what is the wisest way of doing it, but he has to do it, or as ENGLAND AS IT IS. 343 much of it as he can, in the face of obstacles of which Machiavelli had no conception, which would have baffled Mazarin, and at which even Chatham or Walpole might have stood aghast. To quarrel with a statesman because he is what his age compels him to be, because he meets the requirements of his day and generation, because he does not import into a democratic age, and into a country in which the popular element is unprecedentedly active and powerful, the habits and qualities of mind which could only find their fitting field and natural develop- ment in aristocratic or despotic eras, is simply to join issue with the political necessities of the times. In England, in the middle of the nineteenth century, with a reformed parliament, with a free and powerful press, with a population habituated throughout all its ranks to the discussion of political affairs, a minister, whatever be his genius, can no longer impose his will upon the nation ; to be useful and great he must carry the nation along with him, he must be the representative and em- bodiment of its soberest and maturest wisdom, not the depository or exponent, still less the imperious enforcer, of views beyond their sympathy, and above their comprehension. The nature of our government prescribes the qualifications of our statesmen ; to hanker after a different order of men is to pine for a different order of things. With these remarks we close our notice of Mr. Johnston's work. It is a readable and well-written book, abounding with information of many kinds. Its faults are, a want of purpose, too manifest a disposition to decry the present and exalt the past, and too blinding a habit of looking at most questions, whether they concern things or persons, from a party point of view. To this last objection we may be peculiarly alive, the party views not being our own. z 4 344 MARY BARTON.* " MARY BARTON " is a work of higher pretensions than an ordinary novel. It aims not only at the delineation of the joys and sorrows, the loves and hatreds of our common humanity, but it professes also to give a picture of the feelings, habits, opinions, character and social condition of a particular class of the people, a class, too, which has of late years attracted a great share of public attention, and has probably been the subject of more misconception and misrepresentation than has fallen to the lot of any other. The scene of the story is laid in Manchester ; the time selected is the period of severe manufacturing distress which occurred about the year 1842 ; and the dramatis personce belong almost exclusively to the factory popu- lation. The outline is briefly as follows : John Barton, a factory operative of considerable, but no way re- markable intelligence, of a sensitive and affectionate, but moody and unchastened temper, a zealous member of Trades' Unions, and a diligent reader of the " Northern Star," having lost two children during a previous period of distress, and being now deprived of his wife, who died in child-birth, becomes at length quite soured by calamity. By constantly dwelling on his own sorrows and on the privations and sufferings around him, he grows morose, passionate, and vindictive ; and ends by the deliberate assassination, during a strike for wages, of one of the master manufacturers, a young man of * From the " Edinburgh Review." Mary Barton ; a Tale of Manchester Life. London: 18-18. MARY BARTON. 345 kind heart, but of somewhat supercilious manners ; of whose only real offence against him an attempt to seduce his daughter John Barton is, and remains, wholly ignorant. This is the main plot: the interest of the tale is varied, and very efficiently, in the person of James Wilson, a young mechanic of the better order, and devoted lover of the heroine, Mary Barton. Sus- picious circumstances having led to his trial for the murder which her father had committed, he is acquitted at the last moment, mainly through her exertions. Several other characters are introduced of singular beauty and reality; Alice, an excellent and simple- hearted old woman who goes about doing good, old Job Legh, a poor and self-taught naturalist, and his daughter Margaret, whose loss of her sight is compensated by the seasonable discovery of her talent as a singer, and the uneducated and querulous, but affectionate Mrs. Wilson, every one of them belonging to the same rank in life. Indeed all the personages of the story, with the exception of Mr. Carson, the mill-owner, and his unfor- tunate son, are taken from the strictly artisan class. This meagre sketch will perhaps enable those few of our readers who have not also been readers of the book itself, to form some conception of the construction of the story, and to understand our extracts. The lite- rary merit of the work is in some respects of a very high order. Its interest is intense ; often painfully so : indeed it is here, we think, that the charm of the book and the triumph of the author will chiefly be found. Its pictures and reflections are, however, also full of those touches of nature which " make the whole world kin;" and its dialogues are managed with a degree of ease and naturalness rarely attained even by the most experienced writers of fiction. We believe that they approach very nearly, both in tone and style, to the conversations actually carried on in the dingy cottages 346 MARY BARTON. of Lancashire. The authoress for "Mary Barton" is understood to be, and indeed very palpably is, the pro- duction of a lady must not be confounded with those writers who engage with a particular subject, because it presents a vein which they imagine may be suc- cessfully worked get up the needful information, and then prepare a story as a solicitor might prepare a case. She has evidently lived much among the people she describes, made herself intimate at their firesides, and feels a sincere, though sometimes too exclusive and undiscriminating, sympathy with them. In short, her work has been clearly a " labour of love," and has been written with a most earnest and benevolent purpose. We can conscientiously pronounce it to be a production of great excellence, and of still greater promise. But it must also be regarded in a more serious point of view. It comes before us professing to be a faithful picture of a little known, though most energetic and important, class of the community ; and it has the noble ambition of doing real good by creating sympathy, by diffusing information, and removing prejudices. To its pretensions in these respects, we regret that we cannot extend an unqualified approbation. With all the truthfulness displayed in the delineation of indivi- dual scenes, the general impression left by the book, on those who read it as mere passive recipients, will be imperfect, partial, and erroneous. Notwithstanding the good sense and good feeling with which it abounds, it is calculated, we fear, in many places, to mislead the minds and confirm and exasperate the prejudices, of the general public on the one hand, and of the factory operatives on the other. Were " Mary Barton " to be only read by Manchester men and master manu- facturers, it could scarcely fail to be serviceable; because they might profit by its suggestions, and would at once detect its mistakes. But considering the ex- MARY BARTON. 347 traordinary delusions of many throughout the south of England respecting the great employers of labour in the north and west; as well as the ignorance and misconception of their true interests and position, which are still too common among the artisans of many of our large towns, the effect of the work, if taken without some corrective, might, in these quarters, be mischie- vous in the extreme. And this must be our apology for pointing out, in some detail, both the false philo- sophy and the inaccurate descriptions which detract so seriously from the value of these most interesting volumes. But first we must indulge ourselves in the more pleasing task of noticing the beauty and fidelity with which the authoress seizes on and depicts those bright redeeming features which still characterise our operative population ; and in which we recognise with pride, not only some of the highest and most difficult attainments of virtue, but "germs of almost impossible good," signs and elements of progress towards a social and moral eminence, distant yet, and very lofty, but nevertheless within their reach. First among these must be reckoned what Monckton Millies so justly calls " the sacred Patience of the poor." The extent to which this virtue prevails can be only appreciated by those who have mixed intimately with the working classes. It is a spectacle fitted to amaze and shame the more favoured children of fortune. Distress they submit to without surprise, and generally without murmur, as one of the appointed incidents to their lot. They are often very deficient, it is true, in the foresight and self-denial which might provide against the recurrence of priva- tion ; but, when it comes, they meet it with a cheerful, manly, simple resignation, accepting " Each ill As a plain fact whose right or wrong 348 MARY BARTON. They question not, confiding still That it shall last not overlong ; Willing, from first to last, to take The mysteries of our life as given, Leaving the time-worn soul to slake Its thirst in an undoubted Heaven." Feelings of envy, against individuals or classes enjoy- ing an apparent exemption from the privations with which they are overwhelmed, or of indignation at any supposed want of compassion on the part of those blessed with a happier lot natural and probable as such would seem to be we believe in fact to be rare, partial, and transient among the labouring people. Men there are, and will be in every class, of unhappy, selfish tempers, prone to dwell on painful comparisons, and to embitter their own condition by every contrast they can gather round it. But these are so far from being types of the poor in general, that they are found more sparingly among the poor than in any other rank of life. We have watched the operatives of our popu- lous towns during several periods of severe suffering; and (except from a few such ill-conditioned characters as we have just referred to) we scarcely remember to have heard an expression of angry envy or malignity. There has been many a lament, scarcely ever a curse ; many a countenance clouded by care, rarely a face of petulant impatience ; the predominant characteristic has always been a submissive hopefulness, often an almost stoical endurance, and as soon as times mended, there has been generally even too speedy a forgetfulness of past troubles. This admirable feature in the artisan character, the authoress of " Mary Barton " has discovered and de- lineated in the cases of George Wilson and Old Alice ; though, from the circumstance of the discontented man, John Barton, being the more prominent person, the MARY BAETON. 349 erroneous impression would be conveyed to the reader, that patience is the exception, and ill-humour and vin- dictiveness the rule, especially among the stronger and more thoughtful natures. The following is a con- versation between the two friends, Wilson and Barton, by the bedside of one of their destitute and dying com- rades : " * Han you known this chap long?' asked Barton. " e Better nor three year. He's worked with Carsons that long, and were always a steady, civil spoken fellow, though, as I said afore, somewhat of a Methodee. I wish I'd gotten a letter he sent his missis a week or two agone, when he were on tramp for work. It did my heart good to read it ; for you see, I were a bit grumbling mysel ; it seemed hard to be spunging on Jem (his son), and taking a' his flesh-meat money to buy bread for me and them as I ought to be keeping. But you know, though I can earn nought, I mun eat summut. "Well, as I telled ye, I were grumbling, when she (indicating the sleeping woman by a nod) brought me Ben's letter, for she could na read hersel. It were as good as Bible words ; ne'er a word o' repining ; a' about God being our father, and that we mun bear patiently whate'er he sends.' " ( Don ye think he's the master's father too ? I'd be loath to have them for brothers.' " ' Eh, John ; donna talk so ; sure there's many and many a master as good or better nor us.' " ' If you think so, tell me this. Ho\y comes it they're rich, and we're poor? I'd like to know that. Han they done as they'd be done by for us ? ' "But Wilson was no arguer. No speechifier as he would have called it. So Barton, seeing he was likely to have it his own way, went on." Wilson then goes away to obtain a recommendation to the infirmary for his sick friend ; when he returns he finds him sensible, but rapidly sinking : " His strength was ebbing fast. They stood round him still and silent ; even the wife checked her sobs, though her heart was like to break. She held her child to her breast, to try and 350 MARY BARTON. keep it quiet. Their eyes were all fixed on the yet living one, whose moments of life were passing so rapidly away. At length he brought, with jerking, convulsive effort, his two hands into the attitude of prayer. They saw his lips move, and bent to catch the words, which came in gasps, and not in tones. " ' Oh, Lord God ! I thank thee that the hard struggle of living is over." " ' Oh, Ben ! Ben ! ' wailed forth his wife ; ' have you no thought for me ? Oh, Ben ! Ben ! do say one word to help me through life.' " He could not speak again. The trump of the archangel would set his tongue free ; but not a word more would it utter till then. Yet he heard, he understood, and though sight failed, he moved his hand gropingly under the covering. They knew what he meant, and guided it to her head, bowed and hidden in her hands, when she had sunk in her woe. It rested there with a feeble pressure of endearment. The face grew beautiful, as the soul neared God. A peace beyond under- standing came over it. The hand became a stiff, heavy weight on the wife's head. No more grief or sorrow for him. They reverently laid out the corpse Wilson fetching his only spare shirt to array it in." There are many other descriptions of exquisite pathos scattered up and down the narrative, some of which we would fain have extracted. But we must pass on. Another feature in the character of the operative poor, perhaps even lovelier and brighter than their wonderful patience under suffering, is their mutual help- fulness and unbounded kindliness towards each other. To this virtue our authoress has done full justice, and her pictures of it are so vivid, that we must present one of them at least, however long the passage, to our readers : " There were homes over which Carson's fire (his mill has been burnt down) threw a deep terrible gloom ; the homes of those who would fain work, and no man gave unto them; the homes of those to whom leisure was a curse. There the family music was hungry wails, when week after week passed by, and MARY BARTON. 351 there was no work to be had, and consequently no wages to pay for the bread the children cried aloud for in the young im- patience of suffering. Many a penny that would have gone little way enough in oatmeal or potatoes, bought opium to still the hungry little ones, and make them forget their uneasiness in heavy troubled sleep. The evil and the good of our nature came out strongly then. There were desperate fathers ; there were bitter-tongued mothers (O God ! what wonder !) ; there were reckless children ; the very closest bonds of nature were snapt in that time of trial and distress. There was faith such as the rich can never imagine upon earth ; there was * love strong as death,' and self-denial among rude coarse men, akin to that of Sir Philip Sidney's most glorious deed. The vices of the poor sometimes astound us here ; but when the secrets of all hearts shall be made known, their virtues will astound us in far greater degree. Of this I am certain. " As the cold bleak spring came on (spring in name alone), and consequently as trade continued dead, other mills shortened hours, turned off hands, and finally stopped work altogether. Barton worked short hours ; Wilson, of course, being a hand in Carson's factory, had no work at all. . . . One evening, when the clear light at six o'clock contrasted strangely with the Christmas cold, and when the bitter wind piped down every entry, and through every cranny, Barton sat brooding over his stinted fire, and listening for Mary's step, in unacknowledged trust that her presence would cheer him. The door was opened, and Wilson came breathless in. " ' You've not got a bit of money by you, Barton ? ' asked he. " ' Not I ; who has now, I'd like to know. Whattur do you want it for? ' " ' I donnot want it for mysel, though we've none to spare. But don ye know Ben Davenport, as worked at Carson's ? He's clown wi' the fever, and ne'er a stick of fire, nor a cowd potato in the house.' " * I ban got no money, I tell ye,' said Barton. Wilson looked disappointed. Barton tried not to be interested, but he could not help it, in spite of his gruffness. He rose, and went to the cupboard (his wife's pride long ago). There lay the remains of his dinner, hastily put there ready for supper. Bread, and a slice of cold fat boiled bacon. He wrapped them in his 352 MARY BARTON. handkerchief, put them in the crown of his hat, and said, ' Come, let's be going/ " * Going art going to work this time of day ? ' " ' No, stupid, to be sure not. Going to see the fellow thou spoke on.' So they put on their hats and set out. On the way, Wilson said Davenport was a good fellow, though too much of the Methodee ; that his children were too young to work, but not too young to be cold and hungry ; that they had sunk lower and lower, and pawned thing after thing, and that now they lived in a cellar in Berry Street" Here follows a sad description of the filthiness of the locality, where " the smell was so fetid as almost to knock the two men down. Quickly recovering themselves, as those inured to such things do, they began to penetrate the thick darkness of the place, and to see three or four little children rolling on the damp, nay wet brick floor, through which the stagnant, filthy moisture of the street oozed up ; the fire-place was empty and black ; the wife sat on her husband's chair, and cried in the dank lone- liness. " ' See, missis, I'm back again. Hold your noise, children, and don't mither your mammy for bread ; here's a chap as has got some for you.' " In that dim light, which was darkness to strangers, they clustered round John Barton, and tore from him the food he had brought with him. It was a large hunch of bread, but it had vanished in an instant. " * We mun do summut for 'em,' said he to Wilson. ( Yo stop here, and I'll be back in half an hour.' " So he strode and ran, and hurried home. He emptied into the ever-useful pocket-handkerchief the little meal remaining in the mug. Mary would have her tea at Miss Simmonds' ; her food for the day was safe. Then he went up stairs for his better coat, and his one, gay, red-and-yellow silk pocket-hand- kerchief his jewels, his plate, his valuables, these were. He went to the pawn-shop ; he pawned them for five shillings ; he stopped not, nor stayed, till he was once more in London Road, within five minutes' walk of Berry Street then he loitered in his gait, in order to discover the shops he wanted. He bought MARY BARTON. 353 meat, and a loaf of bread, candles, chips; and from a little retail yard he purchased a couple of hundred weight of coals. Some money yet remained all destined for them, but he did not yet know how best to spend it. Food, light, and warmth, he had seen instantly were necessary ; for luxuries he would wait. Wilson's eyes filled with tears as he saw Barton enter with his purchases. He understood it all; and longed to be once more in work, that he might help in some of these mate- rial ways, without feeling that he was using his son's money. But though 'silver and gold had he none,' he gave heart- service, and love-works of far more value. Nor was John Barton behind in these " The two men, rough, tender nurses as they were, lighted the fire, which smoked and puffed into the room, as if it did not know its way up the chimney. The children clamoured again for bread ; but this time Barton took a piece first to the poor, helpless, hopeless woman, who still sat by the side of her husband, listening to his anxious miserable mutterings. She took the bread, when it was put into her hands, and broke a bit, but could not eat. She was past hunger. She fell down on the floor, with a heavy unresisting bang. The men looked puzzled " I'll tell you what I'll do,' said Wilson. < I'll take these two big lads, as does nought but fight, home to my missis's for to-night, and I will get a jug of tea. Them women always does best with tea and such like slops.' " So Barton was now left alone with a little child, crying (when it had done eating) for mammy ; with a fainting dead- like woman ; and with the sick man ; whose mutterings were rising up to screams and shrieks of agonised anxiety. He carried the woman to the fire, and chafed her hands. He looked around for something to raise her head. There was literally nothing but some loose bricks. However, those he got ; and taking off" his coat, he covered them as well as he could. He pulled her feet to the fire, which now began to emit some faint heat. He looked round for water, but water there was none. He snatched up the child, and ran up the area steps to the room above, and borrowed their only saucepan with some water in it. Then he began, with the useful skill of a working man, to make some gruel " VOL. I. A A 354 MARY BARTON. We are proud to be enabled to testify that the scene presented in this extract is not only true to individual life, but it is the expression of a general fact. There is scarcely any degree of trouble and self-denial which men in this class will not encounter to serve their fellow-suf- ferers ; and no service is more cheerfully and punctually repaid when the position of the parties is reversed. To the poor man, poverty greater than his own never appeals in vain : " To give the stranger's children bread, Of your precarious board the spoil To watch your helpless neighbour's bed, And, sleepless, meet the morrow's toil ; " These are the daily offerings of mutual love which we witness among the lowest members of the struggling artisans. And perhaps they ought to surprise us less than they do : for in contrasting them with the compa- rative dulness and indifference of the wealthy to the sufferings of those below them, we are apt to lose sight of two very relevant considerations ; one is, that sym- pathy meaning by it fellow-feeling - can only exist in its fullest extent among persons of the same condition, surrounded by the same circumstances, inured to the same privations, who know; that the distress they are called upon to mitigate was their own yesterday, and may be their own again to-morrow. What is thus true sympathy betAveen the poor, becomes, when transferred to the relation between rich and poor, what is commonly expressed by the word compassion a sentiment far feebler and less complete. Moreover, the rich can never have the same knowledge of the troubles and difficulties of the poor, which the poor have of their own. Their paths lie apart. However much they may endeavour to visit among them, to become familiar with their circum- stances, and acquainted with their griefs, they can do MARY BARTOK 355 all this, from the very nature of the case, only very im- perfectly. There is not only the natural difficulty arising from discrepancy of life, feelings, and position, to be overcome ; but the very shrinking and reluctant pride of the independent poor opposes another barrier. Difference of position, therefore, lies at the root of the alleged want of sympathy : And, inadequate knowledge under circumstances in which the inadequacy is inevitable must bear at least half the blame of the apparent want of compassion with which the more pros- perous are charged. If rich and poor could but change places for a while, they would understand each other better ever afterwards and make more allowances for their respective failings. Another consideration to which due weight is seldom allowed, is this : the cause which, of all others, most deadens and restrains the hand of charity, is the fear of bestowing it unworthily and mischievously. Immense difficulty is experienced by the rich, when they attempt to discriminate between cases of imposture, and cases of real destitution, between cases which it would be a duty and a delight, and cases which it would often be a sin and a mischief to relieve. The poor experience no such difficulty. They have to guard against no imposi- tion: for imposition with them would be easily and certainly detected. Their means and their feelings may be safely taken therefore as guides. But we are putting off the unpleasant part of our duty. There are representations made at least im- pressions left by the book before us, which we have signalised as inaccurate and full of harm. Some of these we must proceed to notice : and first among them, the exaggeration of describing an animosity against masters and employers, as the common quality and cha- racteristic of the operative population. The narrative imports that the angry and vindictive feelings by which A A 2 358 MARY BARTON. the soul of John Barton is absorbed, are constant and pervading. " I saw (says the writer in the preface) that they were sore and irritable against the rich ; the even tenor of whose seemingly happy lives appeared to increase the anguish caused by the lottery-like nature of their own. Whether the bitter complaints made by them of the neglect which they experienced from the prosperous especially from the masters whose fortunes they had helped to build up were well founded or no, it is not for me to judge. It is enough to say that this belief of the injustice and unkindness which they endure from their fellow-creatures, taints what might be resignation to God's will, and turns it to revenge in too many of the poor uneducated factory-workers of Manchester. ... At present they seem to me to be left in a state, wherein lamentations and tears are thrown aside as useless, but in which the lips are compressed for curses, and the hands clenched and ready to smite." Now we do not hesitate to say, that the impression conveyed by such statements as this, is, to say the least, a material overcolouring of the truth. It is presump- tuous, perhaps, to pronounce decidedly upon a point on which opinions will vary ; the experience of every man of course depending on the local and personal circumstances in which he has been thrown. But both our own observation, and the confirming views of others whose acquaintance with artisan life has been even more extensive and intimate than our own, enable us to speak with some confidence. It is unquestionably and un- fortunately true, that sentiments of animosity of this description do exist in a considerable degree, and in a degree which varies with the times. All that we con- tend for is, that they are exceptional, not general local, limited, and transient, and certainly not enter- tained by the working population at large. As a pic- ture of an individual, that is, of the feelings of this or that person, John Barton is unhappily true to the life ; as the type of a class, though a small one, he may MARY BARTON. 357 be allowed to pass muster: but to bring him forward as a fair representative of the artisans and factory ope- ratives of Manchester, and similar towns generally, is a libel alike upon them and upon the objects of their alleged hatred. Much, no doubt, has been done, and is- still being done, by those emissaries of ill-will who live upon the passions they excite, to create and foster bad feeling between classes so intimately bound together, as- the manufacturing capitalist and the manufacturing labourer. Much has- been done, too, both by senators and journalists, through slanders protected by privilege of parliament, and propagated by that mighty press, against whose injuries there is no defence, towards- spreading among the more distant public the belief that this bad feeling does exist to a perilous extent. Not- withstanding which, however, we rejoice to know that the feeling is becoming every year rarer and less acri- monious ; that it is more and more exclusively confined to the irregular, dissolute, and discontented &r- workmen who form the acting staff of trades' unions and delega- tions ; and more and more exclusively directed against those employers daily becoming fewer who look upon the operatives they employ in the mingled light of coadjutors and antagonists with whom their only concern is to drive as hard a bargain as they can ; and that it is fast giving way before the increasing convic- tion of a common interest, and the humanising influence of faithful services rendered, on the one hand, and just treatment, willing aid, and benevolent kindness on the other. There is, too, it seems to us, a double error, both an artistic error, and an error of fact, in representing a man of Barton's intelligence and habits of reflection and discussion, to be so ignorant of the first principles of commercial and economic science as he is here described. A A 3 358 MARY BARTON. Probably this arises from the writer's acknowledged unacquaintance with social and political economy her- self, and from her ignorance how far the rudiments of these sciences have been mastered by the more thought- ful and the better educated artisans of our large towns. But indeed the lights and shades are thrown too strongly on everything relating to John Barton. The effect may have thus been made more startling : but, we think, at the expense of probability. It is not that he has, more or less, two natures. That is common to us all. Our objection is, that his conduct is radically inconsistent with his qualities and character. He is not only an intelligent man, but a steady and skilful work- man ; and so confident in his own capacity always pro- curing for him certain employment, that he never, when in receipt of the highest wages (vol. i. p. 33.), lays by a farthing for a time of sickness at home, or stagnation of trade. Meanwhile, whenever these periods come, he is found cursing his masters instead of his own improvi- dence ; spending his time and money on trades' unions, when both his child and himself are unsupplied with the barest necessaries of life; and wasting (as so many operatives do), in subscriptions for sucli objects, funds which, duly husbanded, would have saved his only son (whose loss, we are told, has warped his temper) from an early grave. Yet neither to the authoress, nor to the supposed subject of her delineation, is it at any time intimated as occurring that, if ever there was a clear case in which a man had to thank himself for most of his sorrows and misfortunes, John Barton's was that case. On the contrary, he is painted as utterly uncon- scious, even to the last, of his own improvidence, and of its sinister influence on his condition. Instead of draw- ing from his privations those lessons of warning and remorse which, to an intellect like his, must have been as patent as the day, they are merely made to heap up MARY BARTON. 359 fresh fuel for that funeral pile, to which his senseless and vindictive passion is at last to set fire. There is evil enough in the world, God knows, and we all know, to try the temper, we will not say the faith, of both rich and poor ; and the evils of society press often with crushing severity on the poor: " At all times it is a bewildering thing for the poor weaver to see his employer removing from house to house, each one grander than the last, till he ends in building one more mag- nificent than all, or withdraws his money from the concern, or sells his mill to buy an estate in the country, while all this time the Aveaver, who thinks that he and his fellows are the real makers of this wealth, is struggling on for bread for his children, through the vicissitudes of lowered wages, short hours, fewer hands employed, &c. And when he knows trade is bad, and could understand (at least partially) that there are not buyers enough in the market to purchase the goods already made, and consequently that there is no demand for more ; when he would bear much without complaining, could he also see that his em- ployers were bearing their share ; he is, I say, bewildered,, and (to use his own phrase) * aggravated' to see that all goes on just as usual with the mill-owners. Large houses are still occupied, while spinners' and weavers' cottages stand empty, because the families that once occupied them are obliged to live in rooms or cellars. Carriages still roll along the streets, concerts are still crowded with subscribers, the shops for ex- pensive luxuries still find daily customers, while the workman loiters away his unemployed time in watching these things, and thinking of the pale, uncomplaining wife at home, and the Availing children asking in vain for enough of food, of the sinking health, of the dying life of those near and dear to him. The contrast is too great." The following quotation is from the same conversation between Barton and his friend Wilson, of which we have already quoted a part. They are discussing the same subject the difference between their masters' lot and their own : " Barton, seeing he was likely to have his own Avay, went on. A A 4 360 MARY BARTON. " ' You'll say (at least many a one does) they'll gotten capital, and we'n gotten none. I say, our labour's our capital, and we ought to draw interest on that. They get interest on their capital, somehow all this time, while our'n is lying idle, else how could they all live as they do ? Besides, there's many of them had nought to begin with ; there's Carsons, and Dun- combes, and Margies, and many another, as corned into Man- chester with clothes to their back, and that were all, and now they're worth their tens of thousands, a' getten out of our labour; why, the very land as fetched but sixty pounds twenty year agone, is worth six hundred now, and that too, is owing to our labour; but look at yo, and see me, and poor Davenport yonder; whatten better are we? They'n screwed us down to the lowest peg, in order to make their great big for- tunes, and build their great big houses, and we why we're just clemming, many and many of us. Can you say there's nought wrong in this ?' " ' Well, Barton, I'll not gainsay ye. But Mr. Carson spoke to me after the fire, and, says he, " I shall ha' to retrench, and be very careful in my expenditure during these bad times, I as- sure ye ;" so yo see th' masters suffer too.' " ' Han they ever seen a child o' their'n die for want of food ? ' asked Barton in a low deep voice." Now here was a most favourable occasion for pointing out the just reflections to be drawn from such a con- trast ; yet it is so entirely passed by, that we are con- strained to conclude that they were unperceived by the writer herself. It is, we fear, too true that some envy, and much exasperation, do arise, at times, in the breasts of the more inconsiderate of the manufacturing poor, when they see those periods of commercial depression, which press so heavily upon themselves, borne so easily and with so little apparent privation by their masters. But there was only the more reason for seizing the opportunity to impress upon them both the real fact and the real philosophy of the case. It was only the more necessary to inform them (as numerous stoppages of wealthy firms might indeed readily bring home to MARY BARTON. 361 their conviction) that their masters do suffer, and suffer most painfully, from those reverses and stagnation of trade, which they imagine to fall solely on themselves ; to picture, however cursorily, the position of those em- ployers who, on such occasions, have seen the accumu- lations of years of patient and honest industry suddenly swept away, and who, at an advanced period of life, have had to set to work to reconstruct the shattered fabric of their fortunes and of those who, compro- mised more deeply still, find the prospects of their children blighted, their objects defeated, and their occu- pation gone. It is not true that such periods as 1842, when the scene of the narrative is laid, pass lightly over any of the great employers of manufacturing labour. Their sufferings are not the less severe, because the worst part of them are of a kind into which their de- pendants cannot at once enter. And the simple reason the explanation which lies upon the surface why they do not suffer as severely and as obviously as the operatives is, that they, in the days of prosperity, had laid by a portion of their earnings, and that the opera- tives had not ; and that, therefore, when profits ceased, and losses took their place a change which long precedes the reduction of wages, or the cessation of employment they could subsist out of their previous savings, while the improvident operatives had no savings to fall back upon. How came it never to occur to the authoress, or to her hero, that had Mr. Carson (who is represented as having raised himself from the operative class) thought as little of saving as John Barton, who so envied and so wronged him, their condition and their sufferings, when the period of distress arrived, would have been precisely equal ? It was, in truth, because the one had been prudent and foreseeing, and the other confident and careless because the one had busied himself about his work, while the other had busied him- 362 MARY BARTON. self about unions and politics, that their positions, when the evil day came, which came alike to both, were so strangely contrasted.* The forgetfulness or the delusion, whichever it be which we have here noted, is unhappily so common, and it discloses so much of the secret both of the pre- sent and the future condition of the manufacturing po- pulation, that we must dwell upon it for a few moments longer. People at a distance are not aware, either to what an extent the actual wealth of the master manu- facturers is the result of patient savings from very moderate average profits, nor (which is our immediate point) of the extent to which saving is within the power * We admit readily, however, and should always bear in mind, that the sufferings of the operative, even when occasioned by what may be called the total ruin of the master, are, while they last, greatly more intense than the master's. There is no instance, we suppose, of a bankrupt master being reduced to the squalid cellar life of the Davenports, or even to breaking stones on the highways, or to the asylum of the workhouse. Unless he has been fraudulent as well as unfortunate or imprudent, his connections, or even his creditors, interpose to save him from these dreadful extremities ; and it would be equally heartless and absurd to deny that these are beyond measure worse, and more trying both to our moral and our physical nature, than a mere descent from wealth to poverty, from the luxuries and vanities of life to its scantiest comforts, cares, and privations. There is this approach, however, to a compensation in the case of the operative, that his trials, though more bitter and overwhelming for the time, are generally shorter. The enterprising manufacturer, who loses in one desolating season the wealth accu- mulated by the patient and anxious labour of many preceding years, can seldom hope to regain either the fortune or the position he has lost ; and he generally passes the remainder of his life a broken - spirited and unprosperous man while as soon as employment re- turns, the operative is as well off, and too often as imprudent as ever; and though the thoughtful and sensitive among them may be occasionally depressed or irritated by anticipating the probable recurrence of such terrible visitations, it is certainly true that a far larger proportion of them soon recover their natural cheerfulness, than is the case with the unfortunate among their employers. MARY BAETON. 363 of the factory operatives. In the first place, it should be known that, in spite of all we hear of fluctuations and stagnation of trade, this class suffers less perhaps than any other from variations of employment. There are two reasons for this : one is, that their employers, being generally wealthy, are able to carry on their business through any ordinary periods of depression, without curtailing or suspending production ; in other words, they can afford to hold stocks. The other reason is, that the fixed capital employed is generally so large, and the consequent loss when it stands idle so enormous, that mills a're never allowed to stop if it is possible to keep them going. A large manufacturer, according to the evidence of the factory inspectors, cannot stop his factory without a dead loss of from 4000?. to 5000/. a year. Profits, therefore, cease long before either wages or employment are affected; and it is only after a long continuance of unprofitable trade, that either are reduced. Operatives generally are now, indeed, aware of this fact ; and, therefore, when their employer closes his mill, they know what an amount of pecuniary pressure such a step indicates, and they feel that he must be truly a fellow-sufferer. In the winter of 1847-48, when, owing to the failure in the American cotton crop, a greater number of mills ceased working or reduced their hours of work, than had ever previously been the case, so well was this understood, that scarcely one angry murmur or reproach was heard, though the sufferings of the people were severe beyond all former example. But not only is the employment of the factory popu- lation generally constant and regular, their wages also have long been, and doubtless will soon again be, com- paratively very high. The wages of men in most such establishments vary from 10,s. to 405., and those of girls and women from 7s. to 15s. a week. And, as 364 MARY BARTON. from the nature of the work, in which even children can be made serviceable, several individuals of the same family are generally employed, the earnings of a family will very frequently reach 1001. a year and by no means unfrequently, when the father is an overlooker or a spinner, 150/. to 170^. a sum on which families in a much higher rank contrive to live in decency and comfort. Saving then, out of such earnings, is obviously not only practicable but easy. Unhappily it is rare : for not only is much wasted at the ale-house (though less now than formerly) ; not only is much squandered in subscriptions to trades' unions and strikes; but among the more highly paid operatives, spinners espe- cially, gambling both by betting and at cards is carried on to a deplorable extent. * Much also is lost by bad housewifery ; and we do not scruple to affirm that, were it possible (and who shall say that it is not ?) to transport among these people, those thrifty habits, that household management, that shrewd, sober, steady con- duct, characteristic of the Scotch peasantry, and which are so well depicted in Somerville's " Autobiography of a Working Man;" not merely comfort, but wealth and independence, would speedily become the rule instead of the exception among our Manchester artisans. Even as it is, we are cognisant of many cases where hundreds in some instances thousands of pounds have been laid by, for future calls, by factory workmen. Indeed, whenever you find one of this class too sensible or too religious to frequent the ale-house, too shrewd or too peaceable to subscribe to clubs or turn-outs, and wise enough to spend his money efficiently, or to marry a wife * We have now lying before us some particulars, showing the prevalence of this vice, in one single factory. One man had lost 7/., another 31., another 21. 10s. in a single night at cards. In the same mill the losses incurred on one occasion, in the betting on a foot-race, by the hands in one department only, exceeded 121. MARY BARTON. 365 who can ; you are almost sure to learn that he has some independent property often deposited in his master's hands, oftener still laid out in the purchase of cottages or railway shares. Many of them become in time managers of mills, and, ultimately, proprietors and master manufacturers. As a confirmation of this statement, and as a contrast to the unnatural blindness and self-delusion of John Barton, we Avill give a picture drawn from the life by one thoroughly acquainted with the operative classes in the northern end, at least, of the island. It is an account of the actual progress upwards of a young mechanic, given by Mr. Robert Chambers. " Englishmen have much to be thankful for, inasmuch as there is probably no country on the face of the globe where sober, industrious young mechanics and labourers, can so soon raise themselves to ease, comparative independence, and comfort, as in England. Many instances in real life might be given in proof thereof. Yet our present purpose may be best answered by presenting the case of one who, having lost his father and mother in childhood, has been indebted to the kind-hearted for the school learning he has acquired. During his apprenticeship he gained little beyond habits of industry. In the seven years of his apprenticeship, his master fell from a respectable station to one of abject poverty ; owing to his taking the one glass, then the two, three, four, and onwards, till, by steps almost im- perceptible, his business and family were neglected, whilst he joined his associates at the ale-house. But let us not dwell on this sad picture. On completing his twenty-first year, our orphan boy engaged in a situation where he received 15s. per week wages ; 8s. of which he appropriated to food and lodgings, and 2s. to clothing, and a few books, to rub up his school-day learning. Warned by the example of his late master, he shunned the ale-house, and his steady conduct soon gained him the confidence of his employer, who, at the end of his first year, raised his wages to 21*. per week. At the end of the second year he found himself possessed of 407. ; 5s. per week had been regularly deposited in the bank for savings 366 MARY BARTON. during the first year, which amounted to 137. ; and in the second year Us. per week, which was 287. 12s. more. We need not follow him step by step in his steady but onward course. He has now been nineteen years in his present situation ; for the last ten he has been the foreman, with a salary of 305. per week. Twelve years ago he married a virtuous young woman, and he has now six fine children. The house he lives in is his own : a good garden is attached to it, and a fruitful and lovely spot it is ; it serves as an excellent training ground for his children, whose very amusements in it are turned to good account. The mother brought no fortune with her, except herself. She had, indeed, lived as servant some years in a respectable family, where she had high wages ; but all she could spare was devoted to the support of an infirm mother, who, on her marriage, was received into her husband's house, where the evening of her life is rendered happy. How is it, you ask, that a man of forty years of age, who has had nothing to depend upon but his own labour who has a wife and six children, and an infirm mother- in-law to support can have bought a piece of ground, built a house upon it, and can have it well furnished, and, after all, has upwards of 2007. out on interest? for he has been a servant all along, and is a servant still. Well, let us see if we can find out how it is. In the first place, and which, after all, is the main point, he spends nothing at the ale-house. The money which too many worse than waste there, he saves. At the age of twenty-three we find he had in the bank of savings 407. At the age of 24 he has - 70 25 - 102 26 - 135 27 ... 170 28 - 206 He now marries, and expends on furniture 407., reducing the amount at interest to 166/., but his wages are now advanced to 25s. per week ; his saving of 5s. per week and interest in one year amount to 217., added to 1667., makes 1877., when twenty- nine years of age. "At thirty years of age he has 2107. ; wages now 30s. per week ; saves 10s. and interest ; he has 2377. at thirty-one years of age ; at thirty-two he has 2867. ; buys a plot of ground for MARY BARTON. 367 100Z., expends 1 501. in building his dwelling-house, so that he reduces his money at interest to 361., saves his 10s. per week and interest on 36/. 271. 16s., makes 637. 16s, at the age of thirty-three. At 34 he has - - 93 36 - - 155 37 - - 181 38 ..... 207 lie now expends the interest, and saves only 10s. per week. At 39 he has - - 233 40 ..... 250 in addition to his house and garden." It is with many such facts as these fresh in our recollection, and with the knowledge that such facts might easily become characteristic of a whole class, instead of remaining that of isolated individuals, that we feel most vividly the injurious tendency of a tale like " Mary Barton," where these facts are wholly ignored, and the salutary conclusions to be drawn from them neglected or suppressed. The whole book, too, is pervaded by one fatally false idea, which seems to have taken possession of the writer's mind, and can scarcely fail to be impressed with equal vividness on the merely passive reader, viz. that the poor are to look to the rich, and not to themselves, for relief and rescue from their degraded condition and their social miseries. An impression more utterly erroneous, or more lament- ably mischievous, it is difficult to conceive. It strikes at the root of all social improvement. It is a thought- less echo of the virulent declamations daily sounded in the ears of the artisans by the worst of their intestine enemies. For who are the men who thus habitually labour to persuade the operatives to lay the burden of their own sins and follies at the door of their em- ployers? Never the really distressed never those 368 MARY BARTON. who have struggled manfully against destitution, and have struggled in vain ; but very generally those who have thrown up lucrative employment, because they preferred travelling and haranguing to steady and honest toil ; or those whose dissolute and turbulent conduct has occasioned their dismissal, arid rendered them marked and dishonoured men. throughout the trade; or those who (like some we have already men- tioned) will spend in card-playing or betting, in a single night, the income of many weeks. The plain truth cannot be too boldly spoken, or too frequently repeated: the working classes, and they only, can raise their own condition ; to themselves alone must they look for their elevation in the social scale ; their own intellect and their own virtues must work out their salvation ; their fate and their future are in their own hands, and in theirs alone. Of the power of the agricultural population to do all this, we should speak more doubtingly, if we spoke at all; but in reference to the manufacturing and mechanical operatives, we speak with the conviction of positive knowledge (and the facts we have just mentioned cannot fail, we think, to obtain some credit for us, with most of our readers,) when we pronounce, that for them to be as well off in their station as their employers are in theirs as well provided against the evil day of depression and reverse as comfortable, according to their standard of comfort, in their daily life as re- spectable in their domestic circumstances, little more is necessary than that they should emulate their em- ployers instead of envying them; that they should imitate their prudence and worldly wisdom, their un- resting diligence, their unflagging energy, their reso- lute and steady economy. It is not higher wages, nor more unvarying employment, that our artisans need. As it is, they are more highly paid than many clerks, MARY BARTOX. 369 ir.ajiy schoolmasters, many curates. But, with their present habits, twice their present earnings would not mend their position. The want is moral, not material ; a better education, to give purer tastes and higher aims, strength and sense to withstand present temp- tation, the courage to differ from their associates, and to pursue unflinchingly their chosen course. With these qualities, they would have no need to call on the rich or on the legislature to assist them. They could attain the desired position without asking aid from their employers. In the absence of these qualities, no aid from any quarter can avail them one iota. The efforts of all the philanthropists that ever ran a-muck at evil could not render them any permanent service. Endow the wealthy employers of labour with all power and all knowledge, imbue their hearts with the kindliest affections, let them call in legislative aid without measure and without stint ; and all combined would still remain as incompetent as at present, to bestow one real blessing, to render one abiding service to men who will lend no helping hand to their own emancipation, who persist in standing aloof from the cure of their own malady, and expect to achieve comfort and independence, while re- fusing to pay down the appointed purchase-money of frugality and foresight. The desperate delusion that the evils of society are to be remedied from without, not from within, that the people are to be passive parties, and not the principal, almost the sole, agents, in their own rehabilitation, has met with far too general countenance in quarters where sounder wisdom might have been looked for. The language held on this sub- ject in parliament, by the periodical press, and in such works as this before us, has gone far to confirm their notions of their own helplessness, and thus perpetuate their supineness ; and, by so doing, has inflicted a degree of mischief on the labouring class, which, if it be per- VOL. I. B B 370 MARY BARTON. severed in, all the benevolent exertions made to relieve them must prove utterly powerless to countervail. The sounder, sterner, healthier doctrine, which we have ventured to enunciate, hard as it may seem to preach it in a period of distress, is the only one which can prevent this distress from perpetual and aggravated recurrence. The language which every true friend to the working man will hold to him, is this : " Trust to no external source for your prosperity in life ; work out your own welfare ; work it out with the tools you have. The charter may be a desirable object, the franchise may be worth obtaining; but your happiness, your position in life, will depend neither on the franchise nor the charter, neither on what parliament does, nor on what your employer neglects to do ; but simply and solely upon the use you make of the fifteen or thirty shillings which you earn each week, and upon the cir- cumstance whether you marry at twenty or at twenty- eight, and whether you marry a sluggard and a slattern or a prudent and industrious woman." We are as certain as we can be of anything, that, if the factory operatives and mechanics were possessed of the educa- tion, the frugality, the prudence, and the practical sense which generally distinguish their employers, no change whatever, either in the regularity or the remuneration of their work, would be needed, to place them, as a body, in a state of independence, dignity, and comfort. The peculiar feature in the character of the manu- facturing operatives, which, next to their careless and spendthrift habits, has wrought them most suffering, and which, when we regard their immediate future, has saddened us at times almost to despondency, is their want of moral courage, of resolute individual will. No one, who has not been a close observer of them, can have a conception of the ease with which they are led to act, not only against their own interests, but against MARY BARTON. 