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 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY
 
 »9 •
 
 ^ESSAYS ON 
 
 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY 
 
 POLITICAL AND SOCIAL 
 
 BY 
 
 GOLDWIN^MITH, D.C.L. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the UNITED STATES: AN OUTLINE OF POLITICAIi 
 
 HISTORY," AND "CANADA AND THE CANADIAN 
 
 QUESTION " 
 
 SECOND EDITION, REVISED 
 
 Neto gnrft 
 MACMILLAN AND CO. 
 
 AND LONDON 
 1894 
 
 All rights reserved
 
 COFTEIGHT, 1893, 
 
 Bt macmillan and CO. 
 
 Set up and electrotyped Navember, 1893. Revised 
 edition printed August, 1894. 
 
 Noririooli ^tpss ; 
 
 J. S. Gushing & Co. — Berwick & Smith. 
 
 Boston, Mass., U.S.A.
 
 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 
 
 These Essays are the outcome of discussions in which the 
 writer has been engaged on the several questions, and are 
 partly drawn from papers contributed by him to different 
 periodicals. 
 
 Of the subjects some are specially British, though not with- 
 out interest for a citizen of the United States; others are 
 common to both countries. 
 
 Some service may be done by bringing an important question 
 into focus, even when the reader does not agree with, the 
 opinions of the writer. 
 
 The opinions of the present writer are those of a Liberal of 
 the old school, as yet unconverted to State Socialism, who still 
 looks for further improvement, not to increased interference 
 of government, but to individual effort, free association, and 
 the same agencies, moral, intellectual, and economical, which 
 have brought us thus far, and one of which, science, is now 
 operating with immensely increased power; deeming it the 
 function of government to protect these agencies, not to super- 
 sede them. A writer of this school can have no panacea or 
 nostrum to offer; and when a nostrum or panacea is offered, 
 lie will necessarily be found rather on the critical side. He 
 will look for improvement, not for regeneration; expect 
 improvement still to be, as it has been, gradual ; and hope 
 much from steady, calm, and harmonious effort, little from 
 violence or revolution. In his estimation the clearest gain 
 
 V
 
 vi PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 
 
 reaped by the world from the political struggles through 
 which it has been going, amidst much that is equivocal or 
 still on trial, will be liberty of opinion. 
 
 In America rather than in England an old English Liberal 
 now finds his political home. In England that which was the 
 Liberal party is becoming the party of State Socialism, or, as 
 Mr. Cleveland calls it, of Paternalism, though it retains the 
 name, to which, as etymology itself protests, only those who 
 have faith in liberty are entitled. America, though now invaded 
 by State Socialism, is still a land of liberty regulated and pro- 
 tected by law, in which every man is free to do his best for 
 himself, which as a general rule he can hardly do without 
 also doing what is best for the commonwealth. 
 
 The essay which has required most revision is that on the 
 Political Crisis in England. The scene shifts rapidly on the 
 English stage, while the nation is apparently drifting towards 
 socialistic revolution. In the question whether the House of 
 Lords shall be abolished, reduced to impotence, or so reorgan- 
 ised as to make it, like the Amei-ican Senate, a conservative 
 institution, interest centres. If the Second Chamber falls, 
 there is apparently nothing between the nation and revolu- 
 tion. Already, the Lords having renounced amendment of the 
 Budget, there is no bar to socialistic confiscation. 
 
 Since this essay on the Political Crisis in England was writ- 
 ten and a comparison was incidentally drawn in it between the 
 industrial situation in England and that in the United States 
 to the advantage of the latter, we have had in the United 
 States a sudden outburst of industrial war. When the organi- 
 sation of the Knights of Labour, at one time so much dreaded, 
 had lost its force, general peace seemed to have been pretty 
 well assured. This eruption is not normal, but is the conse-
 
 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. vii 
 
 quence of the financial crisis whicli has paralysed commerce, 
 deranged industry, reduced wages, and thrown many altogether 
 out of employment, especially in congested centres of labour, 
 such as California and Chicago, at the latter of which much 
 labour had been collected, and discharged, by the World's 
 Fair. The violence was foreign. The native American is 
 faithful to law. The apparent dimensions of the disturbance 
 were magnified by the extent of its influence. 
 
 We have had a lesson, however, on the character of a Trade- 
 Union system, which placed national commerce, the subsistence 
 of myriads, and the peace of society at the mercy of a labour 
 despot whose personal game is believed to have had as much 
 to do with the catastrophe as the Pullman quarrel. The 
 conflict between employer and employed has given birth to a 
 set of adventurers who subsist by industrial war and exult 
 when widespread havoc makes the community tremble at their 
 power. 
 
 The attention of politicians of the regular parties, as they 
 are termed, is called to the growth of another party, not 
 regular or indeed political, whose single aim it is to aggrandise 
 the wage-earning class, or that part of it which is capable of 
 organisation, at the expense of other classes, and which, as its 
 recent operations show, cares much for its own interest and 
 very little for the interest of the community at large. What 
 will be the effect of this intrusive power on politics and politi- 
 cal combinations? Will good citizens find it safe any longer 
 to divide themselves on the old party lines, when, by their 
 division, they will probably bring about the triumph of the 
 common enemy? If party politicians can think of anything 
 beyond the immediate game, this crisis affords them matter 
 for reflection.
 
 viii PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 
 
 It does not seem that the Pullman strike was justified. The 
 Company explained the situation to its men. It could not be 
 expected to pay more for the work than the goods would bring 
 in the market. Nor in such a case was there any room for 
 arbitration. Had the men been simply discharged, there would 
 apparently have been nothing more to be said. 
 
 The preachings of the Socialists and Utopians have told; 
 not their philosophies or their visions, to which the mechanic 
 pays little heed, but their appeals to class passions, to hatred 
 of the rich, and to the lust of public plunder. Go to any 
 socialistic meeting, however respectable, and v/hatever may be 
 the formal course of the discussion, you will find that the 
 pervading sentiment is the same. Men who ultimately proved 
 some of the most sanguinary of the French Terrorists began 
 with sentiments milder than those to which Socialists, Com- 
 munists, and Nationalisers of land, to say nothing of Anar- 
 chists, are giving utterance now.' 
 
 Of any duties of the workingman towards his employer or 
 the community, of any power which he has of improving his 
 own lot by frugality, temperance, diligence, self-restraint, in 
 the organs of labour-agitation there is seldom a word. Em- 
 ployers, good and bad, are alike held up to odium under the 
 sweeping designation of capital, presented as the " spoilers " 
 who prey upon the " toilers, " and pointed out as the objects of 
 an everlasting war. The Pullman establishment must have 
 fed, since its formation, thousands ; yet it is treated as labour's 
 foe, and wrecked at the bidding of incendiaries who have never 
 given any one an ounce of bread. 
 
 If society does not mean to go under the Unionist yoke, 
 it will have to uphold freedom of labour. When men do not 
 choose to work for the wages offered them they have a right.
 
 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. ix 
 
 individually, or collectively as a Union, to refuse. But they 
 have no right by violence, physical or moral, tt) prevent other 
 men from taking the work. This is firm ground, if the com- 
 munity will be true to itself. Unfortunately, the community 
 can act only through elective legislators who tremble at the 
 thought of the labour vote. 
 
 The action of President Cleveland was applauded by all 
 good citizens. Can it be doubted that he was right in putting 
 forth the military force of the commonwealth to control an 
 anarchical usurper who, in his attempt to reduce the community 
 to submission by boycotting, sympathetic strikes, tying up 
 railways, stopping the mails, intercepting inter-State com- 
 merce, disorganising the industry of the country, and threaten- 
 ing to deprive large districts of subsistence, was morally levying 
 war against the United States? The appeal to patriotism was 
 of the same kind as in 18G1, though not so loud or thrilling. 
 Patriotism, after a moment of stupor, answered the appeal and 
 mounted the national colours against the anarchic emblem. 
 But it is not, as in 1861, at its highest mark. At Wash- 
 ington some of the senators, such as Senator Davis of Minne- 
 sota, were brave and triie to the country. But we are told 
 that it was impossible to get an expression of opinion from 
 any member of the House of Representatives. What is to be 
 expected of men whose political life at the next election will 
 be at the mercy of the labour vote? It was fortunate that the 
 President was in his second term. Yet a politician, with the 
 wire-puller at his ear, often errs in thinking that the timid 
 course is the safest. 
 
 There is no use in blinking the fact that for the restoration 
 of order and the prevention of further havoc, happily at small 
 cost of blood, tlie country was mainly indebted to the discipline,
 
 X PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 
 
 constancy, and courage of a handful of regular soldiers. The 
 day has not yet come on which a regular army, to uphold 
 public order in the last resort, will no longer be a need of civ- 
 ilisation. Militiamen share the heat of the political or social 
 fray; they either refuse to fire or fire too soon. The regular 
 soldier fires at the word of command. Nor can the pattern 
 of authority or discipline be yet spared. 
 
 The real quarrel was perhaps less between the Company, 
 as makers of railway cars, and their workmen, than between 
 the Company, as owners of the model village of Pullman, 
 and their tenants. There has been friction in Pullman. 
 There was friction in its English counterpart, Saltaire. In- 
 dependence kicks against paternal rule, however benevolent, 
 however wise. Pullman and Saltaire are partial realisations, 
 as with regard to Pullman has been truly remarked, of the 
 Socialist's ideal community as it is presented to us in the 
 reveries of Utopian writers. But the paternalism of Pullman 
 and Saltaire is far less meddling than that of the socialistic 
 community would be. 
 
 We must not forget the origin of these troubles. Dishonesty 
 in the high places of commerce, illicit speculation, watering 
 of stocks, want of integrity in the management of railways, 
 the derangement of the currency for a political purpose, were 
 sources of the financial crisis from which industrial disturb- 
 ance flowed, and are as much to blame as the malignant 
 ambition of the labour demagogues who gave the word for the 
 strike. Nor can justice pass by the wealthy men of America 
 who, heedless of the responsibilities of wealth, waste it on 
 luxury and ostentation, often in the pleasure cities of Europe. 
 It may be true that they are excluded from politics, but 
 politics are not the whole of life. They can remain at their
 
 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. xi 
 
 posts and do their social duty. If they will not, they deserve 
 to be plundered, and plundered they will be. 
 
 The social and political danger caused by the existence of 
 so sharp a division between employer and employed has been 
 brought with terrible vividness before us by this conflict. 
 To make that division sharper still and envenom it at the 
 same time, is the aim of the labour incendiary. To soften 
 and, if possible, efface it, must be the aim of every one who 
 desires peace with justice. Personal intercourse may do 
 something. It is an unfortunate part of the joint-stock 
 system that a company is not personal and can present only a 
 hard commercial aspect to its workmen. 
 
 State Socialism in England scoff's at the American system 
 of law and liberty as though it were answerable for these 
 disasters. It is difficult to imagine anything less chargeable 
 to the account of a system of law and liberty than the tyranny 
 of a labour despot and his organisation. What would the 
 State Socialist have done in the premises? Would he have 
 compelled the Pullman Company, by legislation, to carry on a 
 losing trade for the benefit of their workmen? When English 
 Socialism says that America is fifty years behind England in 
 the treatment of the labour question, what does it mean? 
 Whence but from England and Europe did this curse of 
 industrial war, with its Unionist tyrannies, its strikes, boy- 
 cottings, and battenings come? When the Sheffield outrages 
 were committed there had hardly been such a thing as in- 
 dustrial war in the United States. In striking the balance 
 between the economical situations in the two countries, it is 
 not to be forgotten that Ireland has been now for a series of 
 years in a state of agrarian rebellion. 
 
 The State Socialists of the British Commons the other
 
 xii PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 
 
 day passed a Bill limiting the hours of labour in mines. 
 This is genuine Socialism, since it interferes with the freedom 
 of male adult labour. In laws protecting women and children, 
 there is nothing really socialistic. A government may regu- 
 late the hours and wages of its own workmen as it pleases, 
 because the taxpayer finds the money. But private employers, 
 paying the wages out of their own purse, cannot afford to 
 give ten hours' pay for eight hours' work unless the work of 
 the eight hours is really equivalent to that of the ten; and 
 the workman whose eight hours are not as good as his ten 
 hours, that is, the weaker workman, will be in danger of 
 being thrown out of employment altogether. To the members 
 of the House of Commons who voted for the Bill this can 
 hardly have failed to be apparent; but they bowed to the 
 labour vote. 
 
 It seems that in England an attempt is now being made to 
 fix a minimum of wages, or, as it is styled, a living wage. 
 How can the rate of wages be fixed without fixing the rate 
 of profits, or without fixing the purchasing power of the 
 wages themselves? 
 
 The capitalists organise, equip, and guide industry, taking 
 a profit which statistics seem to prove is not on the average 
 more than commensurate with the service rendered and the 
 risk. The real employer is the purchaser, who cannot be 
 made, in the long run, to pay for the goods more than they 
 are worth to him. Bury this fact as deep in ethical eloquence 
 as you will, it will rise again. 
 
 Nor, again, can any State Socialist who is capable of reflec- 
 tion fail to see that danger, and in England most serious 
 danger, is arising from the growth of population beyond the 
 demand for labour and the means of subsistence; or to be
 
 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. xiii 
 
 aware t'liat he is aggravating that danger when he relieves 
 parents, at the expense of the State, of the duty of educating 
 the children whom they bring into the world, and proposes 
 even partly to relieve them of the duty of providing the 
 children with food. The case is made worse by the action of 
 Trade- Unions, which, rendering employment a monopoly, pre- 
 vents the fair distribution of such means of livelihood as 
 there are. 
 
 Since the essay on the Empire was published, an inter- 
 colonial conference has been sitting at Ottawa in the interest 
 of Imperial Federation, or at least of imperial union. All 
 that good dinners, flowing wine, and fraternal eloquence could 
 do to annul the opposition of nature has been done. If those 
 genial powers can prevail, Canada will be detached from the 
 American Continent, and attached permanently to Europe, 
 while all the obstacles to the secure transit of trade or of 
 armies through her sub- Arctic region, with its wildernesses, 
 mountain ranges, avalanches, snow-blocks, floods, and land- 
 slips, will disappear. It seems that nothing was said about 
 contribution to imperial armaments, which is the root of the 
 matter and the test of sincerity in the cause. About fiscal 
 discrimination something was said but not well received by 
 the imperial country. Do what we will, the North American 
 Continent will in the end assert its unity and independence 
 against all efforts to keep it divided, and a part of it depend- 
 ent, in the imagined interest of a European power. 
 
 Since the essay on Woman Suffrage was published, the 
 question has recently come to a head in New York in connec- 
 tion with the Convention called to amend the State constitu-
 
 xiv PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. 
 
 tion. A protest has been entered against the change, by a 
 number of ladies sufficient to show that an opponent does not 
 speak in the male interest alone. Advocates of the change 
 have appealed to domestic sentiment by arguing that the 
 spirit of the home will find its way into political government 
 through the female vote. Home is always a word wherewith 
 to conjure; but it is difficult to see how the spirit of conjugal 
 and parental affection or that of housewifery can be infused 
 into the action of a political government any more than into 
 that of a judiciary. What the home asks of government is 
 protection, as of the judiciary it asks justice. The prospect 
 of political and social danger opened by the recent strikes 
 will hardly dispose the legislators or the people of New York 
 to throw wide the political flood-gates and add to the present 
 elements of turmoil the inrush of the whole female vote. 
 
 In the essay on the Irish Question the writer, whether he 
 has erred or not, has been guilty of no "apostasy." Thirty 
 years ago in a little work called "Irish History and Irish 
 Character," he defended the Union on the same grounds on 
 which he defends it now; though parts of the book would 
 now require alteration, because, since it was written, research 
 has thrown new lights on Irish history and the writer has 
 seen the iDolitical action of the Irish in the United States. 
 With John Bright, the writer was always for the Disestablish- 
 ment of the Irish State Church, and for every measure of 
 justice to the Irish people. With John Bright, he was 
 always for the Union. If he ever had a political leader, his 
 leader was John Bright, not Mr. Gladstone, to whom, though 
 very grateful for some reforms, and above all for the infusion 
 of moderation into foreign and imperial policy, he never
 
 PREFACE TO REVISED EDITION. XV 
 
 pinned his faith. He went with Jolm Bright and against 
 Mr. Gladstone when England was divided in sympathy be- 
 tween American union and secession. He cannot believe 
 that any American who was true to his own Union will think 
 worse of Englishmen for being true to theirs. Nor can he 
 believe that many Americans are at heart very angry with 
 those who would dissuade the two great members of the Race 
 of Law from conspiring in their mutual jealousy to put each 
 other's heads under the feet of a race which is not that of 
 law, whatever its other gifts or its industrial services may be. 
 
 It will be found that the subjects are treated for the most 
 part historically, or on general principles, and that the politi- 
 cal student has seldom encroached on the domain of the 
 practical statesman. 
 
 It has been found convenient to make " Utopian Visions " 
 an essay separate from "Social and Industrial Revolution." 
 
 The thanks of the writer are once more tendered to the 
 proprietors and editors of the North American Revieio, the 
 Forum, the Nineteenth Century, and the National Review, for 
 their courtesy in permitting him to draw upon articles which 
 appeared in their periodicals, as well as for the privilege 
 which he has enjoyed of being one of their contributors. 
 
 August, 1894.
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 Preface 
 
 Social and Industrial Revolution 
 
 Utopian Visions 
 
 The Question of Disestablishment 
 The Political Crisis in England 
 
 The Empire 
 
 Woman Suffrage 
 
 The Jewish Question 
 
 The Irish Question .... 
 
 Prohibition in Canada and the United States 
 
 PAGE 
 V 
 
 45 
 67 
 90 
 139 
 197 
 239 
 283 
 331 
 
 APPENDIX. 
 The Oneida Community and American Socialism . . 361 
 
 xvii
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION.
 
 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 
 
 The belief that the human lot can be levelled by economical 
 change, and the desire to make the attempt, are at present 
 strong; they are giving birth to a multitude of projects, and 
 in Europe are threatening society with convulsion. In Amer- 
 ica the possession of property is as yet more widely diffused 
 than in Europe, while the hope of possessing property is still 
 almost universal. Eagerness to grasp a full share of the good 
 things of the present life has been intensified by the departure, 
 or decline, of the religious faith which held out to the unfortu- 
 nate in this world the hope of indemnity in another. "If 
 to-morrow we die, and death is the end, to-day let iis eat and 
 drink; and if we have not the wherewithal, let us see if we 
 cannot take from those who have." So multitudes are saying 
 in their hearts, and philosophy has not yet furnished a clear 
 reply. Popular education has gone far enough to make the 
 masses think, not far enough to make them think deeply; 
 they read what falls in with their aspirations, and their 
 thoughts run in the groove thus formed; flattering theories 
 make way rapidly, and, like religious doctrines, are received 
 without examination by the credulous and uncritical. The 
 ignorant readers of a Socialistic philosopher, while they are 
 incompetent to understand or scrutinise the arguments ad- 
 dressed to their intellects, imbibe the appeal addressed to 
 their feelings and desires, which are fortified by the impres- 
 sion that they have philosophy on tlieir side. However good 
 the ultimate effects of popular education may be, one of its 
 first effects, in the absence of religion, can hardly fail to be 
 
 3
 
 4 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 discontent. The number of actual Communists or Socialists 
 in any country is as yet small compared with that of the 
 population at large. Of what is called Socialism in Germany 
 much appears to be mainly a revolt against the burden of 
 military service and taxation. Yet Socialistic ideas and senti- 
 ments spread, especially among the artisan class, which is 
 active-minded, is gathered in commercial centres, lives on 
 wages about the rate of which there are frequent disputes, is 
 filled with craving for pleasure by ever-present temptations, 
 and stirred to envy by the perpetual sight of wealth. Envy is 
 a potent factor in the movement, and is being inflamed by the 
 ostentation of the vulgar rich, who thus deserve, almost as 
 much as the revolutionary artisans, the name of a dangerous 
 class. This is the main source of that sort of social revolution 
 which may be called Satanism, as it seeks, not to reconstruct, 
 but to destroy, and to destroy not only existing political insti- 
 tutions, but the established code of morality, social, domestic, 
 and personal. Satanism manifests itself in different countries 
 under various forms and names, such as ISTihilism, Intransi- 
 gentism, Petrolean Communism, the dynamite wing of Anarch- 
 ism ; Nihilism and Anarchism being defined with more startling 
 sharpness than the rest, though the destructive spirit of all is 
 the same. Social innovation is everywhere more or less allied 
 with, and impelled by, the political and religious revolution 
 which fills the civilised world; while the revolution in science 
 has helped to excite the spirit of change in every sphere, little 
 as Utopianism is akin to science. Wages have greatly risen. 
 The amount of comforts and enjoyments which they will bring 
 have been multiplied at the same time. But this brings the 
 wage-earner within sight of new objects of desire. Beneficence 
 has vastly increased; but its gifts are taken as instalments of 
 a boundless debt. Tlie feeling of the wage-earner towards 
 the capitalist does not seem to soften, nor the malevolence of 
 the labour journal to abate. 
 
 No man with a brain and a heart can fail to be penetrated 
 with a sense of the unequal distribution of wealth, or to be 
 willing to try any experiment which may hold out a reason-
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 5 
 
 able hope of putting an end to poverty. By the success of 
 such an experinient, the happiness of the rich, of such, at 
 least, of them as are good men, would be increased far more 
 than their riches would be diminished. But only the Nihilist 
 would desire blindly to plunge society into chaos. It is plainly 
 beyond our power to alter the fundamental conditions of our 
 being. There are inequalities greater even than those of 
 wealth, which are fixed not by human lawgivers, but by nature, 
 such as those of health, strength, intellectual power, and 
 length of life; and these draw other inequalities with them. 
 Justice is human. Where inequality is the fiat, not of man, 
 but of a power above man, it is idle, for any practical purpose, 
 to assail it as injustice. The difference between a good and 
 bad workman is, partly at least, the act of nature ; yet to 
 give the same wages to the good workman and the bad, as 
 Communists propose, while it might be just from some super- 
 human point of view, from the only point of view which 
 humanity can practically attain, would be unjust. 
 
 The universe may be tending to perfection, but perfection 
 has not yet been nor is its general law. If Schopenhauer 
 had said that this was the worst of all conceivable worlds, he 
 would plainly have been wrong; it is possible to conceive a 
 world without affection, beauty, or hope. But when he said 
 that it was the worst of all possible worlds, that is, the worst 
 of all worlds that could subsist without dissolution, though he 
 might still be wrong, lie was not so plainly wrong. Look 
 where we will, disorder, destruction, and cruelty are struggling 
 with order, achievement, and beneficence. Evolutionary pro- 
 gress itself has gone on since the beginning of geologic time 
 by the elimination or decimation of races, not Avithout much 
 suffering. Animals live by preying on other animals, inflict- 
 ing pain and sometimes torture on their prey. This is part 
 of the constitution of the world. Can anything be less like 
 perfect justice than the distribution of lots amongst living 
 creatures of every kind through the whole scale? The human 
 frame is fvill of imperfections, and liable to a thousand diseases, 
 of which some may be caused by imprudence or vice, but
 
 6 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 others are caused by mere accident. The natural character of 
 man is full of evil and destructive passions. The world in 
 which man lives wears everywhere the same doubtful aspect. 
 The weather ripens the harvest and blights it ; the wind wafts 
 the ship and sinks it. An earthquake engulfs Lisbon, while 
 they are dancing at Paris. Beauty is intermixed with ugli- 
 ness ; the shapeliness of the horse, the brilliancy of the bird of 
 paradise, are mated with the loathsomeness of the puff adder 
 and the toad. Imperfection apparently extends as far as the 
 telescope can range; to the solar system, in which there are 
 evidences of irregularity and wreck, as well as a moon devoid 
 of atmosphere and covered with extinct volcanoes, and even to 
 the universe beyond, if science has witnessed the destruction 
 of a star. Yet some of us imagine that the law of the social 
 frame is perfection, and that from the enjoyment of that 
 perfection we are debarred only by iniquitous and foolish laws 
 or by the selfishness of a privileged class, so that by repealing 
 the laws and overthrowing, or as the Jacobins thought, guillo- 
 tining, the class, we may enter into a social paradise. The 
 French Revolution was a dead-lift effort to level the human lot 
 and make felicity universal. It swept away abuses, a great part 
 of which Turgot, had he been allowed to accomplish his task, 
 might have quietly removed. But it brought on an avalanche 
 of crime and suffering ; it produced at once a disorganisation 
 of commerce and industry, involving the deaths of a million of 
 persons by misery; afterwards it gave birth to a military 
 despotism and the Napoleonic wars; and it has left behind 
 as its legacies the volcanic passions with which Europe still 
 heaves, and which are always threatening it with earthquakes 
 or eruptions. After all, the complaints of the French artisan 
 about the inequalities of wealth and the distinctions of class 
 are just as passionate as ever. Apparently, to lacerate and 
 convulse the social organism is only too possible, to transform 
 it is beyond our power. This does not make it the less our 
 duty and interest to remove every social injustice that can be 
 removed, and level every unrighteous inequality that is capable 
 of being levelled. It limits effort only by regulating hope.
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 7 
 
 It bids us look for improvement, not for regeneration, and 
 prefer gradual reform to violent revolution. 
 
 The plans of innovation proposed vary much in character 
 and extent. Those which here will be briefly passed in review 
 are Communism, Socialism, Nationalisation of Land, Strikes, 
 plans for emancipating Labour from the dominion of Capital, 
 and theories of innovation with regard to Currency and Banks, 
 the most prominent of which is Greenbackism, or the belief in 
 paper money. This seems a motley group, but it will be seen 
 on examination, that there runs through the whole the same 
 hope of bettering the condition of the masses without increase 
 of industry, or of the substantial elements of wealth, and 
 without limiting the multiplication of their numbers. Through 
 several of the plans there runs a tendency to violence and 
 confiscation. It may be safely said, that all the movements 
 draw their adherents from minds of the same speculative class, 
 and that industrial revolution is not, like industrial reform, 
 often recruited from the ranks of steady and prosperous 
 industry. Lassalle, the creator of German Socialism, and the 
 brilliant genius of the whole movement, is described to us as 
 " a fashionable dandy noted for his dress, for his dinners, and, 
 it must be added, for his addiction to pleasure." "Chival- 
 rous," we are told, he was, "susceptible, with a genuine feeling 
 for the poor man's case and a genuine enthusiasm for social 
 reform; a warm friend, a vindictive enemy, full of ambition 
 both of the nobler and more vulgar type, beset witli an impor- 
 tunate vanity and given to primitive lusts, one in whom 
 generous qualities and churlish throve and strove side by side, 
 and governed or misgoverned a will to which opposition was 
 almost a necessary and native element."^ He was tried for 
 sedition when he was twenty-three, upon which occasion, 
 though his opinions can hardly have been matured, he declared 
 himself a social democrat and revolutionary on principle. 
 Much of his energy was spent during eight years in champion- 
 ing the cause of a countess, for whom he at length procured a 
 
 ^ See Contemporary Socialism, by John Rae. Page 65.
 
 8 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 divorce and a princely fortune, receiving a handsome annuity 
 as his reward. 
 
 Of writers of the Socialistic school generally, it may be said 
 that they think almost exclusively of distribution, paying little 
 attention to production. Production is the more indispensable 
 factor of the two, but it affords comparatively little material 
 for the agitator. Let the fruits of labour by all means be as 
 fairly distributed as possible, still we cannot live by distribu- 
 tion, nor long by socialistic confiscation. 
 
 By Communism is here meant the proposal to abrogate 
 altogether the institution of property. The reply to that 
 proposal is that property is not an institution but a fixed 
 element of human nature. A state of things in which a man 
 would not think that what he had made for himself was his 
 own, is unknown to experience and beyond the range of our 
 conceptions. A monk may abjure property even in the work 
 of his own hands, but he feels that this is an abnegation and 
 a sacrifice. Eugene Sue, when he endorsed the saying that 
 property is theft, affirmed, by his use of the word theft, the 
 rightful existence of property, and it is highly probable that 
 as a literary man he would have asserted his claim to copyright, 
 which is property in its subtlest form. The very phrase 'pub- 
 lic property,' used by advocates of confiscation, implies that 
 there is property somewhere. And what is the public in this 
 case but the majority taking land or chattels from the minority 
 to appropriate them to itself? In early times property in 
 land was not individual but tribal; it is so still in Afghanis- 
 tan, while in Russia and Hindostan it is vested in the village 
 community which assigns lots to the individual cultivators. 
 Still it is property; squat upon the land of an Afghan tribe, 
 or of a village community, Russian or Hindoo, in the name of 
 humanity, and you will be ejected as certainly as if you had 
 squatted on the land of an English squire. In primitive 
 hunting-grounds and pastures, property was less definite; yet 
 even these would have been defended against a rival tribe. 
 Property in clothes, utensils, arms, must always have been 
 individual. Declare that everything belongs to the com-
 
 SOCIAL AMD INDL'STKIAL REVOLUTION. 9 
 
 munity, still government must allot each citizen his rations; 
 as soon as he receives them the rations will be his own, and if 
 another tries to take them he will resist, and by his resistance 
 affirm the principle of individual property. 
 
 Religious societies, in the fervour of their youth, have for 
 a short time sought to seal the brotherhood of their members 
 by instituting within their own circle a community of goods. 
 The primitive Christians did this, but they never thought of 
 abolishing property or proclaiming the communistic principle 
 to society at large. Paul distinctly ratifies the principle of 
 property, " Let him that stole steal no more; but rather labour, 
 working with his hands the thing which is good, that he may 
 have to give to him that needeth." " While the land remained," 
 says Peter to Ananias, " did it not remain thine own; and after 
 it was sold was it not in thy power? " Christian communism, 
 so-called, was in fact merely a benefit fund or club; it was 
 also short-lived; as was the communism of the Monastic orders, 
 which soon gave way to individual proprietorship on no ordi- 
 nary scale in the persons of the abbots. 
 
 Associations, called Communistic, have been founded in the 
 United States. But these have been nothing more than com- 
 mon homes for a small number of people, living together as 
 one household on a joint-stock fund. Their relations to the 
 community at large have been of the ordinary commercial 
 kind. The Oneida Community owned works carried on by 
 hired labour, and dealt with the outside world like any other 
 manufacturer; nor did it make any attempt to propagate com- 
 munistic opinions. A religious dictatorship seems essential to 
 the unity and peace of these households ; but where they have 
 prospered economically, the secret of their success has been 
 the absence of children, whicli limited their expenses and 
 enabled them to save money. Growing wealthy, they have 
 ceased to proselytise, and, if celibacy was kept up, have be- 
 come tontines. They afford no proof whatever of the practica- 
 bility of Communism as a universal system.^ 
 
 What is the foundation of property? We do not here seek 
 
 1 See Appendix,
 
 10 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 for its theological foundation or for its moral foundation, but 
 for its economical foundation. Its economical foundation is 
 that it is the only known motive power of production. Slav- 
 ery has its whip; but, saving this, no general incentive to 
 labour other than property has yet been devised. Communists 
 think that they can rely on love of the community, and they 
 point to the case of the soldier who they say does his duty 
 voluntarily from a sense of military honour. It is replied 
 that, so far from being voluntary, a soldier's duty is pre- 
 scribed by a code of exceptional severity, enforced by pen- 
 alties of the sternest kind. 
 