371 their own wishes, by any person of their own class who chooses to assume the right of giving orders. Instances are of yearly, sometimes almost of daily occurrence, where numbers in receipt of comfortable wages, in regular work, under an employer whom they respect and like, enjoying, in fact, a position in every way satis- factory, and without any alleged or even imagined ground of complaint, have suddenly left their work, and thrown up all these advantages, on receiving a command to do so without even waiting to ascertain whether the command emanated from a competent au- thority, sometimes even without waiting to inquire by whom the command was given. Instances have come to our knowledge where a whole class of factory opera- tives have struck work in a body, simply because one or two discontented individuals of their own number told them to do so, although the vast majority obeyed with the greatest unwillingness, and though the certain consequences were severe suffering. In the year 1842, cases occurred of hundreds of quarry-men and masons throwing down their tools and retiring to their homes, thus depriving themselves and their families of food, for no other reason than because a man had run into the place where they were working, and had told them that they were not to strike another stroke ! The idea of resistance to an order emanating from one of them- selves, or from a union committee, formed (though they know not and inquire not how) out of their own body, seems never to occur to them. They have no power of will. The minority often a very small, unknown, and invisible minority commands the whole. Most strikes, in fact, are the act of the few against the wishes of the many. This non-resistance arises in part from the want of individual character among the operatives, " they don't like (they say) not to do as the others do ;" B B 2 372 MARY BARTON. and partly from the considerations thus expressed by a shrewd old workman in the book before us : " ' You're one of the Union, Job ? ' asked Mary. " * Aye, I'm one, sure enough ; but I'm but a sleeping partner in the concern. I were obliged to become a member for peace, else I don't go along with 'em. You see my folly is this, Mary. I would take what I could get ; I think half a loaf is better than no bread. I would work for low wages rather than sit idle and starve. But then comes the Trades' Union, and says, " Well, if you take the half loaf, we'll worry you out of your life. Will you be clemmed, or will you be worried?" Now clemming is a quiet death, and worrying isn't ; so I choose clemming, and come into the Union.' " This inability to resist evil counsel, this fatal facility of temper, is the more serious in our estimation, because we do not see how it is to be cured. It is unquestion- ably significant of a low degree of intellectual culture ; but it is at the same time a weakness which these classes share with many far above them in social rank and educational advantages. Mere instruction does not confer strength of will and courage for individual action. The number of those in any class who dare to think and act for themselves in opposition to the more active and noisy among them is lamentably small ; and we cannot reasonably expect it to be greater among uneducated operatives than elsewhere, though perhaps in no rank does it produce more sad results. There are several minor points in Avhich the authoress of " Mary Barton" has laid herself open to serious criticism, which want of space compels us to pass by. Two, however, we must notice. The first is the counte- nance she gives to the trite and shallow error, that labour is a curse, that the poor are to be pitied for the obligation to daily toil which their state imposes, and that the poor only are ordained to toil. These popular misconceptions, which so many writers reite- rate without reflection, carry with them the seeds of much mischief. The very expression so commonly em- MARY BARTON. 373 ployed "condemned to labour" conveys a radically false view of human nature. It implants in the mind of the poor man the idea that the condition of his ex- istence is a hardship ; and in the mind of the rich the still more fatal fallacy, that idleness is a dignity and a privilege. Two worse errors could scarcely take posses- sion of the popular mind ; and probably the greatest service rendered by Mr. Carlyle to the cause of social truth and progress, is due to the vigour with which he has attacked them, and has vindicated the happiness and the nobility of labour. The doctrine that the ne- cessity of labour is a blessing, and not a curse, cannot be insisted upon too strongly. It is to this very neces- sity that mankind owes not only its first redemption from the savage state, but every step of its advance in a civilisation, from which, we trust, a great deal more may be expected still. The misery and worthlessness of those who ex- empted from the need of labouring for their daily bread find no intellectual or social work calling on them for exertion " the killing languor and over laboured las- situde of those who have nothing to do," if it could be faithfully depicted, would send back many a discon- tented artisan to his anvil or his loom, pacified and thankful : " How men would mock at Pleasure's shows, Her golden promise, if they knew What weary work she is to those Who have no better work to do !" While, on the other hand, the severe application, the grinding anxieties of the merchant and the civil engi- neer, the weary eye, the exhausted brain, the shat- tered nerves of the statesman, the student, the lawyer, or the mathematician, would appal those on whom is laid the far easier task of manual exertion. That unremunerated toil is a heavy weird, no man will BBS 374 MARY BARTON. deny ; but this is probably rarer among daily labourers than among any other class. That toil so unremitting as to wear out the frame, and leave no leisure for do- mestic enjoyments or for intellectual culture, is a sore evil, is no less unquestionable ; but it is an evil shared in this country by nearly all classes. Those who do not work at all, none but a worthless sluggard will envy; and those who work, either with the hand or brain, whether lawyers, senators, merchants, or opera- tives, have all to work harder than is desirable. The cure for this general social evil must be sought in the gradual spread of simpler habits, and in a juster appre- ciation of the great objects of our being. But, that the poor have any special reason to complain of excessive toil, far less, that they are entitled to murmur because daily labour is their lot in life is a statement to which we can never subscribe ; since we believe it to be any- thing but true. What says one of their kindest hearted friends? " Heart of the People ! Working men I Marrow and nerve of human powers ; Who on your sturdy backs sustain Through streaming Time this world of ours ; " Hold by that title which proclaims That ye are undismayed and strong, Accomplishing whatever aims May to the sons of earth belong. " Yet not on ye alone depend These offices, or burdens fall ; Labour, for some or other end, Is lord and master of us all. * * * * " Then in content possess your hearts, Unenvious of each other's lot ; For those which seem the easiest parts Have travail which ye reckon not. MARY BARTON. 375 " And he is bravest, happiest, best, Who, from the task within his span, Earns for himself his evening rest, And an increase of good for man." The second of the two faults in " Mary Barton," to which we have referred, is this. There is an impression left by it upon the mind an impression, too, which is the legitimate and inevitable result of the statements and the descriptions it contains which yet is entirely unfounded and unjust. It would be impossible for any one to read " Mary Barton," and take from it his opinion of the relations between rich and poor in the manufac- turing towns, without coming to the conclusion (even if it were not distinctly asserted, as at page 130. of the first volume, and elsewhere,) that there exists an entire want of kindly feeling between them, that the suffer- ings of the operatives are generally disregarded by their employers, and that no effort is made to relieve them, even in times of the severest pressure. Now every one acquainted with the districts in question will bear us out, when we affirm that no representation can be further from the truth. The writer sinks, as if ignorant of them and we hope she is, a whole class of facts,]of which, however, it is scarcely possible that she should have been totally uninformed. For it is notorious, that in no town are there better organised or more efficient charities than in Manchester. Besides the usual medi- cal institutions, infirmaries, dispensaries, eye- hospitals, lying-in-hospitals, &c., which are unusually numerous and accessible there is a district visiting society (and it has been in operation many years) which would render the unknown and unrelieved existence of such distress, as is described in the case of the Davenports, almost impossible. In the two periods of severest dis- tress which have been known of late years, in 1842 and 1847, when, owing to the stagnation of trade, many B B 4 376 MAKY BARTON. operatives were partially, and some wholly, unemployed the most vigorous efforts were made by the philan- thropic of all classes, to bring relief home to every poor man's door. In 1842, soup kitchens were open for eight months ; soup and rice to the extent of 800 gallons were distributed affording relief to about 4000 persons daily. In 1847, nearly double the amount was sub- scribed for the same purpose ; and from 6000 to 8000 individuals received gratuitously, for many months, daily rations of bread and soup. At Stockport, a much smaller town, and one almost exclusively inhabited by master manufacturers and their workmen, the amount of subscriptions raised during the distress of 1842 was 4200, besides several hundred tons of coal which were distributed among the poor; and for several months, the average number of individuals relieved every week exceeded 14,000. Similar assistance was afforded with equal liberality in Bolton, Bury, and most other towns. In addition to this, master manufacturers, in many in- stances, distributed to their unemployed people large quantities of soup arid flour for months together, doing all indeed that the nature of the case possibly ad- mitted of. Nor were the masters, of whom we are speaking, men of uncommon benevolence. In fact, we do not believe that any manufacturers could be found (unless, perhaps, some few of the neediest and most un- educated) who did not attend, at once and gladly, to any application for assistance from their own people even where they might not take the initiative in search- ing out cases of privation. We have good reason to believe, also, that there are very few reputable families among the factory operatives, who have not some friends among the upper classes to whom they could apply on such an occasion. That a steady and religious family like the Davenports, could have fallen into the state of helpless and squalid wretchedness which the authoress MARY BARTON. 377 has depicted, no one acquainted with the poor of Man- chester will easily believe ; or that families like the Bartons and the Wilsons would not have been readily assisted in the time of want by their former employers. Therefore we say, that in so resolutely ignoring all the kindness felt for the people, and all the willing and anxious assistance rendered to them by their employers, the authoress of " Mary Barton " has done grievous in- justice to a whole class, has most inconsiderately fos- tered the ill-opinion of them known to exist in certain quarters and has, unintentionally no doubt, but most unfortunately, flattered both the prejudices of the aris- tocracy, and the passions of the populace. The basis of the book the master idea which per- vades it is the old dispute between capital and labour as to the distribution of that wealth which is the joint production of the two. The operative is represented as utterly bewildered by seeing his employer, to all ap- pearance, steadily and rapidly advancing in the world, in spite of the vicissitudes of trade ; while he himself, in consequence of those vicissitudes, is left to struggle, and often to struggle in vain, for daily bread. He is said to be disgusted and enraged at that unequal division of the profits of their combined exertions, in which alone he can find the explanation of this irritating difference in their lot. Now, it is unquestionably true that this feeling does exist in the minds of many operatives ; though the intensity and the prevalence of it are both exaggerated. It is manifest, too, that the writer before us shares in the feeling ; and recent publications have shown that it is shared also by economists and thinkers of a far higher order. In fact, this " vehement and bitter cry of labour against capital,"* for a fairer divi- * Mr. Macaulay has given us a curious specimen (Hist of Eng. vol. i. p. 419.) of this in an old ballad, which was popular in the 378 MARY BARTON. sion of profits, is as old as society itself, and will en- dure as long because it arises from that principle in human nature which must always make every man an unjust judge and an unfair distributor in his own cause. It is rarely, indeed, that two parties can be satisfied by the most equitable distribution of any spoil. The ex- istence, therefore, of the alleged feeling of discontent among the manufacturing operatives, is not even primd facie evidence that the discontent is well founded. Still, the opinion that it is so is so widely spread, and sug- gestions of plans to remedy the supposed inequitable apportionment of the profits of manufacturing industry have of late received the sanction of such high authority, that we must devote a short space to an attempt to put the matter in a practical and proper light. The theory of the case may be thus briefly stated: The capitalist and the workman are, no doubt, joint agents co-operators partners, in fact in the pro- duction of a certain article (say cotton cloth), and joint sharers in the profits arising out of its sale. The capitalist supplies funds, machinery, and superinten- dence; the workman supplies handicraft, skill, and manual labour. At the end of the year, or of some shorter period, the net returns are to be divided be- time of Charles II. " The master clothier is satirically introduced, declaring, that " ' In former ages we used to give, So that our workfolk s like farmers did live ; But the times are changed, we will make them to know. ***** We will make them to work hard for sixpence a day, Tho' a shilling they deserve, if they had their just pay; If at all they murmur, and say 'tis too small, We bid them choose whether they'll work at all. And thus we do gain all our wealth and estate, By many poor men that work early and late.' " MARY BARTON. 379 tween them, in a proportion either formally agreed upon, or tacitly decided by custom. But the labourer is a poor man he has no stores in his cupboard, and no money in his purse. He must purchase food, clothing, and shelter from day to day ; arid therefore cannot wait till the end of the year to receive his share of the common gain. The capitalist, therefore, should advance to him what it is thought probable that his share will amount to minus, per- haps, the interest on the advance ; and, possibly, some further small deduction to compensate the risk of having over-estimated the workman's share. But further: the results of a manufacturing enter- prise are sometimes not profit but loss always oc- casional loss frequently loss for years together sometimes even loss on the whole. But the workman who could not bear to wait, can still less bear his share of loss; the capitalist, therefore, has to encounter all the losses, for he cannot call upon the labourer to refund the wages he has received. The original compact (tacit or formal) by which the division of profits would have been otherwise deter- mined, has thus become modified, for the convenience of the workman, into the form in which we at present see it. The workman receives his share of the profits before any profits are made; he receives his share in years in which no profit is made; he receives it in years when profits are changed into losses ; he receives it sometimes when his master is being gradually ruined in the partnership, which if he be but prudent will have enriched him. What deductions from his original share should be made in consideration of all these pre- dicates? It is evident that, in common justice, he cannot expect to receive as much as if he waited till profits were realised, and bore his proportion of losses when losses were incurred. 380 MARY BARTON. The workman's wages then, are his share of the profits commuted into a fixed payment. This commuted share he is secure of receiving as long as the manufacturing enterprise in which he is engaged actually goes on. The capitalist alone endures all the losses, alone fur- nishes all the advances, alone encounters the risk of ruin, and receives only that share of profit which may remain over, after the labourer's " commuted share " is paid. The workman's share is a first mortgage, the capitalist's share is only a reversionary claim. When these matters are duly weighed, and when, in connection with them, the history and the fluctuations of that trade, in the great centre of which the scene of " Mary Barton " is laid, are dispassionately considered, we do not believe that any man, whether operative or not, could conscientiously come to the conclusion, that the master manufacturers abusing their advantages in the labour-market have generally engrossed a larger proportion of profit than of right belongs to them. It is a great, though natural mistake, to think only of the masters who succeed. But we have the very recent fact before us, that in the year 1847, hundreds among them lost at one blow the earnings of many previous years of patient and plodding industry. We know how many have become bankrupts ; and how many more have compounded with their creditors, during the disastrous fluctuations of the last twelve years. We have many examples, too, not only of masters who became poor, but of operatives who became rich ; and stepped into the class of masters, by savings out of their wages, their "commuted share" of profit. (The Mr. Carson of the present story is re- presented as one of these : we are told that he and George Wilson were at one time rival candidates for the hand of the same young woman.) We have the evidence (see the " Report of .a Committee of the House MARY BARTON. 381 of Lords upon Burdens on Land " ) of one of the largest manufacturers, that the average profits of the cotton trade during the last twenty years were little more than 2 per cent, on the capital employed. We have the fact, notorious in the manufacturing districts, that many of the wealthiest spinners are wealthy only because they annually lay by a large sum, not out of the present profits of their business, but out of the interest of their capital. And, finally, we have the very significant fact, that the operatives themselves, whenever asked to specify the proportion of profit which they imagine their masters to obtain, and which they would themselves assign to them for their capital and superintendence under a co-operative system, in- variably (we believe) name a far larger proportion than is actually realised, except in cases of singular good fortune. The following evidence, given some years ago by a very intelligent agitator among them, is very instructive. He was desirous that a number of workmen should combine their savings, and start a mill on their own account, on the co-operative system ; and, after some conversation as to the feasibility of the scheme in its preliminary arrangements, he is asked, " Supposing, then, all difficulties as to capital overcome, a proper building erected, proper machinery obtained, and all contentions as to which of the co-operatives should take the best, and which the worst and most irksome labour, settled, and proper subordination obtained, there still comes the business of buying the raw material ; and, next, that of selling the manu- factured product; a business, you will admit, requiring much skill, promptly applied, to guard against loss or bankruptcy. How would you that a committee should transact such business in the market ? For that business it might undoubtedly be expedient that they should select some skilful and trustworthy person. " Who having a large capital and the success of the under- taking in his hand, and being open to the temptations of em- bezzlement, or to large bribes on the betrayal of his trust, 382 MARY BARTON. you would perhaps think it right should be well paid, to diminish those temptations? Certainly, I see no objections to that; he ought to be well paid. " That being so, what would you, an operative capitalist, be willing to give to such a person for the management of your 1007. share productively, for obtaining and superintending the fitting machinery, selecting and buying skilfully the raw com- modity, and selling the manufactured produce, without any labour or care on your part? I have never considered the sub- ject in that point of view, and can hardly say ; but I should think 47. or 57. a year (or 4 to 5 per cent.) would not be unreasonable. I should not object to that. " It may surprise you, and it is well that you, and the respect- able mechanics engaged in this branch of manufacture, should know, that the service spoken of is all rendered to them for one half, now, indeed, when trade is depressed, for less than one fourth, of that sum which you, and perhaps they, would deem a fair remuneration. That the 1007. capital is furnished, the building erected, the machinery chosen and supplied, the raw material purchased, the labour in working it up directed, the markets vigilantly attended, and the sales of the manu- factured article faithfully made at the best price, and without any care or thought on their parts ; and that the manufacturer who does all this, is well satisfied with a remuneration of 40s. or 50*. per cent, per annum."* It is the opinion of several most able thinkers among them, as also of Mr. Babbage and Mr. Mill, that a better feeling would be promoted between operatives and their employers, and the interests of both mate- rially promoted, by some arrangement which should render the former more obviously sharers in the profits of manufacturing enterprise, and more promptly af- fected by the fluctuations of those profits, than they are under the present system; by some plan, in fact, of paying them a portion only of their earnings in the form of fixed wages, as advances on account, and the * Evidence of Rowland Detrosier. First Report of Constabulary Force Commissioners, p. 156. MAKY BARTON. 383 remainder at the end of the year, out of the profits when actually realised. Some of the most intelligent and benevolent of our great employers of labour, have turned their attention to the same subject, and have even made practical experiments upon it. Now, we admit at once that such a plan, if practicable, would be most desirable for the interests of both parties; and that the master manufacturer would certainly not be the party least benefited by its adoption. We have considered all that Mr. Mill has written on the subject in his recent invaluable work, with the attention due to everything which he puts forth ; and with the prepos- session which we always have that so profound and dispassionate a thinker must be right ; and we have discussed the matter with experienced men of practice, under the sincerest desire to arrive at a satisfactory conclusion. But we are obliged to declare that the difficulties of the scheme seem to us insuperable. The legal impediments we pass over at once, because these are remediable by legislation. But a practical difficulty meets us in limine. If the workmen already receive in the form of wages their full and due propor- tion of the common gain and we have expressed our conviction that this is the case then it is evident that they can only become sharers in the distribution of the annual profits, by foregoing a portion of their present fixed salaries. They must receive their share of the profits in lieu of, not in addition to, the whole or a part of their weekly wages. The first step to the proposed arrangement must, therefore, be an immediate reduction of the weekly payment to the workmen. Now, the men who would submit to such a diminution of their present certain earnings, for the sake of a fluctuating and un- certain, though, it might be, larger, addition to their future receipts, we believe to be few indeed. Under these circumstances, the objection to the conversion of 384 MARY BARTON 1 . the operatives from the condition of salaried servants to that of real partners, would, we are convinced, come from the operatives themselves. In the second place, supposing this first difficulty to be surmounted, what must be done in years of loss, especially when those years of loss occur two or three in succession ? These years of manufacturing losses are generally years of a high price of food. Under a part- nership system, therefore, the operative would find himself with diminished earnings and increased ex- penditure, aggravated by the proportion of loss which, at the end of the year, would fall to his share, and which as he would probably have no means of meeting it must remain as a debt due from him to his employer) to be repaid when profitable years recurred. The re- payment of this debt, which would come before him in this naked form, viz. that his master was realising large profits whilst he was gaining nothing, but simply obli- terating an old debt, would create endless dissatisfaction and ill-will ; and would, we are certain, lead to a far worse state of feeling between the parties than exists at present. Moreover, it is to be doubted whether the substitution of fluctuating and uncertain for regular earnings, would not rather tend to promote a spirit of gambling and improvidence. We fear that the partner- ship system demands a degree of moral and social pro- gress, which our manufacturing population, clever and intelligent as they are, are yet far from having attained. In the third place, the plan could not be made to work. Putting aside the difficulties which would arise in the case we have supposed, of a workman in debt to his master, perhaps for years together, and the conse- quent disputes and recriminations which could scarcely fail to arise as to who was responsible for the bad success of the undertaking ; passing over the discouragement of the workman, and his constant temptation to cancel MARY BARTON. 385 his debt by changing his master, we must not forget, when we come to regard the question with a view to practice, that a factory employs on an average about 500 workpeople. Of these many are floating, come and go as the whim seizes them ; some remaining a few months, others only a few weeks. How could their in- terests be fairly arranged on the partnership plan ? Then, several of the people are careless, lazy, or drunken, and require to be summarily dismissed. But how could you dismiss men who have a reserved claim on the profits of the concern ? It is, no doubt, quite possible, and even easy, to give to some of the principal workmen employed in factories, the foremen of the various departments for example, a certain per centage of the yearly profits, in addition to their fixed salary. And this is a plan by no means un- frequently adopted by employers, for the sake of stimu- lating the care and zeal of those on whom so much depends. But even in these cases, though the men are select and highly educated in comparison with their fellows, no attempt is ever made, we believe, to make them sharers in losses as well as in gains. The share they receive is simply an additional salary or bonus, given when the business is profitable ; is, in fact, neither more nor less than an advance in wages, withdrawn when the capitalist can no longer afford to give it. On the whole, therefore, we incline to the belief that the present system of commuting the workman's share of the common profits into a fixed weekly stipend, though not, perhaps, theoretically the most perfect, is, at least, the one which, under the circumstances, is the most beneficial to him, and the only one which is at present practicable. If it does not give him the same interest in his work which a formal partnership might do, it secures to him regular and ample earnings ; and greatly tends to evade that heart-burning animosity and VOL. i. c c 386 MARY BARTON. those perpetual disputes, which any other arrangement could scarcely fail to produce.* Under it, we are satis- fied that the workman does receive his fair share, if not more than his fair share, of the profits actually realised ; and if he expends them with a due regard to economy, he will in a few years as a general rule be able to amass a sum which would enable him to become a capi- talist while remaining a workman, and thus realise some of the benefits of both conditions. The introduction of the continental law which permits partnerships en commandite, as they are called, or part- nerships with limited liability on the part of the inferior shareholders, would greatly facilitate this result. We quote Mr. Mill's account of this law. " The other kind of limited partnership which demands our attention, is that in which the managing partner or partners are responsible, with their whole fortunes, for the engagements of the concern, but have others asso- ciated with them who contribute only definite sums, and are not liable for anything beyond, though they participate in the profits according to any rule that may be agreed upon. This is called partnership en com- mandite ; and the partners with limited liability, to whom, by the French law, all interference in the ma- nagement of the concern is interdicted, are called com- manditaires. Such partnerships are not permitted by the English law ; whoever shares in the profits is liable for the debts to as plenary an extent as the managing partner. For such prohibition no rational defence has ever, so far as I am aware, been made." MiWs Pol. Econ.j vol. ii. p. 465. We have already, we fear, overstepped our limits, and with one or two remarks more, we will conclude. * It must be noticed that most of the workmen in factories have already a direct interest in the work, arising from being paid by the tvork done, not by the day. MARY BARTON. 387 " Mary Barton " is called a tale of Manchester life ; its scenes are principally laid there, and its characters masters and men are manufacturers. But the fearful contrasts between rich and poor, which it is the great object of the story to depict and darken, together with the moral lessons which the delineations are in- tended to convey, have long been common to town and country. The chasm which separates the employer and the employed, is at least as wide, we apprehend, in Dorsetshire as in Lancashire. Lazarus lies at the gate of Dives in both places by the park palings of the squire, as well as on the hall-steps of the cotton lord and the temptations and provocations the seeds out of which Esthers and John Bartons grow undoubtedly abound in both, though not perhaps quite to the same extent. We cannot need a Crabbe to come again to tell us this. There was nothing in the extremity of their Manchester destitution, which the Davenports, immi- grants from Buckinghamshire, are described as dreading so much, as to be sent back to their rural home. Some improbabilities, too, take off considerably from our pleasure in these volumes. We cannot believe that the long coquetting of the heroine, Mary Barton, a weaver's daughter, and apprenticed to a milliner, with Henry Carson, a young master manufacturer, and one of the beaux of Manchester still less her long ill-usage of her rough and faithful lover, Jem Wilson, and her sudden and passionate devotion to him are consistent with the sense and spirit all along attributed to her. And though there are many forms in which the devil, " out of our weakness and our melancholy, abuses us to damn us," we do not think that the manly and tender nature of John Barton should have been made answer- able for his perdition. But in concluding, we must again express our sense of the surpassing literary merit of the work, and our conviction also, that both its value c c 2 388 MARY BARTON, and its chance of lasting popularity would have been far greater, had the writer endeavoured to represent the real position of the operative classes, rather than the in- accurate and distorted view of that position, as taken by the sour and envious among them ; had she, while depicting the distress and privation which they are so often called upon to endure, drawn attention also to those intellectual and moral deficiencies by which this distress is so often caused or aggravated ; had she dealt out one measure of kindliness and severity to the rich and poor ; and had she spoken of the bitter and malig- nant feelings she has dramatised, less as sharing and excusing them, than as perceiving and deploring their injustice. We yield to none in a hearty appreciation of, indeed a fellow-feeling with, the workers in every country and of every denomination ; but we would show that sympathy not in idly mourning over sorrows which are common to all ranks, nor in weeping at dis- tresses for which, as for all human evils, there is a com- pensation and a cure, but by calling on all our fellow- labourers to brace up their souls for sterner endurance and for hardier exertion ; by exhorting them to carry with them through all trials, as their sword and shield, the settled faith that they, and no man else, must do their own work ; that the blessings of comfort, inde- pendence, and security, are not to be mendicated from others, but to be achieved for themselves ; that these inestimable blessings are the promised and the sure rewards of steady industry, of resolute frugality, of re- flection that "looks before and after" ; that, in fine to quote the language of a great poet neither the humble nor the powerful must stoop to ask at the hands of others " A gift of that which is not to be given By all the blended powers of earth and heaven." 389 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES.* WE have often had occasion to remark on the obstacles and perplexities, the hidden perils, the opposing risks, the surprising and unforeseen dilemmas, which beset the path of active beneficence, especially when attempted on a great scale. The difficulty of doing good is at least equal to its luxury. To the conscientious and the thoughtful the path of philanthropy is one of briars and thorns. On the one hand lies the shame and reproach of witnessing a vast accumulation of misery without an effort to relieve it: on the other the danger ever more clearly apprehended in proportion as our experience is wide and our inquiries deep of aggravating the evil we attempt to mitigate. On the one side lies the sin of the Levite who looks upon the wounded and bleeding victim, and passes by, either in shrinking sensibility or in sheer despair : on the other lies the risk, from igno- rance or incaution, of pouring in oil which shall cause the wounds to fester, and wine which shall stimulate the fever. It is no easy matter to steer between Scylla * From the " Edinburgh Review." 1. Report of the Select Committee appointed, to consider and suggest Means for facilitating safe Investments for the Savings of the Middle and Working Classes. Ordered by the House of Com- mons to be printed, July, 1850. 2. Report of Select Committee on the Law of Partnership. Or- dered by the House of Commons to be printed, July, 1851. 3. Partnership en Commandite. London : 1848. 4. Industrial Investments and Emigration. By ARTHUR SCRATCH- LEY. 2nd Edition. London: 1851. 5. Law of Partnership and the Investment of the Savings of the Poor. By H. BELLENDEN KER, Esq. London : 1850. c c 3 390 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. and Charybdis; and we should deal gently with the pilot if only he be cautious and modest who, in shunning one peril, incurs shipwreck from the other. Sometimes, however, cases will occur to philanthropic effort, in which the preponderance of good is so evident and so great as to throw any casual and transient mis- chief into the shade, and make it of no account. Some- times, too, a line of action suggests itself, in which, by a moderate amount of care, much benevolent service may be done without the violation of any moral principle or economic rule, and, therefore, without the risk of any counter-balancing harm which we are called upon to foresee. The providing and pointing out of safe and profitable investments for the savings of the frugal and industrious among the humbler classes seems to be one of these. It combines all the requisites and avoids nearly all the prohibitions which mark out the legiti- mate path of philanthropic aid. It interferes with no individual action: it saps no individual self-reliance. It prolongs childhood by no proffered leading-strings : it valetudinarises energy by no hedges or walls of defence, no fetters of well-meant paternal restriction. It encourages virtue and forethought by no artificial incitements, but simply by providing that they shall not be debarred from full fructification, nor defrauded of their natural reward. It does not attempt to foster the infant habit of saving by the unnatural addition of a penny to every penny laid by * : it contents itself * Savings' Banks are said to owe their rise to the Rev. Joseph Smith, of Wendover, who, in 1799, circulated proposals in his parish to receive any sums in deposit during the summer, and to return the amount at Christmas, with the addition of one third to the sum, as a bounty or reward for the forethought of the depositor. This was clearly not a Savings' Bank according to what is now understood by the term ; neither could such a plan, if ever so ex- tensively followed out and it does not appear probable that Mr. INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 391 with endeavouring to secure to the poor and inex- perienced that safe investment and that reasonable re- turn for their small economies which is their just and scanty due, and which the better education and wider means of the rich enable them to command. The custom of hoarding and laying by is no new one in any country ; but the form which it has assumed, and the extent to which it has now reached, may well surprise us. Formerly the savings of the poor used to be sewed up in an old stocking, and hid in the thatch or under the hearthstone ; and this habit still survives to a great extent in Ireland. But now thousands of so- cieties of every form and constitution receive the savings of hundreds of thousands of depositors, and reckon their accounts by millions. The degree to which this virtue is carried among the working poor, and the class im- mediately above them, is one of the most hopeful social features of our times ; and when we reflect on the severe discouragement, both direct and indirect, which it has met with, both from the system of poor laws, which in tunes of prolonged pressure placed the frugal and hoard- ing operatives at so demoralising a disadvantage ; and also from the frauds and defalcations of Benefit Societies and Savings' Banks, which have so often deprived them of the sniall sums scraped together by the industry and self-denial of many years there is increased reason both for congratulation and astonishment. Of the actual aggregate amount which the savings of the humbler classes have now reached we know something, but are obliged to guess at much more. In 1830, the number of individual depositors in savings' banks was 412,217, and the amount of their deposits 13,507,565^. In No- Smith could have many imitators be the means of causing any but temporary savings ; the very bounty given would ensure the with- drawal of the deposits, and probably the disbursement of the money. Porters Progress of the Nation, vol. iii. p. 142. c c 4 392 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. vember, 1849, the depositors were 1,065,031, and their deposits reached 26,67 1,903/. In November, 1850, the depositors were 1,092,581, and their deposits reached 27,198,563?. According to Mr. Scratchley there were in 1849, 10,433 enrolled Friendly Societies, numbering 1,600,000 members, who subscribe an annual revenue of 2,800,000?., and have accumulated a capital fund of 6,400,000?. There are also a vast number of unenrolled Societies. Of the Manchester Unity there are 4000 so- cieties, with 264,000 members, who subscribe 400,000?. a year. In addition there are the unenrolled Foresters, Druids, &c. &c. The total is taken at 33,223 Societies, with 3,052,000 members, who subscribe 4,980,000?. a year, and have a capital fund of 11,360,000?. The whole adult male population of the United Kingdom may be taken at about 7,000,000 : nearly half of these, therefore, without distinction of rich or poor, are actually members of some of these Societies. It is difficult to estimate too highly the importance of this tendency to amass, or the duty of removing every obstacle, and affording every facility to its opera- tion. It is matter of deep interest to the state ; for the man who has invested a portion of his earnings in securities, to the permanence and safety of which the peace and good order of society are essential, will be a tranquil and conservative citizen. It is matter of deep interest to the moralist : because the soil in which providence and frugality have flourished is a soil favourable to many other virtues. It is matter of deep interest to the social philosopher; for the trenchant line of demarcation between labourers and capitalists so far more strongly marked in England than elsewhere is believed by many to be at the root of nearly all, and is allowed by most to be at the root of many, of the most difficult and painful anomalies which meet our view as we look out on the community around us. To INVESTMENTS FOR TI1E WORKING CLASSES. 393 have saved money and invested it securely, is to have became a capitalist ; is to have stepped out of the cate- gory of the proletaires into that of the proprietors ; and to have deserted the wide and desolate multitude of those who have not, for the more safe and reputable companionship of those who have: To have become a capitalist is, for the poor man, to have overleaped a great gulf; to have opened a path for himself into a new world ; to have started on a career which may lead him, as it has led so many originally not more favoured by fortune than himself, to comfort, to reputation, to wealth, to power. In proportion to the value and dignity of this step, is it important to make it easy and secure : in that proportion is it the duty of the state to see that there shall be no needless or artificial impedi- ments to the safe keeping and the profitable employ- ment of the first small beginnings of a stream which may swell into such a mighty flood of fertilising waters ; and sedulously to take heed that no channel in which it can flow without waste or danger shall be closed to it. It is not for the legislature to contrive that the guinea of the rich man and the penny of the poor man shall yield an equal revenue: it is for the legislature dili- gently to see to it, that by no act, connivance, or negli- gence of theirs, shall this desirable result be hindered. As it is, many such impediments exist : society has developed and industry expanded too fast for legislative watchfulness and wisdom to keep pace with them. We have been slow to meet new necessities with new pro- visions ; and the consequence is that arrangements and enactments, fitted for other times but unsuitable for these, have a hampering operation which was neither intended nor foreseen ; and circumstances and interests have been suffered to grow up, for the free develop- ment and adequate security of which no due provision has been made. 394 INVESTMENTS FOB THE WORKING CLASSES. The practical discouragements to the virtue of eco- nomy which have resulted from the absence of this due provision, can be appreciated only by those who have come into close contact with the operative poor. Every defaulting savings' bank every absconding treasurer to a sick club or a friendly society every bankrupt railway every fraudulent or clumsy building league every chimerical or mismanaged land association preaches a sermon on the folly of frugality and provi- dence, not soon forgotten and not easily counteracted. Of late these lessons have multiplied with fearful rapidity, and been delivered with a most mischievous emphasis. "Why should I save?" (asks the jovial footman). " My fellow-servant, the butler, pinched himself in every conceivable fashion, earned the cha- racter of a niggard and a miser, that he might store up a couple of hundred pounds, to set up a shop and marry upon. He invested it in the Eochdale Savings' Bank : the manager made away with 90,000^. of the funds intrusted to him ; the trustees, it seems, are not an- swerable for the defalcations; and I have now the satisfaction of knowing that my fellow-servant is as poor as myself, and that all his long years of self-denial are thrown away." Truly, as Solomon says, " The wise man's eyes are in his head, and the fool walketh in darkness ; yet one event happeneth to them all." "I have done with economy " (says the plodding clerk with his 200. a year) ; " I rose early, went to bed late, and was contented with the scantiest fare : I invested my hard earnings in the Midland Railway Consols at 190/ then the most reputed line in the kingdom. Now 150?. of this is gone, and by no fault of mine; while my companion who took his ease, ate, drank, and was merry, never thought of the morrow, never tasked his strength, or denied himself any recreation jeers me from morning till night." And he, too, quotes from the INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 395 same Hebrew fountain of disheartening and melancholy wisdom. " There is nothing better for a man than that he should eat and drink, and make his soul enjoy wood in his labour." "You have been advising me for o < - > some years, sir," (said a factory artisan to us the other day) " to lay by some money against sickness or old age. Well, I took your advice ; I saved, week by week, about 50/., and subscribed the money to Feargus O'Connor's land scheme, which was to secure me a cottage and a few acres of ground for my old age ; and I am now told, not only that I may never get them, but that if I do, I cannot live upon them ; and that, moreover, Mr. O'Connor may, if he pleases, keep all my money for himself. I wish I had never saved a far- thing." Now these cases are neither imaginary nor few. They come before us in scores, in hundreds, in thousands ; and are terribly eloquent in praise of self- indulgence and improvidence. The double complaint, then, made by the humbler classes, or on their behalf, is, that sufficient care has not been taken to render safe such modes of investment as are peculiarly open to their small means, and that from other investments which are profitable and desirable, they are debarred by impediments which have either been created, or might easily be removed, by legislative interference. We propose to examine some of these cases, and to point out a few of those arrangements or alterations in our law which it seems just to ask for, and desirable to grant, in order that the working classes may be at liberty, fully and practically, to employ their savings in whatever manner they please, provided only that it be not inconsistent with the general interests of the community. The first and simplest mode of disposing of small savings is to invest them in some quarter in small sums and at simple interest, with liberty of withdrawal at the 396 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. will of the depositor. Such an investment is afforded by Savings' Banks, which date from the beginning of the century, and were originally established by bene- volent individuals for the direct purpose of taking charge of weekly or monthly sums of a smaller amount than ordinary banks in England at least were willing to charge themselves with. These institutions were sanctioned by act of parliament in the reign of George IV. ; and by arrangements then established, and subsequently slightly modified, all sums paid into savings' banks are to be invested in Government secu- rities, and to receive interest at the rate of 3 per cent. At the same time, in order to prevent their being di- verted from their original design, of providing ready reception for the savings of the poor, no individual is allowed to deposit more than 150/. in all, nor more than 30. in any one year; and when his deposits amount, with compound interest, to 200, no further interest is to be paid to him ; it being very properly presumed that for so large a sum a more suitable investment may easily be found ; or at all events that the owner of such a sum is no longer entitled to the privileges of poverty. The extent to which these institutions have been made use of the amount standing to the credit of individual depositors having at one time reached to nearly twenty- nine millions shows the wide prevalence of the want which they were established to meet, and the value set upon the facilities they offer. Of late, however, much distress and mistrust have arisen from the numerous, and apparently simultaneous, defalcations which oc- curred in many of them. In 1849 and 1850, the trea- surers of several savings' banks, both here and in Ireland, were discovered to have employed for their private pur- poses the funds intrusted to them, instead of placing them, as legally bound to do, in the hands of the Bank of England for investment in the Funds. Hundreds of INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 397 the poor and industrious found themselves thus suddenly deprived of their painfully-hoarded savings by the dis- honesty of officers whom they had been taught to trust with implicit confidence, and whom they seemed justified in so trusting. It then became known, to the surprise of most, and the dismay of all, that the trustees of these savings' banks gentlemen, generally, of wealth, bene- volence, and repute in their respective neighbourhoods -were in no way legally responsible for the money which had been intrusted to their keeping, and that government, which was popularly supposed to be the recipient of all the deposits the moment they were paid into the bank, was, naturally enough, answerable only for the sums which it had actually received. The trea- surer, a clerk appointed by the local trustees, was, in fact, discovered to be the only party responsible for the safe keeping of the deposits ; and he was the very man who had made away with them. It is true that he had to find sureties before obtaining his appointment ; but these sureties, though sufficient to make good the loss of any temporary balance which might remain in his hands, were seldom adequate to meet defalcations arising from continuous and systematic fraud. These painful disclosures so many of which occurred about the same time not only created a very general and well-warranted feeling of insecurity on the part of the depositors in savings' banks, and greatly shook the credit of these institutions, but induced a pretty una- nimous expression of public opinion that the people had not been quite fairly dealt with in the matter ; and that those parties, on the faith of whose character for vigi- lance and integrity the poor had committed their little property to the banks of which they were the nominal managers and trustees, ought not to be thus exempt from all legal responsibility. The people naturally asked: " To whom did we intrust the money, if not to 398 INVESTMENTS FOK THE WORKING CLASSES. the gentlemen whose names were published as managers of the institution, and to the government, which, we were told, had, by act of parliament, constituted itself receiver of the funds ? As to the receiving clerk, we did not appoint him ; we knew nothing of him ; and we never conceived that we were to look upon him as our banker. "* So general was the disgust at this slippery and inadequate arrangement, and so just was it felt to be, that the Chancellor of the Exchequer last year in- troduced a bill into the House of Commons to enable the government to take upon itself the charge of the safe keeping of all deposits in savings' banks, on condition of having the appointment of the treasurer who should re- ceive them, without claiming to interfere in any other manner with the local arrangements. By this plan every individual would virtually have paid his instalments directly into the hands of the nation, and his mite would have been as secure as national wealth and honour could make it. On the part of the trustees and local managers, however, the bill, which would perfectly have attained the object in view, met with a jealous opposition, which we forbear to characterise by its fitting adjective: it was alleged that it cast a stigma on their reputation for integrity : it was felt that it would deprive them of a * " I was in Lancashire some time ago, meeting with large bodies of working men, at the time of the failure of the Rochdale Savings' Bank ; and I shall not soon forget some remarks that were made about the government, as to the want of security. One man in Ashton-under-Line, said, 'Dr. M'Dowall came here and told us that the government was a set of robbers ; that they did not care about the property of working men. I did not believe M'Dowall then ; but when I see that there is no security for the savings of the working men in the Savings' Banks, which we supposed that the government had under their protection, I believe now that M'Dowall was right, and that government cares nothing about either the poor men or their savings.'" Mr. W. Cooper's Evidence, Committee on Investment. Q. 586. INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 399 certain amount of patronage and local influence ; and these miserable pleas were so vehemently urged, that government thought it better to abandon the bill than to risk the breaking up of the institutions altogether, as they were scarcely prepared to take them entirely into their own hands. The matter cannot, however, rest here ; and we trust that Sir C. Wood's promise to legis- late on the subject next session will be acted on, either by himself or his present successor. It is of the greatest importance that the question should be settled without delay, and that the public should know distinctly to whom they are to look for the safe keeping of their hard- won savings. When this is once arranged on an intelli- gible and satisfactory basis, these institutions may have before them a career of long-continued and increasing usefulness. Next in order come Friendly Societies, Sick Clubs, and the like, which are institutions of mutual assurance against incapacity arising from casualty, sickness, or old age. Each member contributes a certain sum weekly, monthly, or annually, while employed and in health, and receives from the Society in return a certain pension or allowance when age, accident, or illness deprives him of his usual maintenance. Nothing, it is obvious, can be more unobjectionable than the principle of these asso- ciations, or more beneficial than their operation, when conducted upon sound and just rules. The rapid and vast extension of them indicate that the working classes have a clear perception of the mighty strength and se- curity which lie hid in the principle of association. Comforts far beyond the reach of their individual means, provisions against possible or probable contingencies, which would overwhelm them if isolated units, are, through the instrumentality of these institutions, brought within the power of the poorest among them. Next to 400 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. Trades' Unions, of which the object is to secure some provision for times when they may be out of work, and of which we do not propose here to speak, Friendly Societies are the especial favourites of the working classes, partly because they meet the exigencies to which every man feels his own special liability, and partly also because they are their own contrivance, and the manage- ment of them lies in their own hands. Every man feels that (apart from premature death) the incapacity of old age is an evil which is certain to befall him ; that acci- dent may, and that sickness probably will, lay him upon his back at some period or other of his career : so if he have any foresight and self denial, he willingly lays by a portion of his earnings for such inescapable emer- gencies. He does this the more willingly, because the rules according to which, and the officers through whom, the common fund is administered, are the selection of his own will. In the early history of these associations, their use- fulness was much impaired by errors in their constitu- tion, and inadequacy in the legal powers needed for their self-protection. Gradually, however, both these defects have been remedied : and by successive acts of parliament, provision has been made, that any of these Societies, whose rules shall be approved of by the officer appointed by government to revise them, may be re- gistered or enrolled, and thus become entitled to certain privileges and exemptions. An act passed last session (13 and 14 Viet. c. cxv.) consolidated a number of previous laws, and extended the purposes for which these Societies were legalised. It declared to be en- titled to the benefit of its provisions, all which were established for the following objects : " 1. For insuring a sum of money to be paid on the death of a member, to the widow or widower of said member ; or to the child, executors, administrators, or assigns of such member ; INVESTMENTS FOR TIIE WOKKING CLASSES. 401 or for defraying the expense of the burial of such member, or his wife, husband, child, or kinsman. " 2. For relief, maintenance, or endowment of members or their kindred, in infancy, old age, sickness, widowhood, or any other natural state of which the probability may be calculated by way of average. " 3. For insuring stock, &c. against damage by fire, flood, shipwreck, or other natural contingency, calculable by way of average. " 4. For the frugal investment of the savings of members, for better enabling them to purchase food, firing, clothes, or other necessaries, or the tools and materials of their trade and calling, or the education of their children and kindred ; provided that the shares shall not be transferable, and that the investment and proceeds shall be confined to the member and his kindred, &c. &c. " 5. For enabling any member or his kindred to emigrate." The special advantages guaranteed to Societies esta- blished under this act, are as follows : That, as soon as they shall have been duly admitted and certified by the registrar* (an officer appointed for the purpose, who is to take care that their rules contain nothing illegal, ir- rational, or self-contradictory), the trustees who hold and invest their funds may sue and be sued in the name of the Society ; that in the case of the death, absence, incapacity, or disappearance of any of the trustees, the '' The certified Societies are those which grant annuities, and whose laws and scale of allowances have been examined and approved by an actuary : these may be safely trusted by investors. The other class are merely registered ; but this registration, although entitling them to the benefit of the act, and indicating that their rules contain nothing fraudulent, absurd, or illegal, is no guarantee that they are or will remain solvent ; and we are told, but have been unable to ascertain, that several Friendly Societies, duly admitted to regis- tration, are not solvent. If this be so, it seems scarcely fair upon the people, to whom a government registration naturally conveys the idea of sanction and safety. VOL. I. D D 402 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. registrar may confirm arid legalise the appointment of others without recurrence to the Court of Chancery, and may even, if needful, act as co-trustee himself; that all disputes arising in the body itself shall be decided by and according to its own rules ; that in the case of arbitrators being appointed by the Rules, the decision of such arbitrators shall in all cases be final and bind- ing, without appeal to courts of law or equity ; and that such award can be promptly enforced, on proof, by the nearest justice of the peace ; that in case of fraud on the part of any of the members, an immediate remedy can be obtained by hearing before two justices of the peace, whose decision shall be final and conclusive ; - that in case of any incorrect proceedings on the part of treasurer or trustees, the registrar can interfere by a summary and despotic order ; that the claims of these Societies upon the estate of deceased or bankrupt officers shall take precedence of all other claims; and that payments, powers of attorney, assurances, &c., made under the act, shall be exempt from probate and stamp duty. The really valuable portion of these privileges, to which we shall have again to refer, is that which provides for a cheap, prompt, and inappellable decision in case of disputes, and remedy in case of fraud. It is a near approach to what law should be : that is, a number of individuals form themselves into an associa- tion for certain purposes, and agree to be bound by certain rules ; and parliament provides that, on the performance of certain simple formalities, and on appli- cation to the proper officer, these purposes . shall be strictly carried out, and these rules instantly enforced, without expense and without chicane. The enactment well deserves its popularity among the poor. Life Assurance Policies offer one of the most impor- tant and desirable channels of investment for the savings of all classes, and one for the employment of which INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 403 every possible facility should be afforded. The custom of insuring life for the benefit of survivors, is extensively practised among the higher and middle ranks, and is now beginning to extend among the poor. It may be looked upon as one of the clearest and most imperative duties incumbent upon all who have, or expect to have, families dependent upon them, and whose income arises, not from realised property, but from their own exertions of head or hand, and will therefore expire with them. It is altogether the most serviceable invention of modern times for defeating contingency, disarming fate, and de- priving casualty of its terrors. It would seem, that for the labouring poor, whose labour is their only capital, and who can rarely leave any realised property behind them, this mode of securing their wife and children against the destitution into which the death of the husband and father must otherwise almost inevitably plunge them, is peculiarly eligible. For some time, however, ignorance and mistrust on their parts, the un- willingness of the great Insuring Societies to accept such small sums as alone it was in the power of the working classes to raise, and the heavy stamp duties levied upon all policies, operated to prevent its adoption among the poor. The admission, however (under the act which we have quoted, and other preceding ones which it repealed), of mutual life assurance as one of the purposes for which Friendly Societies might be em- ployed, has already done much to extend the practice among the humbler classes ; the favourable provisions we have recited enabling them to escape the Stamp Act, the Probate Court, and (last not least) the lawyer ; as the power of nominating in the policy itself the re- cipient of the sum insured avoided the necessity of a will. One of these Societies (the Temperance and General Provident Institution) effected more policies in D D 2 404 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. a year than any two of the great offices.* It is obvious, that to the encouragement of so invaluable a disposition as was thus manifested, every possible facility should have been afforded ; but, unfortunately, the Chancellor of the Exchequer took alarm, as Chancellors are apt to do, at the possible loss to the revenue which might arise from the occasional employment of these Societies by rich men, and from the exemption also from legacy and stamp duties of so large a number of policies ; forgetting, that but for this exemption, a vast proportion of them would never have been effected at all ; and he insisted upon the introduction of two provisions into the act in question (13 & 14 Viet. c. 115.), which, combined, have had a most restrictive and mischievous operation. In the first place, he confined the benefit of the act to * We annex a Table which will show at once the extent to which the habit of insurance was spreading among the humbler classes, and the check given to it by the unfortunate limitation commented on in the text. Statement of Number of Policies issued in each Year for the various Amounts as under. l Years. Under 201 201. to 50Z. 507. to 1007. 1001. to 2007. 2007. and upwards. Total. 1841 16 20 29 118 72 255 1842 60 38 54, 120 48 320 1843 48 31 68 156 41 344 1844 11 54 133 213 43 454 1845 23 48 149 205 65 490 1846 139 39 107 139 67 491 1847 10 18 55 117 73 273 1848 8 39 124 273 96 540 1849 56 36 154 420 244 910 1850 15 27 128 401 218 789 1st Aug. 1851 9 18 57 190 113 387 Total - 395 368 1058 2352 1080 5253 1 United Kingdom Temperance and General Provident Institution, 39. Moorgate Street, London. INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 405 Societies which limited their policies to 100. ; and by this means greatly crippled some of the most prosperous and the best conducted among them, as was fully, but vainly, represented by more than one witness, before Mr. Slaney's Committee. The proposal in the bill, as originally drawn, was to limit the policies to 200/. ; and even this would have had a most noxious operation, in- asmuch as the necessary expenses of safe and efficient management are too great to enable a Society to be sustained by small policies only. One of these Institu- tions has issued upwards of 4000 policies, of amounts under 200/., which it would have been found impossible to do without the aid arising from larger assurances. The second alteration was still more fatal. The new bill (clause 42.) took away the right of "nomination." Formerly, the person who was to receive the sum in- sured on the death of the insurer, was named in the policy, and the directors had nothing to do but to pay the money over to this individual, on proof of the decease of the one party, and the identity of the other. Xo will was thus required, nor any letters of adminis- tration to be taken out by executors, or by next of kin. Those who know how clumsy and incapable the poor are in these matters, how they shrink from the trouble and expense of all legal formalities, and how they in general dread the idea of making a will, which they look upon as signing their death-warrant,^ will be able to form some estimate of the sad discouragement which this injudicious and shabby provision has thrown in the way of the most serviceable habit which could have been introduced ainonsr the humbler classes.* We have now - * It is true that there is a provision empowering the trustees, in case of a man dying intestate, to pay the money to the next of kin, or the lawful representative of the deceased, without letters of ad- ministration ; but this is limited to sums of 501., and still throws the trouble of proving kinship or executorship on the claimants. D D 3 406 INVESTMENTS FOE THE WORKING CLASSES. lying before us a Letter from the Chairman of one of the most successful of these Institutions, saying: " Most of the business we now do is with a higher class than formerly. As regards the difficulties we are placed in by doing away with the power of nomination, they are many and great, especially with the smaller insurers. In fact, we do not think it worth the trouble now to try and induce the mechanics, &c. to assure, knowing the expense and trouble the survivor will be at, to get what is due. The injury done to the advo- cates of provident habits in the lower classes, is incalcu- lable." Of all modes of employing small savings, there is none which we should so earnestly desire to become general among working men, none which appears to us so deserving of the fostering care of the legislature, none which, if universal and habitual, would do so much to diminish those cases of utter and helpless de- stitution which press so heavily on the resources of the community in the shape of poor-rates, and which are the fruitful parents of a long progeny of calamity and crime. It is grievous that mere revenue considerations should be suffered to step in to check and discourage a disposition so incomparably more important to national well-being, so incalculably more productive even of na- tional wealth, than any mere financial arrangements. What would be the possible loss of even 100,OOOZ. to the Exchequer, considered merely in a pecuniary point of view, in comparison with the drain and waste caused by the destitution of the thousands who are annually left widows, and whom a cheap and easy mode of life assurance might have endowed with a provision ? And above all, how poor and trivial do all such pounds, shillings, and pence considerations seem, when weighed against the importance of convinc- ing the mass of the people that the legislature regards with special favour, and will cherish with most zealous INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 407 care, all their efforts after self-dependence and self- elevation ! Xext in importance to making a provision for a family in the case of the death of its head, comes that of providing for the old age or incapacity of the indivi- dual. Men who live by manual labour in those de- partments especially in which good eyesight, skill of hand, or strength of arm is required will, if they have due foresight, feel anxious for a provision against the time of failing physical powers against the time when, from age or exhaustion, they are no longer fit for their usual occupation, and must be content either to retire from work altogether, or to accept work of a kind re- quiring less skill, and therefore commanding inferior remuneration. An operative, with a fair education, and in full possession of his powers, may be excused for feeling confident that he can always find employment at wages which will support a family ; but he cannot shut his eyes to the fact, that the large earnings he now obtains can only be commanded by men in the prime of life, and that the period must come when he will be compelled to forego them, or exchange them for the payment of inferior labour ; and it is against this time that, if he be wise, he will lay by some safe store, secure for the future, but out of his reach for the present ; and, consequently, not liable to be encroached upon during the pressure of temporary want. This same " treasure in the distance," a deferred annuity offers him; and there is scarcely any way in which an operative or mechanic, in any branch of industry, can more wisely invest his savings than in the purchase of such a future provision in the Government Funds. A very small weekly or monthly sum, regularly paid from the time he was twenty years of age, and had got into regular employment, would secure him 50. a year when he was fifty years old, and began to feel the first approaches of D D 4 408 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. infirmity.* He might then plod cheerfully onward through the intervening years, with none of the grind- ing anxieties and fears of the workhouse which now beset him, having made himself sure of a quiet and respectable home for his old age. Government has not been insensible to the importance of facilitating and encouraging the purchase of small deferred annuities by the poor. An act was intro- duced by Lord Althorp (3 & 4 Will. 4. c. 14.) to en- able parties, through the instrumentality of the savings' banks, to purchase such annuities of not less than 4/., nor more than 30/. the annuitant to have the option of paying down the whole purchase-money at once, or by weekly, monthly, or yearly instalments. As an additional encouragement, it was provided that if the purchaser become unable to continue his payments, or died before the annuity commenced, the whole sum he had actually paid should be returned, without interest, to himself, or his representatives. The reason of the small use that has been made of this act, and the ad- mirable substitute proposed for it by the bill intro- duced (but alas ! not passed) last session, have been so clearly explained in a paper, which we cannot be mis- taken in attributing to Mr. Poulett Scrope, that we shall give them in his own words : " That Act, however, so far as regards deferred annuities, has been very nearly inoperative. Only a few hundred persons, have, in the course of the seventeen years since its enactment, purchased a deferred annuity ; and the entire amount of such annuities granted, appears from a recent return to fall within 9000Z. " The cause of this failure was the insertion in the Act of a clause entitling the purchaser of a deferred annuity to reclaim * A monthly payment of 12s. beginning at twenty-one years of age, will secure 30Z. a year at the age of fifty-five, the money to be returned in case of death before that age. INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 409 his money (but without interest) at any time, on the plea of in- ability to keep up the periodical payments agreed upon, and for his executors to do the same if he died before the annuity com- menced. It Avas represented to Lord Althorp that these con- ditions were indispensable to induce any parties to purchase deferred annuities. They had the precisely opposite effect, of preventing any, or scarcely any purchases. And this by making it the act of a fool to do so. " For these conditions rendered it necessary of course that the tables should be calculated on the principle of keeping every person's account separate from the rest. And the deferred an- nuity he was allowed to purchase, was therefore absolutely less in amount than the immediate annuity he might at the same age purchase with the same money if left to accumulate at compound interest in the savings' bank, with the disadvantage of his being obliged in the first case to fix beforehand the age at which it should commence, instead of buying it when he might want it, as he could do in the latter mode. " Moreover, the principle of payment by instalments, or pe- riodical payments, permitted by the Act of 1833, is essentially a vicious one. The incomes or earnings of the industrious classes are generally precarious. Sickness, accident, local or temporary depressions of trade, and suspension of employment consequent on this or other causes, must very frequently make it next to impossible to keep up regularly a series of periodical pay- ments through a long succession of years. If the money paid is not returnable when the engagement is dissolved under such circumstances, the engagement itself has operated as a mere trap to entice the sanguine and unwary into a contract in which they are very likely to sustain a cruel loss. If the money is made returnable, the benefit bargained for is, as has been shown already, necessarily inferior to what may be obtained by its deposit in the savings' bank, and the ultimate purchase of an immediate annuity. " These considerations appear to have influenced the Chan- cellor of the Exchequer in framing the clauses of the Savings' Bank Bill now (1850) before the House of Commons, which extend the provisions of the existing Annuities Act, without, however, repealing any portion of that statute, which will still be available for all parties who choose to make use of it. 410 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. " It is proposed, subject to the same limitations as to amount, regulation, and management as in the existing Act, to allow parties to contract with the Commissioners of the National Debt, through the savings' banks or parochial societies, for de- ferred annuities, to commence at any age, and to be calculated on the same principle of mutual assurance as is adopted by the benefit societies. Consequently, as in those societies, no money will be returned ; and the superior benefit derivable from this principle may be seen by comparing the amount of annuity purchasable under the two systems. For instance, an annuity of ten pounds per annum, to commence at the age of 65, may be purchased at once by a person of the age of 20, on the pro- posed plan, for the small sum of 71. 2s. 6d. ; while under the Act of 1833, it would cost 16/. 7s. 6d. To a purchaser of the age of 30 the difference will be as between 117. 16s. lOd. and 317. Us. 3d. 11 All purchases will be required to be completed at once by single payment, so as to avoid the trap of an agreement for pe- riodical payments. But, in order to bring this mode of purchase within reach of the poorest classes, the amount of annuity purchasable at one time, is reduced from four pounds, the limit of the old Act, down to one pound ; and, for the sake of simplifying the accounts and transactions, no fractional annuities, other than even sums in pounds, will be granted so that the half-yearly payments will always be in sums of ten shillings or its multiple, and the accounts may be kept in decimals. " To show by example the working of this plan, a person of the age of 25 may purchase an annuity of one pound per annum, to commence at the age of 65, for the moderate sum of 18s. 5d., which we must suppose he may accumulate without difficulty, by depositing his small weekly savings either in the savings' bank, or in the hands of a friend, or his employer, or the parochial society. At the end of a few months, or in the next year, he will probably be able to add another pound to his an- nuity at a very slight increase of payment, and so on, till he has secured the full annuity he may desire the maximum being 307., or about 12s. a week, an income not very magnificent, but enough to secure independence, and tolerable comfort in old age." INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 411 We cannot sufficiently express our regret that a bill containing such admirable and much needed provisions should have been allowed to drop, whatever have been the amount or kind of opposition it had to encounter opposition which we must again characterise as dis- creditable in a more than ordinary degree. Another mode of investment which has lately become a great favourite both with the middle and working classes, is afforded by what are termed Benefit Building Societies. The first which is known to have been established dates from 1815, and was founded at Kirk- cudbright, under the auspices of a benevolent nobleman, the Earl of Selkirk. The example was followed soon afterwards in various quarters of the North of England, especially in Lancashire. After 1830, these Societies increased so rapidly as to attract the attention of the legislature ; and in 1836 a special act (6 & 7 Will. 4. cap. 32.) was passed for their guidance and protection, which gave them some of the privileges, and subjected them to some of the rules, which had previously been extended to Friendly Societies. Up to September, 1850, more than 2000 of them had been duly registered under the provisions of this act in the United King- dom, of which, in England alone, 169 were added in the first nine months of that year. Many of these Societies appear to have been dissolved, or to have expired with the efflux of time ; but it appears from Mr. Scratchley's work, that "about 1200 are still in existence, the total income of which is calculated at not less than 2,400,OOOZ. a year. In fact, there are two or three whose annual incomes are between 50,000. and 60,000?. each." Some of these Societies are temporary and some permanent. Some are confined to a specified number of members, who associate at the outset Tor a special and limited purpose, and the association expires by a 4i2 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. natural process as soon as this purpose is accomplished. Others continue adding to their numbers indefinitely, and offer a permanent investment to all who join them. In the former case, a certain number of individuals who are desirous of building for themselves, or becoming possessors of the houses they dwell in, form themselves into a Society, subscribe certain specified weekly or monthly sums, which are applied, in the first instance, to the purchase of land on which the dwellings are to be erected, and then, as fast as they accumulate in sufficient amounts to erect a house, are allotted to each member in turn (the individuals who take precedence being decided by arrangement or by lot), till all are provided for, and the concern is closed. Of course, as each several assignment is made, a security is taken upon the house of the fortunate individual, to ensure the continuance of his periodical payments till all the members are similarly circumstanced. By this arrange- ment, the subscription of very moderate sums (say 5s. or 10s. a month) will enable any one, in the course of a few years, to become owner as well as occupier of a very comfortable dwelling ; and, if he wishes, a possessor of the elective franchise. The permanent and more numerous Societies are slightly different in their machinery : " A benefit building society," says Mr. Scratcliley, " when properly constituted, is a species of joint stock association, the members of which subscribe periodically, and in proportion to the number of shares they hold, different sums into one common fund, which thus becomes large enough to be advantageously employed by being lent out at interest to such of the members as desire advances ; and the interest, as soon as it is received, making fresh capital, is lent out again and again, so as to be continually reproductive. Large sums may be raised in this manner; e.g. if 1000 shares were subscribed for at 105. a month per share, the amount in one year would be 6000Z., which month by month as received, might be advanced to any members who INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 413 might wish to become borrowers. The payments of BORROWERS are so calculated as to enable them to repay, by equal monthly instalments, within a specified period, the principal of the sum borrowed, and whatever interest may be due upon it throughout the duration of the loan. The other members who have not borrowed, and who are generally termed INVESTERS, receive at the end of a given number of years, a large sum, which is equivalent to the amount of their subscriptions, with compound interest accumulated upon them. " The idea of a society upon this principle, correctly formed, and afterwards properly managed, is of the most admirable kind. For, on the one hand, it holds out inducements to industrious individuals to put by periodically from their in- comes small or large sums, which are invested for them by the society, and at the end of a certain time are repaid to them in the shape of a large accumulation, without their having them- selves the trouble of seeking suitable investments ; while, on the other hand, the money subscribed being advanced to some of the members, enables them to purchase houses or similar pro- perty, and to repay the loan by small periodical instalments, extended over a number of years The annual repay- ments required by the society upon a loan, do not much exceed the rent of such a house as could be purchased with the sum borrowed ; so that a man living ten or fourteen years in a house, instead of paying rent to his landlord, and thus losing so much money for ever, pays it with a small addition to a building society for a limited number of years, at the expira- tion of which the property becomes entirely his own, the money advanced being in the meantime secured by a suitable mortgage." It is obvious that the desirableness of these Societies as a mode of investment for the humbler classes, must depend entirely upon the soundness of the principles on which they are based, and the strictness with which these principles are adhered to in the manage- ment. Much money has, no doubt, been lost and spirited away in these undertakings, and none should be trusted by the poor that are not duly certified and registered ; but when this precaution is observed, we 414 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. believe they deserve the encouragement and favour they have received. Mr. Scratchley's work is a careful exposition of the rules which should guide their con- stitution and management, drawn up by a competent and experienced man. Investments in land have hitherto been almost en- tirely out of the reach of the humbler classes in this country. The enormous difficulty and expense thrown in the way of the acquisition of small properties by the uncertainty of titles, the complexity of the law, and (till recently) the heavy stamp duty, have done much to quench and crush that desire for the possession of land, so natural to all men, so flattering both to pride and to gentler and worthier feelings, and so stimulated with us by the political privileges attached by our ancient constitution to freehold property. Still the sentiment has to a great extent survived, notwith- standing the circumstances which have long made the gratification of it almost an impossibility ; and a con- viction is gradually growing up among all classes, that this impossibility involves an injustice, and cannot much longer be either defended or retained. For our- selves, though sharing the doubts expressed by some witnesses examined before Mr. Slaney's Committee, as to whether the purchase of land will generally prove a profitable mode of investment for the savings of the poor; though cognisant of the disappointment and misery which such investments, under Mr. Feargus O'Connor's auspices, have brought upon hundreds of the working classes ; though differing from many phi- lanthropists, and from some economists, as to the moral and political consequences of the extensive possession of small freeholds by the peasantry; though thinking that the experience of France and other continental nations clearly shows, that, where encouraged or en- INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 415 forced by law, they are far from being as favourable as they are generally represented to be, either to mas- terly cultivation, to social well-being, to political tran- quillity, to progressive development, or to high civili- sation, yet we cannot but feel that, in a country like ours, where equal rights and equal freedom lie at the basis of our polity, and where the enjoyment of the franchise is expressly attached to the possession of land so emphatically so, that even a forty-shilling freehold entitles its owner to the suffrage artificial and in- direct impediments to the acquisition of that which the constitution points out as the special means of obtaining a vote, can be defended on no tenable plea, and must always be felt to be irritating and inequitable. We are surprised that this consideration has not had more weight with Conservatives of all sections those who are Conservative from great possessions, and those who are Conservative from political predilections. In these days of search and question, when every ancient claim is investigated with the keen eye of hostility or envy ; when every time-honoured privilege is sharply disputed or dogmatically denied ; when every long- descended right is called upon to prove its justice in courts of inquiry, where, if it finds a fair field, it cer- tainly can look for no favour ; when prescription is no longer admitted as a valid plea for claims which can be defended on no other ground, it is good policy, to say the least, on the part of those individuals or classes who have anything valuable to conserve, to make their position as impregnable and unobnoxious as they can. At a time too, when the unlimited right of property in land is questioned, not by envious and needy proletaires, but by profound thinkers and disinterested critics, and when the very principle on which that right is based finds many to deny it, and many thousands to applaud and echo the denial, it seems specially incumbent on 416 INVESTMENTS FOB THE WORKING CLASSES. all possessors of landed property to render that ex- clusive possession as little invidious as possible, to remove from it all that bears the semblance of injustice, and to be prompt and eager to remedy every collateral consequence, not essential to its safety, which presses on the mass of the community. Generally speaking, the defence of Conservative policy is rendered difficult, not by its inherent injustice or native indefensibility, but because it is surrounded by a multitude of vul- nerable, objectionable, and provoking outworks ; because its advocates are perversely fond of taking up untenable positions, and of regarding as part of it, and bound up in its existence, diseased and unnatural excrescences, which are the sources of its greatest weakness, and are its worst internal foes. It is the clear and paramount interest of all classes to abandon at once every un- tenable position ; and, instead of battling tenaciously for every rotten bastion and venerable buttress, to retire into their impregnable citadel, and to resign, promptly and with a good grace, every point which is in any way oppressive or unjust ; thus proclaiming these points to be essentially unconnected with those rights and privileges which they still hold to be sacred and inalienable. Now there are several consequences connected with the tenure of land in this country, which are looked upon with an evil eye by the unpropertied classes of the community ; which are, in themselves, utterly un- just and inadmissible ; and which have been mainly instrumental in bringing landed proprietors into odium, and the right of landed property into question. Some of these are the relics of feudal times; some have grown up unconsciously during the lapse of centuries ; some have been intentionally enacted by landowners, in days when they had greater power than at present of working their own selfish will. Such is the whole INVESTMENTS FOK THE WORKING CLASSES. 417 system of legal titles, which surround the sale and pur- chase of land with so many difficulties and such enor- mous cost, as to render it impracticable to the poor man, and almost to forbid the acquisition of small freeholds. Such is the law of distraint giving to landlords an unfair, and (as is now believed) a suicidal advantage over other creditors. Such is the exemption of landed property from legacy duty. Such was, till a few years ago, the provision by which landed property was secure from the claims of simple contract creditors. Of all these, probably the difficulties which have gathered round the transfer of land and its purchase in small quantities have been particularly odious and practically oppressive. They are peculiar to this country. They arise from the old feudal notion, that land differs from other sorts of property, is more sacred than any other, and must be dealt with on different principles. A title is required in the case of land, which is needed in no other case. Before land can be safely purchased, this title must be traced for at least sixty years ; every claim and incumbrance that has ever existed upon it must be carefully sifted ; and any mis- take or omission in these tedious and costly processes may vitiate the title of the purchaser, and deprive him of his honestly acquired possession. But while all these heavy requisitions have been made, the means of fulfilling them at a reasonable cost of trouble ifhd money have been steadily withheld. A general office (or offices in all the counties) for the registration of title-deeds, mortgages, and sales, which has been so long demanded by the country, has hitherto been ob- stinately refused ; and the difficulty of obtaining a cheap and certain title to an estate you might wish to purchase, has amounted to an impossibility. Lord Campbell's Registration Bill, introduced last session, will in part remedy this deplorable deficiency a de- VOL. I. E E 418 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. ficiency peculiar to England. England is (we believe we are correct in stating) the only civilised country in which such a registration does not exist, and has not long existed. Throughout almost the whole of Europe, land can be purchased, and a valid and absolute title obtained without difficulty at a very moderate cost, because a bureau des hypotheques exists, in which the title to every estate, and the incumbrances upon it, are officially recorded ; and a reference to this office at once enables any individual, who wishes to become a purchaser (or a mortgagee), to complete the transaction with entire and final security. Now it may or may riot be desirable that land should be extensively sold in small portions ; land may or may not offer a profitable and generally beneficial investment for the savings of the working classes ; it is very possible that they may burn their fingers in the attempt to become peasant proprietors ; may pay dearly for their whistle, and learn wisdom by painful experience alone; but it seems abundantly clear that the legislature cannot with justice, virtually and by a side wind, deny to the poor a privilege which it accords to the rich viz. that of choosing in what way they shall employ their money, and of making a foolish employment of it if they will ; nor can it be expected that the humbler section of the community will ever b<^ reconciled to, or persuaded of the justice of, a law which debars them from a favourite mode of invest- ment, on the plea of paternal watchfulness and benevo- lence, but to which alleged and suspicious motive they will give a very different interpretation. The case of the franchise makes the collateral im- pediments now existing in the acquisition of small landed properties peculiarly unwise and indefensible. There is, on the part of a certain portion of the people, a demand for an extension of electoral rights. To this INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 419 demand landowners generally, and Conservative land- owners in particular, are opposed ; and it is the more indispensable that they should put themselves in a position to oppose it fairly. The franchise, they say, is low enough. The constitution gives to every man who possesses or can procure a freehold of the yearly value of forty shillings, a county vote of equal weight with that of the landlord whose territorial income is a hundred thousand pounds. Lower than this, it is con- tended, you cannot go, unless you wish to abolish a property qualification altogether. Every man possessed of the industry, steadiness, and intelligence, which alone can guarantee his fitness for the exercise of the franchise, can surely amass, by these qualities, the 50. or GO/, requisite for its acquirement. The argument is good enough in theory, and would carry almost irre- sistible weight with it, if the enormous cost attending our abominable system of landed property and con- veyance in the case of small estates, did not act as a direct bar, and often as an absolute preventative, to the poor man who wishes to obtain the elective franchise by purchasing a forty-shilling freehold. These artificial difficulties vitiate the plea, and neutralise the whole argument. It is a mockery to tell the poor man that the county franchise is within his reach, and is guarded by as low a qualification as possible, when, in order to obtain legal and secure possession of this franchise, he must pay away, independent of the purchase money*, * The usual stamp law and expenses (since the large reduction T of the stamp duties in the session of 1850) attending the purchase, by poor men, of small plots of land up to 100/. in value, do not exceed from 51. to 15/., because in these cases there is never any minute investigation of title. If the purchaser was a man to whom security was everything and money nothing, and who therefore required a thorough examination of title, the expense would vary with the complexity of the title, and might reach from five to ten times the above-named sum. The insecurity, perhaps even more than the E E 2 420 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. a sum equal to three, four, or five times its annual value. He must pay for his privilege once to the vendor, and a second time to the lawyer and the Stamp Office. The constitution enacts that he shall have a vote if he can purchase a freehold of a certain annual value. The conveyancer and the government step in, and, between them, virtually nullify the constitutional enactment. The theory of the county franchise is defensible enough ; but this monstrous abuse in its practical working embarrasses and silences all its honest advocates. Therefore, we think that such an entire reform in this matter as shall render the purchase of small properties safe, cheap, and feasible, is absolutely essential in order to place the opponents of organic changes in a just or tenable position. We are fully aware that the difficulties to be got over are most serious, that the work is a great, and must probably be a slow one; but it is one thing to recognise an obstacle, and another to sit down under an assumed impossibility ; it is one thing to preach patience during a gradual and tedious cure, and another to preach it under a permanent and hopeless malady. Neither have we any fear lest the easy acquirability of small landed freeholds should lead in this country to the creation of a body of peasant proprietors to an cost, is the real cause of the inexpediency of land as an investment for the savings of the poor man. It is at any time possible that he may be deprived of his little property by some claimant of whom neither he nor his solicitor has ever heard, especially if the abstract of title has been dispensed with. Even the "sixty years' title" affords only a likelihood of safety. One or two of the most eminent conveyancers recently accepted a title of the usual length, which turned out to be perfectly worthless, owing to the circumstance of a tenant for life having lived ninety years; at whose death the re- versioner would come in quite unaffected by the circumstance of the property having been dealt with as a fee for the sixty or seventy years preceding. INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 421 inconvenient or perilous extent. Hitherto, we know, the tendency has rather been towards the swallowing up of such small properties as formerly abounded. The race of yeomen "statesmen" as they are termed in Westmoreland and Cumberland has long been in process of gradual absorption. The excess of landed subdivision, and its many evil consequences, have ap- peared in countries, not where all natural causes and motives are left free to operate, but where a special, forced, and almost irresistible influence has been brought to bear upon the population by directing and restraining laws. It is one thing to facilitate, and another to command; and to render small properties possible is not to enact their prevalence. There is another point in reference to this matter which landlords would do well to consider: How many years' purchase would be added to the value of their estates by such a system of registration as should render the sale of land secure, simple, and inexpensive ? How many more years' purchase would be added by the greater number of customers who would come for- ward were the sale of small lots rendered feasible and easy? We all know how immensely the marketable value of any article is affected by facilities of transfer, arid by the competition of a larger class of purchasers ; but to what extent these causes might operate in raising the price of land in England we have as yet no means of calculating: we can only guess at it from an ob- servation of their effects in France and in the Rhenish provinces. In Ireland, the additional value conferred upon the properties sold under the Encumbered Estates' Act, by the mere fact of a cheap parliamentary title, is, we believe, reckoned to do more than counterbalance the disadvantages of a forced sale. As usual, evil breeds evil. Artificial stratagems are resorted to to counteract artificial obstacles. The EE 3 422 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. principle of association is brought in to defeat and circumvent legal impediments. " Freehold Land So- cieties" have been extensively formed for the avowed object of extending the elective franchise to those whom the constitution contemplates as its possessors, but whom the collateral impediments we have spoken of debar from its acquisition. They scarcely can be said to offer a channel for investments, properly so called ; since the investments they offer might be sus- pected of having been sought less for the sake of the interest they may yield, than for that of the political influence they promise. At least, so we should have thought from appearances and from the nature of the principal appeals made in their favour. On the other hand, we are assured by parties and others acquainted with the details, that mercantile motives have had greater influence than political with the existing members. " Their object is simple enough, and easily understood. Pro- ceeding on the principle that land, when sold in the gross, fetches a lower price per acre than when sold in small portions, particularly in the vicinity of large towns, these societies purchase, with money obtained from external sources, consider- able estates, and divide the same among members in allotments sufficiently large to constitute 40s. freeholds. These freeholds may thus be allotted at a price which any skilled artisan in steady employment may easily accumulate in the course of five or six years, by laying aside Is. 6d. a week out of his wages for that purpose The scheme was first tried in Birmingham, in a society formed by Mr. J. Taylor of that town. The work- men there had heard of the efforts of the Anti-Corn-Law- League, to carry South Lancashire by registering as many of their members as could be persuaded to purchase 40s. freeholds. The average price of such freeholds was separately 70/. ; and it occurred to them that by combining the principles of accumu- lating a considerable fund through moderate weekly subscrip- tion?, with that of buying land at a wholesale cost, and by INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 423 dividing it in allotments to subscribers at the same price, 40s. freeholds might be brought within the reach of workmen, or at least of the sober and steady members of the skilled artisan class. Persuading others to join them, and securing the coun- tenance and co-operation of several members of parliament, the first Freehold Land Society was founded in Birmingham in 1847. " Scratchley, p. 158. It is obvious that by this system of procedure another great economy is effected, besides that of the difference between the wholesale and the retail price of land. One original investigation of title the costly part of conveyancing will suffice for all the subsequent sub- divisions of the estate. Under the combined influence of these causes, the freeholders in this Society appear to have obtained their lots at about 20/. each. This success was so remarkable and unexpected that similar societies rapidly sprung up in every part of the country -in Derby, Coventry, London, Leicester, Wolver- hampton, Worcester, Leeds, Halifax, Gloucester, and many other places. It was moreover formally decided, in the highest law courts, that votes thus acquired were perfectly good ; that the conveyance of land for a bond fide consideration was valid, even though the avowed object of the vendor is to extend, and that of the pur- chasers to acquire, the right of voting ; and that the endeavour thus to multiply the possessors of the county franchise was entirely consonant to law, morality, and sound policy. Under this encouragement these asso- ciations multiplied so fast, that at the end of 1849, the total number of members, in the aggregate, amounted to 14,281, and the shares to 20,475. A later return in October, 1850, states that there were then eighty Societies in operation, with numerous branches ; and that 170,000^. had been contributed upon 30,000 shares of the ultimate value of nearly one million sterling. In November, 1851, the number of societies was up- E E 4 424 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. wards of 100; the number of members, 45,000; the shares subscribed for 65,000 ; the amount actually paid up 400,000/. ; and the total sum subscribed for, up- wards of 2,000,000/. Notwithstanding this rapid popularity, however, notwithstanding also the high authorities which have pronounced in their behalf, we cannot look upon these associations with unmixed favour; and we shall be surprised if any long time elapses without well-grounded disappointment and discontent arising among their members. However desirable it may be for a peasant or artisan to be possessor of the garden which he cul- tivates, and the house he dwells in however clear and great the gain to him in this case, it is by no means equally certain that he can derive any adequate pecu- niary advantage from the possession of a plot of land which is too far from his daily work for him either to erect a dwelling on it, or to cultivate it as an allotment, and which from its diminutive size he will find it very difficult to let to a tenant for any sufficient remuneration. In many cases a barren vote will be his only reward for 50/. of savings ; and however he may value this in times of excitement, it will, in three elections out of four, be of little real interest or moment to him. Moreover, elections do not come very often : contested elections in counties are still rarer. So that it will only be perhaps once in twenty years that he will really congratulate himself on his position as a county voter. Then, it must be very seldom, and only under most peculiar and rarely-recurring combinations, that a 40s. freehold can be purchased (as it was said to be at Birmingham) for 20/. This would be to suppose that land can often yield 10 per cent. In the great majority of cases bOL (or an investment at 4 per cent.) will be nearer the mark. If, therefore, the aspirant has been led into the scheme from a false estimate, and finds himself INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 425 called upon to pay two or three times as much as he had calculated on, disappointment and reproach must ensue. " Again, when the land is purchased it will be utterly useless in a pecuniary sense to the owner, unless four or five can join together to let their fractions of territory to one tenant ; or un- ices the purchaser contemplates building thereon for his own purposes. A mechanic in a manufacturing town cannot him- self make any use of his land ; he is ignorant of its management, and can only make a profit from his purchase by letting it to others [at a considerable legal cost] ; and even then the expense of employing an agent, with the uncertainty of collecting his small rent regularly, would diminish the advantage of his pur- chase. Hence it appears probable that much discontent will shortly arise among the poorer members of these societies, who have entered under the impression that in addition to the in- fluence acquired by the possession of a county vote, they would be making a highly lucrative profit from their savings. The comparatively rich member, who can take up several shares, will reap benefit, not only from the greater certainty of being able to turn his land to account, but also from the increase in the general profits of the association, that must accrue through the forfeited shares of those members whose means of existence are too limited or precarious to enable them to be regular in their payments." Scratchley, p. 168. There are, however, other Societies of which the primary aim has been the acquisition of land simply as a profitable investment for the savings of the poor. It is pleaded, and with a great show of justice, that parties naturally desire to invest in matters of which they have some cognisance ; that the various modes resorted to by the artisan of towns for disposing of his savings have no meaning or attraction for the agricultural peasant ; that to him land is the great object of desire, and the culti- vation of it his most natural, and probably most profit- able occupation ; that he will lay by with this view when no other motive would be strong enough to tempt him to frugality ; and that means should be given him 426 INVESTMENTS FOR TIIE WORKING CLASSES. for obtaining the object of his wishes. Considerations of this kind secured a favourable hearing even for the notorious Land Schemes of Mr. Feargus O'Connor; while the eagerness with which shares in his company were sought for, and the absurd premiums given in some cases to the allottees for the possession of their plots, showed how widely spread among the lower classes is the desire of partaking in the actual possession of the soil. It is remarkable, however, that nearly all the shareholders and allottees were town-bred tradesmen shoemakers, tailors, carpenters, shopkeepers, &c. scarcely ever agricultural labourers. Into the details of this remarkable scheme our limits will not allow us to enter. Its merits, both as to conduct and conception, were fully examined in 1848 by a Committee of the House of Commons, whose six voluminous Reports, now lying before us, we have con- scientiously endeavoured to digest ; and we are bound to say, that so much daring illegality so much sanguine misrepresentation so much wild calculation so much absurdly golden expectation, combined with unquestion- able bond fides, were probably never before crowded into a single project. Every estimate seemed to be made on the supposition of a perpetual miraculous interposition an untiring special Providence watching over the association. Every acre was to yield on an average such crops as no acre ever did yield except under the rarest combination of favouring climate, consummate skill, and unlimited manure and then only occasionally. Every cow was to live for ever, was to give more milk than any save the most exceptional kine ever gave before, and was never to be dry. Every pig was to be a prize ox every goose to be a swan. The allottees were to pay a full rent, and yet to thrive as no men in this island, farming their own unincurnbered property, ever yet throve. And to crown the whole, the net residue INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 427 at the end of the year, after deducting rent, taxes, maintenance of family, and necessary outlay, was to be, on an allotment of three acres, 44?., or two hundred per cent., on the floating capital employed ! The company was to raise a capital of 150,000?., on 100,000 shares of 30s. each ; and it appears that 70,000 individuals took shares, and that 90,000?. was actually paid. With this money, estates were bought, divided into lots of two, three, and four acres respectively, and assigned by lot, as far as they would go, among the shareholders who had completed their payments. The allottees were then put in possession of their lots, established in a good cottage, worth 100?., supplied with capital at the rate of 11. 10s. per acre, charged a rent equal to 4?. per cent, on the sums expended (which amounted on the three acre allotments, to between 13?. and 14?.), and then ex- pected to thrive and save at the rate of 30?. or 40/. per annum. Five estates were thus purchased and parcelled out more or less completely ; but alas ! the capital was insufficient to stock them properly ; the labour was insufficient to cultivate them properly ; skill and know- ledge were alike wanting ; the crops were scantier and poorer than those on the neighbouring farms ; the rents remained unpaid ; the fortunate allottees retired in disgust, or sold their allotments to more sanguine or richer men, to such an extent that at the end of the first twelve months, 25 per cent, of the original possessors had vacated their holdings. The failure of this scheme*, to the lamentable extent at least to which its failure is now certain, may no doubt be traced mainly to the originally erroneous and deceptive calculations on which it was founded, and to the fact of nearly all the allottees being parties wholly ignorant of agriculture, and in all respects unfitted to * It is now being wound up in the Court of Chancery under a special act obtained for that purpose. 428 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. meet the hardships or requirements of a rural life. They appear to have met with great kindness and liberal assistance from the farmers near them, who compassionated their delicacy and incapacity ; but they could endure neither the cold of winter, nor the heat of summer, and had frequently to employ hired labour for the hard work they were unable to perform for them- selves. Had the allotments been taken by experienced agricultural peasants, the results might in some respects have been very different. But the radical objection would still have remained that under none but the most favourable and the rarest circumstances could such small properties as two, three, or four acres, support a family in comfort without the expenditure of an amount of capital and labour which is never commanded by the purchasers of such. Without en- tering into detailed calculations, and fully admitting the enormous produce that may in some cases be obtained off a given acreage, by a proportionate ex- penditure of manure and toil the dilemma in which such small holders are placed we believe may be stated thus : If the holdings are small enough to be fully tilled and manured by the labour and capital of one man and his wife and children, the produce is in- adequate to their support : if they are large enough for the adequate maintenance of a family, they require hired labour and borrowed capital, which, together, sweep away profit. In all the instances we have heard of in this country of very large returns from plots of two or three acres, we have found that the result has been due to the unlimited application of capital and labour. It would not be difficult to show why the allottees in Mr. O'Connor's Land Company could not have succeeded with the amount of land assigned to them, the amount of capital advanced to them, and the amount of rent demanded from them ; but our space INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 429 prevents our entering into the proof: we can only give the conclusion arrived at by the Commissioner who investigated the matter at great length on behalf of the Poor Law Board, and whose view is confirmed by that of others who visited and examined into the position o* the different tenants. " I think it may be fairly con- cluded that all those who occupy the Land Company's allotments, with nothing more than the produce of their allotment to depend upon, will fail to obtain a living."