 That the family and all its affections are closely bound up 
 with property is evident; and the Nihilist is consistent in 
 seeking to destroy property and the family together. 
 
 Tracing property to its source, we find it has its origin, as 
 a general rule, not in "theft," but in labour, either of the 
 hand or of the brain, and in the frugality by which the fruits 
 of labour have been saved. In the case of property which 
 has been inherited, we may have to go back generations to 
 reach this fact, but we come to the fact at last. Wherever 
 the labour has been honest, good we may be sure has been 
 done, and the wealth of society at large, as well as that of the 
 worker, has been increased in the process. Some property 
 has, of course, been acquired by bad means, such as gambling 
 speculation, or unrighteous monopoly, and if we could only 
 distinguish this from the rest, confiscation might be just; for 
 there is nothing sacred in property apart from the mode in 
 which it has been acquired. But the tares cannot be separated 
 from the wheat; discrimination is impossible; all that we can 
 do is to discourage as much as may be bad modes of acquisi- 
 tion and refuse to pay homage to wealth ill acquired. Heredi- 
 tary wealth, owned by those who have themselves not worked 
 for it, strikes us as injustice; often it is the moral ruin of 
 the heir, who sinks into a worthless sybarite. To prevent its 
 excessive accumulation is a proper object of the lawgiver, and 
 in fact such has been the tendency of legislation wherever 
 inheritance is not bound up with political institutions such as
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 11 
 
 the House of LOrds. But to abolish inheritance seems out of 
 the question. Bequest is merely a death-bed gift; if we for- 
 bid a man to bequeath his wealth, he will give it away in his 
 lifetime, rather than leave it to be confiscated. A great in- 
 ducement to saving will thus be lost, and without saving where 
 would be the means of increased production, and how would 
 the economical world advance? The waste of hereditary 
 wealth in idle hands is to be deplored. But we have admitted 
 that this is economically as well as physically an imperfect 
 world. After all, in an industrial and commercial community 
 like the United States, or even England, the amount of in- 
 herited wealth must bear a small proportion to the remunera- 
 tion of industrial service rendered to the community by its 
 possessor. 
 
 That wealth is often abused, fearfully abused, is too true; 
 so are strength, intellect, power, and opportunities of all 
 kinds. It is also true that nothing can be more miserable or 
 abject than to live in idleness by the sweat of other men's 
 brows. But this is felt, in an increasing degree, by the better 
 natures; private fortunes are more held subject to the moral 
 claims of the community; a spontaneous communism is thus 
 making way, and notably, as every observer will see, in the 
 United States. Charitable and benevolent institutions rise on 
 all sides. In the United States munificence was not arrested 
 even by the Civil War. This under the dead level system of 
 Socialism would necessarily cease, and would have to be re- 
 placed by taxation administered by State officials. The sight 
 of wealth no doubt adds a moral sting to poverty. The dis- 
 play of it, therefore, ought to be avoided, even on the ground 
 of social prudence, by the rich. But the increase of Avealth, 
 instead of aggravating, improves the lot even of the poorest. 
 In wealthy communities the destitute are relieved; in the 
 savage state they die. 
 
 By Socialism is meant the theory of those who for indus- 
 trial liberty, competition, private contract, free markets, and 
 the present agencies of commerce, propose in various degrees
 
 12 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 to introduce regulation and remuneration of industry by " the 
 State." What is the State? People seem to suppose that 
 there is something outside and above the members of the com- 
 munity which answers to this name, and which has duties and 
 a wisdom of its own. But duties can attach only to persons, 
 wisdom can reside only in brains. The State, when you leave 
 abstractions and come to facts, is nothing but the government, 
 which can have no duties but those which the constitution 
 assigns it, nor any wisdom but that which is infused into it 
 by the mode of appointment or election. What, then, is the 
 government which Socialism would set up, and to which it 
 would entrust powers infinitely greater than those which any 
 ruler has ever practically wielded, with duties infinitely 
 harder than those which the highest political wisdom has ever 
 dared to undertake? This is the first question which the 
 Socialist has to answer. His school denounces all existing 
 governments, and all those of the past, as incompetent and 
 unjust. What does he propose to institute in their room, and 
 by what process, elective or of any other kind, is the change 
 to be made? Where will he find the human material out of 
 which he can frame this earthly Providence, infallible and in- 
 corruptible, whose award shall be unanimously accepted as 
 superior to all existing guarantees for industrial justice? The 
 chiefs of industry are condemned beforehand as tyrannical 
 capitalists. Will the artisan svibmit willingly to the auto- 
 cratic rule of his brother? If he would, is it conceivable that 
 a man whose life had been spent in manual or mechanical 
 labour would be fit for supreme rule? The question, What 
 is the government to be, once more presents itself on the 
 threshold and demands an answer. To accept an unlimited 
 and most searching despotism without knowing to whose hands 
 it is to be entrusted would evidently be madness. Curiously 
 enough, from nearly the same quarter from which comes 
 Socialism, with its demand for paternal government, comes 
 also Anarchism, demanding that there shall be no government 
 at all. The two, however, are allied; Anarchism is the foam 
 on the Socialistic wave. It is idle to form theories, whether
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 13 
 
 economical or social, without considering the actual circum- 
 stances under which they are to be applied, and the means 
 and possibilities of carrying them into effect. This is the 
 merest truism, yet it is one which, so far as we know, Social- 
 ism disregards. 
 
 Despotic a government must be, in order to secure submis- 
 sion to its assignment of industrial parts and to its award of 
 wages, especially if the wages are to be measured, not by the 
 amount or quality of the work, but by some higher law of 
 desert or benevolence. Despotic it must be to enable it to 
 compel indolence to work at all. Its power, practically, must 
 be made to extend beyond the sphere of industry to social, 
 domestic, and individual life. Resistance to its decrees could 
 not be permitted, nor could it be deposed in case of tyranny 
 or abuse. Liberty, in short, would be at an end, and it is 
 difficult to see how progress could survive liberty. The in- 
 ventor of each Utopia assumes the finality of his system. He 
 takes it for granted that time, having now produced its per- 
 fect fruit, will bear no more. But history and science tell us 
 that time is likely to bear new fruit without end. 
 
 Assignment of manual labour and payment for its perform- 
 ance by a paternal government are conceivable, though not 
 practically feasible. But how could men be told off for in- 
 tellectual labour, for scientific research, for invention? Could 
 the Socialistic ruler pick out a Shakespeare, a Newton, or an 
 Arkwright, set him to his work and pay him while he was 
 about it? What security would there be against a lapse into 
 intellectual barbarism? Socialistic writers, as a rule, are apt 
 to think of the position and interests of manual labour alone; 
 they take no comprehensive view of civilisation. Is not 
 Socialism a manual labourer's dream? Of the artisans whom 
 these theories flatter, all whose trades minister to literature, 
 art, or refinement would be in danger of finding themselves 
 without work. Might not science itself cease to advance? If 
 science ceased to advance, what would become of the hopes of 
 humanity? 
 
 Let the Socialist survey the whole frame of material civili-
 
 14 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 sation, with all its machinery of production and distribution, 
 and ask himself whether all this could be produced by the 
 action of governments or by anything but individual effort, 
 competition, and invention, with the aid of spontaneous asso- 
 ciation. According to him, economical history has been one 
 vast aberration. In what course and under what guidance 
 ought it to have run? 
 
 Some Socialists propose to cut up the industrial and com- 
 mercial world into phalansteries, or sections of some kind, for 
 the purposes of their organisation. But industry and com- 
 merce are networks covering the whole globe. To what 
 phalanstery would the sailors, the railway men, and the 
 traders between different countries be assigned? 
 
 Take any complex product of human labour, say, a piece of 
 cotton goods worth a penny. Let the Socialist trace out, as 
 far as thought will go, the industries which, in various ways, 
 and in different parts of the world, have contributed to the 
 production, including the making of machinery, shipbuilding, 
 and all the employments and branches of trade ancillary to 
 these; let him consider how, by the operation of economic 
 law, under the system of industrial liberty, the single penny 
 is distributed among all these industries justly, " even to the 
 estimation of a hair," and then let him ask himself whether 
 his government, or his group of governments, is likely to do 
 better than nature. 
 
 Socialists claim the Factory laws as a recognition of their 
 principle and as opening the door of industrial revolution. 
 But it is difficult to see why the enforcement of sanitary regu- 
 lations or safeguards for life and limb is more socialistic in 
 the case of a factory than in the case of a city, or why the 
 protection of women and children who cannot protect them- 
 selves against industrial cruelty and abuse is more socialistic 
 than the protection of them against wife-beating or infanti- 
 cide. How far legislation shall go in this direction must be 
 determined not by any theory, socialistic or anti-socialistic, 
 but by the character and circumstances of the particular com- 
 munity. In some communities strict legislation will be re-
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 15 
 
 quired in cases wliere in others individual intelligence and 
 individual sense of duty will suffice. These differences be- 
 tween communities in different stages of development social- 
 istic theory disregards. It treats humanity as a uniform and 
 level field. That the Factory Acts have not induced any 
 radical change in the industrial system the complaints of 
 the Socialists themselves are proof. 
 
 Ownership of public establishments and services, again, is 
 a question apart, defined by the necessities of government, 
 and involves nothing socialistic. Government obviously must 
 own everything necessary to public order or national defence; 
 it must own the postal service, to which its protection is 
 plainly necessary, and to the postal service the telegraphic 
 service may be reasonably joined. On the other hand, the 
 National workshops at Paris were a failure ; even the Govern- 
 ment ship-yards in England, though rendered necessary by 
 the exigencies of national defence, are said to be conducted 
 less economically than private yards. Australians tell us 
 that with them government ownership of railways answers 
 well. There is no reason why it should not, provided the 
 government is pure. The cost of competing lines is saved, 
 and if the stimulus of competitive enterprise is withdrawn, 
 that of administrative emulation may take its place. Coun- 
 tries might be named which, if the government owned rail- 
 ways as well as subsidised them, would be plunged into cor- 
 ruption. In all government establishments there is danger 
 of corruption, still more of laziness, torpor, and somnolent 
 routine. 
 
 More truly socialistic is the assumption by the State of the 
 duty of popular education. The prevailing opinion is that it 
 is the manifest duty of the State to provide schools for every- 
 body's children out of the public taxes. It might be thought 
 that nothing was more manifest than the duty of every man 
 to ])rovide edvication as well as food and clothes for his own 
 children, since it is -by his act that they come into the world; 
 or less manifest than the duty of the prudent man avIio defers 
 marriage till he has the means of bringing up a family, to
 
 16 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 provide as a tax-payer for the schooling of the children of his 
 less prndent neighbours. The wisdom which sets itself above 
 justice ought to be very high. There are some, it seems, who 
 Avould not only educate the children of the poor gratuitously, 
 that is, out of the public taxes, but would give the school 
 children meals and even clothes at the public expense. They 
 can scarcely doubt that of such a system of almsgiving, wide- 
 sjjread pauperism Avould be the fruit. Their policy points to 
 a renewal of the Koman proletariat living on the alms of the 
 State. When the duty of education is undertaken by govern- 
 ment, parental duty in this respect, and Avhatever goes with 
 it of family character, must expire. Let those who think that 
 the intellectual fruits of the State machine substituted for 
 voluntary agencies are entirely satisfactory, read the series 
 of papers in the New York Formn,^ giving an account of a 
 tour of inspection among the public schools of the United 
 States. Formation of character and manners the system hardly 
 professes. If it did, the manners would too often belie the 
 claim. It lacks motive power in that line. The original 
 New England school was the school of a small group of fami- 
 lies carried on under the eyes of the parents, not unparental, 
 therefore, and it was intensely religious. These conditions 
 are changed. Politics, too, and ward-demagogism are apt to 
 lay their hands on the election of school trustees. High- 
 schools are accused of helping to set the farmer's sons and 
 daughters above farm work, and to send them, for what they 
 think higher employment, to the already over-crowded cities. 
 If this or any other mischief is being done, there is no remedy. 
 You cannot stop the State machine. What is voluntary, when 
 it fails, stops of itself. What is voluntary admits of adapta- 
 tion to various needs, of free experiment, of emulation; the 
 machine does not. However, State education is commended 
 to us on the ground of political necessity. We are told that 
 we must educate our masters. Popular ignorance with popu- 
 lar suffrage would be fatal to the community. This puts State 
 education not on socialistic grounds but on that of political 
 
 1 Vols. IV., v., and VI.
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 17 
 
 necessity, and necessity, whether political, military, or sani- 
 tary, must be supreme. Tlie worst of it is that unless the 
 truancy laws are more strictly enforced than is usually possi- 
 ble in a democracy, the dangerous classes are not in school. 
 
 Circulating libraries, maintained at the expense of the rate- 
 payer, may fairly rank as socialistic, since people have no more 
 right to novels than to theatre-tickets out of the public taxes. 
 So may pensions for the aged, now proposed in England, the 
 effect of which would probably be the discouragement of 
 frugality, while the burden on the tax-paying connuunity would 
 be enormous when the pension agent got to work. Manifestly 
 socialistic again is the Eight Hoars' Bill, passed by the House 
 of Commons, which interferes Avith the advilt labourer's dis- 
 posal of his own labour and with freedom of contract between 
 him and his employer. The effect of such a measure must be 
 to throw out of work those who cannot do in eight hours the 
 work of ten, that is, the weaker labourers; unless a clause is 
 inserted compelling the mine-owner to employ men at a loss. 
 In the public establishments government can, of course, pay 
 what wages it thinks fit, since it draws them from the 
 public funds. 
 
 Differentiation marks advance, and a centralisation which 
 should reduce all functions to those of a single organ would 
 be not an advance but a degradation in the political as in the 
 animal world. 
 
 A special form of Socialism is Nationalisation of Land. 
 This has received an impulse from recent legislation for 
 Ireland. Not that the Irish tenant farmer is an agrarian 
 socialist, or a socialist of any kind; what he wants is to oust 
 the landlord and have the farm to himself ; if you demand, as 
 a member of the community, a share of his land, he will give 
 you six feet of it. He exacts a heavy rent for a little croft 
 from the farm labourer in his employment. The sirens of 
 Nationalisation have sung to him in vain. Nor did the framers 
 of the Land Acts profess to abrogate or assail private property 
 in land; tliey professed only to adjust by legislation a dispute 
 
 c
 
 18 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 between two classes of property-holders which threatened the 
 peace of the State. But the natural cunscipiences have been 
 a general disturbance of ideas, and an increase of hope and 
 activity among the apostles of agrarian revolution. 
 
 These theorists hold that private property in land is "a 
 bold, base, enormous wrong, like that of chattel slavery." 
 Mr. Herbert Spencer had said, "Had we to deal with the 
 parties who originally robbed the human race of its heritage, 
 we might make short Avork of the matter." To which the 
 Nationalist replies : " Why not make short work of the matter 
 anyhow? For this robbery is not like the robbery of a horse 
 or a sum of money, that ceases with the act. It is a fresh and 
 continuous robbery that goes on every day and every hour." 
 It is proposed to forfeit, either openly, or under the thin 
 disguise of a use of the taxing power, every man's freehold, • 
 even the farm which the settler has just reclaimed by the 
 sweat of his own brow from the wilderness; and it is emphati- 
 cally added, in language which sounds like the exultation of 
 injustice, that no compensation is due; the man being merely 
 ejected from that which never belonged to him, as a wrongful 
 possessor is ejected by a court of law. That the State has, 
 by the most solemn and repeated guarantees, ratified private 
 proprietorship and undertaken to protect it, matters nothing; 
 nor even that it has itself recently sold the land to the 
 proprietor, signed the deed of sale, and received the payment. 
 Aghast, perhaps, at his own proposal, the reformer afterwards 
 suggests that in mercy, not of right, compensation for improve- 
 ments, though not for the land, may be granted. But if the 
 nation is to compensate for all improvements, it may as well 
 at once give a deed of quit claim for the land, since land 
 without improvements has no value. 
 
 In the first place, how do the Nationalisers mean to carry 
 into effect their schemes of resumption? They can hardly 
 suppose that large classes will allow themselves to be treated 
 as robbers and turned out of their freeholds without striking 
 a blow in their own defence. There would probably be civil 
 war, in which it is by no means certain that the agrarian
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 19 
 
 philosopher and his disciples would get the better of the owners 
 and tillers of land; while, if they did, social peace would 
 hardly ensue. 
 
 In the second place, as it is to the government that all land, 
 or the rent of all land, is to be made over, we must ask the 
 agrarian socialist what form of government he means to give 
 us. The theorists themselves denounce, as loudly as any one, 
 the knavery and corruption of the politicians, who would 
 hardly be made pure and upright simply by putting the man- 
 agement of all the land of the nation into their hands. 
 Utopians forget that in introducing their systems they will 
 have to deal with the world and witli human character as 
 they are. 
 
 Why is property in land thus singled out for forfeiture; and 
 why are its holders selected for especial denunciation? Be- 
 cause, say the Rationalisers, the land is the gift of God to 
 mankind, and ought not to be appropriated by any individual 
 owner. This would preclude appropriation by a nation, as 
 well as appropriation by a man; but let that pass. In every 
 article which we use, in the paper and type of the very book 
 which advocates confiscation, there are raw materials and 
 natural forces, which are just as much the gift of God as the 
 land. God made the avooI of Avliich your coat is woven to grow 
 on the sheep's back, and endowed steam with the power to work 
 the engine of the mill. God, for the matter of that, gave 
 every man liis brain and his limbs. Land is worth nothing, it 
 is wortli no more than tlve same extent of sea, till it is brought 
 under cultivation by labour, which must be that of particular 
 men. The value is the creation of individual labour and capi- 
 tal, in this case, as in the case of a manufncture. Circum- 
 stances, such as the growth of neighbouring cities, may favour 
 the landowners. Circumstances may favour any owner or 
 producer. They may also Ix' unfavourable to any owner or 
 producer, as they have been of late to tlie landowners and 
 agricultural ])roducers in England; and unless the State means 
 to ])rotect tlu! holder of i)V()])crty against misfortnne it lias 
 surely no right to mulct him for liis good luck. The coal and
 
 20 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 iron beds of Wyoming and Montana, we are told, which to-day 
 are valueless, will in fifty years from now be worth millions on 
 millions, simply because in the meantime population will have 
 greatly increased. They will be worth nothing unless they are 
 worked, and where is the wrong if metals or beef or wool 
 or anything else is worth more to the producer when produced 
 in the midst of a swarming population than when produced in 
 a desert? 
 
 Nor is there anything specially unjust, or in any way pecu- 
 liar, about the mode in which the labourer on land is paid by 
 the landowner or capitalist. Every labourer virtually draws 
 his pay from the moment when he begins his work. He 
 draws it in credit, which enables him to get what he wants at 
 the baker's and grocer's, if not at once in cash. 
 
 All land will, of course, fall under the same rule. The lot 
 on which the mechanic has built his house will be nationalised 
 as well as the ranch. 
 
 It would appear that natural produce, being equally with 
 the land the gift of the Creator, should be equally exempt 
 from the possibility of lawful ownership, so that we should 
 be justified in repudiating our milk bills because cows feed on 
 grass. 
 
 Is Poverty the offspring of land-ownership or the land laws? 
 Any one who is not sailing on the wings of a theory can 
 answer that question by looking at the facts before his eyes. 
 Poverty springs from many sources, personal and general; 
 from indolence, infirmity, age, disease, intemperance ; from the 
 failure of harvests and the decline of local trade ; from changes 
 in the modes of production and the lines of commerce which 
 throw men out of employment ; from the growth of population 
 beyond the means of subsistence. If the influence of the last 
 cause is denied, let it be shown what impelled the migrations 
 by which the earth has been peopled. Poverty has existed on 
 a large scale in great commercial cities, which the land laws 
 could but little affect, and even in cities like Venice, which 
 had no land at all. 
 
 The increase of poverty itself is a fiction. The number
 
 SOCIAL AND INUUSTIUAL IlEVOLUTION. 21 
 
 of people, in all civilised countries, living in plenty and com- 
 fort, has vastly increased; it has increased both positively and 
 relatively to the number of the destitute, and though, with 
 a vast increase in numbers, there is necessarily a positive 
 increase of misfortune and poverty, even the poorest are not 
 so ill off noAV as they were in the times of primitive barbarism, 
 when famine stalked through unsettled tribes at the mercy of 
 the local accidents of nature, though there was no " monopoly " 
 of land. The London slums are hideous, but they are a spot 
 in a vast expanse of decent homes, which is represented as not 
 only the mate of poverty, but its source. The two or three 
 millions in the days of the Plantagenets had more room and 
 larger sliares of the free gifts of nature than the thirty millions 
 have now. But the working classes of those days lived in 
 chimneyless hovels, and, as Dr. Jessop thinks, had, in Nor- 
 folk, l)vit a single garment, not more wearing linen then than 
 now wear silk. Round the gates of the monasteries gathered 
 beggars for whom, when the monasteries had been dissolved, 
 was framed the ruthless vagrancy law of the Tudors. Loath- 
 some diseases such as leprosy were common, and a third of the 
 population was carried off by the Black Death. Local famines 
 were frequent, owing to the want of machinery for distribution. 
 If dissatisfaction was not manifested in strikes, it was mani- 
 fested in tlie insurrection of Wat Tyler. Is there less poverty 
 in unprogressive countries, such as the kingdoms of the East, 
 or Spain and Italy, than in those which liave been the seats of 
 progress? That, of the increased wealth of England and other 
 industrial countries, the largest share has gone to wages seems 
 to be clearly proved. Nor can it be doubted that the remu- 
 neration of manual labour has risen, compared with that of 
 intellectual Avork. In America there are mechanics not a few 
 paid at a higlier rate than men who have undergone expensive 
 education. Progress, therefore, is not the mate of poverty. 
 To say tliat it is the source is preposterous. If progress 
 stopped, would poverty stop with it? 
 
 We cannot all be husbandmen or personally make any use 
 of land. What we want, as a community, in the economical
 
 22 QUESTIONS OP THE DAY. 
 
 point of view, is that the soil shall produce as much food 
 as possible; and facts as well as reason seem to show that 
 a high rate of production is attained only where tenure is 
 secure. The greater the security of tenure, the more of his 
 labour and capital the husbandman will put into the land, and 
 the larger the harvest will be. It has been said, and though 
 an over- statement, the saying has truth in it, that if you give 
 a man the freehold of a desert, he will make it a garden, and 
 if you give him the lease of a garden, he will make it a desert. 
 The spur which proprietorship lends to industry is prover- 
 bially keen in the case of ownership of land. The French 
 peasant is a remarkable proof of this. Originally, all owner- 
 ship was tribal; and if tribal ownership has, in all civilised 
 countries, given place to private ownership, this is the verdict 
 of civilisation in favour of the present system. Where tribal 
 ownership has lingered, as in Russia and in Afghanistan, gen- 
 eral barbarism has lingered with it. The idea that a wicked 
 company of land-grabbers aggressed upon the public property, 
 and set up a monopolj^ in their own favour, is a fancy as base- 
 less as the Social Contract of Rousseau, or any of the other 
 figments respecting social origins which our knowledge of 
 primeval history has dispelled. Did this extraordinary fit of 
 spoliation come without concert upon every one of the coun- 
 tries now included in the civilised world? Where are the 
 records or the traces of this momentous series of events? 
 
 Is it intended that the tenure of those who are to hold the 
 land under the State shall be secure? If it is, nothing will 
 have been gained; private property, and what, to excite 
 odium, is called monopoly, though there are hundreds of tliou- 
 sands of proprietors, will return under another form. The 
 only result will be a change of the name from freeholder to 
 something expressive of concession in perpetuity by the State; 
 and this Avill be obtained at the expense of a shock to agricul- 
 ture the immediate effect of which might be a dearth. That 
 we have all a right to live upon the land is a proposition, in 
 one sense, absurd, unless the cities are to be abandoned, and 
 we are to revert to the primeval state; in another sense, true,
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 23 
 
 though subject to the necessary limit of population. But what 
 Nationalisation practically proposes is, that a good, many of 
 us, instead of living, shall, by reduced, production, be deprived 
 of bread and either be driven into exile or die. 
 
 Nationalisation sometimes assumes the name of the Single 
 Tax movement, which promises us unspeakable benefits if 
 we throw the whole burden of taxation on the value of 
 land unimproved. Who would be found to hold land? Who 
 would be found to hold that which yields nothing and pay a tax 
 on it? Shift the incidence of taxation as you will, it makes 
 itself felt, directly or indirectly, by the whole community. If 
 justice is to reign in the fiscal region, the service rendered by 
 government, whether national or municipal, ought to be as 
 far as possible the measure of taxation, and there is nothing to 
 which government and jjolice render so little service as un- 
 improved land. 
 
 When we talk of Nationalising, it is well to remember, that 
 though territory is still national, nations no longer live upon 
 the produce of their own territory alone, and that tlie scope 
 of these plans of change must l)e enlarged so as to embrace the 
 commercial world. 
 
 A milder school of agrarian socialists proposes to confiscate 
 only what it calls the unearned increment of land, that is, any 
 additional value which, from time to time, may accrue through 
 the action of surrounding circumstances and the general pro- 
 gress of the community, witliout exertion or outlay on the part 
 of the individual owner. Very sharp and skilful inspectors 
 would be required to watch the increase and to draw the line. 
 The question also recurs, whether, if unearned increment 
 is to be taken away, accidental decrement ought not to be 
 made good. Uut here, again, we must ask, why landed prop- 
 erty alone is to be treated in this way? I'roperty of any kind 
 may grow more valuable without etfort or outlay on the owner's 
 part. Is the State to seize upon all the premium on stocks? 
 A mechanic buys a ])air of boots; the next day leather goes 
 up; is the State to take toll of the meelianic's boots? 
 
 The fact is, that the vision of certaiu economists is distorted
 
 24 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 and tlieir views are narrowed by hatred of the landlord class. 
 Too many landlords, especially in old countries, are idle and 
 useless members of society, but owners of other kinds of 
 hereditary property are often idle and useless too. That the 
 land should have been so improved as to be able to pay the 
 owner as well as the cultivator, does the community no harm. 
 This we see plainly, where the owner, instead of being a rich 
 man, is a charitable institution. Nor, is any outcry raised, 
 when the same person, being owner and cultivator, unites with 
 the wages of one the revenue of the other. The belief that 
 there is some evil mystery in rent, has been fostered by the 
 metaphysical disquisitions of economists, who seem to have 
 been entrapped by their disregard of any language but one. 
 Rent is nothing but the hire of land, or, to speak more pre- 
 cisely, of the improvements that have been made by the 
 owner or by those from whom he has inherited or purchased ; 
 and there is no more mystery about it than there is about 
 the hire of a machine or a horse. In Greek, the word for 
 the hire of land and of a chattel is the same. 
 
 The desire of confiscating the property of landowners is, in 
 European countries, closely connected with the objects of 
 political revolution. But public spoliation, though it might 
 commence, would not end here, nor would there be any ground 
 for fixing this as its limit. Let a reason be given for confis- 
 cating real estate honestly acquired, and the same reason will 
 hold good for confiscating personalty, the labourer's wages, 
 and the copyright of the author or the plant of the journalist 
 who wins popularity by advocating spoliation of his neigh- 
 bour. If property is theft, the property in the Savings Bank 
 is theft like the rest. 
 
 Peasant proprietorship is as much opposed as anything can 
 possibly be to nationalisation of land; so the Nationalisers, 
 when they approach the peasant proprietor, speedily find. 
 But there are some who look to it with unbounded hope. The 
 political arguments in its favour are well known ; among them 
 is the adamantine resistance wliicli it offers to communism of
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 25 
 
 all kinds. Economical considerations are apparently against 
 it since a farmer on the great scale in Dakota will raise as 
 much grain with a hundred labourers as is raised by ten times 
 the number of French peasants. Socially there are arguments 
 both ways. The advantage, and, indeed, the ultimate exist- 
 ence of the manorial system, must depend upon the presence 
 of the landowner upon his estate and his performance of his 
 duties to his tenants. But the life of the peasant in France, 
 and even in Switzerland, is hard, and sometimes almost barbar- 
 ous, while he can scarcely tide over a bad harvest without 
 falling into the money-lender's hands. On the American con- 
 tinent, where the people are more educated, their tendency 
 seems to be, when they can, to exchange life on the farm, 
 which they find dull and lonely, for the more social life of the 
 city. Perhaps the time may come when agriculture will be 
 carried on scientifically, and upon a large scale, to furnish 
 food for an urban population. The life on a great farm would 
 be social, and would exercise higher intelligence than spade 
 labour. England, the enthusiasts of peasant proprietorship 
 should remember, is organised on the manorial system, not 
 only with manor houses but with large farms and large farm 
 buildings to correspond. Do they intend to clear away the 
 farm buildings as well as the manor houses, and to construct 
 a set adapted to small holdings in their room? 
 
 Liberation of labour from the exactions of the capitalist is 
 the hope of those who set on foot co-operative works. These, 
 hitherto, have generally failed from inability to wait for the 
 market and tide over bad times, from want of a guiding hand, 
 and from the unwillingness of the artisan to resign liis inde- 
 pendence and his liberty of moving from place to place; 
 though the last cause is less operative with the submissive 
 Frenchman than with his sturdy English or American com- 
 peer. Capital, spelt with a big initial letter, swells into a 
 malignant giant, tlie personal enemy of labour; spelt in the 
 natural way, it is simply that with which labour starts on any 
 enterprise, and without which no labour can start at all, unless
 
 26 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 it be that of the savage grubbing roots with his nails. It in- 
 cludes a spade as well as factory plant that has cost millions; 
 it includes everything laid out in education or training. We 
 might as well talk of emancipating ourselves from the tyranny 
 of food or air. Every co-operative association must have 
 some capital to begin with, either of its own or borrowed, the 
 lender, in the latter case, representing the power of large 
 capital just as much as any employer. The aggregation of 
 great masses of capital in one man's hands is a social danger, 
 and one against which legislators ought, by all fair means, to 
 guard, though it is sometimes not without a good aspect; wit- 
 ness the New York Central Railroad, which could hardly have 
 been brought to its present state by managers under the neces- 
 sity of providing an equally large dividend every year. But 
 the operation of the joint-stock principle, it seems, is produc- 
 ing a gradual change in this respect. It will often be found 
 that the rate of profit made by a great capitalist is far from 
 excessive, though his total gains maybe large. Mr. Brassey's 
 total gains were large, but the rate did not exceed three per 
 cent, on the outlay,^ while it is very certain that without him 
 ten thousand workmen, destitute of capital, scientific skill, 
 and powers of command, could not have built the Victoria 
 Bridge. Co-operative farming seems to bold out more hope 
 than co-operative manufactures. Still it would need capital 
 and a head. 
 
 In fact, what the Socialist demands is not that the agency 
 of capital should be abolished, but that the sole capitalist 
 should be the State. The State is the government. Govern- 
 ment consists of men; and we have to ask ourselves whether 
 by yjutting all the capital into the hands of these men and 
 making them arbiters of all employment we should greatly 
 improve upon things as they are now. 
 