* But while the result of Mr. O'Connor's scheme, and of many similar experiments, would seem to indicate that the possession of any small allotment of land say under six or eight acres can rarely, in this country, enable the proprietor either to rise in life or to bring up a family in decency and comfort, unless he possesses some independent capital, or can combine his ownership with some other occupation; and is, therefore, an un- desirable channel into which to divert the accumu- lations of frugality and forethought the case may probably be very different when land is dealt with in larger divisions. It seems possible enough that pro- perties of 25 or 30 acres may be cultivated with success by those who bring to the task a reasonable amount of capital and such zeal and devotion as ownership com- monly brings with it. Accordingly, a scheme was proposed some years ago by Mr. William Bridges, and is now beginning to attract some degree of attention, by which parties of moderate means might be enabled to become purchasers and bond fide proprietors of estates of various sizes, in Ireland or elsewhere, by a happy union of the principle of life assurance with that of association. Assuming the desirability (either as a general good, or to meet a special social emergency,) of creating or facilitating the creation of a class of inde- * Evidence before Select Committee, 3367. 430 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. pendent yeomen, we confess we have never met with a plan which appears so simple, so promising, and, in every point of view, so unobjectionable. " The nature of a freehold life assurance company," says Mr. Scratchley (p. 200.), " may be easily and concisely explained. Suitable tracts of country being purchased from the existing proprietors, would, unless already in the desired state, be drained, fenced, and otherwise adapted for immediate profitable cultiva- tion at the expense of the company, and, so improved, would be divided into allotments of the proper size [say from 30 to 100 acres], and furnished with the requisite buildings. These allotments would then be disposed of, by conveying the fee simple thereof to chosen persons (who could at once enter upon and profitably cultivate the same) subject to a terminable rent charge, a part of which would consist of the interest of the capital expended, and would be, in point of fact, a rent like that which in the usual relation of landlord and tenant, is paid for the hire of land ; while the remainder would consist of premiums which would be paid by the allottees, on the ordinary principles of life assurance, in order to secure for each the payment at his death of a sum equal to the estimated value of his particular allotment. On his death, the sum assured would not be paid to his devisees or representatives ; but in lieu thereof they become the absolute possessors of an unincumbered freehold estate." In other words, the purchaser is tenant during his life, and becomes absolute possessor on his death ; or, to speak more accurately, he at once enters on the full and entire ownership of the estate on the sole conditions of insuring his life for a fixed sum, and paying a small rent till his death. We will suppose him to purchase 30 acres, at the price of 33/. an acre, including all buildings &c., needful for the due cultivation of the land a rate at which vast quantities of good land may be purchased in different parts of the kingdom. The value of his allotment would thus be 1000J. If he enter upon it at the age of thirty, his annual payment will be as follows : INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 431 s. d. Rent, (or interest at 4 per cent, on the fee value 1000/.) - - 40 Life Insurance 21. 5s. per cent. - - 22 10 62 10 In consideration, therefore, of paying for life, 62. 10s. a year, or 40/. to the company, as landlord, and 22?. 10s. to the company as an insurance office (which latter sum he may compound for by an equivalent payment down), he at once obtains possession, in absolute ownership, of an estate worth 1000/., and on his death it passes to his heir, free from any payment or incumbrance whatever; so that, from the moment of his entrance, he can regard it with all the sentiments and affections of ownership, and can lay out money upon it in full security that the benefit will not be reaped by others unless, in- deed, he should fail in paying the 2^ per cent, yearly premium. It has not escaped the attention of reflecting men, that a certain collateral consequence follows on the spread of saving habits among the poor, which should not be overlooked. In proportion as the custom of frugality and accumulation prevails through the com- munity, will be the tendency of the rate of interest to decline. The greater the amount of savings seeking profitable investment, the greater will be the difficulty of finding such investments. If it be employed in benefit societies and sick clubs, the advantages offered by such societies will tend to diminish. If invested in Government securities, those securities will rise. If laid out in the purchase of land, the price of land already hio;h will be inordinately and injuriously enhanced. Moved partly by these considerations, and by others of 432 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. more immediate force and more easy comprehension, many of the working classes and their friends have recently been endeavouring to find some more lucrative employment for their savings, than investments yielding simple interest can continue to offer. They wish to make their small capitals productive as well as profit- able. They do not see why, in place of lending their money to others for employment, they should not themselves employ it in some branch of trade or in- dustry with which they are familiar. It is true that a greater risk will probably be incurred in the latter case than in the former ; but the additional profit to be realised is tempting, and the independence of the posi- tion offered is flattering and attractive. They do not see why they should not combine their several accumu- lations, and employ them in a business which they un- derstand. Being capitalists as well as labourers, in virtue of their savings, they see no reason why they should not become their own employers ; and thus unite the remunerations, as well as the functions, of the two classes. From motives and reflections of this sort stimulated in special cases by the wish to emancipate themselves from special grievances have sprung those " Working Men's Associations," of which we have heard so much of late ; which are so numerous in France, and which now, aided by the zeal of certain benevolent theorists, are spreading in this country. Their object is perfectly legitimate ; their constitutions are, generally speaking, based on fair and sound principles ; the experiment they are trying is one which well deserves to be worked out ; the zeal with which they have been taken up by the operative classes, is highly honourable to them ; those of them whose rules have been drawn up by competent parties, infringe, so far as we are aware, no axiom of social philosophy, or of that branch of it which belongs INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 433 to political economy ; and we think that they are fairly entitled to the recognition and protection of the law. Whether they are likely to prosper, except in isolated instances, and under peculiar circumstances, is a wholly different, and, for our present purpose, an irrelevant question. Whether the combination of functions which civilisation has hitherto tended to divide, by a retro- grade or a forward step ; whether the ruling and con- trolling hand so essential to the prosperity of all undertakings can be made strong enough in such re- publican associations, for prompt and decisive action; whether an elected manager will be able to perform the functions which must be delegated to him, with the same efficient, untiring, uniform probity and zeal which mark the proceedings and ensure the success of the individual merchant, manufacturer, or tradesman ; whether the necessary harmony is likely to reign where the power to enforce subordination emanates from the mere will of a majority which will fluctuate under the influences of intrigue, caprice, or agitation ; whether the people can find among themselves the intelligence and education necessary to take a comprehensive view of their interest, and of all considerations which may bear upon it, or can purchase that intelligence at a cheaper rate than that at which the usual arrangements of society now supply it to them ; all these are questions wholly beside and beyond the mark. We may be of opinion perhaps we are that disappointment will be the result of these undertakings ; we may deem that experience will show their promoters that, under the arrangements which habitually prevail, the capitalist has not, as they imagine, so very undue a share of the profits of their joint exertions, and that they may find it impossible perfectly to fill his place, and to exercise his peculiar functions; we may even think that these associations contain within them seeds of almost certain VOL. I. F F 434 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. failure, inasmuch as they presume upon the general prevalence of virtues which, unhappily, are still rare, and on the subjugation of frailties and passions which, alas ! are still dominant and rampant. But these are not inquiries into which the legislature is called upon to enter. The legislature is not bound, nor is it en- titled, to forbid Englishmen to enter into this or that industrial undertaking, because in its wisdom it deems it unlikely to be profitable. It does not lie within its duty even to inquire into this point. In the case of railway and similar great undertakings, the case is wholly different : there parliament is asked to accord to certain companies extraordinary privileges, one of which is that of limited liability, and another, that of taking land and buildings from other parties without their permission, and against their will; it is, therefore, bound to ascertain what is the probability of success, and whether the gain to the public is likely to be such as should outweigh the violation of private rights. But no such plea can be urged in the case of associations which only ask for the protection of the law in exer- cising the undoubted privilege of every freeman that of employing his money in whatever legitimate mode he, in his wisdom or his folly, may deem fit. For the legislature to refuse this protection on the ground that the adventure will probably turn out a disadvantageous one, and that it ought to protect its subjects from the consequences of their own folly, is to arrogate to itself the functions, and, at the same time, to impose upon itself the obligations, of the " paternal governments " of the Continent. All that parliament is called upon to do, is to ascertain that the investment or the undertak- ing proposes no noxious object, violates no moral law, invades no man's rights, is based upon no fraudulent representations, and threatens no public mischief. It the scheme can vindicate itself on all these points, then INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 435 its promoters are as clearly entitled to the protection of the law, whether their object be the making of dolls' eyes, or the manufacture of cloth, or the construction of steam engines, as if they were great individual capi- talists, engaged in a recognised undertaking. The scheme may, it is probable, turn out disastrously ; but the people will not believe this on the assertion of their superiors ; they will learn contentedly in no school but that of their own experience. The project may have failure written on its face ; but it is the birthright of liritons to play at ducks and drakes with their money; it is one of the privileges they most value ; one they take care shall not be lost non utendo ; one, the curtail- ment or deprivation of which, they would resent with especial anger. It is as dear and as indefeasible to the poor man, as to the rich : he is entitled in these matters to judge for himself; and to prevent him from doing so by leaving him. without any resource, except the Court of Chancery, against fraudulent associates or inevitable disputes, is to do that by a side wind, which it is beyond the acknowledged province of English legislation to do directly. We are at issue with Mr. Mill as to the probability of these " Working Associations" commanding any general success ; but we are glad to fortify ourselves by his authority, as to the desirableness of allowing their experiment a fair trial. In his evidence before Mr. Slaney's Committee, he says : " Even if it were quite clear that they would not succeed, it would be of the greatest importance that they should be allowed to try the experiment, and that they should have every facility given them, to convince those "who were trying the experiment that it was tried fairly. Besides, even if such experiments failed, the attempt to make them succeed would be a very im- portant matter in the way of education to the working classes, both intellectually and morally. . . . The advantages which F F 2 436 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. the possession of large capital gives, are not from any in- tention on the part of the legislature, but arising from causes into which intention does not enter at all to a great degree a monopoly in the hands of the rich ; and it is natural that the poor should desire to obtain those same advantages by associa- tion, the only way in which they can do so. This seems to be an extremely legitimate purpose on the part of the working classes, and one that it would be desirable to carry out, if it could be effected. " You think then that it would be but just and politic to allow them, under reasonable safeguards, to carry out this ex- periment ; so that if they are right they may receive the benefit, and if they are wrong they may be undeceived in their un- reasonable expectations ? Certainly; and there would be this great advantage, that supposing those associations embraced only a small part of the working classes, they would have almost the same salutary effect on their minds as if they em- braced the whole ; because, if a number of those associations were in existence, and they were found to be able to maintain their ground, and to compete well, or tolerably, or under great disadvantages even, with individual capitalists, still the whole of the working classes would see that such disadvantages arose, not from the law, but from the nature of the case, or from the absence of the necessary qualities in them ; therefore those who might continue to be receivers of wages in the service of indi- vidual capitalists, would then feel that they were doing so not from compulsion, but from choice, and that, taking all the cir- cumstances into consideration, their condition appeared preferable to them as receivers of wages." The associations in question are Societies of working men, who, instead of accepting employment under an individual capitalist, combine to carry on their own trade or branch of industry in concert, the needful capital being supplied either by their own savings, or by friendly loans, or by both sources united. They are, in fact, partnerships of labour, as others are partner- ships of capital. They may be composed of mixed capitalists and labourers ; and may assign profits to the INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 437 capitalist, on the one hand, in respect of his capital, and to the labourer, on the other hand, in respect of his labour: or they may be composed, as they generally are, of labourers only, working either on their own capital, or on money borrowed at a fixed rate of inte- rest, and dividing profits solely in respect of labour. In either case, they are characterised by a division of profits, either total or partial, among the partners, in respect of the labour performed by these for the benefit of the partnership. In London, there are now eight of these associations, composed of tailors, needlewomen, printers, builders, pianoforte makers, shoemakers, and bakers, which are said to be tolerably flourishing. Others have been formed in the provinces ; but of their prospects, nothing can yet be affirmed. In France, however, these associations have spread much more rapidly. In Paris, they are now 197 in number; and some of them threaten to engross the greater part of the trade of their respective branches. Of this number, the bakers furnish six, printers four, cooks forty-seven, hairdressers thirty-four, hatters six, shirtmakers five, and shoemakers and tailors four each. In this country, their spread has been greatly impeded, and their exist- ence is continually threatened, by the existing law of partnership, which involves any associations at all numerous in much difficulty and expense, and affords them very imperfect protection. Yet, by the common law, as well as by the civil law, labour is recognised as forming a proper and valid ground of partnership. Thus, Collyer on Partnership, p. 2. : " Partnership, as between the parties themselves, is a voluntary contract between two or more persons for joining together their money, goods, labour, and skill, or any or all of them, under an understanding that there shall be a communion of profit between them," &c. &c. As to the civil law, see 3 Just. xxvi. ; Dig. xvii. t. ii. F F 3 438 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. As long as the associations consist of fewer than twenty-six members, they work under the common law ; if they exceed this number at starting, or should at any future time increase so as to do so, they come under the Joint Stock Companies Act. In the former case they meet with three difficulties, which together are almost fatal to their legal and safe existence. In the first place they have no means of enforcing rules agreed upon among themselves for their own guidance, even if signed by every member, except by application to the Court of Chancery, which, as we all know, is a mere cruel mockery.* The power of inflicting penalties, or enforcing exclusion against unruly, indolent, or refrac- tory associates, is of course essential to the working of any such association ; but in these respects the law affords them no aid. The Rules provide for the ap- pointment of an arbitrator, who shall decide all disputes which arise within the body; but the law confers no power to enforce his decision. The Rules provide for the dismissal of any associate who shall refuse to submit to the decision of the arbitrator, or disobey any rule, or accept fee or reward from buyer or seller, or absent himself from work without excuse, or commit any criminal offence ; but the dismissal of a partner is im- possible in law, and submission to such dismissal is therefore simply optional. Hitherto, in the few cases in which it has been found necessary to enforce it, it has been submitted to ; but it is obvious that this could not be counted upon. In the second place, these bodies are without remedy against a peculating or fraudulent associate. The law assumes that the property of the * There is, indeed, a clause in the County Courts' Act, which enables suits for account in partnership matters to be brought into those courts, when the balance to be recovered is under a certain amount ; but the clause is imperfect and inadequate, applies only to a particular case, and has in practice been found almost unworkable. INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 439 partnership is the property of each member of it ; and accordingly any individual may march off with goods or money belonging to the body, with perfect impunity, as far as any criminal proceeding is concerned, and with no liability whatever to any civil process, except through a court of equity. Of course no association can long flourish in such an unprotected condition. As a sample of the actual operation of the law in this par- ticular, we may mention that a working Bakers' Asso- ciation, which never numbered more than five members, has had to suffer from the frauds of three of them in succession ; and at last, though carrying on a flourishing trade, has had to be constituted as an ordinary master- ship.* It is clear that in the case of these associations, prompt criminal, even more than civil, remedies are required. In this respect there is an obvious difference between partnerships of labour and partnerships of capital: redress may be afforded by the purse in the latter case ; it must be sought for from the person in the former. These will be composed entirely of the humbler classes, who unfortunately supply the great bulk of our criminal population, whose passions are stronger, and whose moral restraint is generally less; many of whom will have little or nothing to lose, and can only be reached through personal suffering or in- convenience. Again, it must be observed that the frauds to which these working associations are mainly exposed, viz., petty abstractions of money, and above all of goods and materials, are precisely those against which capitalists' partnerships have, practically, in almost * In one case, however, criminal proceedings were taken with success by the manager against an embezzling associate. It was held by the Court that the accused was not a partner, the association being one in which a subscription was required, and he not having paid any money, nor otherwise fulfilled any of the conditions of membership. TT 4 440 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. all cases, criminal remedies ; inasmuch as the persons who there have the opportunity to commit these frauds are simply servants and not partners. Whereas, in labour partnerships, by their very constitution, those functions which are elsewhere performed by hired ser- vants, are here performed by partners. To confine them therefore to civil remedies, is virtually to deny them justice altogether. The third difficulty is one which we need only name : they cannot sue or be sued in the name of the firm of the managers. If they exceed twenty-six members, they come under the operation of the Joint Stock Companies Act, which, having been framed with a view to large undertakings and partnerships of capitalists, is wholly inapplicable to their case. Among other requirements, impossible for them to fulfil, this act requires the deed of settlement to state " the amount of the proposed capital, and of any proposed additional capital, and the means by which it is to be raised ; and when the capital shall not be money, or shall not consist entirely of money, the nature of such capital, and the value thereof, shall be stated." Another clause requires the division of the capital into equal shares, and the specification of the total number of those shares; also the total number held by each subscriber. Now all these regulations are obviously quite beside the mark in the case of working men's associations, which begin, perhaps, with three members, and a capital of 30/., and gradually rise to fifty members and a capital of 3000/., and which divide profits according to labour performed, not according to shares held. Moreover, the expense incurred and the penalties risked in the case of joint stock companies working under their special act, would be fatal to the formation of labouring associations. The expense of certificates of registration, provisional and final, is 5/. each ; and for the total cost of registration under the INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 441 act, 501. would be a low average. Then a penalty of 20/. is incurred by delaying provisional registration ; 20. for delaying returns of alterations, &c. in the deed of settlement ; 20/. for delaying half-yearly returns of transfers of shares, &c. &c. Now what is asked on behalf of these associations is simply a legal existence, with power to sue arid be sued, enter into contracts, buy, sell, &c., and a simple and prompt protection against fraud or violation of rules. These objects might be at once and easily attained by the introduction into the Friendly Societies Act, of which we spoke at the beginning of this paper (and which is so great a favourite with the working classes), of a clause including working associations (when duly certified and registered) among those which are there enumerated in 2. as entitled to the benefit of the act, or to those sections of it at least (viz. 13, 14, 22 30.) which provide for legal existence, prompt decisions, and cheap remedies, for they do not ask either for exemption from stamp duties, or for precedence in the recovery of debts. All that they demand is in fact that which the theory of English law guarantees to every man, viz. protection in legitimate and honest enterprise, and the easy enforcement of free and fair contracts. A single clause in a single act of parlia- ment would give them this. Many of the above remarks will apply to Co-operative Stores, which have been established in many places by Societies of working men, with the object of supplying themselves with good and genuine articles at a fair market price, and dividing among themselves any accru- ing profit, in proportion to their dealings. There seems to be no valid ground assignable why these associations should not be entitled to the protection of the law, and why summary remedies should not be afforded them against those frauds to which they are from their 442 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. nature peculiarly exposed. There appears no re'ason why workmen who choose to combine their earnings in order to compete, in a regular trade, with individual capitalists, should not be enabled to do so legally and with safety. In fact, a clause in the Friendly Societies Act called "the Frugal Investment Clause" enables them to do so, provided they confine their dealings to their own members: if they sell, even occasionally or by chance, to other customers, they forfeit the protection of the act. This limitation has been found practically to exclude them nearly all. It has been found almost impossible, among a limited number of subscribers, to dispose of all the goods required for the purposes of trade. Thus, the People's Mill, at Leeds, the largest and most flourishing co-operative body in England, is said to have suddenly discovered itself to be thrown out of the pale of the law, because while all its flour is eagerly bought up by subscribers, it has been compelled to seek elsewhere customers for its bran. And, practi- cally, the plan set on foot by the co-operative store at Galashiels, has been found to be the most successful one by far viz., that of selling indiscriminately to sub- scribers and to the public, but dividing profits among subscribers only, in proportion to their subscription. An alteration of the "Frugal Investment Clause" is, however, required to bring such stores within its scope. The public would probably gain by such an alteration, as these stores are often found to sell a more genuine article, and to give better weight, than other establish- ments. It is necessary for the shopman to be honest in dealing with subscribers, whose agent he is indeed he has no motive to be otherwise ; while it would be obviously impracticable for him to carry on an unfair trade with the public, side by side with a fair one with his employers, even if every customer were not looked INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 443 to as a future subscriber, whom it is desirable to en- courage and attract. So far all seems plain sailing ; but here we are met by a very serious and weighty objection urged in the name of simple justice. "It is manifestly unjust (it is said) to expose Joint Stock Companies and ordinary Partnerships to the competition of associations which are exempted from the heavy registration fees and other restrictive regulations of the former, and which also enjoy the privilege of cheap arbitration and summary remedy denied to the latter." The objection is one which must not be evaded, nor languidly and loosely met. But we think there are three considerations, which combine to deprive it of nearly all its practical force. In the first place, the encouragement and facilitation of investments for the savings of the poor has already been recognised by the legislature as a proper object for its attention. It has considered, moreover, that in this country the law affords so many casual, unintentional collateral advantages to the rich capitalist in the em- ployment of his accumulations, that it may safely, and without incurring the imputation of injustice or par- tiality, aid the poor man by certain easements and exemptions which may have some countervailing opera- tion. It does this in the case of Savings' Banks ; it does this in the case of Friendly Societies and small Insurance Offices ; taking care to surround them with such limit- ations as shall confine them to the objects for which, and the classes for whom, they were originally designed. It justifies them on a mingled plea of charity and fairness : it combats and neutralises an accidental advantage on the one side by an artificial advantage on the other. In the second place, the objection from Joint Stock Companies has little weight : the magnitude of the one set of bodies and the insignificance of the other almost 444 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. preclude the idea of competition ; and what is a more exact and cogent reply the expense of registration under the Friendly Societies Act is as great in propor- tion to the capital of the Association, as it is under the Joint Stock Companies Act. In the case, however, of working associations and co-operative stores, which would thus be enabled to compete at an advantage with small manufacturers or handicraftsmen, in the one case, and with ordinary tradesmen and shopkeepers in the other*, the objection is unanswerable save in one way : Do not deprive one party of the advantage, but extend it to the other. Every citizen who pays his contribution to the state, and obeys the laws, is ipso facto entitled to the protection of those laws in every honest and legi- timate undertaking, unhampered by formalities which he cannot observe, or expenses which he cannot pay : and to deny him this protection on the plea that to grant it would give him an unfair advantage over another party who has it not, is to countervail one injustice by the commission of another ; it is to remedy the evil by extending it ; it is for the state to compensate one citizen for the non-fulfilment of its tacit contract with him, by offering, most unpatriotically, to be equally backward in its fulfilment towards every other member of the commonwealth. Summary remedies against fraud, and prompt decision of disputes, are the indefeasible claims of every one ; and that state of things is self-con- demned which is compelled to deny these to one man because to concede them would be to act inequitably to another. In this country we proceed irregularly towards all improvements : ultimate and entire rectification arises out of the grotesque dilemmas into which attempts at * It must be observed, however, that the associations have to pay the expense of registration under the Friendly Societies Act a burden from which the small tradesman and the private capitalist are exempt. INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 445 partial rectification have landed us ; and in the present case, having, out of a sentiment of charity, granted easy and summary justice to Friendly Societies, we shall find ourselves dragged on, out of a sentiment of equity, to extend it to co-operative stores, and thence, tardily and reluctantly, to partnerships in general. A very brief and simple bill was prepared and laid before the President of the Board of Trade during last session, to give the needful legality and protection to the associations we have spoken of; but, in the press of more exciting, though far more unprofitable matter, it was not found possible to introduce it. We trust, how- ever, that it will not be allowed to lie over beyond another year. One of the subjects most earnestly considered by the Committee on Investments in 1850, and by another which grew out of it and sat during last session, was the desirability of encouraging partnerships with limited liability, and the mode in which this encouragement should be afforded, if at all. This matter had already been discussed at length in a very able report drawn up at the desire of the Board of Trade, by Mr. H. Bellenden Ker, and presented to parliament in 1837, and again by a Committee of the House of Commons, presided over by Mr. Gladstone, in 1844. The evidence given, and the opinions announced, were singularly conflicting ; and the judgments of the most competent lawyers and merchants utterly at variance. The balance, however, unquestionably inclined to the side of a relaxation of the present stringent law of Partnership, by which any limitation of partnership liability, except under a costly charter, is strictly prohibited ; by which all partners are responsible for the debts of the concern to their last farthing ; and by which any one deriving benefit from the concern in any manner, beyond the receipt of fixed 446 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. legal interest for money lent, is held to be a partner. The committee, which reported its labours to the House on the 8th July, 1851, while regretting the obstacles placed by the existing law of Partnership to many useful undertakings, shrank from the responsibility of giving a bold opinion in favour of the general introduction of limited liability, and resolved as follows : " That the law of partnership, as at present existing, viewing its importance in reference to the commercial character and rapid increase of the population and property of the country, requires careful and immediate revision. " They recommend, therefore, the appointment of a Com- mission of adequate legal and commercial knowledge, not only to consider and prepare a consolidation of the existing laws, but also to suggest such changes in the law as the altered condition of the country may require ; especial attention being paid to the establishment of improved tribunals, to decide claims by and against partners, in all partnership disputes ; and also to the important and much controverted question of limited or un- limited liability of partners." Those who advocate the introduction of the system of limited liability in this country argue thus*: (1.) England is an exception to the rest of the world in this particular. America, France, Holland, and the Con- tinent generally, admit, and have long admitted, part- nerships with limited liability in various forms, not only without injury, but with decided public and in- dividual advantage. In France, these partnerships are almost universal in the case of extensive undertakings, and are such favourites, that in 1847, out of the new partnerships registered, 164 were of this nature. In case of bankruptcy, it is alleged that they pay on an average much higher dividends than others. In Hol- land, many of the most useful projects (such as re- * Evidence of Messrs. Mill, Ludlow, Neale, Hughes, &c. Part- nership en Commandite, p. 213. INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 447 claiming land from the sea) have been carried out by means of limited partnerships, into which projects, without such limitation, prudent men would not have entered. In the State of New York, which, from the enormous extension of its commerce, may be considered as a fitter parallel for us, the law of limited liability exists, guarded by the simple guarantee of publicity, and no inconvenience is found to arise therefrom. (2.) Hundreds of undertakings, which would not only yield a fair profit to the projectors, but be of vast public advantage, are prevented in this country by the law of unlimited liability. Such are plans for local improve- ments, bridges, roads, &c., and in more than one in- stance, associations for building model lodging houses and cottages for the poor. Thousands of benevolent individuals, who would thankfully risk a hundred, or a few hundred pounds for a valuable object of this sort, in which there is a vastly preponderating probability of success, are deterred from joining in it, under a law which makes them liable for all contingencies, in the language of a great legal authority, " to their last shilling and their last acre." (3.) Great numbers, both of men and women, possessed of small means, to whom an increase of income is a great object, but absolute security a still greater, and who would gladly seek a higher return for a portion of their capital by investing it in industrial undertakings, dare not do so, where by the existing law they would become partners liable for the whole engagements of the concern. They are consequently driven upon landed and government securities, the price of which is thus artificially en- hanced, and their interest constantly reduced. (4.) The general desire for investments of varying return, but of limited liability, is shown by the wild and ir- rational rush into all undertakings, such as railway and foreign loans, where limited liability prevails. The rail- 448 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. way manias may be distinctly traced to our existing law of partnership: an alteration, which by introducing limited liability generally, should take away from these undertakings their special seductive feature, would do more than any other change to check these periodical follies and the panics which invariably follow. (5.) Commercial and industrial enterprises of magnitude would fall into the hands of more prudent men, to the incalculable gain of the public, since it is, at all events, a primd facie argument against a man's pru- dence, that he should engage with a number of others in an enterprise, for the success of which, not merely the sum he may embark in it, but his whole fortune, is responsible. (6.) The security of the public which deals with these limited associations, would be increased in two ways : in the first place, as the sum for which each partner was responsible would be duly announced and registered, the public would know to a shilling the capital on which the concern was trading, an ad- vantage, which under the present system it never possesses; in the second place, in case of failure, the parties who now lend money to the concern, and con- sequently come in as creditors, would in the other case have become limited partners, and their contributions or loans would therefore be available to the creditors. (7.) It is urged, further, that the legislature steps out of its province when it interferes to prevent parties from combining in any manner they may think fit for legitimate and useful purposes, provided only that the public be secured against deceptive secrecy, or frau- dulent misrepresentations. (8.) And, finally, it is alleged that the law of limited liability, in the form of commandite Partnership, has already been sanctioned by our government, inasmuch as an act (still in force) was passed for Ireland in 1782 (21 and 22 Geo. III. c. 46.), legalising such partnerships when entered into INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 449 for periods not exceeding fourteen years, and when willing to comply with certain simple formalities. It is not easy to weaken the cogency of arguments such as these ; but it is urged by the supporters of the existing law*: (1.) That the laws of foreign countries can seldom be adopted with safety as applicable here, inasmuch as the analogy is never perfect ; that peculiar circumstances and long habit may render principles safe and beneficial in America, Belgium, or Holland, which would be dangerous or noxious in England ; and that partnership en commandite is considered by many parties not to work well in France. (2.) That how- ever desirable a change in the law might be in poor countries, where it was important to tempt capital into industrial enterprises by every encouragement that could be offered, no such motive exists here, where the rate of interest is so low, and the amount of capital constantly seeking investment so enormous, that no project, however attended with risk, which offers a fair prospect of remuneration, ever languishes or slips through for lack of means. (3.) That if the change were complicated with such restrictions as would be needed to secure the country from its evil consequences and possible abuse, the complaints and confusions would be endless, as may be gathered from the difficulties which have arisen under the Joint Stock Act, and the Winding-up Act; if the change were "pure and simple," absolute and unconditional, we should have such a sudden and terrific burst of speculation as would throw all previous manias into the shade ; companies would be formed for the wildest and the most trivial projects : partnership associations would multiply, down to six-penny toyshops ; the savings of the middle and working classes would rush into schemes of every con- * Evidence of Mr. Bellenden KLT, Jules Lechevalier, &c. VOL. I. G G 450 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. ceivable degree of delusiveness, and the most wide- spread ruin and the bitterest disappointment would be the result. The conclusion which forces itself upon our minds after hearing the pleadings of the two parties, is clearly this: That partnerships with limited liability are desirable and just, but that great caution is needed in the introduction of them. There seems no difficulty in reconciling the two requirements, the demands of individual interest, and of public safety. Happily, we have the opinion of an eminent lawyer and a high authority, Mr. Bellenden Ker, in his well-known report, that the proposed change might be easily and effectually added to our present law, and might be guarded by such provisions as would secure justice both to partners and to creditors; and we have, in existing arrange- ments, a mode by which such limited partnerships might be established without risk of the excessive con- sequences which have been urged as likely to result from their sudden and unchecked prevalence. The Crown can now grant, through the instrumentality and on the responsibility of the Board of Trade, charters of incorporation, where, in its wisdom, it shall deem fit, such charters conferring the privilege of limited liability each shareholder being answerable only to the extent of the full amount of his share, and enforcing pub- licity of accounts, shares, and transfers. But the ex- pense of obtaining these charters has hitherto been so great as to render them virtually inaccessible to any but large undertakings and wealthy parties. It is in evidence, that a company which was formed for the purpose of improving the dwellings of the poor in the county of Gloucester, was broken up in consequence of the inability to obtain a charter except at a cost which would have been fatal to their humble means; and a similar association in London, which did obtain such INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 451 a charter, was almost ruined by it : the charter and the legal expenses attending its procural, exceeding 1100/., of which 7241. went to the various departments of the government. The Committee of last session recom- mend, that charters conferring limited liability shall be granted on much easier terms, and on certain fixed rules ; and Mr. Ker appears to concur in the sug- gestion. By this means all bond fide, reasonable, and hopeful enterprises might be rendered practicable and easy ; while at the same time, the wild burst of specu- lation and fraud, anticipated from a simple and ab- solute legislation of limited liability, would be avoided. Limitation of liability, however, is chiefly desired for the sake of the middle classes and the public ; the poor care little about it ; the amount which they would venture would generally be their all. There is, how- ever, one form of it which it is thought might greatly benefit them, and which is strongly recommended by so high an authority as Mr. Mill. This is partnership en commandite, which affords peculiar facilities for the union of large and small capitalists in joint under- takings ; and would enable manufacturers, for instance, in this country to associate their saving workmen with them as partners having a direct interest in the success of the concern, without at the same time giving them the powers or privileges of partners to interfere, to mismanage, or to peculate, as they might do by the existing law. By the law of commandite, commercial or manufacturing companies may be formed with any number of partners, who are divided into two classes, the general partners, who are usually (or are sup- posed to be) the largest capitalists, who are responsible to the public to the extent of their entire property, and who retain the uncontrolled management of the busi- ness ; and the special partners (as they are termed in New York), the commanditaires (as they are named in 452 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. France), who are liable only to the amount of the capital they have subscribed (which amount is duly advertised}, and who are precluded by law from any interference in the conduct of the enterprise. By this arrangement, the managing partners, of whom alone the public has cognisance, are, as by our ordinary law, responsible with their whole property ; and, as against them, the public has therefore the same security as now ; while, as against the inferior or special partners, whom it does not know, and who as comparatively exempt from risk themselves might be disposed to be more reckless and venturesome in their mode of carrying on business, it has the security that they are entirely excluded from any share in the conduct of the concern. The public, again, has the further security that, in case of bankruptcy, the property of these secondary partners goes to swell the assets of the estate; whereas, had they merely lent their money to the concern (as, under our law, they probably would have done), they would claim as creditors, and so swell the liabilities of the estate. To the chief partners, this law offers the advantage of enabling them to increase their own means by the contributions of others (whose knowledge of their skill and integrity induces them to confide their smaller capitals to their charge), without feeling that they are incurring debt thereby ; and they are thus enabled to carry out many enterprises which, however safe and profitable, they could not otherwise have undertaken. To the secondary partners, the law offers an easy and advantageous mode of becoming partakers in the profits of capital a great object of ambition with all the industrious with only a modified degree of risk, and of thus securing a higher return upon their savings than mere government securities can ever offer. It enables them to lend money at a rate of INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 453 interest fluctuating with the success of the undertaking, instead of at a fixed rate a plan surely quite legiti- mate and beneficial both to borrower and lender. XOAV, we are quite aware that there maybe objections to the introduction of such a law into England. It is possible nay, probable that disappointment might be the most general issue of the associations in question. \\Q are not blind to, nor would we make light of, the chance that the hard savings of workmen may in some cases be lost, by entrusting them to imprudent or dis- honest employers, or by the facilities afforded to over- rash and confident speculators. But a regard for the wishes of industrious and respectable operatives, seems to demand that the plan should have full consideration, and, if possible, a fair trial. Among them, as we have often had occasion to observe, there has long existed a rooted dissatisfaction with the remuneration of their labour. They are convinced that the division of profits between the employers and themselves of the produce of their conjoined capital and labour is unfair; that they, as labourers, receive only scanty and inadequate wages, while the capitalist, their master, pockets enor- mous returns upon his investment, which they, as they conceive it, make profitable for him. That this im- pression is generally unfounded, and is often the very reverse of true, few persons closely acquainted with the matter will dispute ; but it is so ingrained into " the artisan mind," and has been so recklessly confirmed by the wild assertions of both orators and writers, that nothing but experience will disabuse them of it. It is, on all accounts, very desirable that workmen should, where it is practicable, be made practically cognisant of the uncertainties of the manufacturing or other en- terprise in which they are employed that their interest should be more closely and more obviously bound up G G 3 454 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. with those of the capitalist who employs them that they should learn, by individual experience, what the profits of capital, when fairly reckoned, really are. As long as such participation is denied them, they will continue, and perhaps ought to continue, dissatisfied, jealous, and suspicious. They would not perhaps, on the whole, be richer; but they would assuredly be wiser and more contented for the experiment. To some such plan we should look, not without hope, as the best means of eradicating that hostile feeling which too often subsists between the operative classes and their em- ployers. The latter, we are sure, would be gainers by the attempt. A manufacturing enterprise, in which all the head workmen should be partners en commandite, and should, in consequence, feel their own interests bound up with the success of the concern, without having any right of interference with its management would find itself possessed of quite a new element of prosperity. Economy would be studied processes would be shortened waste would be avoided, and energy would be infused into every department, to a degree unattainable in concerns conducted in the ordi- nary way. It would be as if the master could be om- nipresent personally and incessantly watching each department and subdivision of the business. But the chief benefit most unquestionably would be this : that, if successful, the operative would cease to be jealous of his master's prosperity, because he would be a sharer in it ; and, if unsuccessful, he would learn to " accuse no man falsely, and to be content with his wages." The bitter controversy between capital and labour, as to the division of their joint earnings, would receive the only satisfactory solution of which it is capable, by combining the two controversialists in one actual experiment together. INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 455 Some of our Christian Socialist friends will imagine they can trace, in certain passages and expressions of this Article, indications of an approaching conversion to their views. We can encourage no such hopes. We must remind them that we are the advocates of nothing here which we have not recommended often before ; and we pray them to observe that there is a wide dif- ference between wishing that the principle of co-opera- tion should have a fair field, and believing that it ever can, or ought to, supersede the principle of competition. We are as far as ever from conceiving, that working men's associations and co-operative stores will prove the agencies they are expected to be for the regeneration of our social state. We anticipate, that the attempts to combine the functions, and monopolise the profits, of labour, capital, and superintendence in the same hands, will, in the majority of instances, result, as they always have resulted, in failure and disappointment ; that the same good sense, and the same experience, which ori- ginally led to the separation of the capitalist and la- bourer operative and superintendent manufacturer and merchant producer and distributor will repro- duce and perpetuate these distinctions ; and that their harmonious combination as separate functions, and not their artificial amalgamation, will continue for an inde- finite period in spite of occasional and experimental exceptions the normal condition of the several ele- ments of the economic world. Still, though Christian Economists, and not Christian Socialists ; though hold- ing the great truths of Economic Science to be ascer- tained and unassailable, and the great facts, propensities, and principles of human nature to be permanent and ineradicable ; though convinced, therefore, that schemes which run counter to those truths must come to nought, and that hopes founded upon the extinction or trans- G O 4 456 INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. mutation of these propensities and principles, are built upon the sand ; yet, above all and before all, we are lovers of justice. We know that no experiment can be fairly pronounced upon till it has been fairly tried. We know that the trial and failure of any scheme can alone disabuse its advocates of their sanguine anticipations. We believe that the working classes now possess so much power and so much intelligence, that it is idle, and would be foolish, to thwart any of their legitimate endeavours to help themselves, and to find their own way out of their own dilemmas ; and that in political position and in mental activity, at least, if not in wisdom, they have passed that stage of helpless and submissive childhood, in which the State could and ought to pre- vent them from " swearing to their, own hurt," and might fitly step in to spare them from learning in the common and costly school of human nature that of experience. We think, moreover, that these co-opera- tive associations may be one of the most powerful of the many influences now at work for the education of the lower orders of the people ; that wisdom will be gained, if not wealth, from the industry, self-control, and mutual forbearance needed to conduct them; and that like the children of the wise old man, who set them to dig over his land, in all directions, for hidden riches (which was not gold, as they supposed, but the fertility which they thus unintentionally conferred upon the soil) these associated labourers may find in their experiment, not indeed the treasure which they seek, but a treasure not less real nor less lasting. The principle of associa- tion is unquestionably a mighty and prolific one ; if, as Socialists conceive, it does really contain a secret strength, by virtue of which society can be purified, its wounds healed, its heartburnings soothed, and its bitter animosities lulled to rest for ever, why, the fairer field INVESTMENTS FOR THE WORKING CLASSES. 457 we afford to its development, the sooner and the surer will this vivifying energy be brought to light. If, as older and soberer men who " stand upon the old way" -incline to fear, these sanguine hopes are in the main delusive, and altogether exaggerated, why, the more free and unhampered be the opportunities offered for the trial, the more clearly and promptly will the delu- sion be made manifest. At all events, it is not well to leave to the advocates of Socialism the possibility of ascribing the failure of their schemes, not to the inherent unsoundness of their principles, or the native impracti- cability of their means, but to artificial impediments to the injustice of the law to the envy or the enmity of the rich and great. 458 ENGLISH SOCIALISM.* GENIUS, which is always welling up in copious streams from the great field of humanity, flows in different channels at different eras. In early times it took a warlike form, and the men of genius were conquerers and heroes. In later ages, as the world grew more pacific, and the relations of society more complex, the art of government became more important than the art of conquest, and the men of genius were statesmen and civilians. At other times the development of genius gave birth in predominating measure to painters and poets, who transferred to their canvas or their pages those graceful forms and exquisite imaginations which became to art the models of eternal beauty. The su- perb achievements of which human intellect is capable have in recent years chiefly shown themselves in the sphere of physical science, and in the application of scientific discoveries to the furtherance of material civi- lisation ; and natural philosophers and engineers have been the real poets (iroiyrat, makers or doers) and won- der-workers of our day. And now, when almost every * From the " Edinburgh Review." 1. Alton Locke, Tailor and Poet. An Autobiography. London : 1850. 2. Cheap Clothes and Nasty. By PARSON LOT. London : ] 850. 3. Christian Socialism. A Dialogue. London : 1850. 4. The Leader. Epistolae obscurorum virorum, xii. xiii. Com- munism. London: 1850. 5. Systeme des Contradictions Economiques. Par M. PROUDHON. Paris: 1850. 6. Distribution of Wealth. By W. THOMPSON. A new Edition. By W. PARE. London : 1850. ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 459 desideratum in this line which imagination can conceive is either supplied, or in the way of being so when turf is being made into candles, and water into gas when the Isthmus of Panama is about to be cut through, and Paris and London are united by continuous wires when we travel with the speed of wings, and communi- cate with the speed of light it does seem as if the time were come for genius to find a new field for its de- velopment and display; arid there are many hopeful indications that the same glorious faculty which has reaped harvests of enduring laurels in most other de- partments, is about to take up the case of man himself. The time is come for the leading spirits to devote them- selves, heart and soul, to the solution of those perilous enigmas of life which have so long formed our per- plexity and our despair, and to the cure of those social anomalies which darken the fair face of the modern world, and make us feel, sadly and humbly, how im- perfect and partial is the civilisation we exult in. It cannot be that the same intellect which has wrung from nature her most hidden secrets, which has tri- umphed over the most gigantic material obstructions, which has " exhausted worlds and then imagined new," which has discovered and described laws operating in regions of space, separated from us by a distance so vast that human imagination cannot picture it, and arithmetical language can hardly express it should not, when fairly applied to social and administrative science, be competent to rectify our errors, and to smooth our path ; unless, indeed, society take refuge in the dreary creed, which never shall be ours, that the problem before us is insoluble and the wretchedness around us inherent and incurable. "If this were so," says Air. Mill, "if the bulk of the human race are always to remain as at present, slaves to toil in which they have no interest, and there- 460 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. fore feel no interest drudging from early morning till late at night for bare necessaries, and with all the intel- lectual and moral deficiencies which this implies without interests or sentiments as members of society, and with a sense of injustice rankling in their minds, equally for what they have not and for what others have, I know not what there is which should make a person with any capacity of reason concern himself about the destinies of the human race. There would be no wisdom for any one, but in extracting from life, with epicurean indifference, as much personal satisfaction for himself and those with whom he sympathises, as it can yield without injury to any one, and let the un- meaning bustle of so-called civilised existence roll by unheeded. But there is no ground for such a view of human affairs." There is a far greater probability of truth in a remark we once heard from Dr. Chalmers, " that the world is so constituted that if we were morally right we should be physically happy ; " and that all our sufferings and evils (so far as they exceed those insepar- able from a finite and imperfect nature) may be traced to ignorance or neglect of those laws of nature which God has established for our good and has displayed for our instruction. We agree with the Socialists in hold- ing that the world can never have been intended to be, and will not long remain, what it is. The apparent contradiction between the vast amount of unrelieved misery and the vast amount of energetic benevolence now existing in our country, which strikes so many with despair, inspires us, on the contrary, with the most sanguine hopes ; because, in that benevolence, we see ample means of remedying nearly all our evils means hitherto impotent and unavailing solely because mis- applied. There is now, more than ever before, an adequate knowledge of the ills which are to be battled with and conquered ; there is energy without stint or ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 461 limit waiting, panting to be let loose upon it ; there are agents without number only anxious to be shown how they can do good, without at the same time doing a more than counterbalancing amount of evil, sometimes, alas ! not waiting for this guidance ; and there is money ready to flow in the most liberal abundance for the fur- therance of any scheme which promises to relieve want or to assist exertion. All that is needed is the wisdom to direct this vast machinery for good, and a strong con- viction on the part of the public that, unless it can be placed under the guidance of sound principle, it must be mischievous and not beneficent. This great lesson is at length beginning to be learned. There are two classes of philanthropists the feelers and the thinkers the impulsive and the systematic those who devote themselves to the relief or the mitiga- tion of existing misery, and those who, with a longer patience, a deeper insight, and a wider vision, endeavour to prevent its recurrence and perpetuation by an inves- tigation and eradication of its causes. The former in imitation, as they imagine, of their Master go from house to house assuaging momentary wretchedness, but alas! not always "doing good;" relieving present evils, but too often leaving an increasing crop ever springing up under their footsteps ; attended and rewarded by blessings, but doomed, probably, at length to feel that they have ill deserved them. Far different is the course of the latter class : their life is spent in a laborious re- search into remote and hidden causes ; in a patient and painful analysis of the operation of principles from the misapplication or forgetfulness of which our social dis- orders have for the most part sprung ; in sowing seeds and elucidating laws that are to destroy the evil at a distant date which they themselves may never see, by which sometimes its pressure may be aggravated during the period which they do see. They are neither re- 462 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. warded by the gratitude of those for whom they toil since the benefits they confer are often blessings in dis- guise and in futurum ; nor gratified by beholding the fruit of their benevolent exertions for the harvest may not be ripe till all of them have passed away and till most of them have been forgotten. Nay, more, they are misrepresented, misconstrued, accused of hardness of heart by a misconceiving generation, and too often cursed and thwarted by the very men in whose service they have spent their strength. And while those who have chosen the simpler and easier path are reaping blessings in return for the troubles they have ignorantly stimulated and perpetuated by relieving, these men the true martyrs of philanthropy must find their consolation and support in unswerving adherence to sound principles and unshrinking faith in final victory, and must seek their recompense if they need one in the tardy recognition of their virtues by a distant and a wiser time. While therefore the warm and ardent natures, which can find no peace except in the free in- dulgence of their kindly impulses, are worthy of all love, and even, amid all the mischief they create, of some ad- miration for their sacrifices and zeal and while we fully admit that they also may have a mission to fulfil we cast in our lot with their more systematic fellow- labourers who address themselves to the harder, rougher, more unthankful task, of attacking the source rather than the symptoms of eradicating social evils rather than alleviating them. We can, however, sympathise keenly with those ex- cellent women and those kind-hearted men cast in somewhat the same mould who ask, " Are we, then, to sit by with folded hands, and listen to the groans and gaze upon the misery around us, till political and economic science"^ which we confess our incompetence to understand has discovered and established the ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 463 systems and institutions which will in time rectify the world ? Are we to do nothing, lest we should sow some tares among our wheat lest in doing good we should do some harm also ?" By no means. There is an ample field for every species of benevolence: and for this very numerous and most valuable class of philan- thropists, the investigation and assistance of individual cases of difficulty and distress is the appropriate path. If, instead of miscellaneous charity, which is at once so easy and so injurious, and instead of liberal subscriptions to charitable institutions, which are so often misdirected and misconducted, they would take two or three strug- gling individuals, or two or three destitute families, under their special charge, thoroughly examine into their condition and its causes, aid them to escape from it or to mitigate its hardships, and put them in the way of an attainable livelihood, they would find that such a course might cost them more trouble, it is true, but less money ; and they would assuredly soon acquire the conviction that they had done more real good, and conferred more lasting happiness, than they could have brought about by ten times the outlay in subscriptions, at the same time, that at all events, the service they had done will be unalloyed. The Governess' Benevolent Institution we believe to be one of the most useful, praise- worthy, and best-conducted that exists, and least open to economic criticism; but, supposing each lady who, in the course of her life, subscribes 100. to its funds and spends days in canvassing, personally or by letter, for an extension of its benefits to some favoured protegee were to keep her eye fixed upon two or three individual governesses instead. Let her aid thefti in their struggles, advise them in their difficulties, comfort them in their distress, take them in for a period when they want a home, and, if they needed, (which, in case the surveil- lance had been judicious and effective, they seldom 464 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. would,) console them with a small pension in their age : would not the aggregate number of cases thus relieved and the aggregate of happiness thus conferred be far greater and far surer than by the present system ? To make our meaning clearer, we will quote from " Alton Locke " a case of heart-rending distress ; which, though in a work of fiction, we willingly believe or rather, we are compelled to believe, however unwillingly to be deplorably too near the truth : " There was no bed in the room, no table. It was bare of furniture, comfortless, and freezing cold ; but, with the excep- tion of the plaster dropping from the roof, and the broken windows patched with rags and paper, there was a scrupulous neatness about the whole which contrasted strangely with the filth and slovenliness outside. On a broken chair by the chimney sat a miserable old woman, fancying that she was warming her hands over embers that had long been cold, and muttering to herself, with palsied lips, about the guardians and the work- house ; while upon a few rags on the floor lay a girl, ugly, marked with small-pox, hollow-eyed, emaciated, her only bed- clothes the skirt of a large handsome new riding-habit, at which two other girls, wan and tawdry, were stitching busily as they sat right and left of her on the floor. The old woman took no notice of us as we entered ; but one of the girls looked up, and with a pleased gesture of recognition, put her fingers on her lips, and whispered * Ellen's asleep.' " * I am not asleep, dears,' answered a faint unearthly voice ; ' I was only praying. Is that Mr. Mackaye ?' " * Aye, my lasses ; but ha' ye gotten na fire the nicht ? ' " ' No, said one of them bitterly, ' we've earned no fire to- night by fair trade, or foul either.' " I saw Mackaye slip something into the hand of one of the girls, and whisper ' A half hundred weight of coals ; ' to which she replied with an eager look of gratitude I can never forget, * and hurried out. Then the sufferer, as if taking advantage of her absence, began to speak quickly and hurriedly. " * Oh, Mr. Mackaye, dear kind Mr. Mackaye, do speak to her ; and do speak to poor Lizzy here ! I'm not afraid to ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 465 say it before her, because she is more gentle-like, and has'nt learnt to say bad words yet ; but do speak to them, and tell them not to go the bad way, like all the rest. Tell them it '11 never prosper. I know it's want that drives them to it, as it drives all of us, but tell them it's best to starve and die honest girls, than to go about with the shame and the curse of God on their hearts for the sake of keeping this vile, poor, miserable body together for a few short years more in this world of sorrow For Lizzy here, I did hope she had repented of it after all my talking to her ; but since I've been so bad, and the girls have had to keep me most of the time, she's gone out o' nights just as bad as ever.' " Lizzy had hid her face in her hands the greater part of this speech. Now she looked up passionately, almost fiercely : " ' Repent ! I have repented, I repent of it every hour: I hate myself, and hate all the world because of it ; but I must I must : I cannot see her starve, and I cannot starve myself. When she first fell sick she kept on as long as she could, doing what she could ; and then between us we only earned three shillings a week : . . . and now Ellen can't work at all ; and there's four of us with the old lady to keep off two's work that couldn't keep themselves alone.' f( At this moment the other girl entered with the coals. *We have been telling Mr. Mackaye every thing,' said poor Lizzy. " ' A pleasant story, is'nt it ? Oh ! if that fine lady, as we're making this riding-habit for, would just spare half the money that goes in dressing her up to ride in the park, to send us out to the colonies, wouldn't I be an honest girl there ? May be an honest man's wife ! Oh my God ! wouldn't I slave my fingers to the bone for him ! wouldn't I mend my life there ! It 'ud be like getting into heaven out of hell. But now we must we must, I tell you.' " And she sat down and began stitching frantically at the riding-habit, from which the other girl had hardly lifted her eyes or hands for a moment during our visit." Now the question we wish our readers to ask them- selves is this : If each lady or gentleman, whose soul is harrowed by hearing of such wretchedness as is here VOL. I. H II 466 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. pictured, instead of rushing wildly to join or to found a society for sending distressed needlewomen out of the country by wholesale, would take in hand some one indi- vidual case, relieve the momentary want, search into the causes which have led to it, give these poor girls tem- porary work, put them in the way of regular employment, and, if found desirable, aid them, by private and careful benevolence, to reach the colonies, would not the amount of misery assuaged and prevented be not only infinitely greater, but the good done incalculably more unalloyed ? To be sure, the one method is easy and immediate, the other would be laborious, might be slow ; the one is public, the other private and unosten- tatious ; but if done in secret, we are told it shall be rewarded openly. We are far from wishing to discourage combined benevolence : we do not for a moment mean to maintain that ail charitable associations are unsound in their basis and noxious in their operation. What we desire to inculcate is this : that those whose feelings are too vivid, whose judgment is too impatient, or whose reasoning faculties are too untrained, to allow them to study philanthropy as a science, have no business with charity on a great scale, and cannot safely deal with in- stitutions which are engines of immense good or immense evil, according as they harmonise with or violate those principles of economical philosophy, to the investigation of which these parties confess themselves, by tempera- ment or by capacity, inadequate. With such powerful instruments none should have any thing to do whose feelings are too quick and vehement to leave their heads clear; and it is not from those who read much and see a little of particular forms and scenes of misery whose eyes are suddenly opened, by such revelations as the press has lately poured forth, to the existence of an abyss of wretchedness of which, till now, they had never dreamed, who are dazzled with the flood of darkness ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 467 let in upon them, and who have no experience to sober their conclusions and no previous knowledge to mitigate their horror, that a comprehensive and un- exaggerated judgment can be looked for. It is not from men whom the endurance or the spectacle of suffering has driven frantic, that cool deliberation, needful caution, or wise and salutary action can be hoped. The pamphlet at the head of our article, entitled " Cheap Clothes and Nasty," is a proof of this. It is well known to proceed from the pen of Mr. Kingsley, a clergyman of the Church of England, a zealous and ex- perienced parish priest, a gentleman of great literary ability, of very impatient benevolence, and evidently of somewhat imperious and supercilious temper towards all who would check his hasty conclusions, or proceed by a different path to the attainment of a common end. His feelings were strongly excited by Mr. Mayhew's letters in the " Morning Chronicle ; " and, as he himself states, he incontinently became demented, and put forth a tract full of raving wholly unworthy of his scholar- ship and station, and containing much abuse of the economists, who so far, after all, are only philanthropists more sober, thoughtful, and wary than himself. He opens thus : " King Ryence, says the legend of Prince Arthur, wore a paletot trimmed with kings' beards. In the first French revo- lution (so Carlyle assures us) there were at Meudon tanneries of human skins. Mammon, at once tyrant and revolutionary, follows both these noble examples in a more respectable way doubtless, for Mammon hates cruelty ; bodily pain is his devil the worst evil which he, in his effeminacy, can conceive. So he shrieks benevolently when a drunken soldier is flogged ; but he trims his paletots, and adorns his legs, with the flesh of men and the skins of women, with degradation, pestilence, heathendom, despair ; and then chuckles complacently over the smallness of his tailor's bills. Hypocrite I straining at a gnat, and swallow- ing a camel ! . . . . H H 2 468 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. " ' The man is mad,' says Mammon, smiling in supercilious pity. Yes, Mammon; mad as Paul before Festus; and for much the same reason too. Much learning has made us mad. From two articles in the ' Morning Chronicle,' on the condition of the working tailors, we learnt too much to leave us altogether masters of ourselves" Now, that reading such accounts of the sordid wretchedness of thousands of his fellow-creatures should have deprived Mr. Kingsley of his self-possession, is natural and pardonable an amiable weakness at the worst. That he should have been roused to spread far and wide a knowledge of those facts which had so startled and pained him, was natural and right also, provided he took due pains in the first instance to assure himself of the uneocaggerated correctness of these facts; but when he proceeded to assign the cause and to vitu- perate the imagined authors of this suffering, a con- scientious man ought to have felt that something more was demanded than a mere surrendering of himself to the guidance of his feelings. A few hours of cool re- flection, a little charity towards antagonistic reasoners, and some faint mistrust of his own mastery of a science which to judge from the language he employs he loathes and despises too much to have studied, would have induced him to suppress the foolish sneers at political economy with which his writings abound, and would have saved him from sending forth such disre- putable rant as this : " Sweet competition ! Heavenly maid ! Now-a-days hymned alike by penny-a-liners and philosophers as the ground of all society the only real preserver of the earth! Why not of heaven too? Perhaps there is competition among the angels, and Gabriel and Raphael have won their rank by doing the maximum of worship on the minimum of grace? We shall know some day. In the meanwhile, ' these arc thy works, thou Parent of all good ! ' Man eating man, eaten by man, in every variety of method and degree. Why does not some ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 4.69 enthusiastic political economist write an epic on ' The Conse- cration of Cannibalism ! " We should not be disposed to treat with any great severity the absurd or violent language of a bene- volent man whose understanding has been driven des- perate by the sight of suffering which he cannot relieve, and which he feels certain ought not to exist ; but in the diatribes against political economy, which is merely benevolence under the guidance of science, and which so many sincere philanthropists delight to study, a feeling very different from philanthropy may be detected ; an intolerant, contemptuous spirit ; a restless unwillingness to submit to criticism, ex- amination, or control; and a proneness to have re- course to persecution and abuse, which call for the strongest reprobation. In all times and among all classes it has been the clue of the violent, the impulsive, and the fanatical, to cast vituperative epithets on trouble- some opponents. The hasty innovator abuses the cau- tious reformer as an advocate of despotism ; the timid conservative confounds the friend of sober freedom with the anarchist ; and the man of orthodox but narrow piety is not ashamed to fling the name of Atheist upon all whose conceptions of the Deity are purer and loftier than his own. The unreasoning philanthropist, grown insolent from a persuasion of his own righteous- ness, goes to work in a similar manner: he does not scruple to inveigh against all, as cold and hard-hearted, who are clear-headed enough to see and to denounce the evil consequences which must result from his incon- siderate and short-sighted proceedings, all whom a deep, almost religious, sense of their responsibility, forbids to act before they think. In the very spirit of the Pharisee, he assumes that he alone is sympathising and tender-hearted; and that all those who taught by a longer experience, a deeper insight, a more studious H H 3 470 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. inquiry, would prevent Mm from losing the battle, by charging headlong before the line is formed, or the weapons distributed, or the ground examined, are selfish, indifferent, and unfeeling. Little do the mere impulsive philanthropists know, and ill can they appreciate, the strenuous effort, the stern and systematic self-control by which the votary of economic science, the benevolent man of principle, keeps his head cool and clear in the midst of the miseries he is called upon to contemplate ; and the resolute nerve which is needed to throw cold water on the mischievous schemes of sanguine and com- passionate contrivers. While these men rush fiercely on social evils, fancying it possible to sweep them away by a coup de main, and always insist upon scrambling out of the bog on the wrong side, simply because it is the nearest ; the very aim of the philosophy they mis- construe and decry, is to save them from the sin and the remorse of aggravating the evils both deplore, by setting out to combat them upon a wrong system. Its purpose is, to teach them how to combat, and it seeks to marshal them so as to secure the victory: though, in their self-opinionated and suspicious haste, they accuse it of lukewarmness or of treachery, and blindly commit themselves to the keeping of blind guides. We will not fall into their error, and proclaim the political econo- mists to be the only genuine philanthropists ; but we do deliberately claim for them the merit of the highest and most difficult order of benevolence. We claim for them the character of being, with the exception of those labo- rious and searching administrators of private charity, of whom we have spoken above, almost the only philan- thropists whose efforts do not issue in a preponderance of evil ; the only ones who have the manliness to with- stand hasty impulses, the industry to investigate patiently before they decide, the judgment to allow the head to direct, while the heart prompts to action ; the ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 471 only ones whose charity is under the guidance of a strict conscience, a lofty purpose, and a humble mind ; the only ones, therefore, whose benevolence rises from a mere good feeling, to the height and the dignity of a virtue. Mr. Kingsley, therefore, and writers of his school, when they permit themselves to indulge in language calculated to raise distrust and prejudice against eco- nomic thinkers, are guilty, not only of bearing false witness against fellow-citizens and fellow-labourers, but of leading the zeal of the humane away from the direc- tion in which alone it can yield the fruit desired. For, all schemes of social amelioration which violate the principles of economic science, must come to nought ; all which are consonant to them will find, from econo- mists, a ready welcome and hearty co-operation. It is probably because Mr. Kingsley has a dim consciousness that sound science will condemn his prospects and de- tect their fallacy, that he indulges in such bitter dia- tribes against it. He has satisfied himself with a half comprehension of the subject, and appears to have shrunk from the intellectual effort which a thorough investigation would require. An inquiry so vast, so difficult, so momentous, where a false doctrine or a false step may involve consequences which will echo through all time, demands no common qualities. It demands, primarily and pre-eminently, a close observa- tion and humble imitation of the plans of Providence, as far as it is given to man to discern them, and to aid in their accomplishment ; it demands profound compas- sion, but profounder patience ; boundless sympathy with every form of suffering, combined with quiet reso- lution in the application of the most searching probe ; an unshaken conviction that no great cardinal truth of science can be discarded with impunity, or worshipped and followed without leading to ultimate and mighty H II 4 472 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. good ; a firm faith that sound principles will, in God's good time, however slowly, and through whatever tri- bulation, work out his merciful and happy ends ; and that no short cuts unsanctioned by these principles such as human infirmity and natural impatience under suffering, either witnessed or endured, are constantly tempting us to take can lead us one moment sooner to our goal ; and, finally, it demands nerve to wait, alike through the distresses of others or our own, till the appropriate seed has ripened into the appointed harvest. Providence makes no short cuts ; and by the whole course of history has taught us that, if we attempt them, failure and disappointment must be the inevitable issue. " Patient, because eternal ;" acting by grand and immutable laws, which it is the province of science to discover, and the part of wisdom to obey ; silent, steady, and unswerving ; " without haste, but without rest;" the great Ruler of humanity leads us onwards towards the accomplishment of our destiny, in a pro- gress which we cannot quicken, but may retard, by en- deavouring to withdraw ourselves from his ordinances, and accelerate his march. " La Providence," says M. Guizot, " ne s'inquiete pas de tirer aujourd'hui la conse*- quence du principe qu'elle a pose hier ; elle la tirera dans les siecles, quand 1'heure sera venue ; et pour raisonner lentement selon nous, sa logique n'est pas moins sure. La Providence a ses aises dans le temps ; elle y marche en quelque sorte comme les dieux d'Ho- mere dans 1'espace, elle fait un pas, et des siecles se trouvent ecoules." The form which the ideas of many of the anti- economic philanthropists of whom we have spoken have of late assumed, tends towards an entire remodelling of the existing arrangements of society. In one shape or another, the doctrines of communism or socialism have acquired an importance and spread to an extent ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 473 which entitle them to serious and dispassionate con- sideration. As long as socialism was confined to the turbulent, the wild, and the disreputable, and was associated with tenets which made it at once disgusting and contemptible, perhaps the wisest plan was to pass it over in silence, and suffer it to die of its own in- herent weakness. But now, when it has appeared in a soberer guise and purified from much of its evil in- termixtures ; when it has shown itself an actual and energetic reality in France ; when it has spread among the intelligent portions of the working classes in our own country more extensively than is commonly be- lieved ; when it raises its head under various modifi- cations, and often as it were unconsciously, in the dis- quisitions which issue from the periodical press ; when a weekly journal, conducted with great ability as to everything but logic, is devoted to its propagation ; and when clergymen of high literary reputation give in their scarcely qualified adherence, and are actively engaged in reducing to practice their own peculiar modification of the theory it would no longer be kindly or decorous, to ignore a subject which is so deeply interesting to thousands of our countrymen ; and we believe we shall be doing good service by at- tempting, in a clear and concise form, to extract the truth and eliminate the error which are so strangely intermingled in the system, by a generous recognition of all that is sound and valuable, and a frank exposure, in no bitter or contemptuous spirit, of whatever is erroneous, untenable, and pernicious. Socialism is no new doctrine. From the earliest times men have been shocked and grieved by the evils which have prevailed in every land and in every form Avhich society has yet assumed : subtle and ingenious thinkers have imagined model republics in which no misery should exist; and zealous and earnest philan- 474 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. thropists have endeavoured to realise these high imagi- nations and put them in actual operation. The societies thus conceived or created have assumed every possible variety of form. We have had republican societies, like Plato's, Fourier's, and Babceuf 's ; hierarchical and aris- tocratic, like St. Simon's ; theocractic, like the Essenes ; despotic, like that of the old Peruvians and that of the Jesuits in Paraguay. Some have been based on purely material principles, like Mr. Owen's; some have been profoundly spiritual and religious, like the Moravians ; some maintain the family arrangements, some altogether merge them ; some recommend celibacy, as the Essenes ; some enforce it, as the Shakers ; some, like the Owenites, relax the marriage tie ; some, like the . Harmonists, control it ; some, like the Moravians, hold it sacred and indissoluble ; others, again, like Plato and the Ana- baptists of Munster, advocate a community of women. Some would divide the wealth of the society equally among all the members ; some, as Fourier, unequally. But one great idea pervades them all community of property, more or less complete and unreserved common labour for the common good. Now, we are little disposed to break butterflies upon the wheel.* We have, too, a deep sympathy with men, * This passage, and several others in this Paper, gave serious offence to some estimable individuals, of whom the author would be sorry to be supposed to speak, as he certainly does not think, without sincere respect. He was severely blamed for having used so contemptuous an expression as that of "breaking butterflies upon the wheel," in reference to two men of such unquestionable ability and eminence as Mr. Maurice and Mr. Kingsley ; and had he done so, the blame would have been richly merited. But a more careful reading of the passage would have shown his somewhat hasty cen- surers, that his dislike to " break butterflies upon the wheel," is alleged precisely as his reason for directing his criticism against Messrs. Maurice and Kingsley, to whose high ability, lofty cha- racter, and vigorous earnestness of purpose, he is glad of this oppor- tunity of bearing willing testimony. For the severity with which ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 475 and classes of men, who are endeavouring to struggle upwards under popular obloquy, and to cast off a bad reputation, either by showing that they have never deserved it, or that they deserve it no longer. In speaking, therefore, of socialism, we shall not attempt to excite prejudice against it by calling to mind what it has been, what bad company it has kept, to what conclusions it might be logically driven, with what scandalous and frightful scenes it has been connected in past time and in other lands. We shall not attempt to show what a poor intellectual development has pre- vailed in all the societies of which it has been the foundation ; we shall not crucify afresh the low and fatal doctrine of the Owenites, and of nearly all the communists, in deifying the omnipotence of external circumstances ; we shall not again expose that sad mixture of despotism and licentiousness which dese- crated and destroyed St. Simonism ; we shall not take advantage of the admission of the most recent and almost official advocate of communism, Mr. Thornton Hunt, that community of property, logically followed out, will, in the end, destroy the institution of marriage. A\ e will forgive the communists all their unlucky asso- ciations and all their disreputable antecedents ; and we proceed to criticise their theory and their proceedings solely in the modified and sobered form which they have now assumed. The position which they take is this : Society is altogether out of joint. Its anomalies, its he has spoken of those who, directly or implicitly, hold up economists and economic science to public hatred, as the negation and not the embodiment of philanthropy, and of Mr. Kingsley as one of the chief sinners in this line, he has no apology to offer and no recant- ation to make. It v/ould be an easy, but not a pleasant task, to cite from Mr. Kingsley's writings, passages in abundance which would amply justify the language of reprobation, which the author has felt called upon to use. 476 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. disfigured aspects, its glaring inequalities, the sufferings of the most numerous portion of it,* are monstrous, in- defensible, and yearly increasing : mere palliatives, mere slow improvements, mere gradual ameliorations will not meet its wants ; it must be remodelled, not merely furbished up. Political economy has hitherto had it all its own way ; and the shocking condition into which it has brought us, shows that its principles must be strangely inadequate or unsound. The miseries of the great mass of the people, their inability to find work, or to obtain, in return for such work as can be performed in reasonable time and by ordinary strength, a sufficiency of the comforts and necessaries of life, may nearly all be traced to one source competition, instead of combination. The antagonistic and regene- rative principle which must be introduced, is asso- ciation. Let workmen associate with one another, in- stead of competing with one another, and there will be work and wages enough for all. Competition is a cruel and unchristian system : association breathes the very spirit of our divine Master. Such is the ground taken by Messrs. Kingsley and Maurice ; such is the foundation of the various associations of working men which have been recently formed in London and in Paris, and which are spreading through the country ; and such we are willing to regard as the form which English socialism or communism has assumed, and under which it has to be discussed. In the first place, the assertion that "political eco- nomy has hitherto had it all its own way," and is, therefore, chargeable with the present state of things, we meet with the most indignant and peremptory denial. It is not only not true, but is precisely the reverse of true. Economists affirm, and with perfect justice, that the existing wretchedness of England is directly traceable to ignorance, neglect, and systematic ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 477 violation of the principles of political economy. It is difficult to name a single precept of that science, which has not been either lost sight of, or habitually con- travened. Political economy says, Industry ought to be as unshackled as the wind ; restriction cripples it ; protection misdirects it ; the two together diminish its productiveness, and the number of mouths it can sup- port. Yet till five years ago, when, within the historic period, has English industry been free and unimpeded ? Political economy, re-echoing Christianity and common sense, long since proclaimed " that if any man would not work, neither should he eat:" our law has enacted that a man shall eat, whether he will work or not. Political economy, repeating the simple teachings of morality, pronounced that if a man married without means or prospects, and brought children into the world whom he was unable to support, he acted un- justly and selfishly, as well as imprudently, and that the correction of his fault should be left to its natural results: the law stepped in between the cause and its consequence, between the folly and its cure, and de- clared that if he could not support his own children, the prudent, the industrious, and the self-denying should do it for him. Political economy, reiterating the dictates of nature, proclaimed that the larger the family a man had to support by his labour, the scantier must be the allowance of each member of it ; the com- mon custom, till 1834, was to increase the peasant's wages or allowance with every additional child that was born to him. Political economy said to the la- bourer, If 'population increases faster than the field of employment enlarges or the demand for labour aug- ments, your position will inevitably deteriorate : divines and county magistrates scouted such philo- sophy, and inculcated upon their hearers " increase and multiply," the strength of a country lies in its num- 478 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. bers, "dwell in the land, and verily thou shalt be fed." Lastly, political economy said, Industry, fru- gality, forethought, and perseverance shall not fail of their reward, nor indolence, un thrift, and crime es- cape a bitter and certain retribution ; the condition of the former must, under any circumstances, be im- measurably and obviously preferable. But no such thing. Disappointed and discouraged virtue sarcas- tically points on the one side, to the half-famished labourer and the struggling and squalid artisan; on the other, to the pauper, better fed and more warmly clothed, and his children gratuitously and admirably educated, and to the criminal in a model prison, with his comfortable cell, his warm and cold water, his cocoa, his soup, his Bible, and his bell, and asks if political economy has indeed ruled this anomalous and enigmatic world. In the second place, one of the chief notions which lie at the root of this vast scheme for associated labour, is precisely the same which dictated the guilds in the middle ages, the desire to proportion the supply of labour to the demand, by previous arrangements. It is a step back into the past. In one of the letters written to explain " what communism is," which we have placed at the head of this article, Mr. Hunt thus expresses himself: " The fundamental principle of all communistic theories and systems call them by what name you will, is the principle of concert in the division of employments The prin- ciple of communism appears to me to be the complement to the division of employments. The theory is, that if several men combine their labour, and divide the several employments among them, the economy of time, and the acquisition of skill, will in- crease the amount of produce ; and no one will deny that the gross increase of produce must be beneficial to society. Such is the theory ; but what do we find to be the fact ? The fact is that the gross amount of produce is not proportionably in- ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 479 creased ; that to many of the dividers of labour it is not increased at all ; and that the return of produce for labour is in no respect apportioned to exertion. I find the plain and direct ground of this in icant of concert. It is plain that if any given number of men combine, and divide employments, they can make their labour much more productive, if there is some concert between them as to the distribution of their labour ; but if there is not that concert, the chances are that some of them will be working in duplicate producing glut; otherwise working at things not wanted; others doing about the right thing; and a few hitting on something very valuable. And when they come to divide their produce by the principle of trading exchange, a fair share will go to those who have done the right thing, half-a-share a-piece to those who have been working in duplicate, nothing to those who have worked, however honestly, yet uselessly, and an accumulation of several shares to him who has hit upon the most precious something. Precisely a description of our unorganised labour. " It is presumed that competition increases produce more than concert would. This is a very gross presumption, and I believe a very erroneous one. In the first place, it is quite clear that the greatest amount of produce would be obtained by the best distribution of labour, which cannot possibly be obtained without concert; secondly, competition draws labour from the least remunerative to the most remunerative ; but those which by no means " pay" best, according to the trading exchange, are among those which are most certain and profitable for so- ciety ; competition, therefore, disturbs the right distribution of labour." The whole passage appears to us very characteristic of the school from which it emanates ; it presents a fair, and by no means an exaggerated, specimen of that in- completeness and feebleness of the logical faculty, that easy resting in a /^//-understanding, that complacent satisfaction with a partial glimpse, that mixing up of things totally distinct (as the produce of labour with the distribution of that produce), which hinder so many excellent philanthropists from arriving at a recognition of their own errors. Stripped of needless verbiage, 480 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. Mr. Hunt's idea seems to be this : that labour would be both more productive and better rewarded, were the number of labourers in each department exactly pro- portioned to the need which the world has of the pro- duce of that department; were there just the right number of tailors, shoemakers, blacksmiths, carpenters, graziers, and corn-growers ; and were this " just right number " ascertained beforehand. We may grant him his position. But how can this vital point be ascer- tained beforehand ? How can it be ascertained at all, except by free competition, which will soon bring us the needed knowledge, by showing us which branches of industry are most, and which least, remunerative ; i. e. which branches of industry have the fewest, and which the most labourers in proportion to the demand for their pro- duce. If any kind of labour does not pay, this is a sign that it is not wanted, and will be abandoned ; if any one pays ill, this is a proof that there are too many labourers employed in it, or, as Mr. Hunt expresses it, that they are " working in duplicate." Mr. Hunt would ascertain all this, not by experience, but a priori, " by concert." Has he ever troubled himself to consider by what ma- chinery this preliminary concert can be managed ? how the requirements of the world for this or that article can be discovered, otherwise than by making it, and seeing if the world will buy it ? Would he have com- mittees boards of prud'hommes to decide when an additional tailor, or a score of fresh bricklayers are wanted, and to forbid the existence of such till the want is clearly made manifest ? No doubt some dim idea of this sort was in his mind, when he penned the passage we have quoted. But all this has been tried ages since, and is even now in partial operation in many parts of the Continent. This was the basis of the guilds of old. The incorporated tradesmen had a monopoly of their special branch of industry; they decided how many KNGLISH SOCIALISM. 481 apprentices each man should be allowed to educate; how many masters should be admitted yearly into the confraternity : if the demand for coats, or watches, or furniture was slack, they restricted their numbers ; if, on the contrary, society required these articles, or any others, in increased quantities, they, after a considerable enhancement of price, graciously permitted a moderate multiplication of the needful handicraftsmen. We pre- sume this is the system which Mr. Hunt would intro- duce ; for between ascertaining the number of labourers required in each department by some method of this kind, or by the results of free competition, we can dis- cern no third alternative. Is he then prepared to take the consequences of such a regulating power ? and is he aware that the system was only enabled to work in former days, and could only work now, by such stern restrictions on marriage and multiplication, as the ope- rative classes would fiercely revolt from ? And that if they would submit to such restrictions, the competition system would work at least as well as any other ? Concert, then, as an opponent to, or substitute for, competition, in solving the problem of the wisest distri- bution "of labour, is either a chimera or a tyranny. So applied, it delegates to a few men sitting in committee the decision as to the number of workmen required in each department, and the right of warning all others off the ground ; while it expects from these men a wisdom and omniscience, which neither individuals nor corpo- rations could by possibility possess. Let us now proceed to examine a little more closely the principle and the organisation of these " Associations of Workmen," which have been recently established to carry out the commu- nistic idea ; and let us endeavour to ascertain whether any, and what, fallacies and sources of failure lie hid in their constitution. In Paris, there are said to be already 150 of these VOL. I. II 482 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. working societies. Cabinet-makers, jewellers, cooks, bakers, paviours, tailors, watch-makers, have formed themselves into a number of associations, each working in common, trading on their own capital, and dividing their gains among themselves, instead of working for a master. Some of the associations have succeeded, some have failed ; some just maintain a precarious and struggling existence. Some are formed on sound prin- ciples, some on unsound. Some divide profits equally among all the associates, some divide them in proportion to the earnings. We rejoice to see the spirit, energy, and faithfulness with which many of these experiments are carried out ; and we wish them, all possible success. In England, similar associations have been formed, and are increasing in number, especially among the tailors, needlewomen, and shoemakers of the metropolis. One of these has acquired considerable celebrity, viz. the " Working Tailors' Association," in Castle Street ; and, as this is supposed to have been constructed with the greatest care, and to owe its origin to the most educated and sober portion of the Christian Socialists, we shall select it as our touchstone. The condition of the working tailors of the metropolis, 23,000 in number, appeared from the descriptions in the " Morning Chronicle," to be so deplorable and so unjust, owing, as was alleged, to the system of contract work, sweaters or middle-men, and excessive competi- tion, that a number of benevolent men, with Mr. Maurice and Mr. Kingsley at their head, resolved upon an attempt to rescue them from such wretched degrada- tion, and, if possible, beat out and destroy the slop- sellers. For this purpose they subscribed 300/., rented some suitable premises, and fairly started in business a body of operative tailors, now numbering at least thirty, under the management of a Mr. Walter Cooper, himself a tailor, a chartist, and a person of considerable influ- ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 483 ence and ability. " The principles on which the asso- ciation is conducted, are those of the most moderate form of socialism ; that is to say, the association is not communistic, as we have defined the word, but simply co-operative. The manager, Mr. Cooper, who is abso- lute master until the association shall have repaid the capital advanced to it, receives a salary of 2/. a week ; the other members work by the piece, according to a fixed tariff of prices. All work is done on the premises. Xo Sunday labour is allowed. Interest at the rate of four per cent, is paid on the capital lent. One-third of the net profits is by common agreement devoted to the extension of the association, by the admission of new members ; the remainder is to be divided among the workmen in the ratio of their earnings, or otherwise applied to their common benefit." Now, in all this there is nothing to which the purest political economist could object, with the single excep- tion, that the association is trading on borrowed capital; the capital not being attracted to the trade by the ex- pectation of profit, but being artificially directed into a business already overstocked. If, however (as is gene- rally the case in the Parisian associations), this capital had been supplied by the workmen themselves, the association would have presented no vulnerable point of criticism, and every economist would have bid it God speed ! But it is evident that here is nothing new ; the association is simply a large co-partnership, such as Mr. Mill, a sound economist, advised, such as we ad- vocated two years ago*, such as the "Economist" newspaper (the great bugbear of the communists) ad- vocated many months ago, and was claimed by Mr. Hunt as an unconscious socialist for so doing. In this association, the labourers work under a directing head, * See supra, p. 386. I I 2 484 .ENGLISH SOCIALISM. for wages fixed by him, and, as they themselves own the capital, they naturally divide among themselves the capitalist's profit. The "Needlewomen's Association" is formed on the same plan. The superintendent gives out and allots the work, and " has the power of dismissal, subject to the ladies' committee, or the lady visitor of the day." The superintendent here, and Mr. Cooper in the other case, represent the master as superintendent, and the workmen (as soon, at least, as they have paid their debts) represent the master as capitalist ; the former, therefore, receives that portion of the master's profit which repays his superintendence, and the latter, that portion which repays his capital. In what way, then, does this arrangement differ from the ordinary relations of capital and labour ? Were not many great capitalists labourers to begin with ? Are not many great capitalists labourers still, and do not two or more of these labour- ing capitalists often unite in partnership ? Where, then, an association of working men is so constructed as to violate no principle of sound economy, it introduces no new element and no new arrangement, nothing, there- fore, from which any sudden remodelling or renovation of society can be hoped, nothing which needs to be announced with flourish of trumpets. It is evident that these two associations contain within them one essential element of success, which is absent in theoretic socialism a master's hand. As long as this is allowed, submitted to, well chosen, and well paid, in proportion, that is, as the existing arrange- ments are approximated to, so long the institutions will do welL Only under a master, or manager en- dowed with adequate authority, can an association composed of many members hold together. This has already been made clear in more than one instance in France. M. Leclaire's experiment has succeeded admirably, because he is absolute and uncontrolled ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 485 governor. But in two cases which we know of, a re- duction in the number of members was found neces- sary to save the associations from breaking up. The " Working Jewellers' Association " numbered seventeen members, but was dissolved and re-constituted with only eleven. The watch-makers have been obliged to reduce their numbers to six, and all new members are admitted with great caution and difficulty. A despotic element is necessary when the society is to be large. The second remark we have to make is this; that these enterprises, which are announced to us as being, if successful, the solution of the social problem, evade the whole difficulty. How is it that the sweating sys- tem, with all its alleged cruelties and oppressions, is possible ? Why are the slop-sellers able to get the operatives so completely in their power, to fix their wages, and to dictate terms ? Why is it that the jour- neymen-tailors are so powerless that they must accept any wages that are offered to them ? Clearly because they are more numerous than the demand requires. Does Mr. Kingsley suppose, that if the 23,000 tailors in London were to be suddenly reduced to 15,000, the coats and trousers required by society remaining the same, the slop-sellers could compel them to work for them if they did not wish, or to work at all, except in localities of their own choosing, and on their own terms ? Does he not perceive that, in the event of such an occurrence, it would be the men and not the masters who would dictate terms ? Is it not abundantly obvious, that the misery and slavery of the London tailors and needlewomen arise primarily from the clothing needs of the metropolis being inadequate to keep so many in full and constant employment ? Xo\\ r , have these associa- tions, which they are told will rescue them, the slightest tendency, either to augment the demand for clothes, or to diminish the numbers of the clothincr / o II 3 486 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. artisans? If not, how can they effect any purpose, except that of ameliorating the condition of the few who become members of them ? " Oh ! but " (they reply) " we purpose in time to organise all the tailors in the metropolis into similar associations." Very well ; follow out your process, and see where it will lead. The fact you have to meet is this; there are 23,000 tailors in existence, with full and constant work only for 15,000; as you continue your benevolent organisations, you will in the end have associated these 15,000, and secured to them a com- fortable and continuous subsistence. What will then have become of the residual 8000 ? Will you cast them out to starve? Will you support them by a charitable contribution from the earnings of the employed ? Do you suppose they will not compete with you, and rather than earn nothing, work at lower wages than you assign yourselves ? Do you not perceive, that the utmost your organisation of labour can save for dis- tribution among the mass of artisans, is the profits of the middlemen, which you conceive to be so enormous, nay, only the difference between these profits and the salary you pay to your various managers and superin- tendents, who stand to you in the place of the middle- men ? and have you taken the trouble to ask yourselves these simple questions before you announced your scheme as a great panacea an infallible way to salvation? " But the great merit of these associations is, that they will extinguish competition, and the reduction of wages to which it leads." Will they indeed do this ? Have they the slightest tendency to do it? Do they even contemplate doing it ? True, it is the great object which Mr. Kingsley, Mr. Maurice, Mr. Walter Cooper, and Mr. Hunt propose to themselves in the promotion of them ; but let us see if it be kept in view ; let us inquire whether competition "that selfish system ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 487 which lies at the root of all the evils under which English industry now suffers" be not the very life and essence of them all. It is curious to observe how the denounced principle peeps out everywhere. In the first place, we read in the account of Parisian asso- ciations by Mr. Ludlow, another eminent socialist, ( " Frazer's Magazine," ) " The cooks, who unfor- tunately are divided into several rival associations (one of which has lately failed), can afford to give the working classes as good a breakfast at four sous as they can obtain elsewhere for ten. (Competition and under- selling this, surely ? ) The paviours, who have two associations, have got into their hands by tender (com- petition and contract-work again!) a large portion of the paving of Paris." In Mr. Kingsley's pamphlet, " Cheap Clothes and Nasty," which is filled with tirades against competition as " cannibalism " and " devil- worship," after saying, in the name of the tailors, "it is competition that is ruining us, every man for himself, every man against his brother ; the remedy must be in association, co-operation, self-sacrifice for the sake of one another : " he proceeds, " We will hoard our profits, and not spend them till we have squeezed out all the sweaters one by one. Then we will open our common shop, and sell at as low a price as the cheapest of the show shops; and then all that the master slop-sellers had better do will be, simply to vanish and become extinct." Again, " Let us help and foster the growth of these associations. Let us encourage the journeymen to compete with Nebuchadnezzar and Co. at their own game, . . . and let the association swallow up all associations similar to itself, which might end in com- peting with it." "A Working Tailors' Association is actually formed in London, ready to wage internecine war with Nebuchadnezzar and Co." &c. &c. Do not these passages from the most eloquent denouncer of ii 4 488 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. competition themselves breathe the very spirit of the most bitter and unrelenting competition ? It must be evident, beyond dispute, to any one endowed with the most moderate amount of the ratio- cinative faculty, that where there are more people anxious to do the work, than there is work to be done, they will compete with one another to obtain this work. If all the tailors in London were embodied to-morrow into a number of different associations, it is certain that these associations would compete with one another, exactly as individuals would do, because there would be too many associations (to the supposed extent of 8000 men) for the work required. " True," replies Mr. Kingsley, " but our work will be incomplete till we have blended all these associations into one vast guild. Competition will then be out of the question." Yes ! but it will be replaced by monopoly ; and we all know what monopoly means artificial prices, a restricted market, a gigantic job, a final and inevitable smash. To sum up the whole : the advocates of association as a cure for competition are caught between two horns of a dilemma, which half Mr. Kingsley's sagacity, if united with a less vivid fancy and a less copious vocabulary, would, from the first, have enabled him to foresee; in case you have many associations, you retain all the evils of competition ; in case you merge them all into one, you encounter all the evils of monopoly. We defy the Socialists to escape from this dilemma, except by assuming a remodelling of human nature by divine or Christian influences ; and when this remodelling has been achieved, all systems will become indifferent, for the evils of all systems will be wiped away. One of the most indefensible parts of Mr. Kingsley's writings is his incessant denunciations of cheapness, when arising, as nearly all cheapness, directly or indirectly, does, and has always done, from the ope- ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 489 ration of the competitive element. It is true that in this he is merely following the unthinking multitude, echoing the reckless language of the noisy and venal press, and making himself the mouthpiece of class sel- fishness, popular prejudice, and ignorant passion. But this is an unworthy position for a man of his intellect arid education. How could any Christian minister, a thinker, a gentleman, and a scholar, permit himself to pour forth such rant as this ? "Let no man enter them (the cheap show-shops) they are temples of Moloch their thresholds are rank with human blood. God's curse is on them, and on those who, by support- ing them, are partakers of their sins. Above all, let no clergy- man deal at them. "Poverty and many clergymen are poor doubly poor, because society requires them often to keep up the dress of a gentleman on the income of an artisan, because too the demands on their charity are quadruple those of any other class yet poverty is no excuse. The thing is damnable not Christianity only, but common humanity cry out against it. Woe to those who dare to outrage in private the principles which they preach in public ! God is not mocked ; and his curse will find out the priest at the altar, as well as the nobleman in his castle. " But it is so hard to deprive the public of the luxury of cheap clothes ! Then let the public look out for some other means of procuring -that priceless blessing. If that, on experiment be found impossible if the comfort of the few be for ever to be bought by the misery of the many if civilisation is to benefit everyone except the producing class then this world is truly the devil's world and the sooner so ill-constructed and infernal a machine is destroyed by that personage, the better." We wonder whether Mr. Kingsley was an advocate for cheap corn ? or whether, in the old days of corn laws and agricultural protection, he took the side of the producing class ? If the latter, he was at least con- sistent. But while penning this precious passage, did it never occur to him that cheapness means abundance, 490 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. and that if cheap and abundant food be a blessing, cheap and abundant clothing must be a blessing like- wise ? Did that first prolific fact, which lies at the root of all free trade and sound political economy, never flash across his mind that the producer of one thing is the consumer of another ? that every " pro- ducing class" benefits by the cheapness of every article turned out by every other class? that every class naturally desires that, while the article it produces should be dear, the article every one else produces should be cheap ? Does he not perceive that this is the very rampant incarnation of selfishness ? and that of this selfishness he has blindly made himself the organ and the pandar ? The distressed tailor wishes that clothes should be dear, but that shoes and corn should be cheap ; that competition should be excluded from his trade, but allowed to work its natural con- sequence in every other. The produce of one class in the community is exchanged against the produce of another. If all "producing classes" are to be pro- tected, and cheapness is to be eschewed and denounced in all alike well and good! The only result will be a general rise in the price of all articles, and no one will be better off than before ; and Mr. Kingsley, when he wrote the inconsiderate passage we have quoted, ought, in common honesty, to have informed his pro- teges that the first effect of his doctrine, if fairly carried out, would be to make them pay double for their quartern loaf. Moreover, who are the parties who most signally benefit by this much -abused cheapness ? Clearly the poor of all classes those whose clothes, shoes, arid food, absorb the largest proportion of their income. Has Mr. Kingsley ever reflected, how many thousands are by this very cheapness enabled to afford themselves a new coat or a new shirt, who must otherwise have ENGLISH SOCIALlbM. 