 To get rid of competition, and substitute for it fraternity 
 among workers, is the other aim of co-operation. But the 
 co-operative societies must compete with each other, while, 
 as buyers, having regard to cheapness in their purchases, 
 
 1 See Life and Labours of Mr. Brasspij, by Arthur Helps. Page 158.
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 27 
 
 they will themselves be always ratifying the principle of com- 
 petition, and, at the same time, that of paying the workman 
 not on the fraternal princijile, but according to the amount 
 and value of his work. No co-operative association pays 
 philanthropic prices for its goods or philanthropic wages to its 
 clerks and porters. Every heart must be touched by frater- 
 nity and wish that co-operation could take the place of com- 
 petition, which, in its grinding severity, is too like many other 
 things in this hard world. But, after all, choose any manu- 
 factured article, consider the multitude of people who in vari- 
 ous trades and different countries have co-operated in the pro- 
 duction, yet have not competed with each other, and it will be 
 seen that, even as things are, there is more of co-operation 
 than of competition among the workers. 
 
 Co-operative stores have nothing but a misleading name in 
 common with co-operative works. They simply bring the 
 consumer into direct relation with the producer, and give him 
 the benefit of wholesale prices, which may be perfectly well 
 done, so long as the officers of the association can be trusted 
 to exercise for the society the same degree of skill and integ- 
 rity in the selection of goods which the retail tradesman exer- 
 cises for himself. Retail establishments, however, of the 
 ordinary kind, but on a large scale, like that of the late A. T. 
 Stewart, in New York, with low prices, and, best of all, 
 ready-money payment, afford the practical benefits of co- 
 operation. If they absorb the small and struggling retailer, 
 converting him into a shopman or a clerk, is he the worse for 
 the change? A blessing, however, waits on every device — ■ 
 co-operation, profit-sharing, or whatever it may be — which 
 promises to efface the fatal line on the opposite sides of 
 which employer and employed now glower like hostile forces at 
 each other. While that sharp economical demarcation and the 
 sharp social demarcation which goes with it continue to exist, 
 there is little hope of secure peace. 
 
 From the coercive action of Trade-Unionism and from 
 strikes, again, too much seems to have been expected by the 
 workingman. Tliey have not seldom enabled him to make
 
 28 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 a fairer bargain with the master, and they are perfectly law- 
 ful; though it is daily becoming more apparent that the com- 
 munity, to save itself from the misuse of Unionist power, 
 must steadfastly guard the liberties of the Non-union men. 
 But it is easy to exaggerate the extent to which wages can be 
 raised by strikes. The screw may be put upon the master, 
 but it cannot be put upon the community; and it is the com- 
 munity, not the master, that is the real employer. The com- 
 munity whicli buys the goods ultimately settles the price, and 
 thereby finally determines the wages of the producers, not- 
 withstanding any momentary extortion; nor can it in the 
 end be constrained, by striking, to give more than it thinks 
 fit and can afford. The workman himself who strikes buys 
 everything as cheap as he can, and in so doing he is keeping 
 down the wages of those whose labour produces the article to 
 the lowest point in his power. By strikes, carried beyond a 
 certain point, capital may be driven away, and the trade may 
 be ruined, as trades have been ruined, but the rate of wages 
 will not be raised. The master, though he is the immediate 
 employer, is the agent through whom the community pays the 
 workmen. To the men, his commercial relation is at bottom 
 that of a partner, taking out of the earnings of the business 
 the share whicli is due, or deemed to be due, for capital, risk, 
 and guidance. Masters are beginning to mark this fact in a 
 kindly way, by giving shares in the concern or premiums to 
 the men, while they retain the guidance in their own hands. 
 If the employer is taking more than his share, strikes may 
 rectify the injustice. But what is his share must be deter- 
 mined, not by the profits of a particular employer at a par- 
 ticular moment, but by the general balance, taking good years 
 with bad, of the profits and losses of the employers in the 
 trade. Mr. Brassey's losses in one year were so heavy that 
 his property of every kind was largely committed, and there 
 Avere times, we are told, at which, if he had died, he would 
 have been found a comparatively poor man. 
 
 Strikers should never forget that they are themselves buyers 
 as well as producers, and, therefore, employers as well as
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 29 
 
 employed; so tluit if they can strike against the rest of the 
 community, the other trades can strike against them, and 
 wages being thus raised all round, nobody will be the gainer. 
 They ought also to remember that they are parts of an indus- 
 trial organism, on the well-being of which as a whole that of 
 all its members depends, and which is deranged as a whole by 
 the disturbance of any portion of it. A strike in one section 
 of a trade throws out of work numbers of men, women, and 
 children in the other sections. A strike in certain depart- 
 ments, such as that of railways or coal mines, will stop the 
 wheels of commerce and industry; in others, it will cause 
 incalculable loss and suffering, Avhile in all cases a share of 
 the loss must come back through the general market on the 
 striker. What would the artisan say if when he had been 
 hurt by a machine the surgeon were to put his head out of 
 window and say the surgeons were on strike? 
 
 Artisans are in the habit of sjjeaking of themselves exclu- 
 sively as workingmen. Everybody who is not idle is a work- 
 ingman, whether he works with his brain or with his hands, 
 and whatever part he may play in the service of a varied and 
 complex civilisation. 
 
 Manual labour is also taught to believe that all wealth is 
 produced by it and of right belongs to it. Has nothing come 
 down to it from the past? Is the whole machinery of com- 
 merce, national and international, is the whole frame of civili- 
 sation the mere product of manual labour ? Suppose a body 
 of workingmen were set down in a country by themselves, 
 with no inheritance from the past, no capital, no guidance, no 
 instruments of production other than their own hands, Avould 
 the extinction of poverty be the result ? 
 
 We may relegate political economy to Saturn, but we shall 
 find that it will return. Malthus will return; not the im- 
 moral ogre painted by fancy, but the perfectly moral and 
 benevolent observer, who pointed out a most important fact, 
 though he overlooked limitations. If the number of guests 
 at the table of life is increased without limit, each man's share 
 of the feast must be diminished or some must go unfed. If
 
 30 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 by the growth of the artisan population the labour market 
 is overcrowded, strike as often as you will, there cannot be 
 employment with good wages for all. The idea that multipli- 
 cation of labourers, without increase of the natural means of 
 production, will increase the produce seems to possess some 
 minds, but it scarcely needs confutation. Let them try the 
 experiment. See whether by dumping a thousand Socialists 
 on a hundred acres of land you can increase the yield so that 
 they shall all be fed. A heavy responsibility is incurred 
 by agitators, lay or clerical, who mislead the people on this 
 subject. 
 
 It cannot be doubted that these unhappy conflicts between 
 employer and employed have given birth to a set of men who 
 subsist by industrial war. In the journals and speeches of 
 these men nothing is said about the improvement which the 
 artisan might make in his own condition by thrift, temperance, 
 and husbandry of his means ; he is told only of the advantage 
 which he might gain by industrial revolution. Nor is any- 
 thing said about the efforts which undeniably are being made 
 by the employer and by society at large to raise the lot of the 
 artisan. Before the men themselves the hope of rising into a 
 higher grade of industry is not set. They are led to regard 
 themselves as destined to the end of their days to be members 
 of a union of wage-earners always doing battle with their 
 masters. The artisan is always the "toiler," the other classes 
 are "spoilers," and the drift of the preaching is that the 
 spoilers ought to be made to disgorge, and are lucky if they 
 escape condign punishment. 
 
 Capitalists and the wealthy class, it seems to be assumed, 
 whatever is done to them, will always be in existence and will 
 present themselves like sheep for an annual shearing. But 
 these sheep, once sheared, will grow no more wool. Men will 
 ]iot earn and save wealth for the confiscator. The store once 
 rifled and the Avealth spent, as by the common workman it 
 probably would be, in meat, drink, and tobacco, there would 
 remain labour without capital or guidance, a demoralised 
 industry, and probably lack of bread.
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 31 
 
 Then there is the hope of vastly increasing the wealth of 
 the world in general, and that of the poorer class in partic- 
 ular, by means of Inconvertible Paper Currency. Of tliis 
 illusion, it may be truly said, that not the wildest dreams of 
 the alchemist, or of those adventurers who sailed in quest 
 of an Eldorado, were a more extraordinary instance of the 
 human power of self-deception. Among the champions of 
 paper currency there are, no doubt, many who know too well 
 what they are about, and whose aim is to defraud the creditor, 
 public and private, by paying off the debt with depreciated 
 paper, an operation the sweetness of which, in the United 
 States, under the Legal Tender Act, has been already tasted. 
 But there are also honest enthusiasts, not a few, who sincerely 
 believe that a commercial millennium could be opened by 
 merely issuing a flood of promissory notes and refusing 
 payment. This prodigious fallacy has its origin in the 
 equivocal use of a word. We have got into the habit of 
 applying the name money to bank-notes as well as to coin. 
 The paper being current as well as the coin, we fancy that 
 with both alike we buy goods. But the truth is that we 
 buy only with the coin, to which, alone, the name money 
 ought to be applied. The bank-note is an instrument of 
 credit, like a cheque; not money itself, but an order and 
 a security for a sum of money, which, the note being payable 
 on demand, can be drawn by the holder from the bank when 
 he pleases. When a man receives a bank-note, he has 
 virtually so much coin as the note represents put to his 
 account at the bank by Avhich the note is issued. The 
 note is a promissory note, and the bank in increasing its 
 circulation, like a trader who increases the number of his 
 promissory notes, adds, not to its assets, but to its liabili- 
 ties. In the slip of paper there is no value or purchasing 
 power; nor can any legislature put value or purchasing power 
 into it. Grccnbackers point to the case of postage stamps, 
 into which, tliey say, value has been put by legislation. But 
 a postage stamp is a receipt for a certain sum paid to the 
 government in coin, and, in consideration of which, the gov-
 
 32 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 ernment undertakes to carry the letter to which the receipt 
 is affixed. 
 
 ]SIo paper money, it is believed, has ever yet been issued 
 except in the promissory form, pledging the issuer to pay in 
 coin upon demand, so that each note hitherto has borne upon 
 the face of it a flat denial and abjuration of the Greenback 
 theory. Suppose the promissory form to be discarded, and the 
 bill to be simply inscribed "one dollar," as the Fiat-money 
 men propose, what would "dollar" mean? It would mean, 
 say the Greenbackers, a certain proportion of the wealth of 
 the country, upon which, as an aggregate, the currency would 
 be based. What proportion? Let us know what we have in 
 our purse, and what we can get in exchange for the paper 
 dollar on presentation; otherwise commerce cannot go on. 
 This, however, is not the most serious difficulty. The most 
 serious difficulty is that while the coin, which a convertible 
 bank-note represents, is the property of tlie bank of issue, the 
 aggregate wealth of the country is not the property of the 
 government, but of a multitude of private owners. The gov- 
 ernment is the possessor of nothing except the public domain 
 and a taxing power, the exercise of which it is bound to con- 
 fine to the actual necessities of the State. In issuing an order 
 for a loaf of bread, a coat, or a leg of mutton, to be taken from 
 the possessions of the community at large, it would be simply 
 signing a ticket of spoliation. 
 
 Ask the Fiat-money men whether they are prepared to take 
 their own money for taxes, and you will get an ambiguous 
 reply. Some of them have an inkling of the fatal truth, and 
 answer that the taxes must be paid in gold. The faith of 
 others is more robust. But it has been reasonably inquired 
 why tlie government, if it can with a printing machine coin 
 money at its will, should pester citizens for taxes at all. 
 
 That the foreigner will take the national Fiat-money, nobody 
 seems to pretend. Yet, if there is real value in it, why should 
 he not ? All the better, say the Greenbackers ; if he will not 
 take our money, he will have to take our goods. Then you 
 will have to take his goods, and the commercial world will be
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 33 
 
 reduced again to barter without a common measure of value, 
 which would not be a great advance in convenience or in civi- 
 lisation. Besides, trade is not merely a direct interchange of 
 commodities between two countries; it is circulation of them 
 among all countries, the United States sending cotton to 
 England, England calico to China, and Cliina tea to the 
 United States, which, without a common standard of value, 
 would be next to impossible. 
 
 In one sense, of course, government can, by its fiat, put 
 value into paper. It can make the paper legal tender for 
 debts ; in other words, it can issue licenses of repudiation, and 
 these licenses will retain a value till all existing debts have 
 been repudiated, and all existing creditors cheated; but from 
 that time their value will cease, since everybody, from the 
 moment of their issue, will refuse to advance money, or sell 
 on credit. 
 
 In all the cases known to economical history in which 
 governments have issued inconvertible paper, depreciation 
 has ensued, and such value as the paper has retained has 
 been in proportion to the hope of resumption. When cash 
 payments were suspended in Englaiad, at the crisis of the 
 French war, the depreciation was comparatively small, because 
 the hope of resumption was strong. The guillotine was 
 plied in vain to arrest the rapid fall of French Assignats, 
 though these were not absolutely fiat-money, but bonds secured 
 on the national domains, which were good security for the 
 original issue. Confederate paper money, with the defeat of 
 the Confederacy, lost the whole of its value, or retained a 
 shadow of it only tlirough stock-jobbing illusions. In San 
 Domingo a gentleman, having tendered a silver American 
 dollar in payment for his coffee, received from the surj^rised 
 and delighted keeper of the coffee-house an armful of pajier 
 change. Washington, while he was saving his country, Avas 
 being robbed through the operation of inconvertible paper 
 currency of part of his private estate; and the effects, moral 
 and political, as well as commercial, of the system, during the 
 Revolutionary War, were such that Tom Paine, no timid or 
 
 D
 
 34 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 squeamish publicist, recommended that death should be made 
 the penalty of any proposal to renew it. In all cases where 
 specie payment has been resumed, the State, in addition to the 
 loss incurred through disturbance and demoralisation of com- 
 merce, has paid heavily for the temporary suspension, because 
 its credit has been suspended at the same time, and it has had 
 to borrow on terms worse than those which it could have 
 obtained in the money market, had its integrity been preserved. 
 The value is in the gold. It is in exchange for the gold 
 that, whenever a sale takes place, the commodity is given. 
 Trade was originally barter, and, in the sense of being always 
 an interchange of things deemed really equivalent in value, 
 it is barter still. I give a cow for three sheep, and then 
 give the three sheep for a XJlough, which it is my ultimate 
 object to purchase. What the three sheep here do in a single 
 transaction, is done in transactions generally by gold. This 
 fundamental and vital fact is obscured by the language even 
 of some economists who are sound in principle, but who speak 
 of the precious metals as though their value were conven- 
 tional, and like that of symbols or counters. It is nothing of 
 the kind. The first man who gave anything in exchange for 
 gold or silver, must have done so because he deemed gold or 
 silver really valuable; so does the last. The precious metals 
 probably attracted at first by their beauty, their rarity, and 
 their natural qualities; then, they were felt to have special 
 advantages as mediums of exchange and universal standards 
 of value, on account of their durability, their uniformity, 
 their portability, their inimitability, their capability of receiv- 
 ing a stamp, of being divided with exactness, and of being 
 fused again Avith ease. Thus they, and, at least in the chief 
 commercial countries, gold, displaced all the other articles, 
 such as copper, iron, leather, shells, which, in primitive 
 times, or under pressure of circumstances, were adopted as 
 mediums of exchange and standards of value. As was said in 
 the time of Edward VI. in a protest against the debasement 
 of the currency, " By the whole consent of the world gold and 
 silver have gotten the estimation above all other metals, as
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 35 
 
 metest to make money and be conserved as a treasure : which 
 estimation cannot be altered by a part or little corner of the 
 world, though the estimation were had but on a fanciful opin- 
 ion, where indeed it is grounded upon good reason, according 
 to the gifts that nature hath wrought in those metals whereby 
 they be metest to use for exchange, and to be kept for a treas- 
 ure : so as in that kind they have gotten the sovereignty, like 
 as for other purposes other metals do excel." ^ But the prec- 
 ious metals have now the additional value derived from imme- 
 morial and immutable prescription, which would render it 
 practically impossible to oust them, even if a substance prom- 
 ising greater advantages for the purpose could be found. The 
 French Republicans tried to change the era, and make chro- 
 nology begin with the first year of the Republic, instead of 
 beginning Avith the birth of Christ. But they found that they 
 Avere pulling at a tree, the roots of which were too completely 
 entwined with all existing customs and ideas to be torn up. 
 It would not be less difficult to alter the medium of exchange 
 and standard of value over the whole commercial world. A 
 value which is moral, or dependent on opinion, is not the less 
 real; the value of diamonds, as symbols of wealth and rank, 
 may be dependent, not only on opinion, but on fancy, yet it is 
 real so long as it lasts. An enormous find of gold would, of 
 course, by putting an end to its rarity, destroy its value; this 
 is a risk which commerce runs, but it does not seem to be 
 great. Any inconvenience tliat might arise from the bulk and 
 weight of the precious metals, is indefinitely diminished, 
 while in use they are vastly, and in an increasing degree, 
 economised by the employment of bniik-notes and other paper 
 securities for gold, Avhich are currcnc}'-, though money thej' 
 are not. Tliough gold has been the basis on the American 
 continent, in twenty-five years wliii;li the writer has passed 
 there he lias only once seen gold in circulation. 
 
 There ought surely to be no such tiling as Legal Tender, 
 even in the case of convertible ])aper currency, either on tlie 
 part of the government or on tlic p.irt of ])riv;ite banks. It is 
 
 ^ See Mr. Richard Bagley's Ireland vncler the Titdors, Vol. I., p. 371.
 
 36 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 plain injustice to compel us to take anybody's paper as gold. 
 If the government is solvent and its security is good, the 
 paper is sure to be taken in preference to carrying about a 
 weight of specie. Legal Tender confuses the ideas of the 
 people, shakes commercial morality, and prepares the way for 
 the attempts of the Fiat-money man, and for all the mischief 
 which they breed. 
 
 Of Bimetallism we must speak with respect, since it has 
 such an advocate as Mr. Grenfell. Yet the answer seems 
 to have been given with force as well as with pungency 
 by Lowe: "I congratulate you on the discovery of the 
 philosopher's stone. If saying that one metal shall be equal 
 in value to another can make it equal, you are fairly entitled 
 to claim to have discovered the secret of boundless riches. 
 But why bimetallism only? Why not trimetallism or quadri- 
 metallism? It is as easy to say that copper is equal to gold 
 as silver." Gold and silver are two commodities, each of 
 which has its value regulated by qualities and circumstances 
 over which legislatures have no control. Relative or pro- 
 portional value can no more be legislated into a commodity 
 than can absolute value. By the act of a government or a 
 combination of governments, silver or any other metal may 
 authoritatively be made legal tender in a certain proportion to 
 gold, so far as the power of that government or combination 
 of governments extends. This may be done with greater ease 
 if the community or communities are not in active commer- 
 cial intercourse with the rest of the world. To have two 
 standards is to have none. It has been said that it matters 
 not whether cloth is bought by the yard or by the ell. It 
 matters, however, whether you have one yard measure or two, 
 one of three feet and the other of three feet and a quarter. It 
 was proposed, the other day, in America, to keep up the price 
 of silver by making all the servants of the government wear 
 silver buttons. It was asked in reply whether the servants 
 were to pay for the buttons, or the public; as, in the first case 
 it Avould be a tax on the servants, in the second, on the pub-
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 37 
 
 lie, for the benefit of the Silver men, and the money might 
 as well have been handed to them at once. But we should 
 also have been told why the public was interested in keeping 
 up the price of silver any more than the price of salt. It was 
 mainly the influence of the Silver men, not the prevalence of 
 the bimetallic theory, that carried the Silver Bill. The mar- 
 ket is flooded with silver, and if silver were monetised, as it 
 abounds in the mines, there would probably be a deluge, in 
 which all proportion between the legal and the commercial 
 value of the metal would be lost. It is mournful that an 
 industry should be depressed, but of all ways of relieving it 
 the most costly is derangement of the currency. If the tobacco 
 interest is depressed, are we to remonetise tobacco, which once 
 was currency in Virginia? Combined with the silver interest 
 in the agitation was the recrudescence of Greenbackism and 
 the desire of the debtor class, especially the heavily mort- 
 gaged, for an easy mode of paying their debts. Nor was the 
 South unwilling to see a partial repudiation of the Federal 
 war debt. The struggle against Greenbackism after the war 
 was severe, though honesty and a regard for national credit 
 prevailed. In the Silver law and its consequences we see one 
 more proof of the formidable influence of sectional interests 
 in party government when parties are nearly balanced. In 
 the financial crisis which has followed we see, in some meas- 
 ure at least, the penalties of tampering with the currency. 
 With the movement of tlie Silver men and Greeubackers in 
 the United States concurred that of the Civil Servants in 
 India, and a great point was made by Bimetallists of this con- 
 currence. But in regard to such a question as a change in the 
 world's currency, the pressure of two great special interests 
 was surely a warning to be cautious. The interests them- 
 selves are part of the commercial world, and will lose in the 
 end by d(u-angement of the currency, thoxigh they may be 
 relieved for a time. Adherence to the gold standard does 
 not ]tv('cln(le tlie " free coinage " of silver to any extent for 
 auxiliary use, the range of which each country may determine 
 for itself.
 
 38 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 With belief in Fiat-money are often combined fancies about 
 the tyranny of banks, and a desire to wreck and phmder them 
 by an exercise of the legislative power, or to seize the busi- 
 ness and its prohts, and place them in the hands of the 
 government. Especially it is proposed to take away the cir- 
 culation of bank-paper, and the profits belonging to it. Banks 
 are vital organs of a commercial community, which, in seek- 
 ing their destruction, would show as much wisdom as a man 
 would show in seeking the destruction of his own heart or 
 lungs. They perform for us three indispensable functions, 
 whereof the first is the safe-keeping of our money, which, other- 
 wise, we should have to keep in our houses at our own risk, as 
 was the practice of Mr. Pepys in the reign of Charles II., and 
 as is still the practice of the French peasant, who hides his 
 hoard in a hole in the wall. The second function is that 
 of economising gold, and at the same time sparing us the 
 inconvenience of carrying about a mass of specie, by issuing 
 bank-notes, which, being secured upon the whole estate of a 
 chartered corporation, may, in general, be accepted without 
 scrutiny, and thus form a paper currency, though it can never 
 be too often repeated that they are not money. It is hard 
 that those who are always declaiming against metallic money 
 for its cumbrousness, and because, as they say, it lies dead 
 and inert, should fail to acknowledge the service rendered by 
 the banks of issue, in thus giving the metal wings, and mak- 
 ing it do its work for commerce in a thousand places, while it 
 is locally laid up in one. The third function, which is the 
 offspring of comparatively modern times, is that of enabling 
 us to trade on credit. This the banks do by discounting paper 
 for the trader, whose resources they have satisfactorily exam- 
 ined, and whose commercial character they approve. In this 
 way, they both substantiate and regulate credit, neither of 
 which could be done without their agency, by the mere re- 
 presentations of the trader himself, or by private inquiry into 
 his means. To stop the action of the banks in this depart- 
 ment would be to stop trading on credit. Credit, like capital, 
 is becoming a monster, and if there were no trustworthy
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 39 
 
 means of measuring, regulating, and restricting it, a monster 
 it would be. 
 
 The financial destructive grudges the bank the profits of 
 its circulation, and wishes to transfer them to that which 
 he calls the State, but which, it is necessary always to bear in 
 mind, is in fact simply the men who compose the government. 
 Why not grudge the bank the profits of the discount busi- 
 ness, and propose to transfer these to government in the same 
 way? Why not do the same with all other trades by which 
 profit, and often unfair profit, is made? Why not make the 
 issuing of bills of exchange or promissory notes, why not 
 make the supplying of the community with clothes or shoes, 
 a monopoly in the hands of the government? What is there 
 about the money trade in particular to make us desire that it 
 should be put into the power of the politicians? Judging by 
 experience, it would be about the last branch of commerce on 
 which we should wish them to lay their grasp. 
 
 It is the business of government to put its stamp on the 
 coin, in order to assure the community that the coin is of the 
 right weight and fineness. This public authorities alone can 
 satisfactorily do, and they may now be trusted to do it, 
 though, in former times, kings were in the habit of defraud- 
 ing the subject by debasing the coin. But here the duty and 
 the usefulness of government in regard to the currency seem 
 to end. The volume of bank-notes issued ought to be regu- 
 lated, like that of all other commercial paper, by the require- 
 ments of the day, that is, by tlie number and amount of the 
 transactions; and it will be so regulated while it is in the 
 hands of the banks, which will not fail to issue all the bills 
 for which there is real need, while, if they issue more than 
 are needed, the bills will begin to come back upon their hands. 
 But government can no more decide what amount of bank- 
 paper is required than it can decide how many promissory 
 notes or bills of exchange or dock warrants ouglit, at any given 
 moment, to be afloat. Setting government to settle the circu- 
 lation of paper is having the barometer regulated by superior 
 wisdom without reference to atniosplieric pressure.
 
 40 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 The Bank Charter Act of Peel and Overstone was the off- 
 spring of the alarm caused by the failure of a number of 
 private banks of issue. With deference to such high authori- 
 ties, some would say that it might have been better to adopt 
 proper safeguards in the way of inspection and other precau- 
 tionary regulations. The Act has gone into operation only to 
 a limited extent, having put an end to the existence of a few 
 only of the private banks of issue, all of which it was intended 
 gradually to extinguish. It has been thrice suspended at a 
 commercial crisis, each suspension being attended with all the 
 inconvenience and injustice of arbitrary intervention; and its 
 general effect, whenever tightness is felt, appears to be to 
 produce a sort of nervous constriction, which itself tends to 
 the acceleration of a crisis. 
 
 Ordinary banks, being private institutions, are amenable to 
 the law; in truth, there is nothing of which the politicians 
 are fonder than harassing them with legislation. But a party 
 government, supported by a majority, is its own law, and can 
 do whatever its need or its cupidity inspires, without regard 
 to the interests of commerce. Even the most commercial of 
 such governments, when in want of money, does not shrink 
 from issuing legal tender currency, without reference to the 
 state of the money market. Tlie American Silver Bill, again, 
 shows what we might have to expect of the power to which 
 it is demanded that the functions of the banks should be trans- 
 ferred. Would commerce have an hour of security, or be able 
 to condtict any of her operations in peace and confidence, if 
 the hand of demagogism were all tlie time upon her heart- 
 strings? 
 
 Bank-paper, though not legal tender, cannot, in the ordi- 
 nary course of trade, be refused, unless there is some public 
 reason for mistrusting the solvency of the bank. This is the 
 ground for subjecting this particular class of commercial com- 
 panies to special legislation; and it is the sole ground; there 
 would, otherwise, be no justification for an interference with 
 the trade in money more than with any other trade. Nor has 
 a goveruniput the slightest right to compel the banks to take
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 41 
 
 its bonds, as tlie condition of permitting them to pursue an 
 honest and indispensable traffic, or to levy tribute upon them 
 in any other Avay. On the other hand, the stockholders of 
 banks must not suppose that they, of all investors in com- 
 mercial enterprises, are entitled to the intervention of gov- 
 ernment when their affairs are mismanaged by directors of 
 their own choosing. If they invoke such aid, they will once 
 more practically point the moral of the fable of the horse and 
 the stag. 
 
 The notion that society is an organism or growth must not 
 be carried too far ; we have each of us an individual person- 
 ality and a power of acting on the general frame, which the 
 parts of an organism have not. But this view is, at least, 
 nearer the truth than the idea which underlies all Socialism, 
 that society can be metamorphosed by the action of the State, 
 an imaginary power outside all personalities, superior to all 
 special interests, and free from all class passions. Nothing, 
 indeed, can be less free from class passions than the move- 
 ments which have been so far passed in review. Social hatred 
 is a bad reformer, and the struggles to which it has given 
 birth have almost always brought to the community, and even 
 to the most suffering members of it, far more loss than gain. 
 
 To speak of Protection would be opening a wide subject, 
 and one which perhaps scarcely falls within the sco|)e of this 
 ])apcr. There are men, sensible in other things, who imagine 
 that they can increase the wealth of a country by taxation. 
 So long as governments and armaments are maintained on the 
 present scale of expenditure, every country will need import 
 duties, and must have its tariff. The only alternative, at all 
 events, is direct taxation, with the inquisitorial annoyance 
 and the political dangers which attend it. Absolute free 
 trade, therefore, is at present out of the question, and the 
 different tariffs must be regulated according to the circum- 
 stances and the special industries of each community. Every 
 nation will claim this riglit. England, wlio has lier tariff like 
 the rest, wisely lets in free the raw materials of her special
 
 42 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 industries and the food of her innumerable workmen, while 
 she taxes finished articles of luxury, such as tea, wine, and 
 tobacco. Free traders, British free traders, especially, have 
 left this too much out of sight, and have compromised their 
 theory by that error. But that taxation can add to wealth, 
 that governments can increase production by forcing capital 
 and labour out of their natural channels, that the interest of 
 the people will be promoted by forbidding them to buy the 
 best and cheapest article wherever it can be found, are notions 
 which, if reason did not sufficiently confute them, have been 
 confuted by experience. Under the free system the industries 
 of England have been developed, and her wealth has increased 
 out of proportion to the growth of her population, and to an 
 extent perfectly unrivalled. The verdict of economical his- 
 tory through all the ages is the same. What is the proper 
 commercial area of Protection, Protectionists have omitted 
 to explain. Nobody proposes to draw Customs lines across 
 the territory of any nation, and the commercial advantages of 
 freedom of exchange know no political limit, though in pass- 
 ing from nation to nation fiscal necessity intervenes. The 
 workman does not gain by Protection; he is only transferred 
 to an artificial industry from a natural industry, which would 
 otherwise develop itself, and in which, as it Avould be more 
 remunerative, employment would be more abundant. The 
 master manufacturer is the only man who gains ; to him the 
 community, under the Protective system, pays tribute; accord- 
 ingly, in countries where the system prevails, he is generally 
 a Protectionist, and uses not argument alone, but the Lobby, 
 and influences of all sorts, to keep up the tariff; he will even 
 do his utmost to encourage expenditure, rather than that the 
 scale of duties should go down. Nor can he be much blamed, 
 when the government has induced him to put his capital into 
 the favoured trade, and stake his future on the continuance 
 of the favour. Political or social motives there may conceiva- 
 bly be for Protection, as well as for any other sacrifice of 
 commercial interest, such as war; but the commercial sacrifice 
 is a fact which cannot be denied. To foster by means of pro-
 
 SOCIAL AND INDUSTRIAL REVOLUTION. 43 
 
 tective duties or bonuses infant industries, which may after- 
 wards sustain themselves, and perhaps draw emigration to a 
 new country, in itself might be a rational and legitimate pol- 
 icy, if the nation could really keep the experiment in its own 
 hands. But artificial interests are created, a King is formed, 
 and the nation loses control over its tariff. Such, at least, is 
 the case with communities governed as are those of the Ameri- 
 can continent. The field of political economy, as a region not 
 in the air but on the earth, and the tendencies, capabilities, and 
 forces of society with which the economical legislator deals, 
 must bo treated as they really are. 
 
 Steady industry, aided by the ever-growing powers of prac- 
 tical science, is rapidly augmenting wealth. Thrift and in- 
 creased facilities for saving and for the employment of small 
 capitals will promote tlie equality of distribution. Let gov- 
 ernments see that lal)0ur is allowed to enjoy its full earnings, 
 untaxed by war, waste, or iniquitous tariffs. Tlie best of all 
 taxes, it has been truly said, is the least. With equal truth 
 it may be said that the best of all governments is that which 
 has least occasion to govern.
 