491 gone without it? and how many thousands of tailors and needlewomen find employment in consequence of the enlargement of demand for their labour arising out of this very cheapness ? Does he not perceive that, if coats were double the price, only half the number could be sold ? and is he unable to estimate the privation both to producer and consumer, which this implies ? The truth is, that the sufferings of the needlewomen and tailors have so powerfully impressed his imagination, that he is prepared to relieve them by trampling upon every other class, and by discarding every restraining rule of wisdom or of justice. " To press forward to a great principle," said Lord Stowell, " by breaking through every other principle that stands in the way of its accomplishment, is as little consonant with private morality as with public justice." " Men," says the author of " The Statesman," " who are scru- pulously conscientious in all other things will often be not at all so in their kindnesses. Such men, from motives of compassion, charity, and good will, have sometimes given birth to results which the slightest exercise of common sense might have taught them to foresee ; and which, if foreseen, would have alarmed the conscience of a buccaneer." One of the chief hardships of which the needlewomen complain one of the principal causes to which, we are told, they ascribe their deplorable condition is the competition of individuals who are not wholly dependent on their labour for support ; who, having a small but inadequate income, take in needlework at their own homes; and, employing in it their spare time, can afford to do it for lower remuneration than those who must derive from it their entire support. They demand to be protected against the competition of these parties, either by law or by various arrangements, such as requiring all work to be done on the premises of the 492 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. employer. Neither they nor their supporters in the press seem to be conscious either of the tyranny of this demand or of the selfishness which dictates it; for, who are these competitors against whom they protest, and whom they would wish thus summarily to extin- guish ? In a great proportion of cases they are de- cayed and struggling gentlewomen the widows and daughters of clergymen and military officers who, unfit, from health, habits, and education, for more laborious occupations, seek in plain or fine needlework the means of ekeing out a scanty and difficult sub- sistence. They have, perhaps, savings or a pension which yields them 20. or 40/. a year, on which to maintain hungry children or aged parents, who have known all the comforts and luxuries of refined ex- istence. It would be needless barbarity and degra- dation to compel them to work in a shop, and for longer hours than their strength could endure ; and it is such meritorious strugglers as these whom regular tailors and needlewomen are proposing to deprive of employment. That they, seeing, as is natural, only their own side of the case, should be anxious to commit such cruelty is pardonable enough ; but that writers and reasoners, capable of a wider view, should en- courage them in their injustice, is far less excusable. They might surely see, that to carry out this policy fairly and completely, would require an enactment, that no person shall work who can by possibility subsist, however miserably, without work, lest he should interfere with some one else. Those who ask us to remedy one injustice by another, or to prevent suffering by crime, we may feel perfectly certain, without any lengthened train of reasoning, are guiding us on a wrong tack. There can be no question, that needlework is too often wretchedly paid. But why is this ? Simply because it is the easiest of all work j because it presents this ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 493 point of attraction that it can be done at home, in private houses, and at odd hours ; because, for one woman who can do anything else, there are ten who can sew and bind; for many of the reasons, in short, which explain why hand-loom weaving is ill paid. It is an irrepealable and a righteous law, that the easiest departments of labour will always be the worst re- munerated ; because their very easiness will tempt superabundant numbers into them. When the remu- neration becomes so inadequate as to counterbalance the temptations of facility, this superabundance will diminish, and labourers will seek other lines. If, how- ever, all departments should be overstocked, then without a diminution of numbers, or an enlargement of the field of labour no restrictions, no cobbling, no re-distribution of employments, can meet the evil. It is on this account that we look with sadness and mis- trust upon these new schemes for making society over again, as upon all old ones upon the recent and modified forms of communism, as upon all its previous, and clumsier phases. They are all plans, not for meeting, but for evading the difficulty not for solving, but for shirking the problem not for untying, but for cutting the entangled knot. To show this at length, would be merely to go over again Mr. Mill's admir- able chapters " on popular remedies for low wages." The benevolent men and women who are setting on foot these associations of tailors, needlewomen, shoe- makers, and bakers, are merely aiding them to augment the produce of their several branches of industry, without augmenting the demand for this produce and the fund for the payment of it ; and can, therefore, confer no genuine or comprehensive benefit upon them. Observe, we do not in the least object to these asso- ciations ; we do not even object to the proceedings of those excellent and compassionate individuals who sug- 494 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. gest and assist in their formation ; we blame them only for announcing these schemes as great discoveries and mighty engines for the rescue and redemption of so- ciety. Promulgated in such a spirit, they can end only in bitter disappointment. Still we shall rejoice to see them spread whenever their rules do not contain any self-destroying fallacy ; for though they will not meet and cure our great social malady, they will raise, comfort, and instruct the individual workmen. To recommend them as doing more than this is mischievous, because it is holding out expectations from them which can never be realised, and teaching the labouring classes to look for emancipation in a wrong quarter, and to lean upon a broken reed. To sum up the whole: Communistic Association, as opposed to Competition, can only as indeed its more enlightened preachers fully admit succeed in its ob- ject, when society shall be Christianised in reality, as well as in name ; when all men shall be sufficiently purified from selfishness to work with equal zeal for the common good as for individual reward, and to wish for nothing more than a just and equal portion of the property of the common wealth. When this point is achieved, the existing arrangements of capital and labour would answer as well as any other ; for then every master would exact from his labourers as little toil, and pay them as large remuneration, as possibility would permit. As man now is, active, selfish, and ambitious, loving his family better than his neighbours, and his neighbours better than that abstract entity called the community, associations, where they differ from practicable partnerships, must be either lost in the whirlpool of competition, or wrecked on the rock of monopoly. Start the most theoretically perfect scheme of communism you can devise ; gradually elimi- nate from it every element which makes it work ill ; ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 495 add to it, as experience suggests, every element required to make it work well ; and you will arrive either at the existing arrangements of capital and labour, or at such co-partnership systems as sound political economists have long since recommended. Distribution of employ- ments by preliminary concert, no practicable machinery could effect ; competition, if allowed to operate un- checked, will speedily effect a wiser, juster, more pro- ductive, more expansive and adaptable distribution of them, than any government, guild, or committee which the wit of man could contrive. " Alton Locke " professes to be the autobiography of a journeyman tailor, self-educated, a poet, and a chartist, who emancipates himself from the shackles of domestic Calvinism ; publishes a volume of poems ; falls in love with a lady of higher rank ; becomes an agifator ; gets himself involved in an agricultural riot, and is imprisoned in consequence ; is concerned, in spite of his better judgment, in the chartist conspiracies of 1848 ; loses his health ; is rescued and converted by a benevolent lady ; and finally dies on a voyage to Texas. The plot is to the last degree improbable and inartistic ; and the cha- racters, with one admirable exception which deserves to live, hastily sketched, crude, and inconsistent. We have journeymen tailors who correct Latin proofs for Cam- bridge undergraduates, and scatter about the technical terms of scholastic logic ; working chartists, who quote Ariosto ; and high-born ladies, who enter into senti- mental conversation with unknown and ill-dressed strangers at the Dulwich Gallery ; with other equally unlikely occurrences. Considered as a novel or a pro- fessed literary work of art, " Alton Locke " lies open to severe criticism. But it would be hardly fair to regard it in this light. It is written with a philanthropic purpose, and is a series of descriptions of the most pain- 496 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. ful and harrowing scenes which life can present among the poor; a gallery of pictures of early homes made miserable by the most unflinching Calvinism ; of tailors' workshops, close, fetid, and crowded ; of courts and alleys filthy and pestilential past imagination, and we should hope past fact also ; of sweaters' dens where in- cautious workmen are imprisoned till they become mere skeletons ; of starving peasants meeting upon wintry downs and pouring forth descriptions of the dreariest wretchedness ; of conspirators' rooms filled with frantic Irishmen and watched by government spies all drawn with vast graphic power, and portrayed in colours such as only a genuine poet could command. The work abounds in passages of wild, unchastened eloquence ; and, amid much aimless declamation and not a little language which Christian feeling and scholarly taste must alike condemn, it breathes through every page a profound and passionate sympathy with the sufferings of the poor. To us the purity of this sympathy is alloyed and its effect injured, by the bitter, indiscrimi- nate, and unsparing indignation which is poured out upon the rich, the government, and the clergy. We have not space for any detailed analysis of the work, nor for many extracts even of those parts which we most admire. One passage, however, we will present to our readers, both on account of the fearful truth of the pictures it contains, and also as introducing Sandy Mackaye, the shrewd, excellent, pure-hearted old Scotch- man, the redeeming character of the book. The young poet had commenced his essays by a description of the South Sea Islands, and Mackaye tells him to choose his subject from the poetry that lies around him : " ' What the deevil ! is there no harlotry and idolatry here in England, that ye maun gang speering after it in the Cannibal Islands ? Are ye gaun to be like they puir aristocratic bodies, that wad suner hear an Italian dog howl, than an English nightingale sing? ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 497 (( C Coral islands ? Pacific ? What do ye ken about Pacifies ? Are ye a cockney or a Cannibal Islander ? Dinna stand there, ye gowk, as fusionless as a docken, but tell me that. Where do ye live?' " ' What do ye mean, Mr. Mackaye !' asked I, with a doleful and disappointed visage. " ' Mean why, if God had meant ye to write about Pacifies, He'd ha put ye there and because He means ye to write about London town, He's put ye there and gien ye an unco sharp taste o' the ways o't ; and I'll gie ye anither. Come along wi' me.' And he seized me by the arm, and hardly giving me time to put on my hat, marched me out into the streets, and away through Clare Market to St. Giles's. " It was a foul, chilly, foggy, Saturday night. From the butchers' and greengrocers' shops the gas lights flared and flickered, wild and ghastly, over haggard groups of slip-shod dirty women, bargaining for scraps of stale meat and frost- bitten vegetables, wrangling about short weight and bad quality. Fish stalls and fruit stalls lined the edge of the greasy pave- ment, sending up odours as foul as the language of the sellers and buyers. Blood and sewer water crawled from under doors and out of spouts, and reeked down the gutters among offal, animal and vegetable, in every stage of putrefaction. Foul vapours rose from cow-sheds and slaughter-houses, and the doorways of undrained alleys, where the inhabitants carried the filth out on their shoes from the back yard into the court, and from the court into the main street ; while above, hanging like cliffs over the streets those narrow brawling torrents of filth, and poverty, and sin the houses with their teeming load of life were piled up into the dingy choking night. A ghastly, deafening, sickening sight it was. Go, scented Belgravian! and see what London is ; and then go to the library which God has given thee one often fears in vain and see what science says this London might be ! " He stopped suddenly before the entrance of a miserable alley. "'Look! there's not a soul down that yard but's either beggar, drunkard, thief, or worse. Write about that ! Say how ye saw the mouth o' hell, and the t\va pillars thereof at the entry the pawnbroker's shop o' one side and the gin palace at the VOL. I. K K 498 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. other twa monstrous deevils, eating up men, women, and bairns, body and soul. Are na they a mair damnable man- devouring idol than ony red-hot statue o' Moloch, or wicker Gogmagog, wherein auld Britons burnt their prisoners? Look at thae bare-footed, bare-backed hizzies, with their arms roun' the men's necks, and their mouths full o' vitriol and beastly words! Look at that Irishwoman pouring the gin down the babbie's throat I Look at that raff o' a boy gaun out o' the pawnshop, where he's been pledging the handkerchief he stole the morning, into the gin shop, to buy beer poisoned wi' grains o' paradise, and cocculus indicus, and saut, and a' damnable, maddening, thirst-breeding, lust-breeding drugs ! Look at that girl that went in wi' a shawl to her back and cam' out wi'out ane ! Drunkards frae the breast! harlots frae the cradle! damned before they're born ! John Calvin had an inkling of the truth there, I'm a'most driven to think, wi' his reprobation deevil's doctrines I ' " ' Well but Mr. Mackaye, I know nothing about these poor creatures.' " ' Then ye ought. What do ye ken aboot the Pacific ? Which is maist to your business? thae bare-backed hizzies that play the harlot o' the other side o' the warld, or these these thousands o' bare-backed hizzies that play the harlot o' your ain side made out o' your ain flesh and blude? You a poet ? True poetry, like true charity, my laddie, begins at hame. If ye'll be a poet at a', ye maun be a cockney poet, and while the cockneys be what they be, ye maun write, like Jeremiah of old, o' lamentation and mourning and wae, for the sins o' your people. Gin ye want to learn the spirit o' a people's poet, down wi' your Bible and read thae auld Hebrew prophets ; gin ye would learn the style, read your Burns frae morning till night; and gin ye'd learn the matter, just gang after your nose, and keep your eyes open, and ye'll no miss it.' " * But all this is so so unpoetical.' " ' Hech ! Is there no the heeven above them there, and the hell beneath them, and God frowning, and the deevil grinning ? No poetry there ! Is no the verra idea of the classic tragedy defined to be, man conquered by circumstance ? Canna ye see it there? And the verra idea of the modern tragedy, man conquering circumstance? and I'll show ye that, too in ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 499 mony a garret where no eye but the gude God's enters, to see the patience, and the fortitude, and the self-sacrifice, and the luve stronger than death, that's shining in thae dark places o' the earth. Come wi' me, and see.' " We must add one more extract, for the sake of the valuable lesson to clergymen which it contains. The writer is in prison, and the chaplain is endeavouring to convert him from his errors with the usual weapons that such men employ : " Then he deluged me with tracts, weak and well-mean- ing, which informed me that ' Christians,' being ( not of this world,' had nothing to do with politics; and preached to me the divine right of kings, passive obedience to the powers or impotences that be, &c. &c., with such success as may be imagined. I opened them each, read a few sentences, and laid them by. They were written by good men, no doubt; but men who had an interest in keeping up the present system; at all events, by men who knew nothing of my temptations, my creed, my unbelief; who saw all heaven and earth from a sta- tion antipodal to my own : I had simply nothing to do with them. " . . . . The good man laboured under the delusion, common enough, of choosing his favourite weapons from his weakest faculty ; and the very inferiority of his intellect pre- vented him from seeing where his true strength lay. He would argue ; he would try to convert me from scepticism, by, what seemed to him reasoning, the common figure of which was, what logicians, I believe, call begging the question ; and the common method, what they call ignoratio eJenchi shooting at pigeons, while crows are the game desired. He always started by demanding my assent to the very question which lay at the bottom of my doubts. He would wrangle and wrestle blindly up and down, with tears of earnestness in his eyes, till he had lost his temper, as far as was possible for one so angel-guarded as he seemed to be ; and then, when he found himself confused, contradicting his own words, making concessions at which he shuddered, for the sake of gaining from me assent to propositions which he found out the next moment I understood in quite a different sense from his, he would suddenly shift his ground, and K K 2 500 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. try to knock me down authoritatively with a single text of Scripture ; when all the while I wanted proof that Scripture had any authority at all " Besides, I never denied the existence of Jesus of Nazareth, or his apostles. I doubted the myths and doctrines which I believed to have been gradually built up round the true story. The fact was, he was, like most of his class, attacking extinct Satans, fighting manfully against Voltaire, Volney, and Tom Paine ; while I was fighting for Strauss, Hennell, and Emerson. And at last he gave me up for some weeks as a hopeless infidel, without ever having touched the points on which I disbelieved. He had never read Strauss hardly even heard of him ; and till clergymen make up their minds to do that, and to answer Strauss also, they will, as he did, leave the heretic artisan just where they found him." The counts of our indictment against " Alton Locke" are threefold. In the first place we object on principle to stories written with the purpose of illustrating an opinion or establishing a doctrine. We consider this an illegitimate use of fiction. Fiction may be rightfully employed to impress upon the public mind an acknow- ledged truth, or to revise and recall a forgotten one, - never to prove a disputed one. Its appropriate aims are the delineation of life, the exhibition and analysis of character, the portraiture of passion, the description of nature. Polemics, whether religious, political, or meta- physical, lie wholly beyond its province. The soundness of this literary canon will be obvious if we reflect that the novelist makes his facts as well as his reasonings. He coins the premises from which his conclusions are deduced; and he may coin exactly what he wants. It would be equally easy to write a tale to illustrate the evils of the Corn Laws, or the evils of their repeal. The artisan, famishing for want of food or for want of em- ployment caused by a restrictive policy, would furnish the fundamental fact of the first case ; the peasant famishing from want of occupation consequent upon the ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 501 impoverishment of the farmers, and upon the land being thrown out of cultivation, would supply the basis of the second ; and on such foundations a skilful artist might raise a superstructure which would horrify the free- trader on the one side and the protectionist on the other. Nay, the controversial writer of fiction need not actually make his facts ; he needs only to select them. An in- complete and partial picture will answer his purpose just as well as a false one far better, indeed. A skil- ful grouping of materials, ignoring or throwing into the background whatever might either mar the harmony of the picture or induce a suspicion of its fidelity to nature, a careful tracing back of facts to their supposed causes and their intended effects, would enable him triumphantly to defend almost any thesis, and establish in the minds of his readers almost any creed. Xow, " Alton Locke " is written with the obvious in- tention to deprecate competition as the source of most of the evils of English society, and to recommend Christian Socialism as their cure. For this purpose the story is constructed ; to this, much of the copious de- clamation it contains is directed. On the fallacy which lies hid at the bottom of these views, we have already said enough ; and we therefore pass over several tirades against competition and " cannibalism," which we had marked for extraction and reproof. But apart from these errors, " Alton Locke " is per- vaded by another, which we have already had occasion, in former articles, to condemn. There is all the old staple of demagogism : the neglect of the poor by the rich ; the indifference of the higher classes ; the derelic- tion of duty by the government ; the contrast between the fat sheep or well-groomed cart-horse, and the ill-fed and ill-lodged labourer ; the irritating averment, that " society has denied them their rights," so welcome to clever, but poverty-stricken and struggling artisans. K K 3 502 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. There is the usual jumble between the fourteenth cen- tury and the nineteenth ; the desire to recall the time when the poor were at once the serfs and the proteges of the rich, and to amalgamate it with the days of chartism, when the poor assert their equality, and insist upon their freedom.* It is not thus that irritations can be allayed, or miseries removed, or wrongs redressed. The working classes and their advocates must decide on which of the two positions they will take their stand : whether they will be cared for as dependents and infe- riors ? or whether, by wisdom, self-control, frugality, and toil, they will fight their independent way to dig- nity and well-being, whether they will step back to a stationary and degraded past, or strive onward to the assertion of their free humanity ? But it is not given to them, any more than to other classes, to combine in- consistent advantages : they cannot unite the safety of being in leading-strings with the liberty of being without them ; the right of acting for themselves, with the right to be saved from the consequences of their actions ; they must not whine because the higher classes do not aid them, and refuse to let these classes direct them ; they must not insist on the duty of government to provide for them, and deny the authority of govern- * Proudhon, with the sagacity his writings so often show, has well exposed this inconsistency. " Les socialistes ont confondu deux choses essentiellement distinctes, lorsque, opposant 1'union du foyer domestique a la concurrence industrielle, ils se sont deraande si la societe ne pouvait etre constitute precisement comme une grande famille, dont tous les memhres seraient lies par 1'affection du sang, et non comme une espece de coalition ou chacun est retenu par la loi de ses interets. La famille n'est pas le type, la molecule organique de la societe. La famille est le type et le berceau de la monarchic et du patriciat : en elle reside et se conserve 1'idee d'autorite et de souverainete, qui s'efface de plus en plus dans 1'etat. C'est sur le modele de la famille que toutes les societes antiques et feodales s'etaient organisees, et c'est precisement contre cette vieille constitution patriarcale que proteste et se revolte la democratic moderns" ENGLISH SOCIALISM. 503 ment to control them ; they must not denounce laissez- faire, and denounce a paternal despotism likewise. We are little disposed to extenuate the negligences of our rulers, or the short-comings of our aristocracy. Both have much to undo, and much to make amends for in the past ; and both, we think, have shown an earnest resolution to atone for their sins of omission and commission, as far as sins can ever be atoned for. All, however, that can now be done, is to remove every legal obstacle in the way of the improvement of the condition of the people, to facilitate and encourage every effort which they make in a right direction, and to promote their education as far as religious prejudices and pas- sions will allow. All this government is now doing with a single purpose and a zealous will ; and none who remember what the functions and what the powers of government in a free country are, will expect them to do more than the public are willing to let them do. Those are no true friends of the working classes though they may think themselves such, and wish to be such who would induce them to rely on external aid, for objects which must be achieved by themselves, if they are to be achieved at all, and to seek their emanci- pation in a change of circumstances and social arrange- ments, rather than in a change of character and conduct. Our sympathy with popular suffering, is as prompt and ready as that of any of the speculators who show it in so strange a way. But we would manifest it by steadily discountenancing any attempt to get out of their troubles in the worst, because it happens to be the shortest, way, and to build their better fortunes on a treacherous quicksand, instead of on solid ground. We, too, have our visions of the future of the working classes; and they are as bright and hopeful as any socialist could indulge in. But we seek their realisation, not in a re- currence to medieval errors, not in repeating the abor- K K 4 504 ENGLISH SOCIALISM. tive experiments of unenlightened times, but in steady adherence to those principles of moral and economic science, whose truth is confirmed alike by every instance of conformity, and every instance of disobedience ; we would prepare the advent of the days we dream of, not by upsetting, but by developing, the natural arrange- ments of society, not by doing violence to the strongest and truest instincts of our nature, but by strictly conforming to their highest manifestations, not by surrounding man with artificial environments which shall make subsistence certain, enterprise super- fluous, and virtue easy, low-pitched, and monotonous, but by calling forth and cultivating those inborn capa- cities and noble energies, which can subdue and mould external circumstances, can conquer casualties and command results, qualities, by the exercise of which a social paradise might be regained, in default of which, such a paradise, if bestowed, would soon be forfeited and lost. 505 PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM* THE complicated interests and wants of society; the conflict between our desires and our capacities, our aspi- rations and the circumstances which repress them and hedge them in ; the prodigious and unforeseen start which industry has taken in modern days ; the rapid development of those powers and talents which bear upon material civilisation, contrasted with the slower elaboration of the wisdom which should guide them, and the virtues which should hallow and pervade them ; the energetic operation of that passion of self-interest which is given to be the motive impulse of our course, un- checked arid unchastened by those loftier sympathetic principles which were meant to be its counteracting and modifying influence, have combined to produce social evils and anomalies which, as they are brought to light either by the researches of the benevolent or the outcries of the suffering, give rise to a ceaseless succession of schemes for their mitigation or removal. Perhaps none of them are new ; perhaps every one of them has in turn been propounded and exposed, tried and abandoned by preceding generations ; but it is certain that, since the vast demolition of everything ancient, venerable, and established, which was effected by the first French Re- volution, these projects have been renewed time after time with a degree of pertinacity, a prolific fertility, a dogged and impetuous enthusiasm, to which no previous age offers a parallel. At the present moment, and in our own country, some of them are now revived with * From the "Economist." 506 PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. such judicious modifications, and by men of such un- questionable ability and purity of purpose ; and they are so aided by the knowledge of social evils, which is more general than it ever was before, and by the Chris- tian benevolence of the age, which is more earnest and indefatigable than it ever was before that they well deserve an attentive and candid examination. Of these schemes for setting society right, those com- prehended under the general but undefined name of " Socialism," seem endowed with the most indestructible vitality. We shall not attempt to do what their advocates have never been able to agree among themselves in doing, viz. : to define either the meaning of the word, or the common element embodied in all the forms which Socialism has assumed. It has as many shapes as Proteus, and as many colours as the chameleon. It is one thing in the hands of St. Simon, and another in the pages of Fourier; Owen gives it a third form, Thornton Hunt a fourth, Mr. Kingsley and his friends a fifth. It would be impossible to chase it through these various disguises ; nor would our time be profit- ably spent in doing so : it is only when it descends from the domain of theory, and assumes a concrete form and an actual existence, that we, as practical economists and political philosophers, are concerned with it. Socialism, as we used to hear of it in England, was con- nected with atheistical opinions, with Mr. Owen's name, and with many wild doctrines and projects which needed no formal refutation. Socialism, in France, is commonly conceived of as a creed held by the lowest and most violent of the political parties which distract that unhappy land the extreme gauche of the Repub- licans. In neither of these phases are we at present concerned with it ; in neither of these do we think it likely to have a permanent existence, a formidable influence, or a rapid spread ; and in both it is connected PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 507 with disreputable and damaging ingredients which, as we believe, are wholly foreign to and separable from its essence. But both in England and France the fundamental idea of Socialism which we take to be that of a fra- ternal union among men for industrial purposes, a work- ing in common for the common good, in place of the usual arrangement of labourers and capitalists, employers and employed has been seized upon by intelligent and ambitious operatives, and by philanthropic schemers, and made the foundation of certain Associations for which they now claim public sympathy and aid, as containing the solution of the great problem of social life, and rich in promise for the rehabilitation of the working classes and the restoration of the community to a healthy and happy condition. These associations are of two kinds : " Working Associations" in which a number of ope- ratives or handicraftsmen possessing some capital, either their own or borrowed, agree to work together as a company and for themselves, instead of working for a master ; and " Co-operative Stores" in which a number combine to keep a shop of their own, in which they are both purchasers, and vendors, in place of buying from the usual shopkeepers. In England these societies are in their infancy ; and have been, for the most part, started under the superintendence and by the fostering care of a body of gentlemen who denominate themselves Christian Socialists, and whose Christianity will be re- spected even by those who most doubt their wisdom and condemn their economic views. In France, the associa- tions were almost all formed and sustained by the men themselves; and have, we believe, been generally con- ducted with a zeal, perseverance, fairness, and mutual forbearance which assuredly deserves, and must com- mand, a great measure of success. In Paris alone, these bodies are said to be 197 in number, of which bakers 508 PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. and hatters furnish 6 each, hairdressers 34, and cooks 47. Some of these are recent ; others have been established for some years ; some are flourishing ; others are struggling for a bare subsistence ; but all, we believe, are very sanguine as to ultimate success. The "Work- ing Associations " in London are nine in number; of which two are tailors, two builders, one needlewomen, one printers, one pianoforte makers, one shoemakers, and one bakers. There are a few others in the provinces, principally in Lancashire ; where are also several " Co- operative Stores." Let us now inquire what these associations do, how they work, what they propose to themselves, and how far their hopes are likely, or possible, to be realised. We will not pause over the various mistakes made by several of them at their first outset, or the difficulties, frequently fatal ones, which they encountered either from want of caution or defect of legal protection ; we will speak of those only which have at length taken root in the soundest principles, and which are conducted by the ablest men. The Working Tailors' Association in Castle Street may, we believe, be taken as a fair sample. It has an able man at its head ; it was the first established ; has been subjected to an unusual amount of criticism ; has eliminated, we understand, some of the errors of its original constitution ; and may be assumed to have paid back (or to be in a sure way of doing so) the loan with which it originally started, so as to be now working on its own capital. There are, or were shortly ago, thirty-four members and a manager. There is a committee of management, but the details of arrangement are conducted by the manager, who assigns to each man his work; fixed weekly wages are paid according to capacity or desert, and profits are divided among the workmen according to their earnings. (This arrangement varies in different associations, but to this PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 509 they will all ultimately come, as it is obviously the only equitable arrangement). New members are admitted by ballot, and must be " probationers " for a year before they are ballotted for; and great care is exercised, or assumed to be, in selecting the probationers. Now, in all this there is nothing that the strictest political economist can object to. Here you have a number of men, dissatified with the ordinary industrial arrangements of society the separation of capitalist and labourer and who agree to unite the two func- tions ; to combine their small savings, and become their own employers ; to form a partnership among them- selves as capitalists for the purpose of giving work to themselves as labourers ; and thus to monopolise in their single persons, but in their double capacity, the profits of the master and the wages of the journeyman. As capitalists, they have of course a perfect right to lend their money to the partnership instead of putting it in the savings banks or in sick clubs; as workmen they have a perfect right to prefer working for the partner- ship to working for an individual employer. No man can gainsay them. Both their object and their means are quite legitimate arid very honourable. We wish them all success. All seems fair. They pay interest for the capital employed ; they pay wages for the work done; and they divide profits, as partners should, in proportion to the degree in which each member has contributed to make those profits. But there will arise practical difficulties which, though many among them must at least dimly foresee, we do not think that those who anticipate such splendid success and rapid spread for these associations, can have adequately weighed. These difficulties will mul- tiply according to the number of associates, according to the length of time they may exist, according to the severity of the " bad times " they may have to encounter. 510 PKOGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. As they proceed they will find, we fear, that their har- monious and prosperous existence will depend upon a fairness, a forbearance, a self-abnegating submission, a humbleness or at least a clear-sightedness and justice in the estimation of their own respective merits, a patience under privation, in a word, a degree of mental and moral development, which though not perhaps rarer among the working classes than among other ranks is rare everywhere, and can scarcely be reasonably expected to be predominant among numerous bodies. How long will each workman be content with the kind and nature of the work allotted to him, with- out accusing the manager of favouritism ? How long will the tailor who "conceits" himself to be a good cutter-out, be satisfied with the dissenting judgment of the manager who delegates him to the work and the wages of a sewer ? How long will the man who imagines himself to be clean, industrious, and accurate, submit to the decision of those who decide that he is slovenly, idle, and careless ? How long will he bear to pay fines which he will not admit to have incurred, and to receive lower remuneration than his fellow- work men whom he deems to be no abler than himself? It is no longer a monarchy, like ordinary establishments, but a republic, where his vote is as good as any other man's. He will league himself with other associates like himself who are discontented with what probably is a perfectly fair allotment, will intrigue against the manager, will agitate for an alteration of the rules, and if he can collect a considerable minority, will be a source of endless torment and intestine discord. Or if he is a superior workman, who could command first-rate re- muneration elsewhere, will he continue satisfied to remain associated with a number of men whose com- parative idleness and incapacity sadly diminish the potential profits of the concern, and perhaps bring dis- PROGRESS .AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 511 credit upon the articles it produces ? Will he submit to suffer for their faults, which yet, being in a minority, he cannot control nor escape from ? And how long will those who work with their hands be willing to pay to those who work with their head, and whose labour it is not therefore easy for them to appreciate or appraise, a sufficient remuneration to secure the skill, integrity, and firmness indispensable to command success ? Already, as we learn from several quarters, and as Mr. Coning- ham in his recent lecture at Brighton admitted, this difficulty has been severely felt. And when those periods arrive, which must come in all trades, when work is slack and wages low, is it probable that the members of a numerous association will have sufficient good sense and forbearance to submit to inevitable pri- vation, or sufficient intelligence to believe that it is inevitable ? Will they abstain from seeking work else- where during their unemployed hours? Will they abstain from reproaching their manager with mis- management and incapacity ? Will they meet cheer- fully what must be met ? But we will suppose that, either by great skill in ad- mitting only members whose wisdom and virtue are as exceptional as the demands which will be made upon them by such contingencies as we have named, or by such wise rules and legal power of enforcing them, as may put down discontent, and provide a summary deci- sion for all disputes, these difficulties are all sur- mounted, and the associations have struggled through to a permanent existence; it still remains to inquire, how far their hopes will be realised, and what proba- bility there is that the expectations held out to their members can escape disappointment. For what are the anticipations with which they enter on these projects ? They assume, that in the existing division of gains between capital and labour, the former secures a most 512 PEOGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. unjust and inordinate share of the remuneration. They affirm also, that the number of middlemen is needlessly large, and their profits scandalously disproportioned to their services. And they propose to themselves, by the new arrangement, to do away with both middleman and capitalist, and to appropriate among themselves the present remuneration of the two functionaries. It is clear that there is here an important hiatus in their premises. Even if we assume that the profits of the co-operative partnership are equal in the long run to those of an establishment of equal size conducted by an individual capitalist, that the interest each workman takes in the success of the concern, will counterbalance the zeal, watchfulness, devotion, and single despotism of a skilful, intelligent, and wealthy tradesman, and that the workmen will consent to pay such a salary to their chief, as will command a necessary amount of talent, integrity, and diligence, still it is obvious, that all which the co-operative associates could hope to grasp would be not the entire profits of the middleman and capitalist not even the net profits after deducting the interest of money but simply the difference between such net profits and those salaries which they must, and do, themselves pay to those functionaries who, in their establishment, represent the capitalist and middleman i. e., the manager and foreman. These functionaries may be fewer in their establishment, and may possibly be worse paid ; but it is reckoning without their host to imagine that they can dispense with them altogether. Moses and Son are reproached with letting out their work to middlemen; it is alleged, and we dare say truly, that many of these middlemen, by fair or unfair means, make enormous gains ; but if a co-operative association were to carry on business on the same scale as Moses and Son, how many foremen, putters-out, and distributors of work must they employ ? And what PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 513 would these distributors be, but middlemen to all intents and purposes, with this sole difference, that they would be middlemen working on a salary, instead of on their own account ? In the present case, Moses and Son say to the middlemen: "Mr. Jones, Mr. Smith, and Mr. Stokes, here are 500 waistcoats each ; give them out to good workmen, and let me have them back on Thursday." In the other case, Mr. Cooper, the manager, would say to his foremen: "Mr. Edwards, Mr. Williams, Mr. Sykes, here are 500 waistcoats ; dis- tribute them to the proper men, and collect them again on Thursday." Mr. Cooper would probably have to employ at least as many foremen, as Messrs. Moses employs middlemen, though at much lower earnings ; and the difference between the earnings of the two sets of functionaries, would be all that the co-operative workmen could save and share of the now be-grudged profits of the middlemen. Again, if the individual capitalist, after paying interest of money, puts into his pocket, annually and on an average of years, a larger sum, as profit, than the co-operative association would have to pay to their manager (or gerant), as salary, in order to obtain a man of equal knowledge, skill, vigi- lance, integrity, and zeal, then the difference between these two sums would be all that the association could appropriate of the now envied accumulations of the capitalist. If the workmen have entered these societies with any expectation of higher economic advantages than these, that expectation is doomed to certain dis- appointment. Xow, our firm conviction is that, in an average of cases, and on an average of years, the profits of the capitalist (above interest) will be found to be no more than a fair and moderate remuneration for those quali- ties and that attention which are required equally from the manager of a co-operative association, and must, VOL. I. L L 514 PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. therefore, be remunerated equally ; so that the whole pecuniary gain would be limited to the before -mentioned difference between the earnings of foremen and middle- men. We shall be told that the earnings of these middlemen are swelled by the extortion of scandalous gains upon food advanced, and unjust fines for alleged bad or unpunctual work. This is no doubt in many cases true ; but, in the first place, it is not to be sup- posed that fines, or their equivalent, will not have to be levied in case of careless or slovenly co-operative work- men ; in the second place, these fines, where unjust, form a portion of the allowed-for earnings of the mid- dlemen ; and, in the third place, the possibility of these alleged iniquitous extortions arises from the men being placed in the power of their oppressors, either owing to their redundant numbers, or their imprudence and recklessness evils which, as we shall presently see, the establishment of the co-operative system will leave untouched. The case of " Co-operative Stores " is precisely ana- logous. Here the aim of the associates is to secure to themselves the profit of the capitalist, who is a small tradesman or shopkeeper a perfectly legitimate object, if they are themselves capitalists. There can be no reason why fifty operatives, who have saved 1 01. each, should not set up a draper's or a grocer's shop, just as well as two small tradesmen who have 250/. each. But if they imagine that they can, by so doing, secure to themselves any greater pecuniary advantage than the difference between the profits for which the two small tradesmen are willing to work, and the salary which they, the co-operatives, must pay to their foreman or managing clerk ; or if they imagine that they can command such foreman, endowed with the honesty, skill, and vigilance needed to insure the prosperity of their concern, for remuneration materially lower than PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 515 that which the individual tradesman allots to himself in the form of profit, they are preparing for them- selves a certain, bitter, and easily to be foreseen disen- chantment. We do not say that collateral, moral, and educational benefits may not arise in the case of both working associations and co-operative stores, for the sake of which it might be well even to encounter some pecuniary loss; but we do say, that the possible pecuniary gain is limited in the manner we have specified. Having thus endeavoured to distinguish between the reasonable and unreasonable expectations of the " Chris- tian Socialists," and to assign the limits of possible pecuniary advantage which might result to the pro- moters of " Working Associations " and " Co-operative Stores," we will now endeavour to ascertain what grain of truth may lie hid in those wide, and more brilliant, visions in which these philanthropists indulge ; and what prospect there is, in sober reality, that society can be restored, or its deeper sufferings materially alleviated, by the general adoption of their plans. For the Christian Socialists do not, by any means, confine their projects to securing the establishment and success of a certain number of associations of