 UTOPIAN VISIONS.
 
 UTOPIAN VISIONS.^ 
 
 Among other signs of the social and industrial unrest of 
 the age has been the production of a number of Utopias such 
 as "The Coming Race," "News from Nowhere," "Csesar's 
 Column," and "Looking Backward," the last-named being 
 the most widely circulated and popular of all. As the rain- 
 bow in the spray of Niagara marks a cataract in the river, the 
 appearance of Utopias has marked cataracts in the stream of 
 history. That of More, from which the general name is 
 taken, and that of Rabelais, marked the fall of the stream 
 from the Middle Ages into modern times. Plato's " Republic " 
 marked the catastrophe of Greek republicanism, though it is 
 not a mere Utopia, but a great treatise on morality, and even 
 as a political speculation not wholly beyond the pale of what 
 a Greek citizen might have regarded as practical reform, since 
 it is in its main features an idealisation of Sparta. Visions 
 of reform heralded the outbreak of Lollardism and the Insur- 
 rection of the Serfs. The fancies of Rousseau and Bernardin 
 de St. Pierre heralded the French Revolution. Rousseau's 
 reveries, be it observed, not only failed of realisation, but gave 
 hardly any sign of that which was coming. The Jacobins 
 canted in his phrase, but they returned to the state of nature 
 only in personal filthiness, in brutality of manners, and in 
 guillotining Lavoisier because the Republic had no need of 
 chemists. 
 
 There is a general feeling abroad that the stream is drawing 
 near a cataract now, and there are apparent grounds for the 
 surmise. There is everywhere in the social frame an outward 
 
 1 The substance of this paper appeared in the Forum under the title 
 of "Prophets of Unrest." 
 
 47
 
 48 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 unrest, which as usual is the sign of fundamental change 
 within. Old creeds have given way. The masses, the arti- 
 sans especially, have ceased to believe that the existing order 
 of society, Avith its grades of rank and wealth, is a divine 
 ordinance against which it is vain to rebel. They have ceased 
 to believe in a future state, in which Dives and Lazarus are 
 to change places. Of labour journals secularism is the creed. 
 Social science, if it is to take the jjlace of religion as a con- 
 servative force, has not yet developed itself or got firm hold 
 of the popular mind. The rivalry of parties for popular 
 favour has made suffrage almost universal. The poor are 
 freshly possessed of political power, and have conceived vague 
 notions of the changes which, by exercising it, they may make 
 in their own favour. They are just in that twilight of educa- 
 tion in which chimeras stalk. This concurrence of social and 
 economical with political and religious revolution has always 
 been fraught with danger. The governing classes, unnerved 
 by scepticism, have lost faith in the order which they repre- 
 sent, and are timorous and inclined to hasty surrender. Some 
 members of them, partly from genuine philanthropy, partly 
 from ambition, partly perhaps from fear, are, like the aristo- 
 cracy of the salons in France in the last century, dallying with 
 revolution. Demagogism has learnt the art of bribing by 
 socialistic legislation the many who have votes at the expense 
 of the tax-paying few. The sight of accumulated wealth has 
 stimulated envy to a dangerous pitch. This is not the place 
 to cast the horoscope of society. We may, after all, be over- 
 rating the gravity of the crisis. The First of May hitherto 
 has passed without bringing forth anything more portentous 
 than an epidemic of strikes, which, though very disastrous, 
 as they sharpen and embitter class antagonisms, are not in 
 themselves attempts to subvert society. A writer who has 
 surveyed all the democracies, says that the only country on 
 Avhich revolutionary Socialism has taken hold is England. 
 German Socialism appears, as was said before, to be largely 
 impatience of taxation and conscription. Much is called 
 Socialism and taken as ominous of revolution which is merely
 
 UTOPIAN VISIONS. 49 
 
 the extension of the action of government, wisely or unwisely, 
 over new portions of its present field, and perhaps does not 
 deserve the dreaded name so much as our familiar Sunday 
 law. The crash, if it come, may not be universal. Things 
 may not everywhere take the same course. Wealth in some 
 countries, when seriously alarmed, may convert itself into 
 military power, of which the artisans have little, and may 
 turn the scale in its own favour. Though social science is as 
 yet undeveloped, intelligence has more organs and an increas- 
 ing hold. The efforts which good members of the employer 
 or wealthy class are making to improve social and industrial 
 relations, though little recognised by labour journals, and so 
 far disappointing in tlieir effect on the temper of the masses, 
 can hardly prove altogether vain. The present may after all 
 glide more calmly than we think into the future. Still there 
 is a crisis. We have had the Parisian Commune, the Spanish 
 Intransigentes, Niliilism, Anarchism. A point is not unlikely 
 to be reached in the progress of predatory legislation at which 
 property will turn to bay, and, having arms in its hands, will 
 tell the leveller that ransom for honest earnings and lawful 
 savings shall be paid in lead and steel. Then would come 
 social war. It is not a time for playing with wild-fire. Though 
 Rousseau's scheme of regeneration by a return to nature 
 came to nothing, his denunciations of society told with a 
 vengeance, and consigned thousands to death by the guillo- 
 tine, hundreds of thousands to death by distress, and millions 
 to death by the sword or by the havoc and pestilence which 
 follow in the train of war. 
 
 The Utopian seer, in trying to make the vision of his fancy 
 attractive by contrast, is naturally tempted to overpaint the 
 evils of the actual state of things. "Looking Backward" 
 opens with a vivid and telling picture of society as it is. 
 
 " By way of attempting to give tlie reader some general impression 
 of the way people lived together in those days, and especially of the rela- 
 tions of the rich and poor to one another, pcriiaps I cannot do better 
 than to compare society as it tlien was to a prodigious coach, whicli the 
 masses of humanity were harnessed to and dragged toilsomely along a
 
 50 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 very hilly and sandy road. The driver was hungry, and permitted no 
 lagging, though the pace was necessarily very slow. Despite the difficulty 
 of drawing the coach at all along so hard a road, the top was covered 
 with passengers, who never got down, even at the steepest ascent. These 
 seats were very breezy and comfortable. Well up out of the dust, their 
 occupants could enjoy the scenery at their leisure, or critically discuss 
 the merits of the straining team. Naturally such places were in great 
 demand, and the competition for them was keen, every one seeking as 
 the first end in life to secure a seat on the coach for himself and to leave 
 it to his child after him. By the rule of the coach, a man could leave his 
 seat to whom he wished ; but on the other hand, there were many acci- 
 dents by which it might at any time be wholly lost. For all that they 
 were so easy, the seats were very insecure, and at every sudden jolt of 
 the coach persons were slipijing out of them and falling to the ground, 
 where they were instantly compelled to take hold of the rope and help to 
 drag the coach on which they had before ridden so pleasantly. It was 
 naturally regarded as a terrible misfortune to lose one's seat, and the 
 apprehension that this might happen to them or their friends was a con- 
 stant cloud upon the happiness of those who rode." 
 
 And what are tlie feelings of the passengers toward the 
 hapless toilers who drag the coach? Have they no compas- 
 sion for the sufferings of the fellow-beings from whom fortune 
 only has distinguished them? 
 
 " Oh, yes ; commiseration was frequently expressed by those who rode 
 for those who had to pull the coach, especially when the vehicle came to 
 a bad place in the road, as it was constantly doing, or to a particularly 
 steep hill. At such times the desperate straining of the team, their 
 agonised leaping and plunging under the pitiless lashing of hunger, the 
 many who fainted at the rope and were trampled in the mire, made a 
 very distressing spectacle, which often called forth highly creditable dis- 
 plays of feeling on the top of the coach. At such times the passengers 
 would call down encouragingly to the toilers at the rope, exhorting them 
 to patience, and holding out hopes of possible compensation in another 
 world for the hardness of their lot, while others contributed to buy salves 
 and liniments for the crippled and injured. It was agreed that it was a 
 great pity that the coach should be so hard to pull, and there was a sense 
 of general relief when the specially bad piece of road was gotten over. 
 This relief was not, indeed, wholly on account of the team, for there was 
 always some danger at these bad places of a general overturn in which all 
 would lose their seats."
 
 UTOPIAN VISIONS. 51 
 
 These passages have their counterparts in "News from 
 Nowhere," and " Caesar's Cohimn," the latter of which, inspired 
 apparently by fear of the Vanderbilts and Astors, depicts New 
 York as miserably enslaved by a bloated oligarchy of million- 
 aires, with its demon fleet of ten thousand air ships. They 
 will sink deep into the hearts of many who will pay little 
 attention to tlie speculative plans of reconstruction which 
 follow. For one reader of " Progress and Poverty " who was 
 at the pains to follow the economical reasoning, there were 
 probably thousands who drank in the invectives against 
 wealth and the suggestions of confiscation. But is the de- 
 scription here given true or anything like the truth? Are 
 the masses toiling like the horses of a coach, not for their 
 own benefit, but only for that of the passengers whom they 
 draw? Are they not toiling to make their own bread, and to 
 produce by their joint labour the things necessary for their 
 common subsistence? As to the vast majority of them, can it 
 be said tliat they are leaping and plunging in agony under the 
 pitiless lash of hunger, fainting at the rope and trampled in 
 the mire? Are they not with their families living in tolerable 
 comfort, with bread enough, and not without enjoyment? 
 Has it not been proved beyond doubt that their Avages have 
 risen greatly and are still rising? Have not the working 
 classes, unlike the horses, votes? Is there really any such 
 sharp division as is here assumed to exist between labour and 
 wealth? Are not many wlio have more or less of wealth and 
 would have seats on the top of any social coach, labourers 
 and producers of the most effective kind? Such a writer can 
 hardly be the dupe of the fallacy that those only labour who 
 work Avith the hands. AVhat is the amount of the hereditary 
 projjerty held by idlers in such a country as the United States, 
 compared with that of the general wealth? Do the holders 
 even of that i)roperty really add by their existence to the 
 strain on the workers as the passengers by their presence add 
 to the strain on the horses? Supposing they and their riches 
 were annihilated, would tlic workers feel any relief? Would 
 they not rather lose a fund ii|i(i!i which they draw to some
 
 52 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 extent at need? The hereditary wealth which is here taken to 
 be the monster iniquity and evil, what is it but the savings of 
 past generations? Had those who made it spent it, instead of 
 leaving it to their children, should we be better off? Then, 
 as to the feelings of the rich toward the poor, can a Bostonian, 
 as this writer is, look round his own city and fail to see that 
 heartless indifference has its seat only in the souls of a few 
 sybarites, and that sentiments, at all events, of philanthropy 
 and charity are the rule? 
 
 It is in these Utopias that we see most distinctly embodied 
 the belief that equal justice is the natural law of the world, 
 and that nothing keeps us out of it but the barrier of artifi- 
 cial arrangements set up by the power, and in the interest, 
 of a class. Break down that barrier by revolutionary legisla- 
 tion, and the kingdom of equal justice, it is thought, will 
 come. Would that it were so ! Who could be so selfish and 
 so ignorant of the deepest source of happiness as not readily 
 to vote for the change, whatever his own place on the social 
 coach might be? But equal justice is not the natural law, as 
 the world is at present, toward whatever goal we may be 
 moving. Health, strength, beauty, intellect, offspring, length 
 of days, are distributed with no more regard for justice than 
 are the powers of making and saving wealth. One man is born 
 in an age of barbarism, another in an age of civilisation; one 
 man in the time of the Thirty Years' War or the Reign of 
 Terror, another in an era of peace and comparative happiness. 
 No justice can now be done to the myriads who have suffered 
 and died. Equal justice is far indeed from being the law of 
 tlie animal kingdom. Why is one animal the beast of prey, 
 another the victim? Why does an elephant live for a cen- 
 tury and an ephemeral insect for a few hours? If you come 
 to that, why should one sentient creature be a worm and 
 another a man? In earth and skies, so far as our ken reaches, 
 imperfection reigns. He who in " Looking Backward " wakes 
 from a magnetic slumber to find the lots of all men made 
 just and equal, might almost as well have awakened to find 
 human frames made perfect, disease and accident banished,
 
 UTOPIAN VISIONS. 53 
 
 the animals all in a state like that of Eden, the Arctic regions 
 bearing harvests, Sahara moistened with fertilising rain, the 
 moon provided with an atmosphere, and the solar system 
 symmetrically completed. All this is no bar to the rational 
 effort by which society is gradually improved. But it shuts 
 out the hope of sudden transformation. The social organism, 
 like the bodily frame, is imperfect; you may help and benefi- 
 cially direct its growth, but you cannot transform it. From 
 revolutionary violence the author of "Looking Backward" 
 is himself wholly averse. He uses only the magic wand. 
 
 With private property, with which it is the dream of Uto- 
 pian writers to do away, go, as everybody knows, many evils ; 
 among others that of inordinate accumulation, of which there 
 may be instances in New York, though it is a mistake to think 
 that accumulation is a matter of modern growth, or that the 
 community was not just as much overtopped by the Medici 
 and the Fuggers of the Middle Ages, the great feudal land- 
 owners, and the Roman magnates, as it is by the Vanderbilts 
 and Astors; while the restraints of public opinion were no- 
 thing like so strong in those days as they are in ours. On the 
 other hand, it is hard to see how without private property we 
 could have the home and all that it enshrines. But let the 
 evils be whatever they may, no motive power of production, 
 at least of any production beyond that necessary to stay 
 hunger, except the desire of property, is at present known. 
 A score or more of experiments in Communism have been 
 made upon the American continent by visionaries of different 
 kinds, from the founders of Brook Farm to those of the 
 Oneida Community and the Shakers. They have, as has 
 already been said, failed utterly, except in the cases where 
 the rule of celibacy has been enforced, and the members, 
 having no wives or children to maintain, and being themselves 
 of a specially industrious and frugal class, have made enough 
 and more than enough for their own support. Collectively, 
 the community has owned private property like other com- 
 panies or corporations. The Oneida Community, the most 
 prosperous of all, owned three factories, in which the work-
 
 54 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 men were employed on the ordinary terms. Barrack life, 
 without the home, has also been a general condition of success. 
 
 So it is with regard to competition, that other social liend 
 of this and all Utopias. Nobody will deny that competition 
 has its ugly side. But no other way at present is known to 
 us of sustaining the progress of industry and securing the 
 best and cheapest products. It is surely a stretch of pessi- 
 mistic fancy to describe the industrial world under the com- 
 petitive system as a horde of wild beasts rending each other, 
 or as a Black Hole of Calcutta " with its press of maddened 
 men tearing and trampling one another in the struggle to win 
 a place at the breathing holes." It is surely going beyond the 
 mark to say that all producers are "praying by night and 
 working by day for the frustration of each other's enter- 
 prises," and that they are as much bent on spoiling their 
 neighbours' crops as on saving their own. Do two tailors or 
 grocers, even when their business is in the same street, rend 
 each other when they meet? Is there not rather a certain 
 brotherhood between members of the same trade? Does not 
 each think a good deal more, both in his prayers and in his 
 practical transactions, of doing well himself than of prevent- 
 ing his fellows from doing well. 
 
 The writer of " Looking Backward " himself says that " as 
 men grow more civilised, and as the subdivision of occupations 
 and services is carried out, a complex mutual dependence 
 becomes the universal rule." What is this complex mutual 
 dependence but co-operation? 
 
 As a normal picture of our present civilisation, the table of 
 contents of a newspaper is presented to us. It is a mere cata- 
 logue of calamities and horrors; wars, burglaries, strikes, 
 failures in business, cornerings, boodlings, murders, suicides, 
 embezzlements, and cases of cruelty, lunacy, or destitution. 
 No doubt a real table of contents would give a picture, though 
 not so terrible and heartrending as this, yet rich in catastro- 
 phes. But it is forgotten that the catastrophes or the excep- 
 tional events alone are recorded by newspapers, especially in 
 the tables of contents, which are intended to catch the eye.
 
 UTOPIAN VISIONS. 55 
 
 No newspaper gives us a picture of the ordinary course of life. 
 No newspaper speaks of the countries which are enjoying 
 secure peace, of the people who are making a fair livelihood 
 by honest industry, of the families which are living in comfort 
 and the enjoyment of affection. Buyers would hardly be 
 found for a sheet which should tell you by way of news that 
 bread was being regularly delivered by the baker and that the 
 milkman was going his round. 
 
 Centuries unnumbered, according to recent palaeontologists, 
 human society has taken in climbing to what is here described 
 as the level of a vast den of wild beasts or a Black Hole of 
 Calcutta. Yet in one century or a little more it is to become 
 a paradise on earth. Not Massachusetts or America only 
 but the whole civilised world will have been regenerated and 
 have entered into the economical Eden. tSo the writer of 
 " Looking Backward " dreams ; and to show that he does not 
 regard this as a mere dream, he cites historical precedents of 
 changes which he thinks equally miraculous, the sudden and 
 unexpected success, as it appears to him to have been, of 
 the American lievolution, of German and Italian unification, 
 of the agitation against slavery. In two of these cases at 
 least, those of German and Italian unity, the wonder was not 
 that the event came at last, but that it was delayed so long. 
 In no one of the cases, surely, is anything like a precedent for 
 so wide and universal a leap into the future to be found. From 
 Dr. Leete, wlio is the showman of the new lieavens and new 
 earth in "Looking Backward," the reader learns that society, 
 in the year 2000, has undergone not only a radical change, bvit 
 a complete transformation, Boston, of course, leading the way, 
 as Paris leads in the regeneration proclaimed by Comte, and 
 all the most civilised communities duly following in her train. 
 Society has become entirely industrial, war being completely 
 eliminated. No fear is entertained lest when the civilised 
 world has been turned into a vast factory of defenceless 
 wealth, the uncivilised world may be tempted to loot it. Yet 
 this danger is not imaginary if there is any truth in what we 
 are told about the military force latent in China, to say
 
 66 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 nothing of the people of South America, who, though politi- 
 cally unsuccessful, are always showing that they can light. 
 
 The State has become the sole capitalist and the universal 
 employer. How did all tlie capital pass from the hands of 
 individuals or private companies into those of the State? 
 Was it by a voluntary and universal surrender? Were all the 
 capitalists and all the stockholders suddenly convinced of the 
 blessings of self -spoliation? Or did the government by a 
 sweeping act of confiscation seize all the capital? In that 
 case, was there not a struggle? Was not the entrance into 
 Paradise effected through a social war? A mere "recognition 
 of evolution " by thinkers, the only means suggested, would 
 hardly go far with capitalists or joint-stock companies, nor 
 would they be likely to allow themselves to l^e stripped by a 
 " political party " so long as they had the means of resistance 
 in their hands. The seer was in his magnetic trance when 
 the transfer took place, and he has not the curiosity to ask 
 Dr. Leete exactly how it was effected. For us, therefore, the 
 problem remains unsolved. 
 
 The inducement to the change, we are told, was a sense of 
 the economic advantages produced by the aggregation of in- 
 dustries under co-operative syndicates and trusts, which sug- 
 gested that by a complete unification of all industries under 
 the State unmeasured benefits might be obtained. *' The epoch 
 of trusts ended in the great trust." This implies a practical 
 approval of that tendency to industrial aggregation, which is 
 a momentous feature of the economical situation, and which 
 in most quarters is viewed with extreme aversion and alarm. 
 But these corporations, syndicates, and trusts, on however 
 large a scale they may be, are still managed, each of them, by 
 a set of persons devoted to that particular business, and they 
 depend for their success on personal aptitude and experience. 
 Between sucli aggregations and a union of all the industries 
 in the hands of a government there is a gulf, and we do not 
 see how the gulf is to be passed. Tlie tendency of industry 
 appears, it is true, to be towards large establishments, the 
 advantages of which over a multitude of petty and starveling
 
 UTOPIAN VISIONS. 57 
 
 concerns, both as regards those engaged in the trade and the 
 consumer, are obvious. But the large producing establish- 
 ments are still special, and the advantages of combining iron 
 works with cotton works are not obvious at all. 
 
 To the objection that the task of managing all the industries 
 of a country and its foreign commerce (for foreign commerce 
 there is still to be) would be difficult for any government, 
 the simple and satisfactory answer is that in Utopia there 
 could be no difficulty at all. The government being that of 
 a purely industrial commonwealth is itself to be industrial. 
 It consists of veterans of labour chosen on account of their 
 merit as workers, the identity of which with administrative 
 capacity and power of command, as it is not likely to be 
 tested, may be assumed without fear of disproof. We cannot 
 help scenting an affinity to a domination of the "bosses" of 
 trade-unions, with the consequences to civilisation of such 
 a rule. To banish any misgivings which we might have as 
 to the practicability of such a government, the seer points 
 to the part taken by alumni in the government of universities; 
 surely as subtle an analogy as the acutest intelligence ever 
 discerned. The government is to be " responsible " in all that 
 it does. But how in the last resort is responsibility to be 
 enforced and usurpation to be repressed by a community of 
 industrial sheep? 
 
 The new organisation of labour has been followed by such a 
 flood of wealth that everybody lives, not only in plenty, but 
 in luxury and refinement before unknown. Everybody is able 
 to give up work at forty-five, that being fixed as the procrus- 
 tean limit for all constitutions, and to pass the rest of his 
 days in ease and enjoyment. "No man any more has any 
 care for to-morrow, either for himself or his children, for the 
 nation guarantees the nurture, education, and comfortable 
 maintenance of every citizen from the cradle to the grave." 
 All the world dresses for dinner, dines well, and has wine and 
 cigars afterwards. Under ;ill tliis huks, it is to be feared, 
 the same fallacy which uudcrlii's the theory of Mr. Henry 
 George, who fancies that an increase of population, being an
 
 58 QUESTI(3NS OF THE DAY. 
 
 increase of the number of labourers, will proportionally aug- 
 ment production, and consequently that the fears of Malthus 
 and all who dread over-population are baseless. It is assumed 
 that everything is produced by labour. But the fact is that 
 labour only produces the form or directs the natural forces. 
 The material is produced by Nature, and she will not supply 
 more than a given quantity within a given area and under 
 given conditions. Even in Massachusetts, therefore, which 
 is supposed to be the primal scene of human regeneration, 
 the people, however skilled their labour, and however ideal 
 their industrial organisation might be, unless their number 
 were limited or their territory enlarged, would starve. This 
 is a serious question for a State which " guarantees to every 
 one nurture, education, and comfortable maintenance from 
 the cradle to the grave." As the guarantee extends to the 
 citizen's wife and child as well as to himself, and they are 
 made independent of his labour, the last restraint of prudence 
 on marriage and giving birth to children would be removed. 
 The people would then probably multiply at a rate which would 
 leave Irish or French-Canadian philoprogenitiveness behind, 
 and without remedial action a vast scene of squalid misery 
 would ensue. 
 
 There is no more private property. In its place comes a 
 sense of public duty urging each man to labour. Of the sufh- 
 eient strength of this we are positively assured, notwithstand- 
 ing the result of all the experiments hitherto tried. Reality 
 peeps out when we are told that those who refuse to work will 
 be put into confinement on bread and water. This is some- 
 thing like a reversion, is it not, to the coach and horses, with 
 the "lash of hunger"? The occasional necessity of a "draft" 
 is another intimation that Nature, thougli you thrust her out, 
 will resume her seat. 
 
 The stimulus of duty to the man's family would exist no 
 more, when the maintenance of his wife and children was taken 
 off his hands hj the State. For the lower natures, though not 
 for the higher, there is to be emulation, which, it is taken for 
 granted, will act on them with undiminished effect when all
 
 UTOPIAN VISIONS. 69 
 
 the substantial prizes have been removed. An appeal is also 
 made to a semi-military sense of lionour, and the community 
 is organised as an army, with military titles, apparently for 
 that purpose. But it has been shown, in answer to other 
 theorists who have pointed to military honour as a substitute 
 for the ordinary motives to industry, that military duty is 
 enforced by a code of exceptional severity. Nor will the mili- 
 tary forms and names have much meaning or be likely to ani- 
 mate and inspirit when war, with all its pride, pomp, and cir- 
 cumstance, has been banished from the earth. 
 
 All are to be paid alike, on the principle that so long as 
 you do your best your deserts are the same as those of others, 
 though your power may not be so great as theirs. Your de- 
 serts in the eye of Heaven, no doubt, are the same if you do 
 your best; and Heaven has the means of ascertaining tliat 
 your best is being done. But if it is asked what means a board 
 of industrial veterans or their lieutenants, supposing them to 
 be ever so excellent craftsmen themselves, have of ascertain- 
 ing that every man is doing his best, the answer, we suspect, 
 must be that in Utopia such questions are not to be raised. 
 In the present evil world most men do their best, or something 
 like their best, because they have to make their own living 
 and that of their wives and children. Some men, under the 
 voluntary and competitive system, put forth those extraordi- 
 nary efforts which make the world move on. But the State, 
 though it might command the daily amount of labour by threat 
 of solitary confinement on bread-and-water, could not com- 
 mand improvement or invention. Invention, or discovery, it 
 seems to us, would bo little encouraged under the system, 
 since no man is to be allowed to shirk labour on pretence of 
 being a student, a regulation which might have borne hard on 
 Archimedes, Newton, or even Watt. Newton would at all 
 events have had, in obedience to an inexorable rule, to pass 
 three years as a common labourer, and his labour during those 
 three years would have cost the world uneommonly dear. 
 Even the employment of Dr. Leete, the good physician of 
 this piece, for some years as waiter in a restaurant was
 
 60 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 rather a waste of his, or, to speak more properly, of the 
 State's time. 
 
 Money as " a root of evil " has been totally discarded. Its 
 place is taken by credit cards, entitling the bearer, by virtue 
 of his mere humanity, to a share of the national produce. 
 Wages are a thing of the past. The certificates are to be pre- 
 sented at the government store, for government is the univer- 
 sal supplier as well as the universal employer of labour. 
 Money, it is said, may have been fraudulently or improperly 
 obtained, but with labour certificates this cannot be the case. 
 We hardly see how a government store-keeper at New Orleans 
 is to tell that the certificate was not fraudulently obtained at 
 Boston. How could the title to it be verified in foreign coun- 
 tries where, we are told, by international arrangement it is to 
 be current? Probably in this as in other communistic schemes 
 there is a lurking assumption that the members of the brother- 
 hood will always remain in the same place, and that life will 
 thus become stationary as well as devoid of individual aim. 
 But the weak part of the arrangement betrays itself in the 
 necessity of continuing to use the terms dollars and cents. 
 They are used only, we are told, as "algebraic symbols." 
 Surely the most obvious and the safest course Avould have been 
 to discard the terms altogether, pregnant as they were with 
 evil associations and likely as they would be to perpetuate the 
 vicious desires and habits of the past. Let another set of 
 algebraic symbols be devised, and let us see how it will work. 
 In the case of the transition from the use of money to that of 
 labour certificates, as in that of the transition from private 
 commerce to commerce concentrated in the hands of govern- 
 ment, we should have liked to be present when the leap was 
 taken, or at least to have had some account of the process, 
 especially as it must have taken place at once over the whole 
 civilised world. For commerce, we have seen, there is still 
 to be ; in the latitude of Boston the Utopian could not get his 
 wine and cigars without it. 
 
 Law as a profession has ceased to exist. Of course where 
 there is no property there can be no chancery suits. As nine-
 
 UTOPIAN VISIONS. 61 
 
 teen twentieths of crime arise from the desire for money — not 
 from drink, as the Prohibitionists pretend ^ — it follows that in 
 getting rid of money society has almost entirely got rid of 
 crime. Of crime, in the present sense of the term, indeed, it 
 has got rid altogether. A few victims of "atavism" are left 
 as a sort of tribnte to reality, but they generally save the 
 judiciary trouble by pleading guilty, so high has the regard 
 for veracity become even in the minds of kleptomaniacs. 
 
 In the present imperfect state of things, the distribution of 
 employments, it must be owned, though partly a matter of 
 choice, is largely a matter of chance and circumstance, the 
 intellectual callings going to those who have the means of a 
 higher education. In Utopia it will be entirely a matter of 
 choice, after elaborate testing of aptitudes and tastes under 
 the guidance of a paternal government. It is assumed that 
 all employments will attract, since some men, after deliberate 
 survey of the various walks of life, will conveniently clioose 
 to be miners, hod-men, "odourless excavators," brakesmen, 
 stokers, or sailors on the North Atlantic passage. Danger is 
 even attractive. Such is the exuberance of public spirit that 
 the government has only to declare an employment extra haz- 
 ardous and a rush of chivalrous candidates to it ensues. A 
 rush might rather have been apprehended into the lighter 
 callings, especially that of poet. Any repugnance to a partic- 
 ular kind of labour which there might be, will be conjured 
 away by saying that all kinds of labour are equally honoura- 
 ble. Do we not say this now? Do we not feel this now much 
 more than the pessimist admits? Does any one worthy of the 
 name of a gentleman " increase the burden of service which he 
 imposes " on his household by adding to it contempt ? 
 
 Everybody is to be highly educated and thoroughly refined. 
 This in Utopia will not interfere with the disposition for 
 manual laboiir, nor will it take away too much of the la- 
 bourer's time. One question, however, occurs to us. The 
 population cannot have been highly educated when the system 
 was first introduced. How were the ignorant and unqualified 
 masses brought to take part in its introduction, and how was
 
 62 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 its operation managed before they had been educated up to the 
 proper mark? This is another problem of the transition, the 
 sohition of which remains buried in the seer's magnetic 
 sleep. 
 
 The relations between the sexes and the constitution of the 
 family are, of course, to be revolutionised, and the revolution 
 has so far an element of probability that it follows what are 
 supposed to be Bostonian lines. The women are to be organ- 
 ised apart from the men as a distinct interest, under a " gen- 
 eral " of their own who has a seat in the cabinet. They would 
 do quite enough for society, they are gallantly told, if they 
 occupied themselves only in the cultivation of their own 
 charms and graces; women without any special charms and 
 graces but those which belong to the performance of their 
 womanly duties as wives and mothers being creatures here 
 unknown. However, for the sake of their health and to sat- 
 isfy their feelings of independence, they are to do a very mod- 
 erate amount of work. They have in fact little else to do. 
 They have no household cares, as the State is universal cook, 
 housemaid, laundress, seamstress, and nurse; and "a husband 
 is not a baby that he should be cared for." Maternity, though 
 recognised, is thrown into the background. It is an interlude 
 in the woman's industrial and social life, and as soon as it is 
 over the mother returns to her "comrades," leaving her child, 
 apparently, to that universal providence, the State. Hitherto, 
 it seems, men, like "cruel robbers," have "seized to them- 
 selves the whole product of the world and left women to beg 
 and wheedle for their share." By whose labour the earth has 
 been made to yield its fruits for the benefit of both sexes, we 
 are not told. However, " that any person should be depend- 
 ent for the means of support upon another would be shocking 
 to the moral sense as well as indefensible on any rational 
 social theory." Women in the perfect commonwealth, there- 
 fore, are no longer left in " galling dependence " upon their 
 husbands for the means of life, or children upon their parents. 
 Both wife and child are maintained by the agency of the State, 
 so that the wife no longer owes anything to her husband, and
 
 UTOriAN VISIONS. 63 
 
 the child is at liberty, as nature dictates, to snap its fingers 
 in the faces of its parents. Does the State give suck, and 
 is the baby no longer ignominiously beholden to its mother for 
 milk? Is not the government composed of persons? Why is 
 dependence upon the persons installed at Washington less 
 ignominious than dependence upon a husband, a father, or a 
 mother? To some, dependence on the government might seem 
 the most galling of all. 
 
 False delicacy is put out of the way, and the women are 
 allowed to propose. They " sit aloft " on the top of the coach, 
 giving the prizes for the industrial race, and select only the 
 best and noblest men for their husbands. Ill-favoured men of 
 inferior type, and laggards, will be condemned to celibacy. 
 From them the *' radiant faces " will be averted. These hap- 
 less persons are treated with a marked absence, to say the 
 least, of the philanthropy which overflows upon criminals and 
 lunatics, though it seems that the plea of atavism should not 
 be less valid in their case. Has Dr. Leete, when he denies 
 them marriage, found a way of extinguishing their passions? 
 If he has not, what moral results does he expect? He will 
 answer perhaps by an appeal to what may be called the occult 
 "we," that mysterious power which, in Utopia, is present 
 throughout to solve all difiiculties and banish every doubt. 
 Nothing can be more divine than the picture which Dr. Leete 
 presents to us; but we look at it with a secret misgiving that 
 his community would be in some danger of being thrust out of 
 existence by some barbarous horde, which honoured virtue and 
 admired excellence in both sexes without giving itself over to 
 a slavish and fatuous worship of either, held men and women 
 alike to their proper duties, and obeyed the laws of Nature. 
 
 The government is the universal publisher, and is bound to 
 publish everything brought to it, but on condition that the 
 author pay the first cost out of his "credit." How the author, 
 while preparing himself to write "Paradise Lost," or the 
 "Principia," is to earn a labour credit, we hardly see. Uto- 
 pian literature is of course divine. To read one of Berrian's 
 novels or one of Oates's poems is worth a year of one's life.
 
 64 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Would that we had a specimen of either ! We should then be 
 able to see how far it transcended Shakespeare or Scott. For 
 love stories, we are told, there will be material in plenty and 
 of a much higher quality than there was in the days of coarse 
 and stormy passion. The actual love affair that takes place in 
 " Looking Backward " certainly does not remind us of " Romeo 
 and Juliet." Of the pulpit eloquence we have a specimen, 
 and it is startlingly like that of our own century. One great 
 improvement, however, there is \ the preaching is by telephone 
 and you can shut it off. 
 
 The j)hysical arrangements are carried to millenarian per- 
 fection. Instead of a multitude of separate umbrellas, one 
 common umbrella is put up by the State over Boston when it 
 rains. These visions of a material heaven on earth naturally 
 arise as the hope of a spiritual heaven fades away. A material 
 heaven on earth it is. The arrangements for shopping, like 
 everything else, are divine. The whole community is con- 
 verted into one vast Whiteley's or Wanamaker's establish- 
 ment. Public bands are playing seraphic music through the 
 whole twenty-four hours, and you turn on the piece you like 
 by telephone. Public buildings are palaces, and their equip- 
 ment is a paragon of luxury. We only wonder how the un- 
 speakable privileges of the city can be extended to the country, 
 and who will be contented to stay in the country if they are 
 not. The American dream is of city life. 
 
 Let the material happiness of Mr. Bellamy's Utopians be 
 as perfect and brilliant as it will, suppose every shadow of 
 economical evil to have vanished, there is one shadow that will 
 not away. It is signified that at a man's decease the State 
 allows a fixed sum for his funeral expenses. This is the only 
 intimation that over the material Paradise hovers Death. 
 
 A vista of illimitable progress, progress so glorious that 
 it dazzles the prophetic eye, is said all the time to be opened. 
 But how can there be progress beyond perfection? Finality 
 is the trap into which all Utopian fancy falls. Comte, after 
 tracing the movement of humanity through the ages down 
 to his own time, undertakes by his supreme intelligence to
 
 UTOPIAN A'^ISIONS. 65 
 
 furnish a creed and a set of institutions wliieh are to serve 
 forever. Progress, however, we do not doubt there woukl be 
 with a vengeance. The monotony, the constraint, the procrus- 
 teanism, the duhiess, the despotism of tlie system, would soon 
 give birth to general revolt, which would dash the whole 
 structure to pieces. 
 
 It may seem that we are guilty of a platitude in seriously 
 criticising a composition the author of Avhi(;h liimself perhaps 
 was hardly serious in wliat lie wrote. Ikit tlie destructive 
 passages, we repeat, tell, while the constructive part, as soon 
 as it is touched by the finger of criticism, vanishes into the 
 inane.
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT.
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 
 
 Disestablishment of the Church in England and Scotland 
 is a question evidently at hand. It is a subject to be 
 approached not only by every religious man, but by every 
 statesman, with tenderness and care. The village church in 
 which " the kneeling hamlet drains the chalice of the grapes 
 of God," with its altar at which the people of the parish have 
 been married, its font at which they were christened, and its 
 churchyard in which their forefathers sleep, has been the 
 great feature not only of rural landscape but of rural life. 
 The Rectory, if its occupant did his duty, has been the centre 
 of rural civilisation, education, and benevolence. It has 
 probably done more in this way than the Hall. The religious 
 sentiment and poetry of the nation have had their centre in 
 the Cathedral. In Scotland, if the aspect of the Established 
 Church is less picturesque, the attachment of the people to 
 it and the connection of their spiritual life with it, in spite of 
 disruption, are still stronger. It would be a great misfortune 
 if the problem were left to be settled by faction, and political 
 gamblers were allowed to use Disestablishment as the means 
 of loading their dice. To tell a great religious community that 
 the churches in which it 1ms worshipped for ages shall hence- 
 forth be deemed "national monuments," and that it shall 
 have the use of them on application to a Commission, is surely 
 a piece of Jacobinism as unstatesmanlike as it is unfeeling. 
 
 Tliat tliere is a current almost throughout the civilised 
 world setting towards Disestablishment can hardly be denied. 
 It is true that, as we have been bidden to observe, in every 
 monarchical country of Europe the Church is still established 
 and endowed, wliilc in some, as in Austria and in Russia, it 
 
 69
 
 70 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 is still in a high degree endowed, even monasteries being left 
 with their estates. Almost everywhere there are Ministries 
 of Public Worship. Even republican Prance has her Estab- 
 lished Church, subsidised by the State. This is true, and it 
 is true that in republican Switzerland there is still a Cantonal, 
 though not a Federal, connection of the State with the Church. 
 But on what sort of footing is the Church in the more advanced 
 countries now established and endowed, compared with the 
 footing on which she was established and endowed in the old 
 Catholic days? No longer half mistress of the realm, or 
 forming a great estate of it, she has sunk into a pensioner, and 
 a not very beloved or honoured pensioner, of the government. 
 In France, once the realm of her eldest son, where a century 
 and a half ago she could put men to death for offences against 
 her, she now shares her dole, not only with heretics but with 
 Jews, while in the French province of Algeria she shares it 
 with Mussulmans. In the land of Philip the Second, though 
 almost the whole population still professes his creed, her posi- 
 tion is hardly higher or more secure than in the land of Louis 
 the Fourteenth. There, too, instead of dominating, she is a 
 creature of the government, her enormous property has been 
 secularised, and she has become a paid servant of the State. 
 Education, tlie key of social character and influence, has been 
 generally wrested out of her hands. Marriage, also, has been 
 generally transferred from her domain to that of the magis- 
 trate. To take an instance from the Protestant side, how great 
 is the change in the relation of the Church generally to the 
 State since the days in which Calvin was dictator! If in 
 Austria and Russia the process is not so far advanced, it is 
 because they are behind the other nations in the general race. 
 The Republics are the last birth of Time, they are the leading 
 shoots of political growth, and in them the connection between 
 Church and State is weakest. All the footprints point the 
 same way. The only apparent exception is the restoration 
 of the Established Church of France by Napoleon. The 
 violence of the extreme revolutionary party had for the time 
 outrun popular conviction, and thus a reactionary despot was
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 71 
 
 enabled to take a step backward, and by his fiat reinstate an 
 institution of the past. But how altered was that institution 
 in its estate and in its relation to the government from the 
 Established Church of the Bourbons! Even Ministries of 
 Public Worship, where they exist, are signs that the Church 
 has become a subordinate department of the State, losing her 
 independence and with it a part of her sanctity. 
 
 The Papacy itself, once the supremely established and 
 imperially endowed Church of Catholic Europe, has it not 
 been both disestablished and disendowed? Its chief is now 
 the "prisoner of the Vatican," subsisting on the alms of the 
 faithful and hopelessly protesting against the abolition of his 
 temporal power. It is true his spiritual power over the people 
 has been increased by becoming purely spiritual, and by the 
 concentration upon him of the allegiance of the Catholic 
 Churches which, having lost the support of the national gov- 
 ernments, now look to their ecclesiastical chief alone. This 
 is a fact suggestive of caution to the statesman, while it is 
 reassuring to the churchman; but it does not affect our esti- 
 mate of the situation. 
 
 Supporters of Establishment bid us observe that in all the 
 South American Republics except Mexico there is still an 
 Established Church. To Mexico must now be added Brazil, 
 which, since it has cast off monarchy, has separated the Church 
 from the State and placed all religions on a footing of equality. 
 But Mexico is a striking exception. So late as 1815 there was 
 an auto da fe where now no religious procession can take place, 
 no priest even can appear publicly in his priestly garments. 
 In the other Republics, however, the connection between 
 Church and State, though it subsists, is greatly altered, and 
 the position of the Church is far different, both in regard to 
 estaV)lisluuent and in regard to endowment, from what it was 
 in Spanish times. The priest has lost his political hold. 
 Such hold as he still has he owes, not to the tendency of 
 modern civilisation, but to the lingering influence of the 
 religious despotism of old Spain. 
 
 In all the countries there is likely to be a halt and a breath-
 
 72 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 ing time after a great change. The union of Church and 
 State is naturally followed by a period of half Establishment, 
 with reduced revenvies, and toleration of all creeds, perhaps 
 endowment of all of them alike, and Ministries of Public Wor- 
 ship. But the shadow will go back on the dial when the 
 movement from religious privilege towards religious equality 
 is reversed. What is the severance of the Church from the 
 State, whereby government declares its entire neutrality in 
 matters of opinion, but the recognition of that freedom of 
 inquiry which, while other results of political revolution are 
 still doubtful or chequered, is the clear and inestimable gain 
 of our modern civilisation? Free, opinion is not, while one 
 set of opinions is hedged about with artificial reverence and 
 propagated at the expense of the rest. Disestablishment, if 
 right in itself, will be not merely the destruction of an exist- 
 ing institution, it will give full play to the constructive agency 
 of truth which we trust will build the mansion of the future. 
 They are mistaken who tell us that in the communities of 
 North America there never was a connection between Church 
 and State, and therefore there can be no tendency to its de- 
 struction. The truth is that in most of the old colonies there 
 formerly was a connection. In Virginia the Church of Eng- 
 land was established, till religious equality, championed by 
 Jefferson and Madison, followed in the wake of political revo- 
 lution. In Massachusetts and Connecticut the connection was 
 close, as in Massachusetts the Quakers found to their cost. 
 Nor was it dissolved without a struggle. In Massachusetts, 
 the law provided for the maintenance of ministers as well as 
 of schools, and for the punishment of religious offences, such 
 as profanity and disregard of the Sabbath. For a long time 
 the political franchise was confined to those who were in close 
 communion. In Connecticut, no church could be founded 
 without permission from the general court, and every citizen 
 was obliged to pay according to his means towards the support 
 of the minister in the geographical parish of his residence. 
 Ministers were exempt from taxation. The Blue Laws, so 
 far as tliey had any real existence, were legislation against
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 73 
 
 sin, which implies an identification of the civil with the 
 ecclesiastical power. Nothing of the connection now remains 
 except the Sunday law, of which some agnostics complain as 
 theocratic; restraints on blasphemous publications, which are 
 as much dictated by regard for decency and for the public 
 peace as by regard for religion; the exemption of Churches 
 from municipal taxation; and a very slight religious element 
 in the teaching of the pviblic schools, not so much enforced 
 by the State as generally demanded by public feeling. The 
 exemption of Church property from taxation extends to the 
 property of all Churches alike, nor is it probable that it will 
 continue long. 
 
 The Congress of the United States is expressly forbidden by 
 the first Amendment of the Constitution to establish any re- 
 ligion. There are some who would like to insert into the 
 Constitution a recognition of the Deity, but this proposal 
 makes no way. Congress has a chaplain and is opened with 
 prayer, but the chaplaincy is not confined to any particular 
 Church. The President of the United States annually pro- 
 claims a "national thanksgiving day," and has sometimes 
 proclaimed a fast, in compliance, however, with national sen- 
 timent, and without power of enforcement. This is mani- 
 festly an ancient system attenuated to vanishing point. 
 
 In French Canada, the Roman Catholic Church retains its 
 revenues in virtue of an article in the treaty of cession, but it 
 levies titlies only on its own members. The authority vested 
 in the bishops for the regulation of parishes draws with it, 
 though indirectly, a certain amount of legal power in muni- 
 cipal affairs. But the political influence which makes it more 
 powerful in the province than any establishment could be, is 
 entirely beyond the law. 
 
 In IJritish Canada, the Church was originally established; 
 reserves of land were set apart for its ministers, the imiversity 
 was confined to its members, and its bishop had a seat in the 
 Council. But as soon as tlio colony obtained self-government 
 Disestablishment ensued; the clergy reserves were secularised, 
 and the university was thrown open to students of all reli-
 
 74 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 gions, while the high Anglicans seceded and founded a separate 
 university of their own. A faint odour of departed privilege 
 still clings to what was once the State Church, clergymen of 
 which now and then allow it to be felt that they regard the 
 members of other Churches as Dissenters, while the bishops, 
 unlike those in the United States, retain the title of "lord." 
 Of the endowments, there remain about forty rectories which 
 were carved out of the clergy reserves before secularisation. 
 Otherwise there are no traces of the connection between 
 Church and State in nominally monarchical Canada, saving 
 those which have their counterparts in the American Republic. 
 Not only does religious equality in all material respects 
 prevail in the United States and in British Canada, but it 
 is thoroughly accepted by everybody, and by the immense 
 majority prized and lauded as an organic principle of New 
 World civilisation. In British Canada, a few Anglicans may 
 perhaps look back wistfully to the days of the clergy reserves. 
 The Roman Catholic priest in the New World as well as in 
 the Old World has in his pocket the Encyclical, which declares 
 that his Church ought everywhere to be established, and that 
 government ought to use its power for her support. But, in 
 the New World, the pocket is very deep, and there seems no 
 disposition to draw fortli the missive. In fact, we hear that 
 some of the chiefs of the Roman Catholic Church avow a 
 preference for the free system. In Ontario, and in Manitoba, 
 the Roman Catholics have hitherto retained the privilege of 
 separate schools, which, however, they owe, not to Canadian, 
 but to Imperial legislation. In Manitoba they have come, 
 and in Ontario they are likely to come, into collision with the 
 commonwealth on this question. But the privilege, though 
 a State favour, is in the line, not of connection but of separa- 
 tion. The tribute in the shape of public subsidies which the 
 Roman Catholic Church has extorted by her political influence 
 in States of the Union where there is a large Irish vote, is 
 paid, not in the name of religion, but in that of charity. 
 There is now a strong reaction against any such sectarian use 
 of public funds.
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 75 
 
 The property of the American Churches, and the legal rights 
 attached to membership of them or to their offices, are, of 
 course, in the keeping of the civil law. This has been adduced 
 as proof of the present existence in America of a connection 
 between the State and the Church. But the same reasoning 
 would establish the existence of a connection between the 
 State and the Society of Freemasons or the Jockey Club. 
 
 The case in favour of Disestablishment in Ireland was par- 
 ticularly strong, and the cause of the State Church was 
 weighted with a painful history. Yet the defence was able 
 to show that the general principle was involved, and that the 
 shafts of the assailants glanced logically from the Irish to 
 the English Establishment, while they almost struck full on 
 the Establishment in Wales. Let it be observed, too, that 
 nobody thought of transferring the privilege and the endow- 
 ment from the Church of the minority to that of the majority ; 
 while concurrent endowment, though it had much to recom- 
 mend it from a political point of view, was proposed only to 
 be decisively rejected. 
 
 What proof of the drift of things can be stronger than the 
 career of Mr. Gladstone? He who bestowed on Ireland reli- 
 gious equality, had once seceded from a government because 
 it broke the principle of a State religion by proposing a small 
 additional grant to Maynooth. Once he wrote a treatise on 
 the relation between Church and State in which, soaring above 
 the ordinary arguments derived from the usefulness of religion 
 to the commonwealth in sustaining public morality, he main- 
 tained that the nation, like the individual, had a conscience 
 which bound it to choose, support, and propagate the true 
 faith. He wished nobody to hold civil office or exercise 
 political power who did not belong to the State Church. The 
 members of his government wore to be "worshipping men," 
 and were to sanctify their administrative acts by prayer and 
 praise. Now he is ready to abolish the Established Church in 
 Wales, provided the Welsh will vote for his Irish Bill, and to 
 put the whole question of Disestablishment to the vote. Had 
 he remained in office to bring forward Welsh Disestablish-
 
 76 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 meiit, it would have been curious to see him face his former 
 self. 
 
 Macaulay, in his review of Mr. Gladstone's essay, had no 
 difficulty in shoAving that governments are meant to govern, 
 not to settle theological questions, and that if no power was 
 to be exercised except upon Church principles, much incon- 
 venience, to which he might have added much hypocrisy, 
 would ensue. He had no difficult}^ in dissolving the ingen- 
 ious, but unhistorical, hypothesis of a restrictive treaty by 
 which the avithor of the essay tried to escape the awkward 
 consequences of an application of its principles to the Indian 
 Empire. He had no difficulty in showing that such half- 
 measures of persecution as the application of civil disabilities 
 were at once unjust and futile. He might almost have con- 
 tented himself with saying that only a person could have a 
 conscience, and that the personality of the nation was a fig- 
 ment. But when he comes, as an orthodox Whig, to propound 
 his own defence of a Church Establishment, saying that he 
 will give Mr. Gladstone his revenge, he does give Mr. Glad- 
 stone his revenge indeed. His own theory is, in reality, as 
 untenable as that over which he has been enjoying an easy 
 though brilliant triumph. An institution, he says, besides the 
 primary object for which it is intended, may serve a secondary 
 object, just as a hospital intended for the accommodation of 
 the sick may also serve, by its architectural beauty, as an 
 ornament to ther public street. Government is meant to take 
 care of our temporal interests, and is properly fitted for that 
 purpose alone; but if that is not employment enough for it, 
 it may, as a sort of by-play, take to providing for our spirit- 
 ual interests as well. A singular sort of by-play, surely, it 
 would be. The appearance of a building belongs to archi- 
 tecture as properly as its arrangement. Encouragement of 
 art by a political government, which Macaulay adduces as 
 another illustration, is not less beside the mark, since it is art 
 in general that government encourages, not a particular school 
 of artists. The civil ruler in establishing a religion need not, 
 Macaulay says, decide Avhich religion is true, but only which
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 77 
 
 is best lor his practical purposes; he will give the Scotch 
 Presbyterian ism, though he may himself be an Anglican, 
 because Presbyterianism, though not the most true, may be 
 best suited for the Scotch. But what is his criterion? Is he 
 to assume that the religion of the majority is the best? He 
 helps to secure to the privileged religion a majority by estab- 
 lishing it, and thus vitiates his own test. Besides, how is he 
 to measure and provide for changes of conviction, such as in 
 the course of inquiry may take ^iace? Suppose he had been 
 called upon to legislate in the period of the Keformation, 
 when the majority was shifting from day to day. Nor does 
 Macaulay wholly escape the charge, which he brings against 
 Mr. Gladstone, of feeble and ineffective persecution. It is 
 a kind of persecution, though a very feeble and ineffective 
 kind, to compel the minority to contribute to the support of a 
 religion which they believe to be false, perhaps destructive of 
 souls, and to degrade their ministers by exclusion from the rank 
 and privilege which those of the Established Church enjoy. 
 Macaulay is acting as a philosophic politician, on the principle 
 that all religions are to the statesman equally useful, and he 
 forgets that to men of strong religious convictions any religion 
 but their own is dangerous falsehood, to be forced to contribute 
 to the support of which is of all tyrannies the most repulsive. 
 But are not these mighty opponents fighting in the clouds? 
 On earth we have had despots imposing their religions on con- 
 quered communities. Ferdinand the Second imposed his 
 Catholicism on Bohemia when it was wrested from Protestant- 
 ism, Louis the Fourteenth imposed his Catholicism on a Ger- 
 man principality which fell into his hands. But has any king 
 or governor ever selected a religion by the pure light of his 
 own conscience and imposed it on his people? Has the 
 process ever been one of speculative reasoning or conviction? 
 For the origin of Establishment we must go back, apparently, 
 to tlie days of tribal religion, in which every member of the 
 tribe was, by virtue of his birth, a loyal worshipper of its 
 tutelary divinity. Conversion as well as belief was not per- 
 sonal but tribal, the Saxon or Dane passing Avith the rest of
 
 78 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 his race, or the portion of it to which he belonged, and under 
 his chief, by treaty or capitulation, to the allegiance of the 
 conquering god. What is styled the conversion of Constan- 
 tino was in all probability hardly a change of mind; it cer- 
 tainly was not^a change of life; most likely it was the recog- 
 nition, by a shrewd and thoroughly worldly politician, of the 
 ascendancy which, partly through the manifest failure of the 
 old gods to avert public disaster, Christianity had gained in 
 the Roman world. It is probable that Clovis and Ethelbert 
 yielded mainly to the influence of a superior civilisation 
 impersonated in the missionary. 
 
 The Christian Church inherited the Establishment of the 
 Pagan Empire. But to the primal tradition of allegiance to 
 the national divinity was now added belief in the absolute and 
 final truth of a religion guaranteed by supernatural revelation 
 and by an Infallible Church whose authority excluded inquiry 
 and made dissent treason at once against her and against 
 the State with which she was united. Out of the Church 
 Establishment of the Roman Empire grew, on the one hand, 
 the Byzantine Establishment, now represented by the national 
 Church of Russia, and on the other the Establishment of 
 the group of European nations which formed a religious 
 federation under the ecclesiastical sovereignty of the Pope. 
 To what the identification of the Church with the kingdoms 
 of this world and the consequent identification of heresy with 
 trea,son led, as it could not fail to lead, is written on some of 
 the most terrible pages of history. Religion has been accused 
 of crimes of which the real source was in the union of the 
 spiritual with the temporal authority, and in the temporal 
 wealth of a State Church. Mere fanaticism has less to answer 
 for than Papal tiaras and archbishoprics of Toledo. 
 
 Undoubting conviction and perfect unity of belief were 
 throughout the conditions of the system. When doubt, in- 
 quiry, and disagreement came in with the Reformation, the 
 basis of the system was Avithdrawn. At first, an attempt was 
 made, at least by Protestant rulers, to fall back on national 
 Establishments, to which it was tlie aim of statesmen, by
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 79 
 
 legal constraint or politic compromise, to make all subjects of 
 the realm conform. That the religion of a district went with 
 its civil government was the ecclesiastical principle of the 
 German Empire after the Reformation. The belief that a 
 nation was bound to have a religion, and to support it by legal 
 privilege and endowment, had become thoroughly ingrained: 
 its hold on the mind of the Puritan was strengthened by his 
 uncritical acceptance of the Old Testament ; and the Barebone 
 Parliament of Independents wrecked itself partly in an attempt 
 to disendow the Church. But geographical and political 
 boundaries do not coincide with tliose of speculative convic- 
 tion. Nationality, therefore, in the absence of coercion, 
 could be no basis for churchmanship. The last expedient of 
 those who, naturally enough, were reluctant to see the com- 
 monwealth finally divorced from religion, was to establish the 
 religion of the numerical majority. But the weakness of such 
 a principle has been already shown. You falsify your own 
 test when you artificially draw people into a particular Church 
 by giving it privileges and endoAvments. The principle was, 
 in fact, renounced when endowment was refused to the Church 
 of the majority in Ireland. The best religion, the Vohmtary- 
 ist will contend, for the citizen as well as for the man, is that 
 in which he sincerely believes ; and belief, to be perfectly sin- 
 cere, must be not only unconstrained but unbribed. 
 
 Stress has been laid, in the controversy with regard to the 
 Anglican endowments, on the legal fact that the Church of 
 England is collectively not a corporation, each of her incum- 
 bents being a corporation sole. She could hardly be a corpo- 
 ration in the Papal period, since, though locally Ecclesia 
 Anglicana, she was part of a European, or, as her members 
 contended, of a universal Church, transcending all local juris- 
 diction and with a law of its own transcending all municipal 
 law. She could hardly be a corporation in the national 
 period, because she was then identified with tlie nation, tlie 
 king of which was her head. But, surely, such considera- 
 tions, though they might be deemed decisive in a lawsuit, 
 cannot go for much in determining the expediency of a great
 
 80 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 political and religious change. The same may be said with 
 regard to the question as to the legal character and origin of 
 tithe. As a matter of fact, tithe was in its origin neither an 
 aggregate of voluntary benefactions, nor a tax imposed by the 
 State. The payment was a religious duty, of the obligation 
 to perform which the clergy had convinced the people, and 
 which, like other religious duties, was enforced indiscrimi- 
 nately with civil duties by the kings and witenagemotes of 
 those days. Kobody can doubt now that tithe is public prop- 
 erty, to be dealt with according to the rules of public policy 
 and justice, by both of which respect for vested interests and 
 local claims is prescribed. It is true that the land was bought 
 subject to the payment of tithe. But it carried the benefit of 
 the religious ministrations for which the tithe was paid and 
 for which the landowner will henceforth have to pay out of his 
 own pocket. 
 
 Arnold's ideal, apparently, Avas an Established Church, not 
 only connected, but identical, with the commonwealth, em- 
 bracing Christians of all doctrinal varieties, and making no 
 distinction between clergy and laity but one of a merely offi- 
 cial kind. The idea seems to have been drawn from the com- 
 monwealths of ancient Greece, of the history of which Arnold 
 was a passionate student. From Arnold it was transmitted 
 to Stanley, who went so far in his love of State Churches and 
 their champions as to show a slight tenderness for " Bluidie 
 Mackenzie." The difficulties of application in a country like 
 England, full of religious divisions, including the insur- 
 mountable division between Protestants and Roman Catholics, 
 need no demonstration. How are the different sects to share 
 the edifices and the endowments among them? How, if they 
 are all to be domiciled under the same roof, is peace to be 
 kept in such a family? The part of the Minister of Public 
 Worship would not be easy. To the Empire, of course, with 
 all its Mahometans and Hindoos, such an ecclesiastical polity 
 could not be extended. But, above all, what object is to be 
 gained by encountering all these problems and complications 
 which would not be better gained through the self-adjusting
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 81 
 
 simplicity of the free system? The function assigned by 
 Arnold to the government seems to be that of ecclesiastical 
 police, the needlessness of which the experience of Churches 
 in America, where all goes on decently and without disorder, 
 shows, while it could hardly fail to be needed in an estab- 
 lishment for the tithes and pulpits of which Catholics and 
 every sect of Protestants were perpetually contending. 
 Arnold appears to have forgotten that, in ancient Athens, 
 such spiritual life as there was went on, at least in the time 
 of Socrates, apart from the State religion, and that its pontiff 
 sacrificed to ^sculapius a cock, not his spiritual convictions. 
 The sacrificing of cocks innumerable to ^sculapius, with the 
 provisions of stipends for his official ministers, would proba- 
 bly be the chief fruits of the Arnoldian system. 
 
 Arnold's ideal is a Christian commonwealth. This he 
 would have, though he would not have conformity or ortho- 
 doxy, if his nation were made up of Christian Churches 
 whose common principles would practically regulate public 
 life and national action. In this sense the American com- 
 monwealth is Christian. It is far more Christian than Eng- 
 land, or any one of the European nations with Established 
 Churches, was in the last century. Ostensibly, of course, it 
 is not Christian or religious ; but surely it must be the prac- 
 tical, not the ostensible, character which has a value in the 
 eye of Heaven. 
 
 In native American communities and in Canada, society 
 and life, it may safely be said, are not less as religious 
 under the free system, than in England under that of a State 
 Church. Unquestionably there is far more respect for reli- 
 gion there than in France, where the Church is still established, 
 but, in a "Librairie Anti-clericale," the most hideous blas- 
 phemy is openly sold. The Church in America and Canada 
 is, to fully as great an extent as in England, the centre of 
 philanthropic effort and of social life. There is fully as 
 much building of churches and as much church-going, and 
 the Sunday in most places is as well kept. The very aspect 
 of an American city or village, witli its spires and steeples 
 
 G
 
 82 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 "pointing to heaven," though perhaps not "tapering" with 
 consummate grace, proclaims the community religious. Amer- 
 ican missions to the heathen vie with those of England. If 
 the public school admits only a very small element of religion, 
 the Sunday school is a highly cherished and a flourishing 
 institution. The Churches are enabled to distribute large 
 sums in charity; some of them in fact do fully as much as 
 is desirable in that way. We hear of a single offertory in 
 the church of a great preacher, with a wealthy congregation, 
 of $50,000. While the choice of a religion is absolutely 
 free, while no candidate for office is asked to what Church 
 he belongs, so long as his Church is not politically aggres- 
 sive, while members of the same family belong to different 
 Churches without domestic friction, to be entirely without a 
 religion is to incur, with most people, a shade of social sus- 
 picion. In no well-bred society would anything offensive to 
 religious feeling be endured. All this is spontaneous and has 
 the strength of spontaneity, while the religion of the peas- 
 antry in an English country parish is not so certainly spon- 
 taneous. In New York or Chicago, there is a large foreign 
 population, much of it drawn from the moral barbarism of 
 Eiirope. Yet even in New York and Chicago religion is 
 strong, is well endowed, furnishes the basis of much social 
 effort, and copes vigorously with the adverse forces. If its 
 influence wanes visibly towards the West, this is not owing 
 to the absence of an Establishment, but to the general temper- 
 ament of the Western people. 
 