working men, who shall be labourers and capitalists in one: they propose to multiply these associations, till they embrace the whole field of each separate department of industry, and to extend these co-operative stores till they have extinguished all individual shopkeepers in the several branches of retail trade. Even then, their work will be only half accomplished : they will then proceed to complete and crown their undertaking, by uniting all the associations in each trade into one vast guild, go- verned by a central committee ; and, finally, by effect- ing a union of all these guilds into one gigantic fra- ternal combination, whose affairs shall be directed by 516 PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. delegates from all the guilds. By this means, the whole of the industrial. arrangements of society will be revolu- tionised ; and the noble, Christian, and pacific principle of concert and co-operation, will be substituted for the selfish, mischievous, and wicked one of competition. Competition, they affirm, is the great devil of the modern system of industry and commerce, the Satan of our complicated civilisation, the root to which all our aggravated sufferings may be traced. Competition gluts our markets; competition drives down prices below a remunerating point ; competition lowers wages beyond the limits of subsistence ; competition enables the rich to take advantage of the necessities of the poor ; competition makes each man snatch the bread out of his neighbour's mouth, converts a nation of brethren into a mass of hostile and isolated units, and finally in- volves capitalist and labourer in one common ruin. Now we will pass over for the present the inquiry how far this is an exaggerated statement of one side of the question, and an entire and unfair ignoring of the other, and we will simply consider the mode in which the Socialists propose to meet and abolish this devouring mischief. Their first plan is the one so strongly eulogised in the Christian Scriptures, casting out Satan by Satan's agency. They propose to beat out Moses and Son and all other rivals by every art which the most resolute and indefatigable spirit of competition can supply. They will not rest, they say, till they have driven every slop-seller and " competitive" employer from the trade. With this hallowed aim so sacred in their hands, so iniquitous in everybody else's they put in operation all the usual means of success. They promise to make articles at least as good or better, and to sell them at least as cheap or cheaper, than any other establishment. They advertise as vigorously, in proportion to their PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 517 funds. They profess as largely, and describe as glow- ingly. They tout for custom with at least equal zeal. They and their supporters canvass among their friends, and entreat them to leave tradesmen who have served them long and well, in order to encourage these new associations. We know this to be the case. We do not blame them for it : if they promise no more than they perform, and are guilty of no untrue or unfair re- presentations, and no malicious depreciation of their rivals, their exertions are perfectly legitimate. But if legitimate in them, they must be equally legitimate in others whom yet they denounce for using them. We will imagine them successful. We will imagine that in each trade numerous associations of working men have been formed, and that, by the effects of supe- rior diligence, honesty, and skill by superior cheapness in a word (the very word which is the object of such fierce denunciations from their most eloquent writers!) they have driven every individual capitalist and em- ployer from the arena. Or, to make the matter clearer, we will suppose all this to have been effected in a single trade the tailors. Do they imagine that they have, by this process, either diminished the number of work- men, or increased the aggregate amount of work to be done ? Nay, will not the tendency of their success have been to multiply the workmen by improving their condition, and consequently the inducements to enter into it ? And if they have neither increased the work nor diminished the workmen, have they lessened by one iota that fact which lies at the root of all competition, and which must render competition as lasting as itself viz., the insufficiency of work for all the workmen w r ho are seeking it ? Do they imagine that the associa- tions will not compete with one another for that full employment which is unattainable by all? compete, in the first instance, by promising superior punctuality, L L 3 518 PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. neatness, and skill? compete, in the end, by offering their goods at a. lower price ? Do they imagine that the man who has ten children and a sick wife will be content with that half-work which may satisfy his bachelor associate, if, by offering himself at lower wages, or his productions at a lower price, he can obtain full work ? If they do imagine all this, they count upon the existence of qualities which have yet to be developed. They count upon the predominance of sentiments which are now vanquished, latent, or in abeyance. They count upon the love of the community being stronger than the love of the family, and the love of one's neigh- bour being stronger than the love of oneself which it never has been, as a rule, or among numbers, except in transient moments of aroused enthusiasm. They count, in fact, upon a change in the relative strength of human feelings and propensities, upon a remodelling of human nature (which is a very different thing from its gradual improvement a faith which we hold as firmly as them- selves) : They are, therefore, soaring out of the region of experience into the domain of fancy, whither we do not care to follow them, because there speculation becomes both unprofitable and delusive. Again. Do they imagine that these associations will be composed, on an average, of men of equal degrees of capacity and cleverness ? and that the association com- posed of skilful and energetic workmen will not, as a matter of course and of necessity, compete with and beat out the association composed of workmen who may in comparison be termed slothful and slovenly ? Do they believe that these latter will not then, inevitably and as a matter of self-defence, lower their prices to counter- balance the inferior quality of their goods, and work longer to make amends for working slower ? Moreover, what will become of those hands who, at the original formation of the associations, were found to be redun- PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 519 dant, for whom no work was left when the associations were all adequately employed, and who are conse- quently left floating on the surface of the trade, and must either be maintained in idleness, or will form themselves into supernumerary associations to drag down the others, or will work for individual capitalists at low wages, so as to defeat their schemes ? They cannot suppose that these men will be content, out of tender regard for the general good, to be extinguished or ignored. They cannot pretend to deny their existence, for it is out of the very fact of this surplus of hands that all the evils of the actual competition spring. If there were no such surplus, the masters would compete for the men, instead of the men competing for the masters ; and the workmen would long since have sprung into power and independence. There is no answer to all this ; but a mitigating plea will be put in, which, as we wish to leave no gap unstopped, we must not pass over without notice. We shall be told and have been told, that by the introduction of the asso- ciated system, the condition of the tailors would be so improved, and the wages actually received by them so much enhanced, that they would themselves become customers to themselves to a far greater degree than at present, and that thus the demand for clothes (and the work, therefore, to be done) would be increased. Granted: if they succeed and work well; which pos- sibly they may. But granted to this extent only; that this increase in the earnings (and therefore in the purchasing power) of the operative tailors can in no case exceed, as we explained fully in our last Paper, the difference between the gains of the middleman and capitalist after deducting interest of money, and the salaries of those parties who, under the associative system, would have to perform the functions of the middleman and the capitalist; a difference which, as L ! 4 520 PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. we then showed, must amount to a much smaller sum than it is generally loosely taken at. But all our representations are met in face by the as- sertion: " This competition between the associations, which you suppose inevitable, we shall preclude from ever taking place. For our work will be only half done till we have united them all in one grand federal union, imbued with the true feeling of fraternity, and managed by delegates and chiefs fairly elected from the whole body. This central guild or governing body will decide upon the principle on which the work shall be divided among the different affiliated associations, will fix the amount to be done or the hours to be worked by each, according to the briskness or slackness of demand, the expansion or contraction of the market ; so that the aggregate of employment shall be equitably apportioned among all. In this way all disputes and all competition will be avoided." This sounds plausible enough on paper: let us test it. Whence is to arise that wide knowledge, that deli- cate barometrical tact, which is to ascertain the amount of production required by thirty millions of people, and the manner in which this is to be allotted among the various associations into which the 100,000 tailors of Great Britain are divided ? Where could be found the skill needed even to apportion it fairly and satisfactorily among the 23,000 journeymen of the metropolis alone? What chance is there that the allotments would be sufficiently wise and fair (even where guided by the best intentions) to content the several hundred or thousand allottees ? How would it be possible to get so cumbrous a machinery to work ? If the plan of fixing from time to time the hours of work were adopted, as for the sake of simplicity and practicability would probably ultimately be the case, how would this ope- rate in different localities ? The hours which were found PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 521 more than ample to enable the London tailors to meet the London demand, might and probably would be quite insufficient to enable the Lancashire tailors to meet the Lancashire demand. The London men would then be for employing their over hours in helping to supply the Lancashire demand ; while the Lancashire men would be for working longer hours ; and their disputes would be endless and pertinacious. Does any man in his senses, who knows what committees and boards of di- rection are, really believe that the regulation of supply to meet demand throughout a great country and an important trade, could ever be satisfactorily, perma- nently, or decently adjusted by a vestry or jury ofPrud'- hommes? Or that the clumsy machinery which was sufficient to guide and govern industry (in a fashion) during the middle ages, when population was scanty, and trade was in its infancy, would be practicable or adequate in these days of gigantic enterprise and com- plicated interests ? How could such a board decide upon the question which would arise every year, as to how many new hands should be admitted into the cotton manufacture or the shoe trade ? How allay the indig- nation and heart-burnings of those whose sons were re- fused admission and condemned to idleness ? Truly the undertaking of such a government would be over- whelming, and the helmsman should be omniscient as well as omnipotent. Then how are the regulations of this central com- mittee to be enforced upon refractory and reluctant associations? How to be enforced against those an ever-increasing number, if our population goes on mul- tiplying as it has done who belong to no association, because they had found entrance into none, the central authority deciding that they were not wanted; or because, exercising the unquestionable rights of free- men, they declined belonging to any ? Have the Chris- 522 PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. tian Socialists faced the idea of the shameless and tre- mendous despotism they will have to conjure up in order to ensure the working of their scheme ? Against the affiliated association, indeed, the law might fairly step in (if it were found physically possible) to compel them to adhere to their agreement, and submit to the decisions of the power they had themselves enthroned. But how are they to deal with those independent work- men who, either from rejection or from choice, have re- mained free and unassociated ? Are they to be con- demned to inaction and starvation ? Are they to be prohibited from competing with the association? Are they to be forbidden to work except for a certain number of hours and at a prescribed rate of wages ? Is the in- dividual capitalist to be prevented from employing them on any terms which he and they both of them free adults and British citizens may mutually agree upon ? If not -if they are to be free to work how they like, as long as they like, for whom they like, and at what remu- neration they like, then all your boasted extinction of competition is at an end ; the very basis of your scheme for revolutionising the existing arrangements of capital and labour crumbles in the dust ; the essence of your panacea for regenerating society evaporates in air ; and the golden age is as far removed as ever. If, on the other hand, these floating, isolated, unattached freemen are to be debarred from the first element, the alphabetic claim, of liberty viz., the right to sell their own labour on their own terms and to a customer of their own choice ; if the associated guilds are to be endowed with power to crush all outlying rivals and competitors, or to compel them to a forced and loathed incorporation then you are not only casting out Satan by Satan's agency, but you are bringing seven worse devils than the old one into the chamber you have swept and garnished for your mad experiment j you are renovating and healing PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 523 society by the instrumentality of its deadliest malady and its most gnawing curse ; you are summoning ty- ranny to do the work of justice ; you are rashly calling in the worst foe to civilisation and to progress, to aid you in your glorious aims of indefinite improvement and universal emancipation ; you are asking spirits from hell to do the work of angels from heaven, and they laugh in scornful amazement at your blind temerity and your wilful and headlong self-delusion. But we will imagine even this difficulty got over. AVe will conceive that by the influence of some all- persuasive eloquence unknown to the real world, by some millennial change in human nature which would leave you nothing to desire or accomplish, or by some such all-powerful and all-embracing despotism as an earthly paradise would be dearly purchased by enthron- ing competition is crushed, extinguished, or absorbed ; and that all workmen in each department of industry work in concert and under the control and direction of a common head ; that all the tailors, all the shoemakers, all the bakers, &c., form each one colossal establish- ment; and that all rivalry is thus precluded. The matter is settled as far as the workmen are concerned : how is it with regard to the public? The producers are provided for: how irill it fare with the consumers? They have no longer any security, or any protection ; society has escaped one peril, to rush upon another ; it has ex- changed open competition for one huge monopoly; it has foregone the solid cheapness secured by the candi- dature of striving rivals, for such precarious substitute for cheapness as may be charitably assigned to it by the caprice of a body emancipated from all control, because from all competition; the tailors, the shoemakers, the bakers, will charge whatever they please for their coats, their shoes, and their bread and no man can gainsay 524 PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. them. The price may be high, the quantity scanty, and the quality bad ; but the public has no remedy save in an appeal to the justice, the mercy, or the decency of the dispensing potentates. But this is not all: the evil will proceed with the accelerated and proverbially rapid pace of all retrogressive movements ; as the price rises, the demand will fall off; as demand falls off, work will become scantier ; the tailors making fewer clothes, will require less cloth: the occupation of the manufacturer diminishes ; the shoemaker to speak in the language of barter will give the baker fewer shoes for his loaf; the baker will give the tailor fewer loaves for his coat ; and throughout the community the rivalry of dearness will be substituted for the rivalry of cheapness ; and the competition of trades for the competition of individuals. " Wrong again, oh Prophet of Evil ! " say the Chris- tian Socialists ; " our work is not yet completed ; you must not seize upon it in its unfinished state, and then inveigh against its imperfection. Our task will only be wholly done, when we have united, not only all work- men of one trade, but all trades into one gigantic asso- ciation, governed by the same unselfish and fraternal principles which prevail in each separate guild. We shall provide one federal assembly for the whole com- munity of interests, which shall prevent the mischief of monopoly, as the minor councils prevented the evils of competition, by fixing the rate of exchange between each department of industry ; deciding how many loaves shall be equivalent to so many shoes ; how much silk shall be given in exchange for so much cotton ; how many hours' labour of the peasant, the artisan, the statesman, and the student shall be equivalent to a coat, a house, a shoulder of mutton, or a bottle of wine ; for since all trade is barter, fixing such a price on each article as shall secure the public from the extortions of monopoly, would be fixing all these things." PROGRESS AND HOPES OF SOCIALISM. 525 Here we pause : we have brought the Socialists, step by step, to their last great panacea. We have put, fairly, into plain language the schemes and resources, the real nature of which they have disguised to their readers (and we believe to themselves) by vague and misty declamations. We have worked out their pro- cesses more clearly and more fully than they are in the habit of working them out for themselves. We have shown the course in which they are moving, the nature of the undertaking in which they have embarked, and the measures which they will be driven, and perhaps dimly expect to be driven, to adopt, so as to preclude the possibility of any further self-deception which is not wilful. We have brought them to the alternative be- tween failure on the one hand, and an appalling despo- tism on the other, at which our instincts shrink back in horror ; between all the evils of a crushing monopoly, or a colossal board for governing and deciding every- thing, the very faintest conception of whose functions makes imagination sink under their frightful magnitude and multiplied impossibilities. The bare statement of this ultimate resource is the death-warrant of the whole scheme which leads to it, ends in it, relies upon it. If there be any one who really believes such a huge board of rule feasible, or desirable if feasible, we bow before him ; we have no arguments that can reach him ; to us he is as invincible as the British army at Waterloo, which, Napoleon said, did not know when it was beaten. We are content to have brought our antagonists to un- mask the real plan and ultimate means, conceiving that the refutation of these lies in their simple announce- ment. 526 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE.* WE have long wished to introduce this work to the knowledge of our readers, and ought, we confess, to have done so long ago. But the vast extent of the subject, the deep interest of the period, and the ex- traordinary magnitude of the matters treated of, have hitherto deterred us from making the attempt ; while at the same time the singular admixture of serious faults which call for severe criticism, with great merits which excite our warmest admiration, renders our task one of unusual perplexity. These considerations must be our excuse, both with Mr. Alison and with our readers, for having suffered so long a period to elapse before noticing a work which, with all its defects, is one of the ablest and most fascinating that, for many years, has fallen into our hands. Mr. Alison seems to have been fully impressed with the importance of the task which he has undertaken, and with the responsibility attached to its performance in a diligent, honest, and impartial spirit. He first conceived the idea of such a work, on witnessing the meeting of the allied sovereigns in Paris in 1814, after the fall of their great rival ; and he has devoted nearly the whole of his leisure since that period to the col- lection of materials for his history, to the collation of conflicting authorities, and to a personal inspection of most of the scenes illustrated by the great events of the * From the " "Westminster Review." History of Europe, from the Commencement of the French Revo- lution to the Restoration of the Bourbons. By ARCHIBALD ALISON. Blackwood and Sons. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 527 twenty-five years whose annalist he had resolved to become. The result of this patient and conscientious diligence is seen in the production of a work distin- guished for fulness, general accuracy, and graphic power, and an impartiality the more remarkable, as the author is a man of outrageous political prejudices, which, though they disfigure almost every chapter of his book, have never been allowed to cast a shade over the honourable fairness of the narrative. In all his descriptions, both of civil and military proceedings, Mr. Alison is particularly successful; and we would instance his account of the campaign of Aspern and AYagram, and his masterly view of the measures adopted by Xapoleon for the reorganisation of France from 1799 to 1804, as admirable specimens of his ex- cellence in this line of historical writing. These eminent merits are, however, materially dashed by qualities of a very opposite character, which greatly diminish both the pleasure and the instruction Mr. Alison's history would otherwise have been calculated to afford. The first and slightest of these is a won- derful verbosity, which, together with his incessant repetitions, has greatly contributed to swell out his book to its present unwieldly bulk ; and to this we may add a carelessness of style often amounting to absolute obscurity. But we have been chiefly disappointed to perceive a deficiency of that comprehensive grasp of mind, those powers of close reasoning, and that pene- trating search into the hidden causes of great events, without which no historian can hope to live, and which no period of history more imperatively requires than the one which Mr. Alison has selected. His reflections, which are very lengthy and somewhat obtrusive, are not unfrequently trite, shallow, and declamatory, often marked by the blindest party prejudice, and delivered at the same time in a tone of dogmatism, which only 528 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. the profoundest wisdom can render tolerable, but which profound wisdom never assumes. The work embraces a period of twenty-five years, from the first outbreak of the French Revolution to the final termination of the wars arising out of it in 1815. It is comprised in ten volumes of excessive thickness, which, by a greater condensation of style, and the omission of all idle declamation and needless repetitions, will one day, we trust, be reduced to six. We do not, however, find fault with the minute detail in which Mr. Alison has thought it wise to write the history of this ^period. Historical summaries and abridgments are, of all works, the most useless and the most dull. If the past is to be of any service, either to guide us in the present or to prognosticate the future if it is to give us any insight into the causes which bring about national prosperity or suffering if it is to throw any light on the motives of human action, or the deep intricacies of human character it must be written with the fullest and minutest particularity. Otherwise it is of little more value than a column of names and dates. There are, however, but few periods of history that merit to be thus studied in detail. In modern times, probably the only passages that would repay such minute investigation are the era of maritime dis- covery, at the close of the fifteenth and the early part of the sixteenth century ; the Reformation ; the rise and fall of the Italian republics ; the struggle for con- stitutional liberty in England in the seventeenth cen- tury; and finally, the great rebellion against feudal and mental oppression in France, which broke forth publicly in 1789. Of all these, the last is to us far the most interesting, as nearest to our own days, as most remarkable in its character, and most far spreading in its consequences. We know of no period of history so fertile in attrac- ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 529 tions, both to -writer and to reader; none which pre- sents so many scenes of fearful and thrilling interest to be described ; so many profound and subtle problems of character to be solved; so many intricate* intrigues to be unravelled ; so many prolific truths of political philosophy to be deduced ; so many lessons of deep and melancholy wisdom to be learned. We know of no period so rich in materials, alike for the statesman, the moralist, and the poet, nor one which, to treat aright, M-ould require so rare a combination of the intellectual gifts of all three. At the same time we know of no period, for an accurate and philosophical history of which such ample materials exist. Yet such a work is still a desideratum a desideratum which Mignet, Thiers, Carlyle, and Alison, have been alike unable to supply. The period over which Mr. Alison's work extends naturally divides itself into two sections the history of the Eevolution and the history of Napoleon the respective treatment of which required very different qualifications. In the latter Mr. Alison has been so eminently successful, we think, as not only to supersede the necessity for any future history, but to earn a very distinguished place in the first rank of modern his- torians. In the former division we are disposed t'o think that he has failed, and failed from the want of that patient thought and philosophic grasp of mind which this portion of history pre-eminently demands. The progress of the human mind and of human society is seldom marked by regular and successive steps. At some periods civilisation appears to be sta- tionary ; at others, even to retrograde ; at others, again, to spring forward with rapid, gigantic, and almost convulsive strides. This irregularity of advance is, doubtless, more apparent than actual. Preparations are gradually made, ideas progressively matured, and the foundations of the future superstructure laid with VOL. i. M M 530 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. secret and patient industry. But these subterranean workings are for the most part unnoticed, till in the fulness of time a rich harvest of consequences is de- veloped, with apparent suddenness, from causes which have been accumulating in silence for many generations. The French Revolution was one of the most remark- able of these harvest-times of society. The stride for- ward was sudden, immense, and spasmodic; but the seeds of this vast event had long been germinating in the secret places of the earth. It is impossible, within our brief limits, to enter into any philosophical analysis of the nature, the causes, and the ultimate results, of this great political convulsion, or even to pass the stric- tures we should wish to do on the singularly imperfect and unsatisfactory manner in which Mr. Alison has executed this part of his task. A few general remarks are all that we can venture to offer. A philosophical view of this period would comprise four distinct considerations: the causes which led to the revolution ; the causes which gave to it its peculiar character; the causes which led to its immediate arid complete failure; and the permanent results of good and evil which have survived it. The proximate causes of the revolution the disputes with the parliament the profusion of the court the dilapidation of the finances, which made the summoning of the States- General a necessary, though a desperate expedient Mr. Alison has narrated with sufficient clearness. Nay, he has enumerated, in all their enor- mity, a host of oppressions enough to have driven even wise men mad, yet in his view evidently quite inade- quate either to explain the popular excitement or to justify the subsequent retaliation ; for he throughout speaks of the French people as acting under the in- fluence of some mysterious and wholly inexplicable frenzy. His description of the tyranny of the old ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 531 regime is such as to impress us with the feeling that Avhile it would have been infamy to submit to it, scarcely any punishment would be too heavy for its crimes, and scarcely any price too great to pay for emancipation from its grasp ; yet he everywhere describes the national rising against so insupportable a yoke, as almost an unprovoked, and quite an unpardonable iniquity. In fact, notwithstanding all his researches, he has failed suffi- ciently to recognise the great feature of the revolution, viz.: that it was a rebellion against class -legislation* ; that the privileges of the aristocracy had become too grievous to be borne ; while the profligacy of the court, and the vicious lives and supine negligence of the clergy, had dissipated that loyal and pious spirit which alone could oppose a barrier to the passionate excesses of a triumphant and exasperated populace. In one word, the revolution was a struggle between MAN and NOBLE- MAN. The distinction between noble and plebeian was carried in France to a degree of which it is difficult in a free country to form an adequate conception ; and the privileges of high birth descended to all the children, instead of being confined, as in England, to the eldest son. The consequence was the establishment of a line * His forgetfulness of this fact is the more remarkable, as lie himself admits it fully and states it broadly in his introductory chapters (vol. i. p. 109.) : " The extraordinary character of the French Revolution arose, not from any peculiarities in the disposition of the people, or any faults exclusively owing to the government, but from the weight of the despotism which had preceded, and the magnitude of the changes which were to follow it. ... France would have done less at the revolution, if she had done more before it ; she would not so unmercifully have unsheathed the sword to govern, if she had not so long been governed by the sword ; she would not have fallen for years under the guillotine of the populace, if she had not groaned for centuries under the fetters of the nobility." M M 2 532 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE^ of demarcation, which neither talent, enterprise, nor success was able to pass. " On the one side," says Mr. Alison, "were 150,000 privileged individuals; on the other the whole body of the French people. All situations of importance in the church, the army, the court, the bench, or diplomacy, were exclusively enjoyed by the former of these classes." Surely a system of such transcendent egotism as to admit of this description a system which excluded from all offices of power, honour, or emolument, the talent, the energy, the industry of the nation ; and which, in a population of thirty millions, reserved all the loaves and fishes of the state for 150,000 favourites of fortune, called imperatively for total reconstruction, and might well explain and excuse any amount of ex- asperation in the disfranchised and oppressed majority. It was this system which enlisted the wealthy, the able, and the educated portion of the middle classes on the revolutionary side. The great mass of the people, including the peasantry in the country and the labouring classes in the towns, had their own intolerable grievances to secure their sympathy and co-operation in the same direction. These grievances Mr. Alison has described without any at- tempt to conceal or palliate their enormity. The pri- vileged orders possessed two-thirds of the land, and yet were exempted from a large proportion of the taxes. The vingtieme and the faille (the latter of which was levied solely on the tiers etaf) were burdens on the produce of the soil, of so oppressive a character, that Arthur Young calculates that they, together with the rent, amounted to eleven-twelfths of the whole produce, or as he states it, that supposing the yield of an acre to be worth 31. "2s. Id., \l. 185. 4d. of this went to the king, and 185. to the landlord, leaving only 65. 3e?. for the cultivator. Mr. Alison quotes this, and proceeds : ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 533 " The great proprietors all resorted to Paris in quest of amusement, dissipation, or advancement ; and with the excep- tion of La Vendee, where a totally different system of manners prevailed, the country was hardly ever visited by its landlords. The natural consequence of this was, that no kindly feelings, no common interest, united the landlord and his tenantry. The former regarded the cultivators in no other light than as beasts of burden, from whose labour the greatest possible profit was to be extracted ; the latter considered their lords as tyrants, known only by the vexatious visits and endless demands of their bailiffs." Nor was this all. " The local burdens and legal services due by the tenantry to their feudal superiors were to the last degree vexatious and op- pressive Game of the most destructive kind, such as wild boars and herds of deer, were permitted to go at large through extensive districts, without any enclosures to protect the crops. The damage they did to the farmers in four parishes only was estimated at 8000/. a year. Numerous edicts existed which prohibited hoeing and weeding, lest the young partridges should be disturbed ; taking away the stubble, lest the birds should be deprived of shelter ; mowing hay, lest their eggs should be destroyed ; manuring with night-soil, lest their flavour should be injured. Complaints for the infraction of these edicts were all carried before the manorial courts, where every species of oppression, chicanery, and fraud, were prevalent The people were bound to grind their corn at their landlord's mill, to press their grapes at his press, to bake their bread at his oven. Corvees, or obligations to repair the roads, founded on custom, decrees, and servitude, were enforced with the ut- most severity." Vol. i. p. 137. AVill it be credited that, after enumerating all these unbearable oppressions, Mr. Alison still seems to think them insufficient to account for the outbreak which took place? and adds (p. 148.) " The circumstances which have now been mentioned, with- out doubt contributed to the formation of that discontent which formed the predisposing cause of the revolution, liut the H M 3 534 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. existing cause, as physicians would say, the immediate source of the convulsion, was the spirit of innovation which, like a malady, overspread France at that crisis." We should like to know what nation possessing the smallest spark of intelligence and courage, and suffering under such enormous wrongs, would not be overspread with a " spirit of innovation." But the picture would be incomplete without a re- ference to the general corruption of manners which prevailed among the higher classes, and especially at court. The instinctive loyalty, the blind and discredit- able devotion to the sovereign as such, which had dis- tinguished the French up to the time of Louis XIV., and which had been carried to its height by the splendid undertakings and dignified manners of that consummate actor "little in everything but the art of simulating greatness" received a considerable shock from the re- verses which darkened his later years, and still more, perhaps, from the childish and cruel fanaticism by which he sought to make tardy atonement for the profligacy of his youth and the desolating ambition of his manhood. The sanctimonious observances which he exacted from his nobles and courtiers caused them at his death to rush into the opposite extreme ; and the low debauchery and the contemptible baseness of the two succeeding reigns entirely obliterated what remained of the prestige of respect and attachment by which royalty had been formerly surrounded. The clergy, too, shared in the general corruption and in the general contempt. Their wealth was enormous * ; their luxury excessive and ostentatious ; and all pre- * The total revenues of the church derived from tithes reached 130,000,000 francs, of which only 42,000,000 were in the hands of the working clergy : the number of ecclesiastics was 80,000. But, in addition to this revenue, the ecclesiastical body owned nearly half the soil of France." Alison, vol. i. p. 182. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 535 tension to superior sanctity or correctness of manners had long since been abandoned. Indeed, many of the highest rank among them were pre-eminent for their licentiousness. The unbounded power they obtained towards the latter end of the reign of Louis XIV., by the entire suppression of dissent, served to complete their worthlessness and to seal their doom. " The Gallican Church, no doubt," says Mr. Hall, "looked upon it is a signal triumph when she prevailed on Louis XIV. to repeal the edict of Nantes, and to sup- press the Protestant religion. But what was the con- sequence ? Where, after this period, are we to look for her Fenelons and her Pascals ? where for the bright monuments of piety and learning which were the glory of her better days ? As for piety, she perceived that she had no occasion for it, when there was no lustre of Christian holiness surrounding her ; nor for learning, Avhen she had no longer any opponents to confute or any controversies to maintain. She felt herself at liberty to become as ignorant, as secular, as irreligious as she pleased ; and amidst the silence and darkness she had created around her, she drew the curtains, and retired to rest." Mr. Alison frequently laments, in language of bitter severity, the general infidelity which pervaded all classes in France at the period of the revolutionary outbreak. But he does not state, as in common fairness he ought to have done, how much of the guilt of this lies at the door of the "accredited teachers" of religion, who had banished or put to death all who preached the pure faith of Christ ; he does not sufficiently inform us that, not only were the clergy among the very first to set the example of unbelief, but that, in truth, Christianity was ever presented to the people from their hands so disguised, disfigured, and degraded, that it became almost a virtue to reject it. No stronger proof can be M M 4 536 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. given of the shameful extent to which clerical duties had been neglected throughout France, than the des- cription which Mr. Alison gives of the army which in- vaded Egypt and Syria in 1789 (vol. iii. p. 397.):- " They not only considered the Christian faith as an entire fabrication, but were for the most part ignorant of its very elements. Lavalette has recorded, that hardly one of them had ever been in a church ; and in Palestine they were unacquainted even with the names of the holiest places in sacred history." Such, then, were the full and ample causes which led to the great catastrophe of France the intolerable privileges of the few, the severe and hopeless sufferings of the many, and the scandalous and public profligacy of the court and the clergy not that blind frenzy which Mr. Alison has so needlessly conjured up as its originating source. The more peculiar features of the revolution, the low and sanguinary character which it so early assumed, and which ultimately led to its entire failure as a measure of regeneration, are eminently deserving of the study of the historian and the statesman ; and the causes to which these are to be traced, are not difficult to discover ; but we can here do little more than allude to them in the most cursory manner. Among the principal of them, was unquestionably the severity of the oppression to which all classes had been previously subjected ; for the violence of the convulsion will always be proportioned to the magnitude of the burden to be thrown off; and the atrocity of the revenge will gene- rally take its measure and its character from the atro- city of the injury to be atoned for. But, perhaps, the circumstance which more than any other modified the course of events in the revolution, was the famine which prevailed at its commencement. Mr. Carlyle is, we believe, the only writer on this period who has assigned ALISONS HISTORY OF EUROPE. 537 to this fact its due weight. The harvest of 1788 was a very defective one, and the consequent scarcity spread itself over the three following years ; for though the ensuing crop was plentiful, the usual channels of in- dustry and commerce had by that time become so com- pletely disorganised, that bread was nowhere to be obtained in sufficient quantity, and the scarcity soon amounted to a famine. In the market-place, the corn- sacks had to be guarded by dragoons, " often more than one dragoon to each sack." The bakers' shops were beset by a famishing populace, who were obliged to stand in a long string, often reaching above a hundred yards, that each might be served in turn. Even when obtained, they complained, probably with truth, that the bread was adulterated with plaster of Paris. Many were reduced to "meal-husks and boiled grass." Finally, an ounce and a half of bread daily was the utmost that could be afforded to each individual, and onions and pulse must fill up the deficiency ; nay, during the in- surrection at Versailles, a horse, which had been slain in the riot, was eagerly seized upon for food. The effect of all this upon a people of singular excitability, and with whom bread is a staple article of food, may be easily conceived. " Rien," says Mad. de Stael, " ne dispose le peuple au mecontentement comme les craintes sur le subsistence ; " and perhaps we may briefly express the peculiar effect of the scarcity on the march of revolu- tionary events, by saying that it caused the populace to intermingle in a struggle which would otherwise have been fought out (with a widely-different result in all likelihood) between the aristocracy and the middle classes the tiers etat* " Parties," says Mr. Carlyle, * The effect of famine, in throwing the control of events into the hands of the lowest class, was well understood by their leaders, one of whom wrote epigrammatically to a friend " Tout va bien ici ; le l>ain manque? Carlyle, vol. ii. p. 335. 538 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. " might have suppressed and smothered one another in the ordinary bloodless parliamentary way, on one con- dition that France had at least been able to exist all the while. But the sovereign people has a digestive faculty, and cannot do without bread." When the great mass of the people are comfortable and contented, despotism may exist with little difficulty; or the go- vernment and the middle ranks may fight out their dif- ferences in a safe and regulated manner ; but when the middle ranks are clamorous for political rights, at the same time that the lowest classes are clamorous for food, the most firmly constituted authorities will rarely be able to resist the united pressure. If kings and privi- leged orders were wise in their generation, and cun- ning in their craft, they would feed the people at any price. Another cause of the peculiar character of the French Revolution, is to be found in the entire inexperience of the people and their leaders, both in the legislative and the administrative department of government. The old bureaucracy were speedily displaced, as unworthy of the confidence of reformers, and no one else possessed ade- quate knowledge to perform their functions. The great majority of the French popular leaders even the ablest and the best among them derived their ideas of government from Rousseau and Condorcet, and their notions of public virtue from the extravagant and un- real heroes of Plutarch. With this prevailing ignorance, the consequences could scarcely have been other than they were. The moment a representative system was given to a people exasperated by past wrongs, and un- skilled in the exercise of power, the excesses which ensued might have been considered almost unavoidable. But with every allowance for the operation of these unfortunate conditions, much, no doubt, must be attri- buted to the singular features of the French character, ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUUOPE. 539 to that mobile and hasty temperament, that warlike spirit and inordinate passion for military glory, and that deplorable want of moral courage, which have always distinguished it, but which were never so marked or attended with such fatal consequences as during the revolutionary struggle. There is much that is amiable, and much that is admirable, in our French neighbours ; for general cleverness, active enterprise, daring heroism, and patience under the hardships and privations of war, they are, perhaps, unrivalled ; but the quiet enthusiasm which pursues its object, steadily and silently, through neglect and through reproach the courage to with- stand popular clamour the firmness to resist the con- tagion of popular emotion the fortitude to suffer in obscurity and in secret the devotion to adhere un- flinchingly to an obnoxious principle or to a sinking cause these, unhappily, have at no time formed a portion of the Gallic character. In this enumeration of the causes which stamped upon the French Revolution those peculiar features which distinguish it from all similar convulsions, we must not forget one of the most powerful of them all the pre- dominance of Paris over the rest of France. The in- variable residence of the monarch in or near the metro- polis and that unworthy passion for court distinctions which pervaded all classes had for many generations been operating to concentrate all the wealth arid talent of the kingdom into one single focus. Provincial use- fulness and provincial fame were disregarded and de- spised. The nobility deserted their chateaux in the country, and left their wretched vassals to the superin- tendence of a rapacious agent, that they might bask in the sunshine of royal favour. The soldier, whenever it was possible, forsook his duties in the province, to hasten to the head-quarters of patronage and promotion ; and whatever of genius or capacity chanced to arise in any 540 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. part of France, hurried at once to the capital, as the only fitting arena for display. Hence Paris became, not only the epitome of France, but its heart the centre of its vitality ; any movement there was instanta- neously transmitted to the remotest departments, and passively acquiesced in by them ; and whoever could obtain the mastery of that volatile and excitable metro- polis, found himself at once the despotic governor of France. Hence the quick succession of rulers and con- stitutions, and the marvellous facility with which each one overthrew its predecessor. The vices and cruelties of the several governments which successively seized the direction of affairs, and the consequent disappointment, disgust, and exhaustion of the people, paved an easy way for the daring usurpation of Napoleon ; and amid the comparative repose which ensued under his iron despotism, the nation, wearied of its fruitless struggles after freedom, sank quietly to sleep. What now remains of permanent result from that great social movement which agitated all Europe towards the close of the last century, and of which the French Revolution may be considered as at once the most violent symptom and the most vivid embodiment ? Now that the convulsion has subsided, what are the abiding traces it has left behind ? Interesting and momentous questions, to which we can only glance at the reply. France has unquestionably gained much ; legal, though imperfect, freedom of the press, equality of civil rights, and a representative system, extremely defec- tive beyond dispute, but capable of easy and progressive enlargement. In a word, she has now the means of steadily ameliorating all her institutions, without having recourse to violent or illegal enterprises ; and in this condition is comprised real political liberty. And no one who compares the second revolution with the first, can ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 541 doubt that France has profited immensely by the severe ordeal she has passed. The gain to the civilised world at large, though less marked, lias, we think, been no less real. The essentials of genuine freedom are everywhere better understood ; the great principle is everywhere acknowledged as a fundamental and unquestioned truth that the object of all government is the happiness of the subject many, not the advantage of the ruling few. And if no other lesson had been taught us in the school of affliction and adversity, through which the revolutionary mania made us pass, at least this will have survived : nations will have learned to rebel with less vehement excesses, and rulers to be more measured and moderate in their oppression. The second portion of Mr. Alison's task, the " History of Xapoleon," he has executed in a manner worthy of all praise. The picture he has given us of the character and achievements of this wonderful warrior is complete, vivid, and distinct, and, as a whole, far superior both in fulness and vigour to any other we have read. The various steps by which Napoleon achieved supreme power the singular manner in which fortune played into his hands his hairbreadth escapes from utter ruin at several of the most critical periods of his life his march from victory to victory, and the peculiar and masterly tactics by which he obtained them all his admirable measures for the regeneration of a country so thoroughly disorganised as France was when he became its ruler the gradual turning of the scale against him by the improvement of his enemies' conduct, and the exhaustion of his own resources his last gallant struggle against overwhelming numbers his tempo- rary abdication and subsequent miraculous revival together with the final catastrophe, and the melancholy 542 ALISON'S HISTORY or EUROPE. close of his chequered and turbulent career are all depicted with a truth of outline and a richness of colouring, which fix the attention of the reader without an effort, and leave an indelible impression on his memory. Certainly no historian ever had so magnifi- cent a subject, and few have ever done fuller justice to their task. Napoleon was perhaps the most consummate master of military science the world ever saw. In the original conception of his plan, in his accurate and comprehensive combinations, as well as in his manoeuvres in the field, he carried skill to that point at which it merges into genius. Some, we know, have sought to deny him this praise, and have laboured to prove that his talents as a general were of a very mean order ; elaborate arguments by ensigns and cornets have been published with this view : and we well remember many years ago to have heard an officer who had served under him on many occasions declare that, except in his Italian campaigns, he never showed any remarkable capacity, but accom- plished all his subsequent conquests solely by dint of numbers, and by a reckless sacrifice of his troops, from which more considerate or humane generals would have shrunk. But it is impossible to read the details of his campaigns, and the most remarkable of his battles, which Mr. Alison has described, without feeling convinced that all such disparaging arguments as those we refer to, must be regarded much in the same light as the old scholastic disputations, the sophistical paradoxes of Rousseau, or the " Historic Doubts " of Archbishop Whately ; namely, as amusing feats of intellectual jug- glery, or exercises of aimless ingenuity. It is perfectly true that Napoleon committed more than one serious mistake in his warlike enterprises ; but this rarely occurred except when long experience of his adversaries had taught him a contempt for their ca- ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 543 pacity, which they were just ceasing to deserve ; or when political considerations mixed themselves with those of strategy, and the conflicting interest of his double position as an emperor and a general, rendered that advisable as a matter of policy, which was in opposition to the acknowledged principles of the military art, as was frequently the case in the later part of his career. Moreover, the general who, for fifteen years, has found a particular line of tactics invariably suc- cessful, cannot be accused of blundering because, from some unforeseen change of character on the part of his antagonist, it for once fails of its effect. It is equally indisputable that, on several occasions, both in his civil and military career, Napoleon narrowly escaped destruction ; and that some of his most signal and important triumphs were, if we may so express it, little more than defeats changed into victories by some remarkable stroke of fortune, or by the incapacity or folly of his adversaries. When he seized the supreme power on the 18th Brumaire, it was for many minutes doubtful whether his bold attempt would not terminate in utter failure, and be promptly expiated on the scaffold. The crisis was so fearful, and the danger so imminent, that, for the first and only time in his life, he entirely lost his presence of mind, and was only saved by the timely bombast of his brother Lucien, and the intervention of his own grenadiers. Again, at the battle of Marengo, the second crisis of his life, he was entirely defeated, when the defeat was changed into a splendid victory by the memorable charge of Kellerman. If the allies had remained firm, and refused to treat, after the battle of Austerlitz, it seems clear that Napoleon would have been compelled to exchange a brilliant victory for a disastrous retreat. If the Archduke John had obeyed orders in the campaign of Aspern, Napoleon would have been irretrievably cut off. As it was he suffered a 544 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. severe defeat, and narrowly escaped destruction. If the Russians had been fully aware of their success at Eylau, and had advanced after the battle, Napoleon never would have had the opportunity of restoring his affairs by the victory of Friedland. And had Kutusoff been aware that Napoleon had fought the battle of Borodino with only ammunition sufficient for a single day, he never would have suffered him to enter Moscow. In all these cases he owed much to fortune much to the errors of his antagonists but much also to his own skill and daring. It is also true that he owed much of his early and signal success to having had the A.ustrians for his first arid principal opponents. Though brave in the field, they were languid, tardy, and easily thrown into con- fusion by a flank attack. Their radically defective system which no experience taught them to abandon of tying up their ablest generals to a plan of the campaign, all the details of which were arranged by the Aulic Council at Vienna; while Napoleon, even in his earliest commands, acted entirely on his own judgment as the varying exigencies of the war demanded, and disdained to be fettered by any superior authority, - gave him a decisive advantage over his methodical antagonists. While at the same time their extraordinary and incurable slowness of proceeding, which continued unamended to the last year of the war, and the certainty with which they retreated, or laid down their arms the moment their flank was turned or their communications threatened, were exactly fitted to play into the hands of a general unrivalled for the celerity of his movements and the boldness with which he threw himself upon his enemy's rear. The Austrian officers had been trained in the old school of military tactics, when after a few marches and counter-marches, a siege, and a couple of pitched battles, the campaign was considered to be at an ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 545 end, arid both parties were accustomed, as a matter of course, to retire into winter quarters ; and when they regarded themselves as defeated as soon as they were decidedly outnumbered or outmanoeuvred ; and they had no idea either of the rapidity of movement or the obstinacy of resolve, which were requisite to encounter with effect an adversary like Napoleon. To the very last they always allowed him to surprise them, and con- ceived him to be at the distance of some days' march, when he was actually close upon them. It became manifest how much he had owed to this peculiar cha- racter of his opponents, as soon as he came into collision with the Russian troops in the campaign of Austerlitz, or with the English at Waterloo and in the Peninsula. These soldiers never retreated till their defeat was entire and overwhelming ; and when they did retire, it was almost invariably in good order, and without loss of baggage or standards. The battle of Friedland was the only one fought by Napoleon against Russian troops in which he gained many of the proofs and trophies of victory. The campaign of Austerlitz is particularly worth studying with a view to this consideration. Indeed all the wars from 1796 to 1814 show that, had the Austrians been his only antagonists, he would, in all probability, have found no barrier between him and the sceptre of universal dominion. Nevertheless, after allowing their full weight to all those considerations, ample proof will still remain of the splendid military genius of the French emperor a genius which never shone forth more brilliantly than in the fatal campaign of 1814, when, with an army com- posed almost entirely of newly levied conscripts many of them mere boys he contended single-handed against the combined forces of all Europe, and gained such a series of astonishing, though ineffective, victories. And whoever may be found, from motives of ungenerous VOL. I. N N 546 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. envy, or unworthy love of paradox, to deny the claims of Napoleon to the praise of a consummate general, the testimony of the Duke of Wellington and the Archduke Charles the only captains who ever conquered him will not be wanting to confute them.