 It is difficult to compare the incomes of the clergy under 
 the two systems, but probably in the Northern States the 
 clergy are, on the average, as well off as in England, cer- 
 tainly since the reduction of the incomes of English benefices 
 by agricultural depression. A first-rate preacher in a great 
 American city has an income hardly inferior to that of an 
 English bishop, when the heavy demands on the bishop are 
 taken into account. Clerical incomes might be greatly im- 
 proved if the Protestant Churches between whose creeds there 
 is no essential difference would, in the rural districts at least,
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 83 
 
 instead of competing, combine, and give a good stipend to one 
 pastor where tliey now give poor stipends to three. Nor does 
 it seem impossible that something of tliis kind may be brought 
 about. Tliough there cannot be said to be any present likeli- 
 hood of formal union among the Protestant Churches, there 
 is a strong tendency to mutual recognition and to interchange 
 of pulpits, from which working union, at all events, may some 
 day result. It is difficult again to draw a comparison between 
 the social position of the clergy in the United States and their 
 social position in England. There are not in America digni- 
 taries like the English bishop and dean, enjoying precedence 
 by virtue of their ecclesiastical office, nor is there a set of 
 clergymen like the country rectors of England, combining the 
 resident gentleman with the pastor. The balance perhaps is 
 rather in favour of the clergy under the free system. No 
 American clergyman can be an object of class antipathy to the 
 people, as it seems the English parson sometimes is in a 
 country parish. That a clergyman, if he depends on his con- 
 gregation for his pay, will become their theological thrall, is, 
 perhaps, a natural fear. It certainly was strong in the writers 
 of "Tracts for the Times," who, in reviving the doctrine of 
 Apostolic Succession, avoAvedly sought a new basis of author- 
 ity in place of the support of the State, which seemed to be 
 failing them, in order that they might save themselves from 
 becoming, like Dissenting ministers, dependent on their flocks, 
 and being thereby constrained to pander to lay appetite in 
 their teaching. Yet tlie complaint is not often heard in the 
 Episcopal Church, and congregations have been loyal to the 
 pastors of their choice even when their loyalty has been 
 severely tried. Tlie layman, as a rule, is not a theologian; 
 nor is it his tendency, so long as he gets on well with his 
 pastor generally, to meddle with the teaching of the pulpit. 
 Sometimes the stipend is paid, not by the congregation 
 directly, but through the medium of a central administra- 
 tion. A clergyman of the American Episcopal Cliurch states 
 that under this ])lan he never lienvd a pastor com])lain of the 
 loss of power or independence, that the tie of affection is as
 
 84 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 strong as in the most favoured parishes of England, that the 
 congregations show no desire to tune the pulpit, and that if 
 disputes arise they are easily settled. The clergy, he says, 
 remain in their parishes as long and as securely as do the 
 clergy in England; in his city they have just buried a rector 
 who had been in the same charge over fifty years, while one 
 of his own predecessors held the cure for forty-six years, and 
 all around him are men who have held their cures for twenty, 
 thirty, or forty years. He knows of no differences between 
 rector and congregation, nor does he believe that amongst 
 their two hundred clerg}^ there is one who wishes the Church 
 to be "by law established." He admits that there are cleri- 
 cal failures, but he says that they rarely find themselves in 
 positions of importance, and usually drop out early. In an 
 Established Church they would, as a rule, not droj) out, espe- 
 cially if they held family livings. Against any possible evils 
 arising from the restlessness or caprice of congregations, are 
 to be set the torpor which may be bred by security and the 
 chances of irremovable incapacity or decrepitude. The parish- 
 ioners of livings in the gift of Oxford colleges, when the col- 
 leges were close, and the presentees had lived many years in 
 Common Eoom, would have had some strong evidence to give 
 upon this subject. 
 
 The belief that religious extravagance will ensue upon the 
 withdrawal of State control may, from American experience, 
 be safely pronounced groundless. The effectual restraint on 
 extravagance is not State control, but popular enlightenment. 
 Such works as Mr. Hepworth Dixon's "New America" and 
 " Spiritual Wives " have created a false impression. The 
 wild sects which he describes are, in the first place, as much 
 social as religious; and, in the second place, the space which 
 they occupy on the religious map of the United States is 
 insignificant. The great mass of the people belong to 
 Churches imported from Europe, and identical in all essen- 
 tial respects with their European counterparts. The only 
 new Church of any importance is the Universalist, which 
 resembles a highly liberal Methodism with the doctrine of
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 85 
 
 eternal punishment struck out by tlie humanitarian ism of 
 democracy. Tilings are not as they were in the earlier and 
 less settled times. A camp-meeting now is little more than 
 a religious picnic lasting through several days. " Revivals " 
 America has, and so has England. The Salvation Army, if 
 that is to be numbered among extravagances, is an English 
 product. Mormonism is mainly recruited from England. No 
 sect is to be found in the New World comparable in wildness 
 to some of which we read as existing in Russia, where the 
 connection between Church and State in its closeness resem- 
 bles the Caliphate. It is needless to say that there is no 
 superstition in the United States so abject as that which has 
 prevailed in the south of Italy, in Spain, or in some parts 
 of Russia. 
 
 It may be that in America preaching is more cultivated 
 than theology, and that this is partly the consequence of a 
 system which makes the power of attracting congregations 
 the passport to the high places of the clerical profession. It 
 is, however, fully as much a consequence of the rhetorical 
 tendencies of democracy in general. The tastes of the unedu- 
 cated or half-educated are uncritical, and it is inevitable that 
 there should be, as unquestionably there is, rant in the popular 
 pulpit, as well as on the political stump. But there is also 
 preacliing of the highest order, and such as, if good is to be 
 done by preaching at all, must do a great deal of good. It 
 may be doubted whether the English pulpit can vie, on the 
 average, with that of the United States. It has hardly had 
 a greater preacher or in a higlier style than the lamented 
 Phillips Brooks. There is a tendency, perhaps, to overstrain 
 for effect, but this is an intellectual characteristic of the age. 
 People are no longer content simply to "hear the Word of 
 God " ; they crave for eloquence as they crave for ritual, and 
 the result of tlie attempt to supply it is sometimes overstrain. 
 
 We cannot look far beneath the surface of religious life. 
 Appearances, though strong and uniform, may deceive. Be- 
 neath all this church-building, church-going, mission-sending, 
 and Sunday school teaching, there may be growing liollowness
 
 86 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 and creeping doubts. That possibility is not confined to the 
 Western hemisphere ; but the tide of scepticism is less violent 
 when it has no State Church against which to beat. The 
 general tendency, even of those who lapse from orthodoxy in 
 America, is not towards Atheism, but towards Theism, with 
 Christian ethics and, perhaps, with Christian hopes. This, 
 as a break, at all events, in a descent perilous to public 
 morality, though orthodoxy may not value, statesmanship 
 may. 
 
 If we turn to the Episcopal Church of the United States 
 in particular, it could hardly be expected that the com- 
 promise between Catholicism and Protestantism devised by 
 the Tudors and their councillors to meet the circumstances 
 of the English people in the sixteenth century, or to satisfy 
 at once the personal ritualism of Queen Elizabeth and her 
 political antagonism to the Pope, would, when transplanted, 
 strike its roots very deep into the soil of the New World. 
 It is obvious that for certain classes of men, Methodism, 
 Presbyterianism, and Roman Catholicism have attractions 
 with which Anglicanism cannot compete. The Anglican 
 Church is that of many of the rich and refined, whose tastes 
 it suits by its hierarchical constitution, the dignity of its 
 services, its historical associations, and its indulgent lati- 
 tude. It also derives some social prestige from its connec- 
 tion with the State Church of England, with the episcopate 
 and clergy of which its episcopate and clergy are identified. 
 Not that it contains all the rich, or even a moiety of them ; 
 many of the rich have risen from the ranks of industry and 
 brought their Presbyterianism, their Methodism, or some 
 other popular religion, with them. Nor is it withou.t an 
 element drawn from the other social extreme. It counts 
 among its members not a few of the very poor, especially 
 among the newcomers from England, who have never been 
 accustomed to maintain voluntary Churches, and to whom it 
 is often liberal of its alms. We see here probably the posi- 
 tion towards which it would gravitate if left to itself without 
 State support in England. It must be remembered, however,
 
 THE QUESTION OE DISESTABLISHMENT. 87 
 
 that it has in England what it has not in the New World, 
 cathedrals and parish churches, in which the religious life of 
 the nation for ages has centred, together with a traditional 
 hold on the minds of almost the whole of the wealthier 
 classes. The elective episcopate of the United States, if it 
 does not contain any one equal in learning to Lightfoot or 
 Stubbs, is fully the peer of the English episcopate nominated 
 by the Crown in excellence of personal character, in pastoral 
 power, energy, and influence, in administrative capacity, and 
 in the respect and attachment which it commands. The 
 action of the laity Avhen admitted to the Church legislature, 
 which the English clergy dread, has been shown by experi- 
 ence to be conservative; they once were a check upon Evan- 
 gelical, they are now a check on Ritualistic, innovation. No 
 doctrinal change of importance has been made in the Prayer 
 Book beyond the omission of the Athanasian Creed. Of 
 course there is trouble arising from the Ritualistic move- 
 ment and the resistance to it; as trouble would arise from 
 any attempt to combine in the same Church two codes of 
 doctrine and two spiritual systems opposed to each other. 
 But the laity may rejoice that no young incumbent has 
 power, as in England, to change their worship from Pro- 
 testant to Catholic, leaving them as remedy but a scandalous, 
 costly, and precarious lawsuit. The election of a bishop 
 sometimes ends, after a protracted struggle between the 
 parties, in an unsatisfactory compromise. This is the in- 
 evitable result of the general division of opinion. Other 
 evils there are whicli inhere in the elective system. Against 
 these we have to set the evils Avhich inhere in the system 
 of nominations by the Crown, under which a Prime Minister, 
 notoriously indifferent to religion, may capture tlie vote of a 
 religious party by appointing its leaders to bishoprics. 
 
 It is true tliat, though severed from the State, tlie American 
 Churches have not been entirely severed from politics. The 
 Ba])tists appear creditably to maintain their traditional pre- 
 eminence as the pioneers of spiritual freedom, but other 
 Churches are more or less given to using their influence in
 
 88 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 politics to the detriment alike of Cliurch and State; the 
 Roman Catholic Church, with her control of the Irish vote, 
 being the most political of all. The American Churches, or 
 too many of them, sorely discredited themselves by bowing 
 down before slavery in the evil day of its ascendancy, and 
 repudiating or treating with coldness those who were striving 
 to awaken the slumbering conscience of the nation ; though as 
 soon as the political and social pressure was removed the 
 Churches, or such of them as were at heart opposed to sla- 
 very, stood erect again and lent the force of religious con- 
 viction to the nation in the mortal conflict. The foundations 
 of all spiritual societies of men, as of the spiritual man him- 
 self, are in the dust ; and it is too much to expect that, being 
 composed of citizens and members of society, they shall 
 be exempt from the political and social influences of the day. 
 The Northern Churches might also plead, in excuse for their 
 timorous attitude, the fear of rupture with their Southern 
 branches, which in the case of the Baptists actually occurred. 
 Free Churches, if they cannot soar above humanity, have 
 at least the power of self-adaptation and self-development. 
 To a State Church this liberty is denied. It is in vain that 
 clergymen of the Church of England speak as though in all 
 the changes of doctrine and system in the Reformation period 
 it had been the Church that moved. By the will of Henry 
 the Eighth the national Church was made Protestant so far 
 as was required by the King's quarrel with the Pope and no 
 farther; by the will of Edward the Sixth and his Council she 
 was made thoroughly Protestant and united to the Protestant 
 Churches of the Continent ; by the will of Mary she was made 
 Catholic again and reunited to Rome; by the will of Elizabeth 
 she was once more severed from the Papacy and settled on 
 the principle of compromise. All this was done without any 
 apparent evidence of a change of conviction on the part of the 
 body of the clergy, which seems to have remained Catholic in 
 sentiment throughout, to have welcomed the Catholic revolu- 
 tion under Mary, and to have been opposed to the Protestant 
 revolution at the accession of Elizabeth, though no regard was
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 89 
 
 paid ill any case to its wishes.^ Bishops were consulted only 
 as theological experts or to give colour to the actions of the 
 government, not as heads of an independent Church. Eliza- 
 beth, when they crossed her will, treated them not only with 
 disregard but with insolence. James the First acted as a 
 religious autocrat in his ecclesiastical proclamations and his 
 appointment of deputies to the Synod of Dort. When he 
 was at enmity with the Catholics, he gave Low Church prin- 
 ciples the ascendancy, by making Abbot archbishop; when he 
 veered towards a connection with the Catholic Powers he gave 
 High Church principles the ascendancy, by bringing forward 
 Laud. Charles the First again in his reactionary changes 
 acted as an autocrat, through Laud as his ecclesiastical vizier. 
 Little attention appears to have been paid by the Primate to 
 the opinions of the clergy, or even to those of the hierarchy 
 at large. It was political power acting for a political pur- 
 pose that, under the Restoration, finally cut off the Church 
 of England from the Protestant Churches on the Continent, 
 and, since the Romans deny her existence as a Church, while 
 the Greeks practically will not recognise her, placed her in 
 the strange position which she apparently holds of being the 
 whole Church or no Church at all. In the next century, to 
 use Hallam's scornful phrase, the State sprinkled a little dust 
 upon the angry insects by depriving the Church altogether of 
 the power of legislating for herself. She never had the oppor- 
 tunity of fairly saying what she would do with the Methodists, 
 wlio were finally severed from her, not by excommunication 
 or secession, but by the necessity of registering their chapels 
 under the Toleration Act. The Episcopal form of Church 
 government was evidently perpetuated by the policy of the 
 Monarchy: "No Bishop, no King." In Sweden the same in- 
 fluence retained Episcopacy though the religion was Lutheran. 
 In countries such as Scotland, Switzerland, and Holland, 
 where the religious revolution was made by an aristocracy 
 or a democracy, other forms of Church government prevailed. 
 Parliament, when it was thrown open to men of all religions 
 
 1 See Dr. Child's Church and State under the Tudors.
 
 90 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 and of none, became glaringly unfit to legislate for the Churcli. 
 The Church thenceforth was condemned to legislative immo- 
 bility. Change there has been and with a vengeance; the 
 ritual has been turned from a Protestant service into what it 
 is very difficult to distinguish from the Mass, while in other 
 respects the Catholic system in place of the Protestant has 
 been introduced. But this has been done, not by regular leg- 
 islation, but by the irregular action of individual clergymen, 
 at the expense of unseemly struggles and degrading litigation, 
 sometimes before a tribunal of " Komau augurs." To give the 
 chaiige the colour of legality, it has been asserted that the 
 Liturgy, not the Articles, is the standard of faith. Is it 
 possible to believe that the standard is to be found, not in the 
 original manifesto, of which the object was explicitly to set 
 forth doctrine, but in the ritual, the aim of the framers of 
 which evidently was to retain as much as possible of the cus- 
 tomary and familiar? The Church is the Keeper of all Truth: 
 how came it to pass that down to the fourth decade of the 
 nineteenth century she remained ignorant of this all-important 
 truth respecting herself? 
 
 V/*Few, surely, can look back with pride on the history of a 
 'political Church : on her servile submission to the will of the 
 sovereign; her boundless exaltation of the royal power for the 
 sake of gaining royal favour and supf)ort; her sinister com- 
 plicity with a political reaction which plunged the nation into 
 a civil war; her alliance with the unholy powers of the Resto- 
 ration for the purpose of crushing the Nonconformists; her 
 preaching of passive obedience when the Crown was on the 
 side of the clergy ; her disregard of that doctrine as soon as 
 clerical interests were touched by the tyranny; her courting of 
 Nonconformist aid against James the Second; her renewed 
 persecution of the Nonconformists under the leadership of the 
 infidel Bolingbroke when the danger to herself was past; the 
 wretched conspiracies of her Jacobite clergy against the peace 
 of the country; tlie conduct of her clergy and bishops in 
 Ireland, for the calamitous state of which they are partly 
 responsible, and whence by theii' intolerance they drove forth
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 91 
 
 Presbyterians, the sinews of Irish industry, to become the 
 sinews of American revolution. For the obstinate violence of 
 the government in its dealing with the Americans and the 
 fatal rupture which ensued, clerical Toryism, as we know 
 on the best of evidence, was largely to blame. Even with 
 regard to questions of humanity, such as the abolition of the 
 slave-trade and of slavery, the record of the State Church is 
 inglorious, and we find its bishops voting against the repeal of 
 the law making death the penalty of a petty theft. Was it 
 possible that an institution morally and socially so little bene- 
 ficent or venerable should exercise much religious influence on 
 the people? True, besides her political history, the Church of 
 Hooker, lierbert, Ken, Butler, Wilson, Fletcher of Madeley 
 and Simeon, has another history on which her friends may 
 look with much greater satisfaction; but how far was this the 
 fruit of legal establishment and State endowment? 
 
 To such an extent did the Church lose her spiritual and 
 assume a political character that, as Somers said, absolute 
 power, passive obedience, and non-resistance became, with her, 
 doctrines essential to salvation. The good Bishop Lake said 
 on his death-bed that "he looked on the great doctrine of 
 passive obedience as the distinguishing character of the Church 
 of England," and Bishop Thomas of Worcester expressed the 
 same belief.^ In the case of Monmouth, the bishops made the 
 profession of this doctrine a condition of absolution. It is 
 not with mere refusal to promote or countenance political 
 innovation, that the State Church stands charged, but with 
 playing an active and even a violent part in reaction. The 
 torpor, the time-serving, the pluralism, the non-residence, the 
 Trulliberian sensuality, as well as the scandalous place-hunting 
 and the adulation of profligate Ministers and of kings' mis- 
 tresses, which disgraced the clergy in the last century, are 
 now, hapY)ily, things of the past. But when did they prevail? 
 When the Church was most secure under the protection of the 
 State. When did they cease and give place to a spirit of 
 
 ^See The English Churcli in the Eighteenth Ce;Ui(?7, by Abbey and 
 Overton, i. 138.
 
 92 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 reform and duty? When that protection began to be with- 
 drawn. 
 
 The late Bishop of London, Jackson, is quoted by Dean 
 Hole as saying that " when he recalled the condition of apathy, 
 indolence, and disobedience into which the Church of Eng- 
 land had fallen, it seemed marvellous to liini that it continued 
 to exist." The Dean himself remembers the days of plurali- 
 ties and non-residence, when the people of his parish never 
 saw or heard of their vicar, the church being served by the 
 curate who lived five miles away, rode over for one dreary ser- 
 vice on the Sunday, and was no more seen for the rest of the 
 week, being much occupied with the pursuit of the fox ; when 
 a pluralist who had come in a conscientious mood to visit 
 the living from which he had long been an absentee, being 
 offended by a bad smell, turned back and came no more ; when 
 the altar was represented by a small rickety deal table, Avith 
 a scanty covering of faded and patched green baize, on which 
 were placed the overcoat, hat, and riding-whip of the officiat- 
 ing minister; when the font was filled with coffin ropes, 
 tinder-box, and candle-ends, and was never used for baptism ; 
 when sparrows twittered and bats floated beneath the rotten 
 timbers of the roof, while moths and beetles found happy 
 homes below. ^ Since that time, the Dean says, there has been 
 great reform, which he traces to the Oxford Movement. What, 
 let us ask again, was the age of decrepitude and abuse? It 
 was the age in which the Church of England felt herself most 
 safely established. When did the revival begin? When, 
 from the progress of Liberalism, civil and religious, the 
 Establishment began to be endangered. What was the Oxford 
 Movement? It was practically a movement of dissent, though 
 reactionary dissent, from the established system, and was at 
 first so regarded and treated by almost the whole of the clergy 
 of the Established Church. Its progress has been a perpetual 
 conflict with the law and with the lay tribunals by which the 
 law was upheld. 
 
 We have been warned that we must be very cautious in 
 
 1 See The Memories of Dean Hole, Chap. xi.
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 93 
 
 reasoning from the case of a new country like America or the 
 British Colonies to that of an old country like England, where 
 institutions are of ancient growth, and their fibres have 
 become entwined with the whole political and social frame. 
 It is a warning most true and most necessary to be observed, 
 as is its converse, which forbids, for examjjle, the attempt, 
 apparently not yet abandoned, to propagate aristocracy in the 
 Colonies. Yet it happens, curiously enough, that, just when 
 this principle of relativity in politics is for the first time dis- 
 tinctly apprehended, it is beginning to lose somewhat of its 
 force. Mankind is being unified by the increase of inter- 
 course among the nations, and intelligent effort is gaining the 
 ascendancy over unconscious evolution. Of this Japan, taking 
 the most cautious estimate of her achievements, is a proof. 
 America is brought close to Europe, and the success or failure 
 of political and social experiments there already reacts upon 
 the Old World. 
 
 The activity produced among the clergy by the effects of the 
 Oxford Movement, and shown notably and most laudably in 
 their ministrations among the poor, seems to have strength- 
 ened the hold of the Anglican Church upon the people in the 
 cities. In the cities also Ritualism enlists in its services 
 many members of the congregation, and thus gains something 
 like the advantage which Methodism derives from its extensive 
 system of active membership. Among the country people, on 
 the other hand, the Church appears to be losing ground, the 
 reason probably being that the clergy are objects of suspicion 
 to the peasantry from their social and political connections. 
 Perhaps also the parson sometimes is felt to meddle and dictate 
 too much. To the attractions of Ritualism, while the minds 
 of the people in the cities are sometimes open, those of the 
 peasantry are completely closed. They lack the cultivated 
 sensibility which feels the poetry of the past; they are utterly 
 devoid of any historic link to the Middle Ages ; their life is 
 hard, and what they seek in religion is practical comfort, not 
 the gratification of fancy and taste. 
 
 In Scotland, the Establishment is more strongly rooted than
 
 94 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 it is in England, as Midlothian elections have shown. It is 
 more strongly rooted because having been founded, not by 
 the Crown, but by the religious leaders of the Commons, it is 
 more popular and democratic. For the same reason it is the 
 more orthodox, its creed being in keeping, not of a clerical 
 order, but of the people at large, who identify themselves with 
 its doctrines and are little reached by sceptical speculation. 
 
 The policy of using a State clergy as a black police is, 
 surely, not less shallow than it is insulting to the clergy 
 who are to be so used. Let the people once understand that 
 the pastor is a black policeman, and the influence on which 
 this policy relies will be gone. A government gets fully as 
 much support from free Churches in the maintenance of social 
 order and for all moral objects as it does from any State 
 Church. The American government got the most strenuous 
 and effective aid from the Protestant Churches as organs of 
 the popular conscience during the Civil War. On the other 
 hand, that government escapes what, added to the storms of 
 political faction, would certainly wreck it, entanglement with 
 religious quarrels and with a chronic struggle between a priv- 
 ileged Church and her rivals. It has no Hampden Case, no 
 Ecclesiastical Titles Bill, no "Bill for putting down Ritual- 
 ism." Nor is it exposed to the chronic disaffection of a great 
 body of Nonconformists irritated by social disparagement per- 
 haps even more than by their religious grievance. An English 
 Nonconformist minister is not, as such, disposed to revolu- 
 tion ; he is not the natural ally of Jacobins ; nor is there any- 
 thing in his vocation which should lead him to desire the 
 dismemberment of the United Kingdom. He is a Radical 
 and a Home Ruler because it is from that party that he hopes 
 to get religious equality. That he thereby sullies his religion 
 is true. But though a spiritual guide, he is of mortal mould. 
 
 None, we should think, would be less disposed to hand over 
 Ireland to the Roman Catholic priesthood than tlie Welsh 
 Methodists, if they were not tempted by the offer of Disestab- 
 lishment for Wales. Church Establishment in Wales is a 
 stone hanging round the neck of a government swimming for
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 95 
 
 life, and the integrity of the nation is imperilled in no slight 
 degree by the obstinate determination to force on the Welsh 
 Celt against his nature the fiat religion of Elizabeth Tndor. 
 Anglicanism in Wales is the religion of the gentry, who are 
 largely English. That of the Celtic peasantry it has not been 
 and cannot be. The Celtic peasant may be a fervent Catholic 
 as he is in Ireland and Brittany, a fervent Presbyterian as he 
 is in the Highlands, or a fervent Methodist as he is in 
 Wales, a staid Anglican he will never be. Some defenders of 
 Welsh Establishment propose that it sliould strengthen its 
 hold on the people by adopting the Welsh language. But by 
 doing this it would estrange from itself the cultivated classes 
 to whom it is really congenial, while it would become an organ 
 of intellectual reaction, not to say an opponent of civilisation. 
 The overwhelming Gladstonian majority in Wales is a major- 
 ity for Disestablishment. The Anglican clergy of Wales are 
 clergymen of the Established Cliurch of England, and the 
 interests of the Established Church of England are theirs. 
 Are they wise in asking it to fight the decisive. battle for its 
 existence on a field so unfavourable to its cause as Wales? 
 
 Whatever is seditious and dangerous in the Irish priesthood 
 arises not from its being unestablished, but from its being 
 Irish, and Irish of the peasant class. It is also rendered 
 anti-national by its allegiance to a foreign head; but this it 
 would be in any case. 
 
 Some politicians have regarded religion as a disturbing 
 force, for which legal establishment under State control pro- 
 vided salutary fetters. If religion is false, if the enthusiasm 
 to which it gives birth is a kind of madness, and if the vices 
 of its ministers are less dangerous than their virtues, the 
 more it is kept under the control of statesmanship the better. 
 But, then, why foster it at all? If it is true, and spiritual 
 life is not a figment, that surely alone is genuine statesman- 
 ship which leaves conscience and worship entirely free. When 
 one looks back over the history of religion, including the 
 religious wars, persecutions, and massacres, one cannot help 
 wondering, if all this has happened under the beneficent
 
 96 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 regulation of statesmanship, what worse things could have 
 happened in the absence of such regulation. 
 
 There is looming up from the clerical quarter a danger of 
 another kind, with which statesmanship may hereafter have 
 to deal. If the subversion of religious belief by science and 
 criticism goes on, it will by degrees withdraw that on which 
 the ministers of religion rest for their influence, their posi- 
 tion, and their bread. Their distress or their apprehensions 
 may become a disturbing element in society. Such a body of 
 men as the celibate clergy of the Church of Rome, striving 
 to make up by social leadership for the loss of spiritual 
 authority in an age of Socialistic agitation, might be a for- 
 midable addition to the sources of trouble ; nor have symptoms 
 of such a tendency been wanting. But this is a liability 
 against which, if it exists, no policy of Establishment can 
 guard. On the contrary. Establishment aggravates the danger 
 by keeping a standing army of clergy in its pay irrespectively 
 of the popular desire for their ministrations, and thus prepar- 
 ing for a great crash, Avhen otherwise the reduction might be 
 gradual and no large body of men might be threatened at the 
 same time with the loss of their livelihood and position. 
 
 Less coarse than the "black police " theory, yet not less ob- 
 jectionable or in reality less insulting to the ministers of 
 religion, is the theory of certain illuminati, who would have a 
 State Church of popular superstition for the vulgar, while the 
 cultivated sit apart on their thrones of light. This implies that 
 a number of men, presumably superior in moral qualities and 
 highly educated, are to be dedicated to the office of teach- 
 ing useful falsehood. Suppose any of them become illumi- 
 nated, are they still to remain in their profession? What but 
 moral corruption of the profoundest kind can be the fruit of 
 such a policy? Yet such a thing has been experienced as 
 the erection of an Anglican Church by an unbeliever in Chris- 
 tianity in pursuance of some such view. It may be suspected 
 that Establishment has even drawn some equivocal recruits 
 of late from the scepticism which prevails widely and is often 
 combined with Conservatism in politics, while the Churches
 
 THE QUESTION OF DISESTABLISHMENT. 97 
 
 which rest only on free conviction have been losing ground. 
 It is time to bethink ourselves that a Churcli, established or 
 unestablished, must be either an organ of truth or an engine 
 of evil. Apparently, no small portion of the educated world 
 in England has come to the conclusion that the evidences of 
 supernatural religion have failed. If they have, to keep on 
 foot an institution the function of which is to preach and pro- 
 pagate supernatural religion can surely be neither wise nor 
 right. When evidences of religion fail, religion must go, 
 and we must look out for some other account of the universe 
 and some other rule of life. Let us have no politic figment 
 or organised self-delusion, because, on any hypothesis, theistic 
 or atheistic, they can only lead us to destruction. We have 
 no chance of moving in unison with the counsels of the Power, 
 wliatever it be, which rules this Avorld, or of prospering accord- 
 ingly, except by keeping in the allegiance of the truth. 
 
 On the whole, it would seem that a statesman, looking at 
 the matter from his oavu point of view, would be likely to pre- 
 pare for a change, and consider how the change can be made 
 Avith least shock to the spiritual life of the people and Avith 
 least hardship to the clergy. It Avould seem that a Avise 
 Churcliman Avould be likely to think tAvice before he rejected 
 a compromise, on the general lines of Irish Disestablishment, 
 Avhich, taking from him the tithe, noAV reduced in A^alue, as 
 Avell as the representation of the Church in the House of 
 Lords, Avould leave him the cathedrals, the parish churches, 
 the rectories, the glebes, the recent benefactions, and give 
 him a freedom of legislation, l)y tlie Avise use of Avhich he 
 might, supposing Christianity to retain its hold, recover, 
 through adaptation of institutions and formularies to the times, 
 part of the ground Avhich, during the suspension of licr legis- 
 lative life, his Church has lost. Democracy is marching on, 
 and the opportunity of compromise may never return. It has 
 been said in ansAver to such a proposal that the clergy are trus- 
 tees, and that however desirable the compromise might be, 
 they can surrender nothing of their trust. Trustees, however, 
 can, Avith the sanction of a court of laAv, and still more Avitli 
 
 H
 
 98 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 that of the Legislature, consent to anything which is for the 
 benefit of the estate. No power not acting under authority 
 manifestly divine is qu.alified to say non possumus. Those 
 who do say it can only mean that they are determined to go 
 by the board. State religion perhaps had its day. Whatever 
 had its day is absolved by history, who nevertheless says to 
 it Vade in pace. 
 
 There is, it is true, another course, besides Disestablishment, 
 which may present itself to a statesman desirous of dealing 
 cautiously Avith this question and avoiding a shock to national 
 religion, the policy of comprehension. This was embraced by 
 Cromwell, and was the most liberal course possible in his day, 
 when the opinion that a nation was bound to profess and sup- 
 port a religion remained firmly rooted in men's minds, as the 
 wreck of Barebone Parliament on the rock of Disestablishment 
 showed. Cromwell's commissioners, to use Baxter's words, 
 " put in able and serious preachers who lived a godly life, of 
 what tolerable opinions soever they were, so that many thou- 
 sands of souls blessed God." It is certain that before the Act 
 of Uniformity, Episcopal ordination Avas not necessary for 
 induction to an English living, nor had the Church of England 
 formally severed connection Avitli the Protestant Churches 
 on the Continent. If ever a measure was tainted in its origin, 
 it Avas the Act of Uniformity, and to repeal it in the present 
 state of opinion Avould probably be easy. But the practical 
 effect of the repeal would most likely be defeated by the senti- 
 ments of the High Church clergy, noAV the dominant party, 
 Avho believe in apostolical succession and in the exclusive poAver 
 of an episcopally ordained priesthood to perform the sacra- 
 mental rites Avhich are necessary to salvation. 
 
 In such a case, as indeed in regard to all great and organic 
 questions, every true patriot must wish that the party struggle 
 Avhich is tearing the nation to ]3ieces could be suspended, and 
 that the solution could be committed to the hands of some 
 impartial, enlightened, and open-minded statesman, Avhose 
 aAvard Avould be framed in the interest, and Avould command 
 the confidence, of the nation at large. We might as well wish 
 for the descent of an angel from heaven !
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND.
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 
 
 In the political crisis through which Great Britain is pass- 
 ing there are some things peculiar to Great Britain. There 
 are other things interesting to all nations regulated or intended 
 to be regulated on the British model; to all nations, indeed, of 
 which the governments are elective. The apparent catastrophe 
 of the party system appears to afford as much food for reflec- 
 tion to an American as to an Englishman. 
 
 Under the belief that she has a monarchical government and 
 an hereditary upper chamber, whicli assure her stability and 
 safety, England has plunged into a democracy more unbridled 
 than that of the United States under more dangerous condi- 
 tions. The founders of the American commonwealth looked 
 democracy in the face. The people of the United States have 
 a written constitution which emanated from themselves, and is 
 the object of their profound reverence. They have a Supreme 
 Court to guard that constitution. They have a President 
 whose veto is a salutary reality, and whose authority was dis- 
 played the other day on the Silver Question. They have a 
 Senate, elected on a principle comparatively conservative, and 
 really co-ordinate as a legislative body with the popular house, 
 whose Bills it amends or tlirows out without fear. The federal 
 structure of their commonwealth, like that of a ship in com- 
 partments, is a safeguard against any sudden flood of revolu- 
 tion. In their constitution is an article forbidding legislation 
 which would impair the faith of contracts. The conditions in 
 their case are less dangerous because they have greater abun- 
 dance of land, a far larger number of freeholders, less pressure 
 on the means of subsistence, comparatively little Socialism, 
 
 101
 
 102 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 what they have of it being mainly imported from Europe.^ 
 If America has her dangerous foreign element, Great Britain 
 has the Irish colonies in her cities. Nor is there in America 
 any economical crisis like agricultural depression with its 
 social consequences in England, for the recent financial storm 
 was the consequence of unsound management, over speculation, 
 and a deranged currency rather than of economical disturbance. 
 The American people are comparatively free from class division 
 and jealousy. They are eminently law-abiding, and are on the 
 side of government, regarding it as their own; while the 
 masses in England, the artisans especially, have learnt to think 
 of government as a power apart from them, if not as their 
 natural enemy. Nor does the scepticism, which in England is 
 unsettling society and shaking the nerve of authority, prevail 
 so much or produce such effects in a nation which has no State 
 Church to be assailed, the religion of which is voluntary, and 
 which is given more to industry than theological speculation. 
 In America union has decisively triumphed over Secession. 
 In every member of the United Kingdom disunionism has now 
 been set at work for the purpose of carrying Irish Home Rule. 
 America is a commonwealth with no responsibilities or liabili- 
 ties beyond itself; Great Britain is the centre of an empire 
 
 1 In the first edition it was here said that America had also "com- 
 paratively little, upon the whole, of industrial war, the native Ameri- 
 can workman, as a rule, not being given to conspiracy and striking." 
 There have since occurred the Coxeyite movement, the coal strike in 
 Pennsylvania, and, what is more serious than either, the railway strike at 
 Chicago. These have ensued upon the depression, reduction of wages, 
 and loss of employment caused by a terrible financial crisis. It is 
 believed that the statement in the original text, qualified as it was, was 
 true when it was made, and with regard to normal times. The violence 
 in connection with the strikes was foreign. The railway strike, however, 
 being, as appears, without justification, ordained by the fiat of an irre- 
 sponsible despot, and stopping the wheels of commerce and civilisation, is 
 a terrible exhibition of the spirit of trade unionism and of the sufferings 
 which are in store for communities unless they can protect themselves 
 against it. More has been said on the subject in the preface to the 
 present edition.
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 103 
 
 with responsibilities and liabilities all over the world. Ameri- 
 can industries are natural and pretty sure to recover from the 
 shock; whereas of the great industries of England, some are 
 more or less artificial, owing their existence or their magnitude 
 to the retardation of manufactures by war or misgovernment in 
 other nations, and if they receive a severe shock from revolu- 
 tionary violence are not so sure to recover. From the danger 
 of foreign war, with which Great Britain is always threatened, 
 America is free. 
 
 In America, there can be no amendment of the federal 
 constitution without the distinct announcement of the specific 
 amendment to be made, or without the consent of three-fourths 
 of the people, signified through the State Legislatures or 
 Conventions. Nor can the constitutions of the States be 
 amended without a submission of the specific question to the 
 people of the State. So cautious is the federal process that 
 there was no amendment for sixty years. What takes place in 
 England? Not an amendment of the constitution, but a 
 fundamental change of it, involving a legislative dismember- 
 ment of the United Kingdom, and probably entailing further 
 revolution of the same kind, is concerted by a party leader 
 with his Irish confederates behind the back of the nation, and 
 forced upon the country by an unscrupulous use of the party 
 machine. Not only had a distinct knowledge of the measure 
 been withheld from the people at the last general election, but 
 with regard to its principal feature, retention of the Irish 
 members, the people had been totally misled, the framer hav- 
 ing pledged himself that nothing would induce liim to be a 
 party to an arrangement such as that which he afterwards 
 proposed. The issue, instead of being submitted distinctly to 
 the people, was mixed up with a dozen other issues, some of 
 them purposely raised to obscure and prejudice it. The meas- 
 ure was then forced upon the House of Commons, most of its 
 provisions without any fair discussion, by the closure, applied 
 at the will of a party leader, whoso real majority, subtracting 
 the twenty-three Irish votes to which Ireland by his own 
 admission has no tith>, Avas eleven. Nor is there anything to
 
 104 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 prevent other revolutionary measures from being carried by 
 the same means as the repeal of the union with Ireland. 
 
 There is happily much in the state of England now unlike 
 the state of France on the eve of the Revolution. Above all, 
 England has in her upper classes a reserve of moral and politi- 
 cal force which Erance had not, and which extremity may call 
 forth. She is also comparatively free from the financial diffi- 
 culty which in Erance brought on the crash, though a large 
 public debt, with power in the hands of the multitude, is 
 dangerous, while the fiscal system of England is not without 
 peril since it is totally inelastic, and the disuse of any one 
 of the great articles of consumption on which the revenue 
 is raised would produce a great deficit. Experience has 
 shown that the people will not bear a new tax, and that the 
 income tax or the succession duty is the financier's only resort. 
 When the many vote the taxes and the few pay them, peril 
 surely must be at hand; and demagogism has now learned 
 that it can bribe the masses with legislative largesses at the 
 expense of the rate-payer on a scale far transcending the bri- 
 bery of a private purse. 
 
 For a few years under the commonwealth England had a 
 written constitution. Otherwise she has had only fundamental 
 statutes, such as the Great Charter, with its confirmations, the 
 Petition of Right, the Habeas Corpus Act, and the Bill of 
 Rights, all of which are restraints on the tyranny of the 
 Crown, not on the excesses of the people. Not only has 
 England had no written constitution ; paradoxical as the state- 
 ment may seem, she has had no constitution at all, if by con- 
 stitution is meant a settled system with fixed relations among 
 the component powers. What she has had has been a balance 
 of forces which, oscillating more or less through her history, 
 has now been finally upset, the Crown having been divested of 
 all authority, the House of Lords of all but a suspensive 
 veto, while supreme power is vested in the House of Commons 
 or in the electoral caucus, to which the House of Commons has 
 itself in turn become a slave. What is complacently styled con- 
 stitutional development has in fact been a secular revolution.
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 105 
 
 The upshot is that whereas American democracy is organised, 
 British democracy is unorganised, and while American democ- 
 racy is provided, British democracy' is unprovided, with safe- 
 guards against revolution. 
 
 The hallowed word " constitutional " has been used as if it 
 represented something real and capable of being ascertained, 
 though rather occult, some supreme though somewhat mystical 
 standard by which all political claims could be tried and all 
 political excesses could be restrained. This Avas almost comi- 
 cally apparent on the occasion of the repeal of the paper duty 
 in 18G0, which made way for a cheap press. The Commons 
 passed repeal, the Lords threw it out. Then arose the question 
 whether the Lords, who could not constitutionally initiate or 
 amend a taxing Bill, could constitutionally throw out a Bill 
 repealing a tax, thus continuing the impost which the Com- 
 mons had voted away. A grand display of political meta- 
 physics ensued. Mr. Denison, then Speaker of the House of 
 Commons, was asked what he thought. "Why," said he, 
 " they talk about constitutional principle ; but the whole matter 
 is this: the Lords cannot initiate a money Bill because the 
 Commons would throw it out; they cannot amend a money Bill 
 because the Commons would disagree to the amendment ; but 
 they can throw out this Bill repealing a tax, because there is an 
 end, and the Commons have no more to say." 
 
 The theory Avas government by a King and legislation by 
 two Houses of Parliament, one hereditary and aristocratic, the 
 other elective and popular, the two being coequal in authority, 
 except that the popular House had the power of the purse, 
 which it gradually improved into supremacy. In the reign of 
 Edward I., the magnanimous perpetuator of a revolutionary 
 creation, the fact may have tallied with the theory. The 
 government was in the King, and the Commons, thougli in 
 themselves weaker than the Lords, may have been strengthened 
 by alliance with the Crown. Under Edward's feeble successor 
 the balance was turned in favour of the aristocracy. It was 
 redressed in favour of the Crown by the glories of Edward 
 III., though the Commons at the same time, as holders of the
 
 106 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 purse, gained by the King's need of supplies for his wars; and 
 Richard II., in spite of the miserable end of his father's reign, 
 succeeded to authority, which his folly and that of his fa- 
 vourites cast away. Henry IV., with a doubtful title and a 
 mutinous nobility, was thrown for support on the Commons, 
 and on the Church, which was still a great power in the State, 
 and the alliance with which was cemented by the statute for 
 the burning of heretics. Agincourt restored to the Crown an 
 authority which was again forfeited by the loss of France, the 
 imbecility of Henry VI., and the misrule of those who had 
 him in their hands. The suicide of aristocracy in the Wars 
 of the Roses left the Crown almost despotic, and its despotism 
 was enhanced by the ecclesiastical revolution under Henry 
 VIII., after which the Church ceased to be a political power, 
 and its influence was transferred to the Crown. What the 
 Tudors had held the Stuarts lost, while they tried to extend it 
 in altered times and against the decisive tendencies of the 
 nation. The English Revolution in the time of Charles I., 
 like the American Revolution and the French Revolution, 
 cleared the ground for a new edifice. A written constitution 
 became necessary. A written constitution was framed under 
 the name of the Instrument of Government, with a Protector 
 for life, a standing Council of State, in the appointment of 
 which the Protector and Parliament went shares, and a single 
 House of Parliament, with a property qualification high enougli 
 to be a test of responsibility and intelligence, yet not higher 
 than industry and frugality might generally hope to attain. 
 Had the Commonwealth of England, Ireland, and Scotland 
 such a constitution now, it would be in little danger of dis- 
 memberment by the Irish Celts. Republican jealousy and the 
 death of the Protector just when his system was taking root, 
 prevented a fair trial of the experiment. Cromwell himself 
 had been driven by the stress of his conflict with irreconcilable 
 Republicans in the Commons to have recourse to the revival of 
 the Upper House in a nominative form. This failed, as other 
 nominative Senates have failed, and by withdrawing the 
 strength of government from the popular chamber, aggravated
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 107 
 
 the difficulty which it was intended to remove. The Restora- 
 tion, however, was a reaction, not against the Protectorate, but 
 against the military anarchy by which the Protectorate was 
 followed. During the reign of Charles II., there was some- 
 thing like equilibrium, though uneasy and unsteady, the Crown 
 at the time of the Popish Plot being swept before the popular 
 storm, while the close of the reign was almost despotic, though 
 tyranny was exercised under strictly legal forms. James II. 
 repeated the mistake of Charles I. in an aggravated sliape, the 
 Jesuit taking the place of Laud. Wifch him the monarchy fell 
 as a constitutional power, its fall being only broken by the 
 personal ascendancy of William III., who to the last was his 
 own foreign minister. 
 
 Power then passed to the landed aristocracy and gentry, 
 whose cliiefs composed the House of Lords, and who not only 
 elected the county members of the House of Commons out of 
 their own body, but also controlled the elections of a large 
 part of the borough members through pocket-boroughs or by 
 local influence. Local government through the Quarter Ses- 
 sions, composed of squires as justices of the peace, was largely 
 in the same hands. The landowmu's had thoroughly perfected 
 the system of maintaining the economical basis of their 
 ascendancy by the entail of their family estates. The princi- 
 pal checks to aristocratic ascendancy were the rivalries and 
 cabals among the great families themselves. These, and the 
 odium created by aristocratic selfishness and corruption, enabled 
 George III. to recover a large measure, not of constitutional, 
 but of backstairs power. He was able to put a backstairs veto 
 on Fox's India Bill, as well as to prolong by liis personal 
 determination the war with the American colonies. Once more 
 there was a sort of equilibrium among the three powers in the 
 State, the government being largely in the King or in the 
 minister of his personal choice, while each of the Houses had 
 its share of power, the balance between tliem being dressed 
 by the Parliamentary patronage in the hands of the Peers and 
 the manifest inadequacy of the unreformed House of Commons 
 as a representation of the people. But the equilibrium was
 
 108 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 totally and forever destroyed by the current of liberalism 
 wliich set in when the war with Napoleon was over, overturn- 
 ing the Bourbon monarchy in France and aristocratic govern- 
 ment in Great Britain at the same time. 
 
 When the Peers succumbed to the Reform Bill, supreme 
 power passed definitively to the House of Commons, leaving 
 nothing to the Peers on any great question but a suspensive 
 veto. The last faint exercise of personal power by the King 
 was the dismissal of the Whig Ministry by William IV. in 
 1834. Thenceforth the ministers who formed the executive 
 government were appointed and dismissed, and the whole 
 policy of the kingdom was determined by the majority in the 
 House of Commons. Still the phantom wore the crown. 
 Still the nation believed itself to be a monarchy, and prayed 
 every Sunday that Heaven, which is supposed to entei' kindly 
 into the illusion, would dispose the King's heart to govern 
 aright. A party leader bringing in a party Bill for the exten- 
 sion of the suffrage could say, and perhaps persuaded himself, 
 that the effect of his measure would be to " unite the whole 
 people in a solid body round their ancient throne." The same 
 politician points out the House of Lords to popular vengeance, 
 as " a power not upon or behind the throne, but between the 
 throne and the people, stopping altogether the action of the 
 constitutional machine." Could self-delusion or constitutional 
 hypocrisy further go? The House of Lords has still con- 
 tinued to be taken for a co-ordinate branch of the Legislature. 
 Nations in quest of a constitution have continued to imi- 
 tate the British model as they found it described in Blackstone 
 or De Lolme, and a strange dance some of them have been led. 
 
 Still the House of Commons was a government. It had still 
 a measure of independence and of authority; it was still a 
 national council. Its electorate, after the settlement of 1832, 
 was still tolerably responsible and intelligent. Nor was it 
 by the fated advance of democracy or by any occult force, that 
 the settlement of 1832 was broken up, though the current of 
 European opinion was setting in a democratic direction. The 
 settlement was broken up by the personal ambition of party
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 109 
 
 leaders, who invoked the gale of pojsularity to fill their flag- 
 ging sails. There was in reality little popular demand for 
 the measure, and when, after its first introduction it had to be 
 withdrawn for a time, no excitement followed. But it had 
 set revolution going again. Then came a Dutch auction, 
 in which Liberal and Conservative bid against each other, and 
 the prize was finally knocked down to the Conservative party, 
 then under a leader who, as Carlyle said, treated England as 
 his milch cow, and who had found for himself a patron and 
 a partner in a magnate instinct enough with the spirit of the 
 Turf to be ready to do anything that would "dish the 
 Whigs." There is no reason to doubt, there is good reason 
 to believe, that intelligent artisans would have acquiesced in 
 an educational qualification; but the Tory leader had been 
 advised by his election agents that ignorance would be on his 
 side, and he had no scruple in acting on that advice. 
 
 Electoral qualifications of any real value have been swept 
 away. Such as are left will go; before long perhaps even 
 that of sex will be abolished by the help of Conservatives 
 who fancy that the women will vote upon their side. Of those 
 who now possess the franchise, an immense number must be 
 ignorant of all questions of State, liable to be misled by the 
 grossest illusions, hurried away by the blindest passions, 
 cozened by the veriest charlatans. It was generally, and not 
 without reason, believed that the Tichborne claimant would 
 have been sent to Parliament with immense majorities, could 
 he have been a candidate at the time of the trial. But the 
 constituencies are a sovereign power, unrestrained, and can, 
 througli their subservient representatives, at any time pass 
 measures which would shake society to its foundation, and 
 might bring ruin on themselves. They are sovereign not only 
 over their own country but also over a vast empire. The 
 British artisan who is shouting One man, one vote, forgets 
 that he is the lord of two Imndred and eighty millions of 
 Hindoos who have no vote at all, and if they had votes might 
 some day vote him and his cottons out of Hindostan. The 
 American democracy, in spite of strong temptation, Ijotli
 
 110 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 material and sentimental, shrank from the annexation of 
 Hawaii becavise it felt its unfitness for the government of 
 dependencies even on so small a scale. Yet a democracy far 
 less regulated, and on the whole far less intelligent than that 
 of America, is taking on itself the government of vast depend- 
 encies all over the Avorld. 
 
 The House of Commons, after putting under its feet the 
 Crown and the House of Lords, has in its turn been put under 
 the feet of the caucus. Its independence, its authority, its 
 dignity, and its self-respect are departing. By the closure it 
 is reduced to a voting machine of which the caucus turns the 
 crank. Its members, instead of regarding themselves as free 
 counsellors of the nation, regard themselves as delegates of 
 the caucus, pledged to do its bidding, and, if their conscience 
 rebels, to resign. The other day a Gladstonian, seeing the 
 deception which had been practised upon the country by the 
 framers of the Home Eule Bill in the retention of the Irish 
 members and the infamy which was in store for Great Britain, 
 found himself unable to digest the Bill. His duty to the 
 country was to vote against it. liut the wretched law of his 
 Parliamentaiy being compelled him to decline that duty and 
 place his resignation in the hands of the caucus under the 
 form of accepting the Chiltern Hundreds. No one doubts that 
 many a Gladstonian has voted for the Home Rule Bill under 
 the same influence and against his sense of duty to the coun- 
 try. An imperious idol of the caucus and impersonation of 
 its tyranny can indulge his autocratic temper by trampling on 
 the liberty and majesty of what was once the foremost assem- 
 bly in the world. It does not appear that the Conservative 
 members feel themselves much more independent than the 
 Radicals. If they did, their leader would hardly have failed 
 to make use of a majority of a liundred for the purpose of re- 
 dressing the balance of the constitution and providing safe- 
 guards against revolutionary violence. Nor would he and his 
 colleagues have been fain to bid against their antagonists for 
 popularity by paying tribute to socialistic Radicalism, which 
 they did with the usual effect of blackmail.
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. Ill 
 
 The Septennial Act still preserves to members of the House 
 of Commons a small measure of independence for the first 
 year or two of the Septennial term. It is to be repealed, the 
 duration of Parliaments is to be reduced, and the last spark 
 of a legislative independence offensive to the caucus is to be 
 extinguished. A faint remnant of the principle that taxation 
 and representation go together is left in the plurality of votes. 
 This is to be swept away, and one man, one vote, is to be the 
 rule. The Prime Minister proclaims that the poor man 
 instead of the rich man ought to have two votes; in other 
 words that both poverty and ignorance ought to be masters of 
 civilisation. 
 
 The most effective institution of a conservative kind yet left 
 is the non-payment of members. This also is marked for 
 abolition, and the Bill which abolishes it will probably receive 
 the involuntary votes of members of Parliament who abhor it 
 in their hearts, knowing well that it will thrust them from 
 their seats. In theory, the system of payment enables lowly 
 merit to take the place to which the public voice calls it, but 
 which poverty prevents it from taking; in fact, it is a direct 
 incentive to men by no means of merit to engage in politics, 
 the noblest of all callings but the vilest of all trades. The 
 country will presently be in the hands of professional politi- 
 cians, drawn from a class which prefers living upon the public 
 to honest labour. These men, giving their lives to their trade, 
 will oust men of principle, who, having no personal objects to 
 gain, will grow weary of the incessant struggle, while they 
 will be disgusted with the task of flattering crowds and with 
 the debasing tyranny of the "machine." 
 
 Statesmanship already shows the influence of the stvimp, the 
 incessant exactions of which leave a public man no leisure for 
 rest or thought, and force him to be always committing him- 
 self, probably beyond his convictions, in his efforts to excite 
 the crowd. Peel as well as Pitt would have been petrified by 
 an invitation to speak at any election but his own. Pitt is 
 believed to have made only two political speeches out of Par- 
 liament in his life, and one of these was a single sentence. A
 
 112 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 minister could then spend his vacations in maturing his meas- 
 ures, and he could keep his own counsels till the time came 
 for disclosing them to Parliament. All public men had time 
 for study and reflection. With the enlargement of the con- 
 stituencies and the extension of the popular element in gov- 
 ernment, the change became to some extent inevitable. It 
 has its consequences all the same, and they are not much re- 
 deemed by the education which public meetings are supposed 
 to give the people, but which they would receive as well 
 through the public press. 
 
 The falling off in the character of the House of Commons is 
 apparent to all. A deliberative assembly, in the proper sense 
 of the term, it can hardly be said in recent times to have 
 been; for it has always been at once too partisan and too 
 large. On any party question a debate has hardly been more 
 worthy of the name of a deliberation than the exchange of fire 
 between two regiments in a battle. But now the House has 
 lost, with independence, order and dignity. Language, which 
 half a century ago would have been fatal to the member who 
 had used it, or could have been prevented from being fatal to 
 him only by the most complete apology, is now used with 
 impunity; and if the Speaker compels its withdrawal, is 
 withdrawn in a style which amounts to a repetition of the 
 outrage. Irish manners are uncontrolled. Wrangling has at 
 last culminated in a brawl. 
 
 It is strange to see a society intellectual, refined, luxurious 
 even to excess, and ever inventing new refinements and new 
 luxuries, yet all the time sedulously removing the barriers 
 which protect it from a political deluge. Talleyrand said that 
 the great motive power in the French Revolution was vanity. 
 Vanity is at work here too. Vanity it is that makes M. 
 Jourdain play the demagogue. But the chief element of dis- 
 turbance is the madness of the party game, which that of the 
 gambling-table itself does not surpass. Party politics, in 
 fact, partake very much of the excitement of the Turf and are 
 sustained a good deal by the same spirit. Paley thought that 
 the money which he paid in taxes for the support of Parlia-
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 113 
 
 mentary government with its lively scenes could not have been 
 spent in any way which would have afforded him more fun. 
 If it were only money that this sport cost! 
 
 The danger is enhanced by the passion for amusement and 
 the levity which seem to prevail, and again remind us some- 
 what of the eve of the French Revolution. From one eminent 
 journal we learn that the scratching of Cloister for the Grand 
 National is the greatest event of the time, and that the bet- 
 ting community is larger than that interested in politics, 
 religion, or any serious question of the day. Another assures 
 us that gambling and betting prevail from the highest to the 
 lowest social grade ; that they prevail among women as well 
 as among men ; that private roulette tables are common and 
 are openly sold by fashionable furniture dealers; that every- 
 body is panting for the unearned increment, "everybody 
 yearns to eat, drink, and be merry, to wear fine clothes, and 
 sparkle with jewels bought with money for which no work has 
 been done." Such a spirit is not favourable to the national 
 consideration of political problems however pressing and dan- 
 gerous, while its influence is apt to be extended from private 
 to public life. 
 
 Among public men, at the same time, there seems to pre- 
 vail a fatalistic belief that they are being swept along by 
 the irresistible current of inevitable change, and that there 
 is nothing for it but surrender. What they take for fate may 
 after all be the fiat of the trade-union or its Boss, and no 
 more irresistible than, at the outset, were those revolutionary 
 forces which in the end hurried France into the abyss. 
 
 The elective system has revealed its fatal weakness. The 
 theory is that the electors choose, and that they will choose the 
 best man to the extent of their lights. There might be some 
 agreement between the theory and the fact when the electors 
 met in the county court or in the town hall, held, it may be 
 supposed, some sort of a conference, and voted xmder the 
 guidance of their local leaders, whose influence probably was 
 healthy upon the whole. But now, there is no meeting, there 
 can be no conference, no personal communication or concert of
 
 114 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 any sort among the electors in a large constituency. These 
 particles of political power are as the grains in a sand-heap, 
 which cannot combine or co-operate, though they may be 
 blown in the same direction by the wind. What is to bring 
 them together? What is to designate for them the candidates 
 whom they cannot designate for themselves? What is to com- 
 bine the votes of a sufficient number of them to constitute a 
 majority and form a basis for a government? The practical 
 answer is, organised party. So inevitable does this expedient 
 appear, and so thoroughly are we inured to it, that some 
 political philosophers have begun to represent the division 
 into two parties as seated in human nature, every child beingj 
 as the comic opera has it, "born a little Conservative or a 
 little Liberal." One writer, assuming party to be an ordi- 
 nance of nature, fancies that he has discovered its law, which 
 is that of alternate ascendancy, with a change at each general 
 election; so that at each election the party whose turn it is in 
 the course of nature to be beaten will have, for the mainte- 
 nance of the system, knowingly to fight a hopeless battle. 
 These philosophers do not observe that you might as well try 
 to bisect a wave as humanity, that the shades of temperament 
 are numberless, that the same man is conservative on some 
 subjects, liberal on others, that political temperament varies 
 with age, old men being generally conservative, but also varies 
 with circumstance, your young aristocrat being the most vio- 
 lent conservative of all. ISTor do they observe that this sys- 
 tem, which they suppose to be a universal necessity of human 
 nature, is in truth a recent product of British politics or of 
 the politics of nations which have followed the leading of 
 England. Factions of course there were, with the usual con- 
 sequences of faction, at Athens, in Rome, and in the Italian 
 Republics. But this system of government by two parties, 
 perpetually contending for the offices of State, and each trying 
 to make government by the other impossible, is a modern 
 British institution. By the hypothesis both parties are neces- 
 sary to the system. Why, then, should each of them be always 
 denouncing and trying to exterminate the other? Party may
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 115 
 
 be moral, and a good citizen may to a certain extent be a parti- 
 san, so long as there is an organic qnestion of sufficient impor- 
 tance to dwarf all other questions and justify submission to 
 party discipline till the paramount object is attained. But 
 when there is no organic question, what is there to make party 
 moral? What is to hold a party together, no principle being 
 at stake? It can hardly be expected that, merely for the 
 purpose of keeping up a system, the members of the commu- 
 nity, when there is nothing really to divide them, will range 
 themselves artificially into two political armies carrying on 
 an objectless and senseless yet venomous war with each other. 
 The answer is, the Machine; and this must have workers 
 and payment for workers, in other words, entails corrup- 
 tion in some form, and bring with it a political morality 
 notoriously, if not avowedly, inferior to the morality of 
 ordinary life, so that you will have the lowest principles of 
 action in the highest sphere. But party is now everywhere 
 in a state of disintegration, brought on by the increased rest- 
 lessness of intelligence, the multiplication of political sects, 
 the clash of special interests, and the enhanced activity of 
 individual ambition, for which there are not enough prizes or 
 bribes. In Germany, in France, in every Parliamentary 
 country, there is a multiplication of parties which is making 
 party government impossible. Even in the British Parlia- 
 ment there are now five parties, the Conservatives, the Liberal- 
 Unionists, the Gladstonian Liberals, the Radicals, and the 
 Irish, while the Irish party is internally split into Parnellites 
 and anti-Parnellites. Bismarck made Parliamentary govern- 
 ment possible in Germany by his personal ascendancy, and by 
 accepting or buying support wherever he could find it. In 
 Fi-ance, the instability has been alarming. In Italy, disinte- 
 gration went to such a length that the leaders of adverse 
 parties had to come to an understanding, and make an arrange- 
 ment for the purpose of averting Parliamentary anarchy. In 
 Holland and Belgium the same spectacle is seen. In Austra- 
 lia, governments liave been ephemeral to a comical degree. 
 In England, the newly enfranchised and ignorant masses being
 
 116 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 led by a name, the only thing they can understand, we have 
 had a strong demagogic leadership, which, however, to sustain 
 it requires largesses of destruction. In Canada, there has 
 been a stability of corruption. These are accidents. The 
 general tendency is towards the dissolution of party and of the 
 government that rests on it. Foresight and continuity of 
 policy are impossible under these conditions. At the same 
 time a fatal facility is given to every selfish interest and 
 every fanatical sect of compassing its pet object by playing 
 upon the balance of party and thus forcing the nation to do its 
 will. Of this the Silver Bill, forced upon Congress by the 
 votes of the Silver States, is one example ; another is the anti- 
 national and degrading homage paid alike in the United States 
 and in England to the Irish vote. 
 
 The truth is that the system of party and cabinet government, 
 with all the philosophy which it has generated, is the peculiar 
 growth of the political situation in England consequent upon 
 the Revolution of 1688. Even in the time of Charles II., 
 though there were Tories and Whigs, there does not seem to 
 have been party organisation; what was a cabinet in germ 
 was dubbed as a cabal. The parties for a time were dynastic, 
 the struggle between the Stuart and Hanoverian lines having 
 been transferred from the field of battle to the political field, 
 and thus each of them had a bond, moral after its fashion, or 
 at all events superseding the ordinary obligation to follow 
 conviction on particular questions. Afterwards, when the 
 dynastic struggle had subsided, the parties, especially that 
 of the great Whig houses, were closely identified with family 
 connection, and with the struggles of different sections of the 
 aristocracy for power and place. The players in the game 
 were all born members of a political and social circle, owing 
 allegiance to its interests and traditions. The popular element 
 was small and the scope for demagogism very narrow. Cabal 
 and corruption there might be, and there were on a scandalous 
 scale, but there was not the slightest danger of Parliamentary 
 anarchy or of revolution. The country was in the hands of a 
 single class, that of the landed aristocracy and gentry.
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 117 
 
 Let the upholders of party government trace the course of 
 this Irish Question. Let them trace the process by which 
 a proud and mighty nation has been compelled to surrender 
 to a contemptible conspiracy, and dragged to the brink, not 
 only of dismemberment, but of self-degradation so deep as 
 that of allowing Ireland with a Parliament of her own to 
 send eighty members to the British Parliament as a garrison 
 of coercion for the purpose of controlling British policy in the 
 Irish interest aiid keeping the subservient allies of the Irish 
 in power. 
 
 A petty rebellion broke out in Ireland, the last of a series 
 since the Union, all equally weak. Had it taken the field, it 
 would have ended, like that of Smith O'Brien, in a cabbage 
 garden. Instead of taking the field, it chose Parliament as 
 the scene of its operations, used votes in place of pikes, and 
 tried to Avreck the House of Commons by obstruction, while 
 its agrarian wing, which alone was strong, entered on a cam- 
 paign of organised outrage in Ireland. Had the House of 
 Commons not been faction-stricken and caucus-ridden, the 
 attempt to wreck it by obstruction would have been at once 
 put down, if necessary by the expulsion of the conspirators. 
 The Liberal government did its duty as far as a party govern- 
 ment can. It procured the necessary powers for the Irish 
 executive, and had it been patriotically supported, or even 
 treated with forbearance, it would in time have suppressed 
 rebellion, leaving such agrarian questions as needed settle- 
 ment to be settled by remedial legislation. But the Conserva- 
 tive party, then in opposition, had for many years been led on 
 the principle, enunciated in an article entitled "Elijah's Man- 
 tle," which appeared in the Fortnightly Revieio on the occasion 
 of the unveiling of a statue of Lord Beaconsfield : 
 
 "Possibly the character of Lord Beaconsfield was also, to some 
 extent, imperfectly appreciated by Lord Salisbury, to whom, for some 
 reason or other, an unknown master of the ceremonies had reserved the 
 very secondary function of moving a vote of thanks to Sir Stafford 
 Northcote for having unveiled the statue. Speaking to the delegates of 
 the various Conservative associations on the eve of the ceremony, Lord
 
 118 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Salisbury condemned in forcible language 'the temptation' which, he 
 said, ' was strong to many politicians to attempt to gain the victory by 
 bringing into the lobby men whose principles were divergent, and whose 
 combined forces, therefore, could not lead to any wholesome victory.' 
 Excellent moralising, very suitable to the digestions of the country 
 delegates, but one of those puritanical theories which party leaders are 
 prone to preach on a platform, which has never guided for any length of 
 time the action of politicians in the House of Commons, and which, 
 whenever apparently put into practice, invariably results in weak and 
 inane proceedings. Discriminations between wholesome and unwhole- 
 some victories are idle and unpractical. Obtain the victory, know how 
 to follow it up, leave the wholesomeness or unwholesomeness to critics. 
 Lord Salisbury, when he used the words quoted above, must have for- 
 gotten that a few hours later he was going to take part in unveiling the 
 statue of a statesman whose whole political life was absolutely at variance 
 with Lord Salisbury's maxim. The condemnation of a particular method 
 of gaining political victories was in reality a condemnation of the political 
 career of the Earl of Beaconsfield." Fortnightly Beview, May, 1883. 
 