* The capacities of Napoleon as a civil ruler were scarcely inferior to his talents as a general. We find ample evidence of the success with which he applied the native vigour of his understanding to the science of government, in his despatches to the ministers of state, in his recorded conversations with his friends, in his speeches and observations to his council, as collected and published by Thibaudeau, and in the admirable measures he adopted or suggested for the reorganisation of France from 1800 to 1804. It is impossible to read the account of these matters which Mr. Alison has left usf, without doing involuntary homage to the strong clear sense, the instinctive wisdom, which, amid all the fatal errors which ambition led him to commit, marked every observation which fell from this wonderful man. In one point only was he thoroughly ignorant com- mercial policy but so are nine-tenths of statesmen even now. Nor does history alone contain the proofs of Napoleon's extraordinary administrative capacity. All France and Italy abound with the undertakings of public utility which he set on foot and carried through. It appears that during the twelve years of his govern- ment he expended no less than 40,000, 0001. sterling on public works in the various countries under his rule (twenty-eight millions in France alone) ; and of these, * The Duke, on being asked by Canning at what period of his career he considered that Napoleon was most conspicuously great as a military chief, replied, " Oh ! beyond all question, after the battle of Leipsic." f We especially recommend to the careful study of our readers the thirty-fifth chapter of Mr. Alison's work. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE:. 547 twenty-two were for roads, bridges, harbours, and canals, which will remain eternal monuments of his genius and power, and perpetual blessings and sources of civilisa- tion to all Europe, long after the hand of time and industry shall have obliterated the last lingering traces of his desolating wars, and when the memory of his crimes and his glory shall have faded into the dim re- moteness of the past. It is not often the case that the good men do lives after them, and the evil is interred with their bones ; but it was so to a great extent with Napoleon. The vestiges of the mischiefs which he caused, and the sufferings which he inflicted, are fast dying out, and the lifetime of the present generation Avill probably see the last of them effaced; but the Antwerp harbour, the Alpine roads, and the Code Na- poleon, would, in all likelihood, survive his memory, if they were not themselves its noble and undying record. The physical energies of Napoleon seem to have been almost superhuman. Fatigue was nearly un- known to him. With most men such an unsleeping spirit as his would have " o'er informed its tenement of clay." The fiery activity of his soul, however, appeared to endow his corporeal frame with powers of endurance and exertion with which none of his followers could keep pace. Mr. Alison, in his seventieth chapter, has given us a vivid picture of the incessant toil with which he wore out both his aides-de-camp and his secre- taries. He was invariably temperate, often almost to as- ceticism ; seldom took above four hours' sleep, and, when necessary, seemed able to dispense with it altogether. " But while he shunn'd the grosser joys of sense, His mind seem'd nourish'd by that abstinence." In one point his character presents a singular con- trast with itself. His genius was essentially mathe- matical ; yet few men ever existed in whom the poetic H 2 548 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. element was so powerfully developed. His fancy was quite of the oriental cast. To the very end of his career his mind was full of the most romantic visions of Eastern grandeur ; and his magnificent and wild imagi- nation presents a vivid contrast to the vigorous grasp of his intellect, the coolness of his judgment, and the crystal clearness of his understanding. The throne of Constantinople or Hindostan was one of the dreams of his earliest youth ; and even in the midst of his most splendid European conquests, gorgeous visions of palms and pagodas were seldom long absent from his fancy. The reverse of this interesting picture is presented when we turn from his intellectual endowments to con- template his moral qualities. Yet even here there was much that was attractive. He was a man of fascinating manners, of occasional impulses of generous emotion, and of warm and kind, though limited affections. He appears to have been sincerely attached to his wife and child, and to a few among his early companions in arms, especially to Lannes, Duroc, and Junot. But the pro- minent feature of his character was a hard, cold, unre- lenting selfishness. Whatever interfered, or seemed likely to interfere, with his own fame, his own aggran- disement, his own ambition, was trampled under foot with the most ruthless resolution. His total and con- temptible disregard of truth ; his ungenerous enmity to all whose exploits threatened to rival or eclipse his own, or whose services to himself had been too conspicu- ously brilliant ; his entire disregard of the lives of his soldiers, or the exhaustion of his country, or the rights of other sovereigns, or his own deliberate promises and solemn treaties, or, in short, of any consideration what- ever, when in pursuit of the objects he had determined to obtain ; his insolent and cruel violations of the first principles of international law ; and the sufferings lie inflicted on the whole of Europe by his Berlin and Milan ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 549 anti-commercial decrees, while at the same time he did not scruple to sacrifice the very object for which they were enacted, by the sale of licences to enrich his private treasury ; all these things, which are fully and vividly detailed in the history before us, not only make us rejoice in the fall of this barbarian enemy of peace and freedom, but enable us to look upon the retributive fate which subsequently overtook him bitter as it was without a single emotion of pity or regret. The insatiable and unresting ambition of Napoleon admits of no excuse. His encroachments were even more daring and intolerable in time of peace than during war. He pursued them from passion, and jus- tified them on principle. He was in the habit of de- fending his unceasing wars, by urging the necessity, which the precarious tenure of his dynasty laid him under, of constantly dazzling the imaginations of the French by new and more magnificent achievements ; and repeatedly affirmed that any repose under his laurels, any pause in his career of conquest, would have compromised his authority with so fickle and requiring a people. Mr. Alison, much to our surprise, adopts the same line of defence. " Napoleon constantly affirmed that he was not to be accused for the wars which he undertook ; that they were imposed upon him by an invincible necessity; that glory and success in other words, perpetual conquest were the conditions of his tenure of power ; that he was the head of a military republic, which would admit of no pause in its career; that conquest with him was essential to existence, and that the first pause in the march of victory would prove the commencement of ruin. This history has, indeed, been written to little purpose, if it is not manifest, even to the most inconsiderate, that he was right in these ideas, and that it was not himself, but the spirit of his age, which is chargeable with his fall." Vol. x. p. 539. But the defence is an untenable one ; or, if admissible at all, is applicable only to his earlier wars. It is un- N N 3 550 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. questionably true, as Napoleon declared, that his power being founded mainly on opinion, any serious check, or reverse, might have shaken and when it came did shake the stability of his throne. But this stability was so far from depending on his continental aggression wars, that it was materially weakened and undermined by them ; and the grinding conscription which in the late years of the war was always levied by anticipation had wearied out the loyalty of the great body of the nation, and the fatigues and privations of ceaseless campaigning had completely exhausted the zeal and attachment of his generals, before the disasters in Spain or Russia had begun to cast a doubt on the invincibility of his arms.* " Where is the use," asked the discon- tented marshals, "of our wealth and our splendid palaces in Paris, if we are never to have leisure to enjoy them, but must live on horseflesh, and lie upon the ground ? " We feel perfectly satisfied, after a careful perusal of all that Mr. Alison has written on this subject, that if, after the decisive battle of Friedland, Napoleon had sheathed the sword, and devoted his genius and activity to in- ternal improvement, and to the reparation of the ravages which his wars had made in the wealth, the finances, the commerce, the population, and the agriculture of France, he might still have been reigning in the Tuileries, and have maintained the boundary of the Rhine. To us who live after the panic has subsided, and when the cause of terror is removed, and who can read past events by the light which subsequent disclosures have thrown over them few things appear more re- markable than the excessive alarm and despondency which Napoleon's march towards universal dominion excited in the minds even of the most strong and clear- sighted statesmen of the day. They saw him advance from victory to victory, lay prostrate often by a single * Alison, vol. viii. pp. 614. 674. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 551 blow the most renowned monarchies of Europe, attach one nation after another to his standards, and aggran- dise his territories even more rapidly by diplomacy than by the sword. But they did not see, behind this brilliant exterior of events, the causes at work, which sooner or later must inevitably arrest the tide of con- quest, and roll it back with resistless violence upon the shores of France. They did not see that the utter ex- haustion, both of population, commerce, and cultivation which Xapoleon's conquests involved, must soon bring those conquests to an end, by leaving him destitute of those natural resources which had hitherto enabled him to achieve them. They did not perceive that the enor- mous armies which were requisite to crush his more powerful antagonists must, in a hostile land, fall to pieces from their own unwieldiness ; and still more that the cruel exactions and more cruel humiliations which he heaped upon the vanquished nations, were silently, but rapidly, arousing a desperate spirit of resistance and revenge, which, when matured, would prove too mighty even for the spirit of conquest, or the miracles of military science. In modern times, we are satisfied, universal dominion is as hopeless a chimera as perpetual motion. The very mechanism requisite to realise either problem involves its own discomfiture. Yet the corre- spondence of Sir James Mackintosh (who assuredly was one of the most sagacious and profound observers of political events which our age has produced) abounds in desponding passages as to the universal despotism which the French emperor was establishing, and the night of barbarism which was falling upon Europe. In 1808 he writes thus to a friend : " Who can tell how long the fearful night may be, before the dawn of a brighter to-morrow ? Experience may, and I hope does, justify us in expecting that the whole course of human N N 4 552 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. affairs is towards a better state ; but it does not justify us in supposing that many steps of the progress may not immediately be towards a worse. The race of man may reach the promised land, but there is no assurance that the present generation will not perish in the wil- derness. The prospect of the nearest part of futurity, of all that we can discover, except with the eyes of speculation, seems very dismal. The mere establish- ment of absolute power in France is the smallest part of the evil. . . . Europe is now covered with a mul- titude of dependent despots, whose existence depends on their maintaining the paramount tyranny in France. The mischief has become too intricate to be unravelled in our day. An evil greater than despotism, or rather the worst and most hideous form of despotism, ap- proaches a monarchy, literally universal, seems about to be established. Then all the spirit, variety, and emu- lation of separate nations, which the worst forms of internal government have not utterly extinguished, will vanish. And in that state of things, if we may judge from past examples, the whole energy of human intellect and virtue will languish, and can scarcely be revived otherwise than by a spirit of barbarism."* Yet within five years of the date of these remarks, the empire of Napoleon was at an end. But it is time to bring our observations to a close. We lay down Mr. Alison's masterly picture of Napo- leon's career and character, with a feeling of sincere regret. To attempt any succinct portraiture of such a man would be presumptuous and idle. It would appear as if Providence had sent him upon earth, to show to the worshippers of grandeur and of talent, how com- pletely all that is most magnificent in intellectual en- dowment may be divorced from moral excellence and the * Memoirs of Sir James Mackintosh, vol. i. p. 383. See also pp. 296. 307. 375., for a repetition of the same gloomy forebodings. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 553 generous affections; and when so divorced, how incal- culably sad and terrible are its consequences to mankind. Yet every page of Napoleon's history, while it adds to the detestation which we cannot but feel for his selfish- ness and his crimes, serves also to augment the thrilling admiration which the coldest heart cannot refuse to his superb and splendid genius. It appears from authentic documents which Mr. Alison has collected, that from the commencement to the close of the revolutionary wars, the levies of soldiers in France exceeded four millions* , and that not less than three millions of these, on tht lowest calculation, perished in the field, the hospital, or the bivouac.f If to these we add, as we unquestionably must, at least an equal number out of the ranks of their antagonists, it is clear that not less than six millions of human beings perished in warfare in the course of twenty years in the very heart of civilised Europe, at the commencement of the nineteenth century of the Christian era. But even these stupendous numbers give us no adequate concep- tion of the destruction of human life directly consequent on the wars of the revolution and the empire. We must add the thousands who perished from want, outrage, and exposure, and the hundreds of thousands who were subsequently swept away by the ravages of that pes- tilence J which took its rise amid the retreat from Russia, and the crowded garrisons of the campaign of 1813, and for several years afterwards desolated in succession every country of Europe. And even when we have summed up and laid before us, in all the mag- nitude of figures, the appalling destruction of life here exhibited, we can still gather only a faint and remote conception of the sufferings and the evils inflicted by this awful scourge. Death in the field is among the * Alison, vol. x. p. 540. t Ibid. vol. vi. p. 411. \ Ibid. vol. ix. p. 650. ; vol. x. p. 9. 554 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. smallest of the miseries of war; the burned villages the devastated harvests the ruined commerce the towns carried by assault the feeble outraged, and the lovely massacred grief, despair, and desolation, carried into innumerable families, these are among the more terrific visitations of military conflicts, and the blackest of the crimes for which a fearful retribution will one day be exacted at the hands of those who have pro- voked, originated, or compelled them. If anything could awaken the statesmen of our age to a just esti- mate of war and the warrior, surely their deeds and the consequences of these deeds should do so, when exhibited on a scale of such tremendous magnitude. Yet so far the impression made seems to have been both feeble and imperfect. Our views with regard to war are still in singular discordance both with our reason and our re- ligion. They appear to be rather the result of a brute instinct, than of obedience to the dictates either of a sound sense, or of a pure faith. On all other points, Christianity is the acknowledged foundation of our theory of morals, however widely we may swerve from it in practice ; but in the case of war we do not pretend to keep up even the shadow of allegiance to the au- thority of our nominal lawgiver. " A state of war," says Eobert Hall, "is nothing less than a temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue." It is the primary object of war, and is considered to be the primary duty of the warrior, to inflict the maximum of injury upon the enemy ; and so distinctly is this principle laid down, that we have seen courts-martial held upon deserving officers, in which the only charge against them was that they had not done as much mischief to their antagonists as, under the circumstances, it was considered they might have done, that they had spared some property which might have been destroyed, and suffered some fellow creatures to escape with life who, with greater ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 555 exertion, might have been slain ; and in which the ac- cusation was preferred in these broad and naked terms.* How happens it that our notions on the subject of war are so widely different from what we have a right to suppose they would be among a Christian people ? from what they would be, if Christianity had had any share in their formation ? We think the singular dis- crepancy may be traced to two sources. In the first place, the whole tone of feeling among educated minds and through them among other classes has become thoroughly perverted and demoralised by the turn which is given to their early studies. The first books to which the attention of our youth is sedulously and exclusively directed are those of the ancient authors; the first poet they are taught to relish and admire is Homer; the first histories put into their hands (and with which through life they are commonly more con- versant than with any other) are those of Greece and Rome; the first biographies with which they become familiar are those of the heroes and warriors of the wild times of old. Now, in those days the staple occu- pation of life at once its business and its pastime was war. War was almost the sole profession of the rich and great, and became, in consequence, almost the sole theme of poets and historians. It is, therefore, the subject most constantly presented, and presented in the most glowing colours, to the mind of the young student, at the precise period when his mind is most susceptible and most tenacious of new impressions; the exciting * " The morality of peaceful times is directly opposite to the maxims of war. The fundamental rule of the first is to do good ; of the latter to inflict injuries. The former commands us to succour the oppressed ; the latter to overwhelm the defenceless. The rules of morality will not suffer us to promote the dearest interests by falsehood ; the maxims of war applaud it when employed for the destruction of others." Robert Hall, p. 20. 556 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. scenes of warfare fill him with deeper interest than any other, and the intellectual and moral qualities of the warrior quick foresight, rapid combination, iron re- solve, stern severity, impetuous courage become the objects of his warmest admiration ; he forgets the peaceful virtues of charity and forbearance, or learns to despise them ; he sees not the obscurer but the loftier merits of the philanthropist and the man of science ; he comes to look upon war as the noblest of professions, and upon the warrior as the proudest of human cha- racters ; and the impression thus early made withstands all the subsequent efforts of reflection and religion to dislodge it. It is difficult to over-estimate the mischief wrought by this early misdirection of our studies ; and that the impression produced is such as we have repre- sented it, every one will acknowledge on a consideration of his own feelings.* The other source of our erroneous sentiments with regard to war may be found in the faulty and mis- chievous mode in which history has been generally written. In the first place, little except war has been touched upon ; and the notion has been thus left upon the mind, either that nations were occupied in war alone, or that nothing else was worth recording. Those silent but steady labours which have gradually advanced the wealth of a country, and laid the foundation of its pros- perity and power; those toilsome investigations which have pushed forward the boundaries of human know- ledge, and illustrated through all time the age and the land which gave them birth ; that persevering inge- nuity and unbaffled skill which have made science the handmaid of art, and wrought out of her discoveries the materials of civilisation and national pre-eminence ; and, greater than all, that profound and patient thought * See Foster's Essays, p. 341. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 557 which has elicited the great principles of social and political well-being; concerning all these, history has been silent ; and the whole attention, both of the teacher and the student, has been concentrated upon "the loud transactions of the outlying world," while the real progress of nations, and the great and good men who have contributed thereto, have alike been consigned to oblivion. Again, historians have never given a full and fair analysis of what war is. They have described the marches, the sieges, the able manoeuvres, the ingenious stratagems, the gallant enterprises, the desperate con- flicts, the masterly combinations, the acts of heroic daring, with which war abounds; and they have summed up those descriptions of battles which we read with breathless interest, by informing us that the victory was gained with a loss of so many thousands killed and wounded so many thousands made prisoners and so many standards and pieces of artillery taken from the enemy.* But all this is only the outside colouring of war, and goes little way towards making us acquainted with its real character. Historians rarely tell us of the privations suffered the diseases engendered the tortures undergone during a campaign; still less of the vices ripened, the selfishness confirmed, the hearts hardened, by this "temporary repeal of all the principles of virtue." They do not speak of the ties broken of the peasants ruined of the hearths made desolate of * " A history that should present a perfect display of human miseries and slaughter, would incite no one that had not attained the last possibility of depravation, to imitate the principal actors. It would give the same feeling as the sight of a field of dead and dying men after a battle is over, a sight at which the soul would shudder ; yet the tendency of the Homeric poetry, and of epic poetry in general, is to insinuate the glory of repeating such a tragedy." Foster, p. 343. 558 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. grief never to be comforted of shame never to be wiped away of the burden of abiding affliction brought upon many a happy household of all the nameless atrocities, one of which in peaceful times would make our blood run cold, but which in war are committed daily, by thousands, with impunity. Historians rarely ever present us with such pictures as the following ; and yet these are the inevitable accompaniments of war : " Such was the terrible battle of Eylau, fought in the depth of winter, amidst ice and snow, under circumstances of unex- ampled horror. The loss on both sides was immense ; and never in modern times had a field of battle been strewn with such a multitude of slain. On the side of the Russians, 25,000 had fallen, of whom above 7000 were already no more ; on that of French upwards of 30,000 were killed or wounded, and nearly 10,000 had left their colours under pretence of attending to the wounded. Never was spectacle so dreadful as the field pre- sented on the following morning. Above 50,000 men lay in the space of two leagues, weltering in blood. The wounds were for the most part of the severest kind, from the extraordinary quan- tity of cannon balls which had been discharged during the action, and the close proximity of the contending masses to the deadly batteries which spread their grape at half musket shot through their ranks. Though stretched on the cold snow, and exposed to the severity of an arctic winter, they were burning with thirst, and piteous cries were heard on all sides for water, or assistance to extricate the wounded men from the heaps of slain, or the load of horses, by which they were crushed. Six thousand of these noble animals encumbered the field, or, maddened with pain, were shrieking aloud amid the stifled groans of the wounded." Alison, vi. p. 85.* * " On Sunday forenoon I found a crowd collected round a car in which some wounded soldiers had just returned from Russia. No grenade, or grape could have so disfigured these victims of the cold. One of them had lost the upper joints of all his ten fingers, and he showed us the stumps. Another wanted both ears and nose. More horrible still was the look of a third, whose eyes had been frozen ; the eyelids hung down rotting, the globes of the eyes were burst, and protruded from their sockets. It was awfully hideous ; but a spec- ALISON'S HISTOEY OF EUROPE. 559 We might multiply pictures yet more fearful, and we give one or two in a note. But we cannot refrain from quoting a few passages from a letter of Sir Charles Bell to Francis Horner, written after the battle of Waterloo, whither he had gone to assist in giving the necessary surgical attendance to the wounded. " After I had been jive days engaged in the prosecution of my object, I found that the best cases, that is the most horrid wounds, left totally without assistance, were to be found in the French hospital ; this hospital was only forming ; they were even then bringing these poor creatures in from the tacle yet more dreadful was to present itself. Out of the straw in the bottom of a car, I now beheld a figure creep painfully which one could scarcely believe to be a human being, so wild and distorted were the features ; the lips were rotted away, the teeth stood ex- posed : he pulled the cloth from before his mouth, and grinned on us like a death's head " Alison, vol. ix. p. 112. The following is a description of the state of the town and garrison of Dresden in 1813: "The ravages which a contagious fever (the consequence of their privations) made on the inhabitants, added to the public distress. Not less than three hundred were carried off by it a week, among the citizens alone. Two hundred dead bodies were every day brought out of the military hospitals. Such was the accu- mulation in the churchyards, that the gravediggers could not inter them, and they were laid naked, in ghastly rows, along the place of sepulture. The bodies were heaped in such numbers on the dead carts, that they frequently fell from them, and the wheels gave a frightful sound in cracking the bones of the bodies which thus lay upon the streets. The hospital attendants and carters trampled down the corpses in the carts, like baggage or straw, to make room for more ; and not unfrequently some of the bodies gave signs of life, and even uttered shrieks under this harsh usage. Several bodies thrown into the Elbe for dead, were revived by the sudden immersion in cold water, and the wretches were seen struggling in vain in the waves, by which they were soon swallowed up. Medicine and hospital stores there were none : and almost all the surgeons and apothecaries were dead." Alison, vol. ix. p. 643. These are ghastly pictures, but we must not shrink from them if we would conceive aright what military glory really is, and how alone it can be purchased. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. woods. It is impossible to convey to you the picture of human misery continually before my eyes. What was heart-rending in the day was intolerable at night. . . . At six o'clock I took the knife in my hand, and con- tinued incessantly at work till seven in the evening ; and so the second day, and again the third. All the decencies of performing surgical operations were soon neglected; while I amputated one man's thigh, there lay at one time thirteen, all beseeching to be taken next. It was a strange thing to feel my clothes stiff with blood, and my arms powerless with using the knife ; and more extraordinary still to find my mind calm amidst such a variety of suffering. . . . After being eight days among the wounded (operating, it must be remembered, all the time) I visited the field of battle. The view of the field, the gallant stories, the individual instances of enterprise and valour, recalled me to the sense which the world has of victory and Waterloo. But this was transient ; a gloomy, uncomfortable view of human nature is the inevitable consequence of looking upon the whole as I did as I was forced to do. There must ever be associated with the honours of Waterloo, to my eyes the most shocking sights of woe ; to my ears accents of entreaty, outcry from the manly breast, interrupted forcible expressions of the dying, and noi- some smells"* When a statesman declares war in consequence of any of the ordinary motives thereto ; for the sake of a rich colony which he is desirous to obtain ; to prevent an ambitious neighbour from acquiring what might render him a formidable rival ; to restore a monarch dethroned by a people wearied of his manifold oppres- sions; to resent a private wrong, or avenge a diplo- matic insult his thoughts on the matter seldom travel * Memoirs of Francis Horner, vol. ii. p. 267. ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 561 beyond the issuing of a manifesto, the appointment of a general, the levying of troops, and the imposition of taxes for the maintenance of the contest. He is there- fore wholly unconscious what in reality he is doing ; and if a sage were to go to him, as Nathan went to David, and say "Sir, you have given orders for the commission of murder on a monstrous scale ; you have directed that 50,000 of your subjects shall send as many of their fellow men, wholly unprepared for so awful a change, into a Presence where they must answer for their manifold misdeeds ; you have commanded that 30,000 more shall pass the best years of their life in hopeless imprisonment shall in fact be punished as the worst of criminals, when they have committed no crime but by your orders ; you have arranged so that 20,000 more shall lie for days on the bare ground, horribly mutilated, and slowly bleeding to death, and at length only be succoured in order to undergo the most pain- ful operations, and then perish miserably in a hospital ; you have given orders that numbers of innocent and lovely women as beautiful and delicate as your own daughters shall undergo the last indignities from the licence of a brutal soldiery; you have issued a fiat which, if not recalled, will carry mourning into many families, will cut off at a stroke the delight of many eyes, will inflict upon thousands, now virtuous and contented, misery which can know no cure, and desolation which in this world can find no alleviation;" if such a message as this were conveyed to him every word of n'hich would be strictly true would he not disown the ghastly image thus held up to him, and exclaim, " Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing ?" And if statesmen could realise all this before they put their hand to the declaration of hostilities, would they not rather thrust it into the flames ? AVe are aware that to many all this wilt appear idle VOL. I. 00 562 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. and declamatory wholly unworthy of men who pretend to an acquaintance with political and social science ; yet nothing can be more unquestionable than that we have added no unreal touches, no undue colouring to the picture ; and our remarks should be thought worthy of the more attention, because we do not belong to those who consider that under no circumstances can war be righteously undertaken. On the contrary, few can read its details with more thrilling interest, few would share in its hardships arid its perils with heartier zeal, in a cause clear enough and grand enough to justify and hallow the adoption of so terrible an agency ; but we know that such causes are infinitely rare ; that judging from the past history of our race, in ninety -nine cases out of a hundred, war is a folly and a crime ; and, that where it is so, it is the saddest and the wildest of all follies, and the most heinous of all crimes.* * " We should do well to translate this word war into language more intelligible to us. When we pay our army and navy estimates, let us set down so much for killing so much for maiming so much for making widows and orphans so much for bringing famine upon a district so much for corrupting citizens and subjects into spies and traitors so much for letting loose the demons of fury, rapine, and lust, within the fold of civilised society. We shall know by this means what we have paid our money for ; whether we have made a good bargain; and whether the account is likely to pass elsewhere. We must take in, too, all those concomitant circum- stances which make war, considered as battle, the least part of itself pars minima sui. We must fix our eyes, not on the hero re- turning with conquest, nor yet on the gallant officer dying in the bed of honour the subject of picture and of song, but on the private soldier, forced into the service, exhausted by camp sickness and fatigue ; pale, emaciated, crawling to a hospital, with the pros- pect of life perhaps a long life blasted, useless, and suffering. We must think of the uncounted tears of her who weeps alone, because the only being who shared her sentiments is taken from l ier; . no martial music sounds in unison with her feelings; the long day passes, and he returns not. She does not shed her sorrows over his grave, for she has never learned whether he even had one. AUSON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 563 Has it ever occurred to any of our readers to analyse the profession of a soldier ? a profession so much honoured in our country, as in most others. A soldier is a man whose profession it is to make war to fight with his fellow-men, and (disguise it how we will, in the smooth, conventional hypocrisies of language) to slay them. Like every one else, he takes a pride and a pleasure in the exercise of his profession. To rust away in idleness is irksome and inglorious ; in peace he has little chance of employment, promotion, or distinction ; peace, therefore, is burdensome and unwelcome. From the very nature of things, he longs for war ; he watches with a natural, but certainly not a Christian, delight the first bickerings which give promise of ripening into actual hostility, and he desires to " fan the smoking flax into a flame." This is natural and inevitable ; it cannot be otherwise. In most of the nations of modern Europe we have created and maintain an esteemed and influen- tial profession, numbering hundreds of thousands of members, whose interest and inclination both point towards war, and who thus constitute an always acting force, urging their countrymen (however unconsciously) to that which, when fairly stated, no one can defend to be active in aggression, tenacious in dispute, prompt in reprisals, and sensitive to insult. A soldier is a man who, by the inevitable instinct of his profession, inces- santly desires and seeks for a state of things which Christianity denounces as sinful, and which reason condemns as noxious and absurd. Again, that the destruction of the life and property of If he had returned, his exertions would not have been remembered individually, for he only made a small, imperceptible part of a human machine called a regiment. These are not fancy pictures ; if you please to heighten them, you can every one of you do it for your- selves." Sins of Government the Sins of the Nation, p. 400. o o 2 564 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. our fellow-men is a sin, and a grievous sin, per se, there can be no question. The position of a soldier imposes upon him the obligation of committing this enormous iniquity to any extent, and upon any parties, at the com- mand of the minister of the da}^ History tells him and his own experience will confirm the teaching that this minister is often wicked, incapable, and passionate ; that he has frequently obtained his power by the vilest means (by mistresses in France, by corrupt parliamen- tary majorities in England) ; that, in the views which he takes and the orders which he issues, he is often governed by the basest motives, and the silliest and wickedest counsellors. He may be a shallow and sen- sual intriguer, like Godoy ; he may be a man of insati- able ambition, like Napoleon ; he may be an empty chat- terer, like Newcastle ; but however unjust the war which he commands, however wild the scheme, however bare- faced the aggression, however innocent the victim, how- ever harsh and barbarous the mode in which the enter- prise is to be carried through the soldier has no choice, no power of refusal or evasion ; he has bound himself to do the bidding of his superior, however palpably and monstrously iniquitous that bidding may be. He cannot resign: that would be attended with dishonour. He cannot remonstrate : that would be punished as in- subordination. In some of the most important actions of life he has ceased to be a free agent, though he cannot cease to be a responsible one; he has parted with his birthright for a mess of pottage: he has, in fact, sold himself into a species of slavery, which often leaves him only the humiliating and torturing alternative of re- maining at his post to perpetrate sin and cruelty, or leaving it with dishonour and ruin. And to us it is marvellously strange, and a signal proof of the difficulty and the rarity with which men rise to the contemplation ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. 565 of first principles, that any one of sound judgment and good feelings, who can dig, or plough, or weave, or push his fortune in any of the thousand paths which lie open to the foot of enterprise, should be willing thus to barter away, for so paltry an equivalent, his right of refusing to do wrong. With this digression if remarks can be so called which so inevitably grow out of the subject we have been considering we close our imperfect notice of Mr. Alison's interesting work. The period over which it extends is, beyond all others, the most thronged with great events great in themselves, marvellous in the rapidity with which they succeeded each other, mo- mentous and far reaching in their consequences. No other period could be named so fertile in brilliant pictures for the poet, in suggestions for the speculative philoso- pher, in lessons of practical wisdom for the statesman. We see the most glorious prospects that ever dawned upon civilised humanity, quenched in the darkest cloud that ever closed over its destinies. We see the over- throw of an ancient tyranny, intolerable from its intense selfishness, more intolerable still from its very dotage and decrepitude, and the birth, out of its ashes, of a wild and shapeless liberty, at once violent and feeble, stained with the ineradicable vice and weakness of its origin, mischievous and transient, because the virtues of freedom can have no firm root among a people vitiated by long centuries of endured oppression. We see the most prolonged and devastating wars ever waged upon the earth ended by a fearful and a fitting retribution ; and the most magnificent genius of modern times, within the short space of twenty-five years, a famished ensign in an unpaid army, monarch of the most powerful empire which has existed since the days 566 ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. of Trajan and, finally, a chained and solitary captive on a barren rock in the remotest pathways of the ocean. In a period thickly strewn with such vicissitudes, there is much food for wholesome contemplation ; and if the nations and the rulers of our times would study its lessons with the solicitous humility which their magni- tude and their solemnity demand, we might at length become rich in that wisdom which grows out of the grave of folly strong in that virtue which springs out of the recoil from sin. END OF THE F1KST VOLUME. LONDON : SPOTTISWOODES and SHAW New-Street-Square. " This well-chosen Series places an excellent order of Light Literature at the command of ALL with whom Reading is a Travelling necessity." EXAMINER. IN COURSE OF PUBLICATION IN PARTS AT ONE SHILLING, AND IN VOLUMES PRICE HALF-A-CROWN EACH. Comprising books of valuable information and acknowledged merit, in a form adapted for reading while Travelling, and also of a character that will render them worthy of preservation ; but the PRICE of which has hitherto confined them within a comparatively narrow circle of readers. 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Agriculture and Rural Maunder's Scientific Treasury - 14 Treasury of History - 14 Normanby's Year of Revolution - 17 Perry's Franks ... - 17 Affairs. " Natural History - -14 Raikes's Journal - 18 Bayldonon Valuing Rents, &c. - 4 Piesse'. Art of Perfumery - - 17 Ranke's Ferdinand & Maximilian 22 Cecil's Stud Farm - - - 6 Pocket and the Stud - - - 8 Riddle's Latin Lexicon - 19 Hoskyns's Talpa - - - - 10 Pycroft's Enelish Reading - - 18 Reece's Medical Guide - - - 18 Rogers's Essays from Edinb. Review 19 Roget's English Thesaurus - - 19 Low's Elements of Aericulture - 13 Morton on Landed Property - 16 Rich's Comp. to Latin Dictionary IS Richardson's Art of Horsemanship 18 Southey's Doctor - - - 21 Riddle's Latin Dictionaries - - IS Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biography 21 Arts, Manufactures, and Roget's English Thesauius - - Is Rowton'a Debater ----! Sydney Smith's Works ... 20 " Select Work. - 22 Architecture. Thomson's Interest Table. - - 23 Lecture. - - 21 Bourne on the Screw Propeller - 4 Webster's Domestic Economy - 2J " Memoirs - - 20 Brande's Dictionary of Science, *c. 4 West on Children's Diseases - - 24 Taylor'. Loyola - - 21 " Organic Chemistry- - 4 Willich's Popular Table. - - 24 " Wesley - 21 Chevreul on Colour - - - 6 Wilmot's Blackstone - 24 Thirlwall's Hi.toryof Greece - 23 Cresy's Civil Engineering - - 6 Thomas's Historical Notes - 5 Fairbairn's Informa. for Engineers 7 Gwilt's Encyclo. of Architecture - 8 Botany and Gardening. Townsend's State Trials - - 23 Turkey and Christendom - - 22 Harford's Plates fi om M. Angelo - 8 Humphreys's Parablet Illuminated 10 Jameson'.Sacred & Legendary Art 1 1 " Commonplace- Book - 11 HassaU's British Freshwater Algae 9 Hooker'. British Flora - - 9 " Guide to Kew Garden. - 9 Turner's Anglo-Saxons - - 23 " Middle Age. - 23 " Sacred Hist, of the World 23 Uwins's Memoirs - 23 Konig'. Pictorial Life of Luther - 8 London's Rural Architecture - 13 MacDougall's Campaigns of Han- " " Kew Museum - 9 Lindley's Introduction to Botany 11 " Theory of Horticulture - 12 London's Hortus Britannicus - IS Vehse's Austrian Court - 23 Wade's England's Greatness - 24 Young's Christ of History - - 24 Theory of War - 13 Moselev's Engineering - 16 Piesse's Art of Perfumery - - 17 " Amateur Gardener - I'i " Trees and Shrub. - - 12 " Gardening - - - 12 Geography and Atlases. Brewer's Historical Atlas - 4 Richardson's Artof Horsemanship 18 " Plants - 1; Butler's Geography and Atlases - 6 Scoffern on Projectiles, &c. - - 19 Pereira's Materia Medics - - 17 Cabinet Gazetteer - 5 Scrivener on the Iron Trade - - 19 Rivera's Rose-Amateur's Guide - 19 Cornwall: Its Mine., &c. - - 22 Stark's Printing - 22 Wilson's British Mosses - - 24 Durrieu's Morocco - - - 22 Steam-Engine, by the Artisan Club 4 Hughes's Australian Colonies - 22 U re's Dictionary of Arts, &c. - 23 Chronology. Blair's Chronological Table. - 4 Johnston's General Gazetteer - 11 M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary 14 " Russia and Turkey - 22 Biography. Brewer's Historical Atlas - - 4 Bunsen's Ancient Egypt - - 5 Maunder's Treasury of Geography 15 Mayne's Arctic Discoveries - - 22 Arago's Autobiography - 22 < Lives of Scientific Men - 3 Calendars of English State Papers I Haydn's Season's Index - - 1 Murray's Encyclo. of Geography - 16 Sharp 1 . British Gazetteer - - 20 Bodenstedt and Wagner's Schamyl 22 Brialmont's Wellington - - 4 Bunsen's Hippolytus - - - 6 Jaquemet's Chronology - - 11 " Abridged Chronology - 11 Nicolas's Chronology of History - 12 Juvenile Books. Capgrave's Henries ... 6 Co kivne's Marshal Turerjne - 22 Amy Herbert 20 Cleve Hall - - - - - 20 Crosse's (Andrew) Memorial. - 7 Forster's De Foe and Churchill - 22 Commerce and Mercantile Affairs. Earl's Daughter (The) - 20 Experience of Life - - 20 Green's Princesses of England - 8 Harford's Life of Michael Angelo - 8 Hayward's Chesterfield and Selwyn 22 Gilbart'j Treatise on Banking - 8 Lorimer's Young Master Mariner 12 Macleod's Banking - - - M Gertrude ----- 20 Hewitt's Boy's Country Book - 10 " (Mary) Children's Year - 10 Holcroft's Memoir. - - - 22 Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia - 12 M'Culloch'sCommerce& Naiigation 14 Murrav on French Finance - lo Ivors ------ 20 Katharine Ashton - 20 Maunder's Biographical Treasury- 14 Memoir of the Duke of Wellington 22 Mountain's (Col.) Memoirs - - 16 Parry's (\dmiral) Memoirs - - 17 Scrivenor on Iron Trade - - 19 Thomson's Interest Tables - - 23 Tooke's HUtory of Pi ices - - 23 Laneton Parsonage - - - 20 Margaret Percival .... 20 Pycroft's Collegian's Guide - - 18 Ursula - 7 - - - - 20 Rogers's Life and Genius of Fuller 22 Russell's Memoirs of Moore - - 15 " (Dr.) Mezzofanti - - 19 Criticism, History, and Memoirs. Medicine, Surgery, &c. SchimmelPenninck's fMis.) Life - 19 Southey's Life of Wesley - - 21 Blair'. Chron. and Histor. Table* - 4 Brodie's Psychological Inquiries - 4 Bull's Hints to Mothers- - 5 " Life and Correspondence 21 Brewer's Historical Atlas - - - 4 " Managementof Children - 6 Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biographj 21 Bunsen's Ancient Egypt - - 6 Copland's Dictionary of Medicine - 6 Strickland's Queens of England - 21 Sydney Smith's Memoirs - - 20 Symond's (Admiral) Memoirs - 21 " Hippolytns - - - 5 Calendars of English State Papers 5 Chapman's Gustavus Adolphus - 6 Cusf. Invalid's Own Book - 7 Holland's Mental Physiology - 9 " Medical Notes indReflect. 9 Taylor's Loyola - - - - 21 Chronicles & Memorials of England 6 How to Nurse Sick Children - - 10 " Wesley - 21 Conybeare and Howson's St. Paul 6 Kesteven's Domestic Medicine - 11 Uwins's Memoirs - Waterton'. Autobiography* Essay. 24 Connolly's Sappers and Miners - 6 Crowe's History of France - - '< Pereira's Materia Medica - - 17 Reece's Medical Guide - 18 Gleig's Essays - J Richardson's Cold- Water Cure - 18 Books of General Utility. " Leipsic Campaign - - 22 Curacy's Historical Sketches - * Spencer's Psychology - - - 21 West on Diseases of Infancy - - 24 Acton's Bread-Book - ! " Cookery .-- Black'. Treatise on Brewing- - \ Cabinet Gazetteer ; - j " Lawyer - Cult's Invalid's Own Book - - 7 Gilbarfs Logic for the Million - I Hayward's Essay. - - - - S Herschel's Essavs and Addresses - Jeffrey's (Lord) Contributions - 11 Kemble's Anglo-Saxons Lardner's Cabinet Cyclopedia - IS Mactnlay'. Crit. and H 1st. Essay. 1 History of England - 13 Miscellaneous and General Literature. Bacon's fLord) Works - 3 Carlisle 1 . Lecture, and Addresses 22 Defence of Eel ipie of Faith - - 7 Hints on Etiquette - J How to Nurse Sick Children- - 10 Hudson's Executor's Guide - - K on Making Wills - - 10 Kesteven's Domestic Medicine - 11 Lardner'g Cabinet Cyclopaedia - 12 London's Lady'. Country Compa- Mackin',osh's P Miscel S laneous Work. 14 " *listorv of England - 1J M'Culloch'sGeographicalDictionary 15 Maunder'. Treasury of History - H Memoir of the Duke of Wellington 22 Merivale's History of Rome - -11 ** Roman Republic - -11 Eclipse of Faith - 7 Fischer's Bacon and Realistic Phi- losophy 7 GreatheJ's Letter, from Delhi - 8 Greyson'. Select Correspondence - 8 Gurney's Evening Recreations - 8 Hassall'sAdnlterations DetecteJ,&c. 9 Maunder'. Treasury of Knowledge 1 4 " Biographical Treasury 1 Geographic*! Treasury 15 Milner's Church History - If Moore's (Thomas) Memoir., Ac. - 15 Mure'. Greek Literature - - M Havdn't Book of Dignities - 9 Holland'. Mental Physiology - 9 Hooker's Kew Guides - - - 9 2 Hewitt's Rural Life of England - 10 " Visitsto RemarkablePlaces 10 Jameson's Common place- Book - 11 Last of the Old Squires - - 17 Letters of a Betrothed - - - 11 Macaulay's Speeches - 13 Mackintosh's Miscellaneous Works 14 Memoirs of a Maitre-d'Armes - 22 Martineau's Miscellanies - - 14 Printing: Its Origin, &c. - - 22 Pycroft's English Reading - - If Raikes on Indian Revolt - - 18 Rees's Siege of Lucknow - - 16 Rich's Comp. to Latin Dictionary If Riddle's Latin Dictionaries - - IE Rowtou's Debater - - - 19 Seaivard's Narrative of his Shipwieckl9 Sir Roger De Coverley ... 20 Southey's Doctor, &c. - - - 21 Souvestre's Attic Philosopher - 22 " Confessions of a Working Man 22 Spencer's Essays - 21 Stow's Training System - - 21 Thomson's Laws of Thought - 23 Tiglie and Davis's 'Windsor - - 23 Townscnd's State Trials - - 23 Willich's Popular Tables - - 24 Yonge's English-Greek Lexicon - 24 Latin Gradus - - 24 Znmpt's Latin Grammar - - 24 Natural History in general. Callow's Popular Conchology - 6 Ephemera's Book of the Salmon - 7 Garratt's Marvels of Instinct - 8 Gosse's Natural History of Jamaica 8 Kemp's Natural History of Creation 22 Kirby and Spence's Entomology - 11 Lee's Elements of Natural History 11 Maunder's Natural History - - 14 Quatrefages' Naturalist's Rambles 18 Stonehenge on the Dog - - 21 Turton'sShells oftheBritishlslands 23 Van der Hoeven's Zoology - - 23 Von Tschudi's Sketches in the Alps 22 Waterton's Essays on Natural Hist. 24 Yonatt's The Dog ... - 24 " The Horse ... 24 1-Volume Encyclopaedias and Dictionaries. Elaine's Rural Sports - 4 H ramie's Science, Literature, and Art 4 Copland's Dictionary of Medicine - 6 Cresy's Civil Engineering 8 Gwilt's Architecture 8 Johnston's Geographical Dictionary 11 London's Agriculture - - 12 " Rural Architecture - 13 " Gardening - - - 13 " Plants - 13 " Trees and Shrubs - - 13 M'CnHoch'sGeographicalDictionary 14 " DictionaryofCommerce 14 Murray's Encyclo. of Geography - 16 Sharp's British Gazetteer - -20 Ure's Dictionary of Arts, &c. - - 23 Webster's Domestic Economy - 24 Religious & Moral 'Works. Amy Herbert .... 20 Bloomfield's Greek Testament - 4 Calvert's Wife's Manual - 6 Cleve Hall 20 ConybeareandHowson's St. Paul 6 Cotton's Instructions in Christianity 6 Dale's Domestic Liturgy - 7 Defence of Eclipse of faith - - 7 Earl's Daughter (The) - - - 20 Eclipse of Faith .... 7 Englishman's Greek Concordance 7 " Heb.&Chald. Concord. 7 Experience (The) of Life - - 20 Gertrude ..... 20 Harrison's Light of the Forge - 8 Home's Introduction to Scriptures 9 " Abridgment of ditto - 10 Hue's Christianity in China - - 10 Humphrcys's Parables Illuminated 10 Ivors ; or, the Two Cousins - 20 Jameson's Sacred Legends - - 11 " Monastic Legends - - 11 Legendsof the Madonna 11 Lectures on Female Em- ' ployment ----- 11 Jeremy Taylor's Works - - - ll Katharine Ashton - - 20 KBnig's Pictorial Life of Luther - 8 Laneton Parsonage - - 20 Letters to my Unknown Friends - 11 " on Happiness - - 11 Lyra Germanica - - 6 Magnire's Rome - 14 Margaret Percival - ... 20 Martineau's Christian Life - - 14 " Hymns - - - 14 Martineau's Studies of Christianity 14 Merivale's Christian Records - 15 Milner's Church of Christ - -15 Moore on the Use of the Body - IS " " Soul and Body - 15 " 's Man and his Motives - 15 Morironism ----- 22 Morning Clouds - 16 Neale's Closing Scene - 17 Pattison's Earth and Word - - 17 Powell's Christianity without Ju- daism ------ 18 Ranke's Ferdinand & Maximilian 22 Readings for Lent - - - 20 " Confirmation - - 20 Riddle's Household Prayers - - 18 Robinson's Lexicon to the Greek Testament - - - - - 19 Saints our Example - 19 Sermon in the Mount - - 19 Sinclair's Journey of Life - - 20 Smith's (Sydney) Moral Philosophy 21 " (G.V.jAssyrianProphecies 20 ' (G.) Wesleyan Methodism 20 " ( J.) St. Paul's Shipwreck - 20 Southey's Life of Wesley - - 20 Stephen's Ecclesiastical Biography 21 Taylor's Loyola - 21 " Wesley - - - - 21 Theologia Germanica 6 Thumb Bible (The) - - 21 Turner's Sacred History - - - 23 Ursula - 20 Young's Christ of History - - 24 " Mystery - 24 Poetry and the Drama. Aikin's (Dr.) British Poets - - 3 Arnold's Merope . - - - 3 " Poems 3 Baillie's (Joanna) Poetical Works 3 Goldsmith's Poems, illustrated - 8 L. E. 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Cecil's Stable Practice 6 " Stud Farm - 6 Hunting -Field (The) - - - 3 Miles's Horse-Shoeing - 15 " on the Horse's Foot - -15 Pocket and the Stud - 8 Practical Horsemanship - 8 Rarey's Horse-Taming - 18 Richardson's Horsemanship - 18 Stable Talk and Table Talk - 8 Stonehenge on the Dog - . 21 Stud (The) - - - . 8 Youatt's The Dog - - - 21 " The Horse - - - 24 Voyages and Travels. Auldjo's Ascent of Mont Blanc - 22 Baines's Vaudois of Piedmont - 22 Baker's Wanderings in Ceylon - 3 Barrow's Continental Tour - - 22 Earth's African Travels - - 3 Burton's East Africa 5 " Medina and Mecca - - 5 Davies's Algiers - - . 7 De Custine's Russia - - 22 Domenech's Texas 7 Eothen - - - - - 22 Ferguson's Swiss Travels - - 22 Forester's Rambles in Norway - 22 " Sardinia and Corsica - 8 Gironiere's Philippines - - - 23 Gregorovius's Corsica - - - 2 HinchlifFs Travels in the Alps - 9 Hope's Brittany and the Bible - 22 " Chase in Brittany - - 22 Howitt's Art-Student in Munich - 10 " (W.) 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