 The conscious heir of Elijah's mantle had a precedent, at 
 once exact and memorable, for the design Avhich he now formed 
 and induced his party to adopt, in the very manoeuvre by 
 which Elijah himself had originally climbed to power. In 
 1846 the Ministry of Sir Robert Peel was thrown out, his 
 party was broken up, and the way was cleared for the rise of 
 Mr. Disraeli to leadership by a coalition of the Protectionist 
 Conservatives with the Whigs, Radicals, and Irish against an 
 Irish Coercion Bill. By this, and a series of applications of 
 the same strategy,^ continued for thirty years, the character of 
 the Conservative party, once the party at all events of honour, 
 had been reconstructed on strategical principles, and was ready 
 for Elisha's manipulation. As in 1846, the Conservatives 
 virtually coalesced with the rebel Irish, and by the united 
 vote the Liberal government was thrown out, the author of the 
 
 iSee Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs, Vol. I., page 424: " February 
 9th [1854]. — Government beaten in the House of Commons on a motion 
 of Mr. Chambers to investigate the claims of an English company at 
 Madeira against the Portuguese Gpvernment. I fear Disraeli voted against 
 the Government, as it is his policy to join with anybody in order to defeat 
 them."
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 119 
 
 scheme, when the division was announced, jumping upon the 
 benches and waving his handkerchief in frantic joy. Of 
 the Conservative party, the head was a marquess with every- 
 thing to lift him above the vulgar influences of faction. Yet 
 he was too much under the yoke of party to say, when he was 
 approached with a strategical proposal, that while he was a 
 Conservative and would gladly see power in Conservative 
 hands, he was above all things an English nobleman, and 
 would never sanction an attempt to overthrow the Queen's 
 Government when it was struggling with rebellion. Then 
 followed the abandonment of the Act for the protection of life 
 and property in Ireland, and the Maamtrasna debate, with the 
 speeches of Lord Randolph Churchill and Sir Michael Hicks- 
 Beach, condemned by the most honourable organs of their 
 own party. Let us be just and remember the share which the 
 Conservative party as well as the Gladstonian party has had 
 in bringing all this disaster and disgrace on the country. 
 
 A dissolution of Parliament ensued. Up to this time the 
 Liberal leader had treated the Irish movement as rebellion, 
 had denounced its leader as "wading through rapine to dis- 
 memberment," had himself announced the arrest of Parnell to 
 an applauding multitude at Guild Hall, had imprisoned him 
 and scores of his followers without trial under the Crimes Act, 
 had been willing to part with three members of the Cabinet 
 rather than that the Crimes Act should not be renewed. He 
 went to the country asking for a majority which would enable 
 him to settle the Irish question independently of Mr. Parnell 
 and his followers. This the Irish prevented by voting witli 
 the Conservatives, exemplifying thereby the influence of 
 unscrupulous minorities under the party system. Finding 
 then that he had lost power, and that he could only regain it 
 by aid of the Irish vote, the Liberal leader at once threw him- 
 self into the arms of the rebels, and of their confederates the 
 American Feuians, avowed enemies of the British nation. He 
 who had been half a century in jniblic life, had been often as 
 Cabinet Minister responsible for Irish measures, and had him- 
 self disestablished the Irish Church, pretended that up to this
 
 120 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 time he had been ignorant of the Irish question, ignorant of 
 the leading facts of Irish history, and that a new light had now- 
 dawned upon his mind. He declared that when he threw 
 Parnell and his followers into gaol he had not understood what 
 Mr. Parnell's objects were. He put forth for the edification 
 of the faithful a history of the previous workings of his own 
 mind, showing that it had long been tending towards Home 
 Rule ; an avowal which implied that he had been all the time 
 committing the nation, and allowing his colleagues to pledge 
 themselves night after night — his Home Secretary in the 
 most desperate style — to a policy which in his heart he sus- 
 pected to be wrong. In concert with the rebel leaders, now 
 transformed from inmates of his gaols into his privy coun- 
 sellors and his masters, he framed a measure virtually for the 
 repeal of the Union ; that Union of which he had been wont to 
 speak as the grand achievement of Pitt, and the one effectual 
 guarantee of peace between religious factions in Ireland, but 
 which he now denounced as a masterpiece of fraud and 
 iniquity, using in his transports of rhetorical fury even coarser 
 terms. That the new light which dawned upon the leader's 
 mind at the moment when he found the Parnellite vote indis- 
 pensable to him should have dawned at the same moment on 
 the minds of his followers passes ordinary belief. Bright, 
 who did not speak at random, averred that there were not 
 twenty members of the Liberal party outside the Irish section 
 really in favour of their leader's Bill, which was as much as to 
 say that the mass voted under the lash of party against their 
 consciences for that which they must have known was ruinous 
 to their country. So much for the aphorism that party is 
 a kind of patriotism. Beaten by the vote of the independent 
 section of his followers, and maddened by defeat, the Liberal 
 leader broke all bounds and gave the restraints of patriotism 
 to the winds. He who owed all to culture and the support of 
 the cultivated, appealed to the lowest and the worst passions 
 of the multitude, the jealous hatred of the " masses " for the 
 "classes," of the ignorant for those better educated than 
 themselves. He recklessly falsified history to prove that
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 121 
 
 intelligence had always been the enemy of justice. He 
 rekindled the cold ashes of provincial antipathy in Scotland 
 and Wales as well as in Ireland. To inflame Irish rebellion, 
 he revived and exaggerated the evil memories of Irish histor3^ 
 He abetted resistance to law in Ireland, bidding an excitable 
 and savage race " remember Mitchelstown." Because England 
 had voted against him, he, the son of a Liverpool merchant, 
 bred at Eton and Oxford, having sat almost all his life for 
 English constituencies, having owed his entrance into Parlia- 
 ment to the patronage of an English nobleman, renounced the 
 name of Englishman, traduced England in a foreign press, 
 welcomed the calumnies of her foreign assailants. He allied 
 himself morally with declared enemies of the realm, the 
 Fenians of the United States, and received assistance in elec- 
 tions from their dynamite fund. A Conservative more than 
 half his life, who, if the place had been open, Avould, as many 
 thought, have been leading the Conservative party, he put 
 himself at the head of revolutionary radicalism and dallied with 
 all the spirits of confiscation and destruction. He who had 
 upheld Church establishment on the highest principles, held 
 out disestablishment as a bribe to get votes for his Irish policy. 
 At last, after solemnly pledging himself never to consent to 
 the retention of an Irish representation in the British Parlia- 
 ment when Ireland had a Parliament of her own, he carried 
 with his Irish confederates a measure retaining eighty Irish 
 members to coerce Great Britain. The Lords having rejected 
 a Bill from a leading provision of which members of the 
 Cabinet in tluit House allowed it to be seen in debate that 
 they dissented, he threatened them with destruction. But 
 knowing that an appeal from their verdict to the nation on the 
 simple issue of Home Rule would result in his defeat, he put 
 off his appeal till he should have had time to inflame and con- 
 fuse the mind of the people by a number of revolutionary 
 proposals, hoping thus to force through his Irish measure on 
 false issues. This policy is in effect avowed by his partisans 
 without shame. How much of this treatment do the upholders 
 of party government think that any country can bear? The
 
 122 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 higher you place Mr. Gladstone's intellect and character, the 
 greater his public services iu former days have been, the more 
 tremendous is the lesson. 
 
 We have seen also the tendency to demagogic despotism 
 inherent in the system of universal suffrage with large and 
 ignorant masses. Incapable of self -guidance, the masses blindly 
 follow a leader about whom many of them know nothing but 
 his name, but whom they have been taught to regard as the 
 man of the people. The result is a state of things far from 
 identical with genuine liberty. "Old Hickory," the idol of 
 the American populace, in the hour of his ascendancy was 
 enabled to trample on real freedom in the United States much 
 as a "G.O.M." is now enabled to trample on real freedom in 
 Great Britain. American admirers of Mr. Gladstone, looking 
 on at the scene, admit that he has hardly any supporters among 
 the upper or middle classes, that is, in the classes of intelli- 
 gence, the influence of which it thus appears may be eliminated 
 from government when the uninformed multitude finds a man 
 after its heart. 
 
 As it is in national, so it is in municipal affairs. Here, 
 also, for large constituencies, the elective system seems to 
 break down. In former ages the city was a social and politi- 
 cal unit; the citizens knew each other; they met in the town 
 hall or in their guilds; the great merchants, who now live 
 apart in suburban villas, lived within the walls in daily inter- 
 course with their fellow-citizens, exercised their natural 
 leadership, sought and held municipal office. A city now has 
 no unity. It is merely a densely peopled district requiring a 
 special administration. There is no mutual intelligence; a 
 man does not know his next-door neighbour; sometimes in 
 London he does not know his next-door neighbour's name. 
 Conference for the purpose of an elective choice is no longer 
 possible in great cities. Some one there must be, then, as in 
 the case of a political constituency, to designate the candidates 
 and combine the votes. Who is it to be? The answer is, the 
 ward politician, who designates himself, or is designated by 
 Tammany as the candidate, and organises the constituency or
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 123 
 
 has Tammany to organise it for him. He, like the profes- 
 sional politician of the larger sphere, into whom in fact he will 
 presently develop, devotes himself to the calling in which he 
 finds his interest, an interest too often like that which was 
 found in the municipal affairs of New York by William 
 Tweed. He has his organisation always on foot. If in an 
 access of municipal patriotism you attempt to oust him, 
 responding to the cry which everlastingly goes up for the 
 election of better men, you find yourself an amateur opposed 
 to a professional, a casual interloper contending Avith the regu- 
 lar master of the field. He knows all about the constituency, 
 especially the more corruptible or gullible part of it, while you 
 know nothing. His forces are always on foot. Yours have 
 to be set on foot with infinite trouble and no small cost. It is 
 hardly possible even to start a movement for the improvement 
 of elections. The great merchants will have nothing to do 
 with municipal reform ; they cannot afford to leave their busi- 
 ness, they utterly refuse themselves to hold the offices, they 
 shrink with aversion from an acrimonious and often dirty 
 struggle. When the corruption or misgovernment becomes 
 insufferable, as it did at New York in the time of Tweed, there 
 is a spasm of reform. This passes away, you slide back into 
 the old hands, and city government runs once more in its 
 groove. We see what has happened in New York, where, not 
 many years after the exposure and overthrow of Tweed, there 
 were scandals of the same kind, though in magnitude less 
 portentous. Men of the class of ward politicians, if they are 
 not paid, will find some way of paying themselves. If there 
 is not speculation there will be jobbery. Always there will be 
 waste arising from want of skill, foresight, or system, and from 
 the general character of the government, which is political, 
 when for municipalities it ought to be scientific. The first 
 object of aldermen or city councillors is to secure their own 
 re-election. In the Middle Ages municipal government had 
 to do Avith franchises, with trade rules, with the defence of 
 city liberties against royal or feudal rapacity. It liad little 
 or nothing to do with sanitary matters or education, and not
 
 124 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 much to do with police. Tlie department of education, if it 
 is a municipal affair, will be found to lapse into the same 
 hands as the rest. Hence philosophic observers of American 
 institutions tell you, and every one on the continent repeats, 
 that the great problem is city government. American and 
 Canadian cities are well governed in proportion as the admin- 
 istration is not elective, but has by the good sense of the 
 people been made over to skilled officers or standing commis- 
 sions. The best governed city of all is Washington, which, 
 being in a Federal district, is in the hands of three com- 
 missioners appointed, like other Federal officers, by the Presi- 
 dent of the United States with the consent of the Senate. 
 There is a city debt, the bequest of a former regime, but it 
 is being reduced, and everybody seems satisfied with the 
 administration; indeed, this is one of the attractions to resi- 
 dence at Washington. In face of all this experience and of the 
 moral to which it points, the British Parliament bestows on 
 London, in the quarters of which there is no unity or power 
 of collective choice, an elective government. Already the 
 London Council seems to be highly demagogic, and likely 
 to repel residence as much as Washington attracts it. Already 
 it seems to be a paradise of municipal agitators; the city 
 will be lucky if it does not presently become a paradise of 
 Tweeds. Really good men may come forward and be elected 
 at first, but experience seems to show that they will tire and 
 that the future belongs to the ward politician. 
 
 If by government is meant anything possessed of authority 
 or controlling power. Great Britain and the Empire are likely 
 to be without a government. This is a case in which the 
 politician most averse to speculative architecture and with 
 least in him of Sieyes must admit that it is time to look over 
 the building and see what repairs it needs. If the late Con- 
 servative government could have relied upon its men, this is 
 what it might have done. But the task was renounced when 
 the Prime Minister took the Foreign Office, and instead of 
 giving his mind to political reconstruction gave it to diplo- 
 matic mysteries. What do the masses, whose votes decide
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 125 
 
 the fate of an empire, care for diplomacy? What do they 
 care even for finance? The chief effect of Mr. Goschen's 
 brilliant achievements as Chancellor of the Exchequer, in the 
 mortal struggle which followed, was probably to turn against 
 Mr. Goschen's cause a number of people with small incomes, 
 whose dividends he had reduced by his conversion of the funds. 
 
 There are those who think no authority necessary. Anar- 
 chists, of course, think this, though it may be presumed that 
 an anarchist, if you broke his head or stole his purse, would, 
 provisionally, and all chimeras reserved, appeal to the police. 
 But the extreme theory of popular government comes pretty 
 nearly to the same thing. Its practical issue, as we have seen, 
 is the government of the caucus, the "boss," and William 
 Tweed; its tendency is to chronic revolution. Let govern- 
 ment be so ordered, if possible, that our increased enlight- 
 enment, our advances in civilisation, our quickened sense of 
 public interests, the elevation of our aims and hopes, all, in 
 short, that makes us more worthy of the name of a commu- 
 nity than were nations in the earlier stage of evolution, may 
 tell on its character; without a government we can hardly do. 
 The aim of the moderate Liberal is a government with real 
 authority, national, not partisan, raised above the passions 
 and. delusions of the hour, stable enough to produce confidence, 
 yet responsible and open to the influence of opinion, the free 
 expression of which has been the one clear gain of all these 
 revolutions. Government of the people, Lincoln said, was 
 never to perish from the earth. It was perishing when Lin- 
 coln spoke, and the government of the Boss was taking its 
 place. 
 
 What is this "people, "the worship of which has succeeded 
 to the worship of kings, and is too often not less abject or 
 subversive of public virtue? On the lips of demagogues it 
 means the " masses " without the " classes," that is, without the 
 education and intelligence. In the minds of the Jacobins it 
 was a deity : they called it the divine people. In the minds 
 of most of us it is a vague impersonation of the community 
 abstracted from individual follies, cupidities, and infirmities.
 
 126 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Nothing answers to this fancy. Let us have done with fig- 
 ments in which we can no longer afford to indulge. Ignorance 
 a million times multiplied does not make knowledge, nor are 
 politics so different from other subjects that without knowl- 
 edge, and under the influence of passion, political questions 
 are likely to be settled aright. It is said that the wisdom of 
 all men is greater than the wisdom of any one man. No 
 doubt it is so on questions which all men understand. 
 
 Few, even if they desire it, would deem it possible to re- 
 store hereditary monarchy as a political power. Things serve 
 their purpose and have tlieir day. Hereditary monarchy 
 served a purpose which nothing else could serve; and appar- 
 ently it has had its day. The New World, the leading shoot 
 and the index of tendency, rejects it. In Europe, it can hardly 
 be said to live otherwise than in form and name except in 
 Russia and Germany, in which last, owing to the circumstances 
 of federation, the part played therein by the monarchy, and 
 the military character of the Empire, the Emperor retains 
 power. France, formerly its grandest seat, has to all appear- 
 ances finally abandoned it. In Spain, once so intensely 
 loyal, it was for a time overthrown, and it appears now to be 
 regarded as a stop gap and a respite. In Great Britain it 
 has lost all power, even the power of naming its own house- 
 hold, which was denied it by the loyal Peel, though it has 
 not lost hold on sentiment, particularly in the rural districts. 
 Nobody is surprised or shocked by seeing in the midst of a 
 political crisis daily accounts of the doings of royalty at some 
 health resort or pleasure resort on the Continent. A man of 
 commanding character on the throne, coming forward at a 
 juncture like the present, might appeal with effect to the 
 heart of a nation. But there is no use in looking for com- 
 manding character in kings at the present da.y. Kings in 
 the Middle Ages had to exert themselves in order to keep 
 their crowns upon their heads, and were trained more or 
 less in the school of practical duty, in spite of which they 
 often succumbed to the temptations of a court. But a modern
 
 THE ruLlTlCAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 127 
 
 king is nursed in luxury and flattery, without the ancient 
 correctives, responsibility and need of exertion. He is pro- 
 tected by an invisible fence from contact with rude realities. 
 Knowing that he will not be allowed to govern, but only to 
 hold levees and lay first stones, he has no inducement to fit 
 himself for government. Public duty can be little else than 
 a name to him. You have no right to expect of him more 
 than that he shall be a respectable and harmless sybarite, and 
 you have not much reason to complain if he is a George IV. 
 Ask a minister of any modern court how often he has found 
 the court willing to sacrifice its personal convenience or even 
 its fancies to the public service. Think how, during the last 
 two centuries, British royalty has discharged the very easy, 
 gracious, and useful duty of visiting Ireland. Not one in 
 twenty, or perhaps in a hundred of us, will work hard or prac- 
 tise self-denial unless he is compelled. 
 
 The House of Lords is now the only hereditary chamber 
 left in Europe, though in some others there lingers an heredi- 
 tary element. It is the last leaf on that tree, and it has hung 
 so long because its power has been so small and its Order, 
 having no social privileges so offensive as those of the French 
 Noblesse, has, compared with the French Noblesse, given 
 little umbrage. At this juncture destiny has been kind 
 to it. It has the honour of standing between the nation 
 and dismemberment, and will receive the present support of 
 wise friends of union, however they may deal with it in the 
 future. Nor does freedom suffer more disparagement from 
 the interposition of an hereditary Peerage than from the 
 uncontrolled action of a Parliamentary dictator. The despot 
 of the Closure has received a check. Law in its resistance 
 to lawless violence has found for the moment a bulwark in 
 the House of Lords. It is pleasant, too, while the House of 
 Commons is cringing to the caucus and its idol, to see some- 
 thing like independence elsewhere. Yet few, looking at the 
 course which things have been taking in Europe, can believe 
 that a privileged Order is destined to be the sheet anchor of 
 the State in the future, or even that it will long be allowed to
 
 128 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 exist. What has been said of hereditary kingship is true of 
 an hereditary aristocracy. It is not an object of rational 
 hatred; it may be an object of historical gratitude. It was 
 an organising force, perhaps the sole available force of the 
 kind, at a time when, there being no central administration 
 strong enough to hold society together, the only mode of 
 preserving order was territorial delegation. Nor could any- 
 thing else well have curbed the lawless aggrandisement of 
 kings. In those days the Baron was local ruler, judge, and 
 captain. His life was one of exertion and of peril. Histo- 
 rians even think that the lives of the nobility were shortened 
 by their troubles as well as by the sword. But there is 
 nothing now to prevent an hereditary Peer from sinking into 
 the sybaritism, to which wealth and assured rank tempt him. 
 Brought up in a school of honour the Peers may be ; but they 
 are also brought up to homage which they have not earned; 
 and nobility, instead of being regarded as an obligation, is apt 
 to be regarded as an exemption from duty. Among men of 
 pleasure without employment scandals are sure to occur. 
 They have not been very numerous in the case of the British 
 aristocracy, but they all tell. The Peers cannot be got even 
 to attend in their own House. The number of Peers present 
 at important debates sometimes hardly equals that of a 
 dinner-party. Their wise leaders have always been lecturing 
 them on this subject; but in vain. 
 
 Nor can it be denied that the House of Lords, besides repre- 
 senting a privileged Order in an age when privilege is con- 
 demned, represents too exclusively a special interest, that of 
 the proprietors of land. This disqualifies it from acting as 
 an impartial court of legislative revision. In fact it has never 
 played that part, but always the part of an organ of a privi- 
 leged Order and of the landed interest, opposing every 
 change. It has opposed not only political change, as in the 
 case of its blind resistance to the Eeform Bill, but such changes 
 as the Habeas Corpus Act, the humane improvement of the 
 criminal law, the emancipation of the press. Boswell, as we 
 know, relied upon it to block the abolition of the slave
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 129 
 
 trade. There is no use in blinking the fact that its record 
 will not bear scrutiny. Delay, however caused, affords time 
 for reconsideration; in no other sense can it be said that the 
 House of Lords has given expression to the sober second 
 thought of the nation. It cannot claim and does not possess 
 the national confidence on that ground. 
 
 Nor is it the decadence of the hereditary principle alone 
 which is shaking the foundation of the House of Lords. 
 Birth by itself would have commanded little homage, even if 
 the pedigrees had been longer than they really are. The solid 
 basis has been furnished by the entailed estates, not only those 
 held by the Peers themselves, but those of the whole landed 
 aristocracy and gentry, whom the House of Lords heads and 
 represents. But the rents of the estates are falling, apparently 
 never to rise again. It does not seem that wheat, the staple 
 product of British agriculture, is likely to be henceforth grown 
 with profit in competition with the harvests of countries vastly 
 superior in area and comparatively stable in climate. Besides 
 Russia and America, Hindostan, and now the Argentine, are 
 pouring their wheat into the market. In Hindostan the area 
 is said to be capable of great enlargement; better implements 
 will increase its yield, and railway extension will bring it 
 nearer to the ports ; while its cultivator lives on so little that 
 production is very cheap. Even the Canadian Northwest, vast 
 and immensely fertile as it is, finds itself, in face of such 
 rivalry, a failure as a speculation in wheat-growing, though it 
 may not be a failure as a home. It is not probable that the 
 land of England will henceforth be able to bear the three 
 orders, squire, tenant-farmer, and farm laboiirer. English 
 estates, moreover, are, many of them, burdened with mortgages 
 or rent charges in favour of dowagers or younger children, 
 which remain fixed while rents fall. A great economical 
 change brings, as usual, political and social changes in its train. 
 Family mansions are being deserted by owners departing to 
 economise where their penury will not be seen, and the old 
 order of rural life is breaking up. The manorial system, with 
 all its good and evil, with all its beauty and deformity, is 
 
 K
 
 130 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 passing away; while social and political hatred is working 
 with malignant energy to precipitate and complete its ruin. An 
 impoverished Peerage with no great body of landed gentry 
 behind it, will scarcely command allegiance or form a firm 
 barrier against the rising fury of the democratic tide. 
 
 Is the House of Lords to be ended or mended? That is the 
 great practical question now before the British nation. Revo- 
 lutionists say, end the House of Lords ; the opponents of revo- 
 lution say, mend it, and let it save the country from the 
 uncontrolled sway of a faction-stricken and caucus-ridden 
 House of Commons which has lost the character of a delibera- 
 tive assembly or national council and become the mere cock-pit 
 of party, luiable even to preserve order and decency in its 
 debates. The House of Commons, Radicals assert, repre- 
 sents, or, when we have swept away the last safeguards, will 
 represent, the will of the people. It represents the will of the 
 people distilled through the sinister alembic of the caucus and 
 sophisticated by the arts of Mr. Schnadhorst and his compeers. 
 We do not want to be governed by anybody's will, but by 
 the reason of the community, which is far enough from being 
 represented by the existing House of Commons. 
 
 Mended, and effectively mended, if revolution is to be 
 averted, the House of Lords must be. It must be mended so 
 as to make it once more what, by the theory of the constitu- 
 tion it is, a co-ordinate branch of the legislature, a real check 
 on the imprudence and violence of the popular House, and a 
 worthy rallying-point for the rational conservatism of the 
 nation. The proposal to reduce its powers to a suspensive 
 veto is a mockery. The suspensive veto would soon become a 
 mere form and would have no other effect than that of some- 
 what impairing the sense of responsibility in the lower House. 
 What man of mark would care to sit in a House which had no 
 other power? A nominative Senate is condemned by experi- 
 ence, notably by the experience of Canada, where the institu- 
 tion is an unquestionable failure and the nominations are little 
 better than an addition to the corruption fund in the hands
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 131 
 
 of a party government. An infusion of life Peerage is a feeble 
 measure, and was probably brought forward by Lord Salisbury 
 to stave off a more drastic reform. The life element would 
 scarcely fuse with the hereditary element, and as often as the 
 life element was outvoted, there would be a clamour for the 
 abolition of hereditism, the principle of which would have been 
 morally condemned by the change. In these times it seems to 
 be only on an elective basis that an institution can firmly rest. 
 Great Britain has nothing corresponding to the States of the 
 American Union, but the County Councils are said so far to 
 have worked well and would furnish a fair elective basis. 
 The importance which the power of election to the second 
 chamber would give them might in some degree stay the flight 
 of the squire, encourage him to hold his own as a County 
 Councillor, and thus break the fall of the manorial system. 
 To the representatives of the Councils might be added a certain 
 number of members appointed as having held high offices or 
 commands, for professional eminence, or for signal services to 
 the State. Round such a body rational conservatism might 
 surely rally. 
 
 When the plan for a reorganised second chamber has been 
 formed, the difficulty will remain of carrying it through the 
 House of Commons, where the revolutionists will wreck it if 
 they can. Next to ending the second chamber altogether they 
 naturally prefer the retention of the present House, which is 
 practically an ostracism of rank and wealth. The flank of 
 their opposition might be turned if the Lords chose to reform 
 themselves by a resolution delegating active powers to a select 
 body of their own number, as by a resolution they divested 
 themselves of the obnoxious privilege of voting by jiroxy, and 
 as the lay members renounced in the crucial case of O'Connell, 
 without formal resolution, their privilege of voting on legal 
 appeals. This, however, implies an amount of self-sacrifice 
 on the part of the majority of the Order which it would be 
 sanguine to expect. 
 
 It is to be observed, on the other hand, that the revolution- 
 ists cannot, otherwise than by force, abolish the House of
 
 132 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Lords or reduce its powers without its own consent. To 
 swamp it by the creation of four or five hundred Peers would 
 be morally an act not of legislation but of civil war. Actual 
 civil war would then impend. An attempt of the House of 
 Commons to upset the constitution and engross the whole 
 power of the State would be as much an usurpation as the 
 attempt of James II. ; and in the last resort might be lawfully 
 resisted in the same way. 
 
 The retention of the bi-cameral system is taken for granted. 
 The existence of that system is an accident of British history, 
 probably arising out of the division of the Barons into the 
 greater, who took their seats in the Great Council, and the 
 lesser Barons, who did not, and who formed a landed gentry 
 which cast in its lot with the Commons. Chance, however, 
 often chooses well. The weakest point of the bi-cameral system 
 is that, to form the Senate, it is necessary to take the experi- 
 ence and the mature wisdom out of the popular House, which 
 needs their control, and to put them into a House by them- 
 selves where they are in danger of being discredited as the 
 experience and wisdom of greybeards who are behind the age, 
 and estranged from the feelings and wishes of the people; 
 though the liability to estrangement would not be great in the 
 case of a second chamber elected by the County Councils. 
 Again there is danger of dead-lock. In the United States, 
 where the Senate is really co-ordinate with the House of 
 Representatives, as often as the majorities of the two Houses 
 belong to different parties, dead-lock ensues, and legislation 
 on important matters is in abeyance. There is also danger of 
 diminishing the sense of responsibility in the lower House, 
 members of which will give a popular vote for a measure which 
 they disapprove, trusting that the measure will be thrown out 
 by the Senate. This has notoriously happened in the United 
 States, and is happening now in England, where it is known 
 that not a few of those who voted for Mr. Gladstone's Home 
 Rule Bill condemned it in private, and would scarcely have 
 been able to stifle conscience had they not felt sure that the 
 measure would be thrown out by the House of Lords. It
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 133 
 
 would be easy, without a second chamber, to provide safeguards 
 against legislative precipitancy by regulating the procedure, 
 or by giving a suspensive veto to a certain proportion of the 
 House. But the bi-cameral system is in possession. It is in 
 possession not only of all the constitutional laws and forms, 
 and of the Palace at Westminster, but of the national mind; 
 and Lincoln's advice not to change horses when crossing the 
 stream has double force when the stream is so heady. All 
 objections are far outweighed by the pressing necessity of 
 providing a sutficient safeguard against legislative violence and 
 revolution. 
 
 It is not the House of Lords only that needs to be mended. 
 Changes are not less needed to restore the independence and 
 dignity of the House of Commons, to redeem it from the con- 
 dition of a voting machine worked by the caucus, to prevent it 
 from becoming, as violent men try to make it, a mere organ 
 of revolution, and give it once more the character of a coun- 
 cil of the nation. The only guarantee for independence, sav- 
 ing with heroic souls, is a certain security of tenure. Let each 
 member hold for the term of seven years certain, or whatever 
 the term is to be, from the day of his election, unless he takes 
 office under the Crown; in which case, perhaps, a sentiment 
 rooted, though rather obsolete, would still require him to go 
 to his constituents for re-election. It would be found that 
 the House, to which many men are elected late in life, 
 changed fully as fast as national opinion, especially if the 
 killing length of the sessions and the killing lateness of the 
 hours are maintained. But it would always have in it a cer- 
 tain number of men tolerably free to vote according to their 
 convictions. Its existence would be continuous, and there 
 would not be, as there now is, an anomalous interval between 
 dissolution and re-election, wlion, the supreme poAver being 
 now vested in Parliament, that power is for a time in abey- 
 ance. 
 
 Such a change would involve the abandonment of the pre- 
 rogative, vested nominally in the Crown, really in the party 
 leader, of penal dissolution. This is the relic of a time when
 
 134 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 government was really in the Crown and Parliament was 
 called to advise the Crown and grant taxes. It became irra- 
 tional when supreme power vested in Parliament. Still it 
 used to be exercised with some measure and in accordance 
 with some principle lodged in the breasts of hereditary or 
 trained statesmen. It is now used as a card in the hands of 
 a leader of faction, who dissolves Parliament to bring on an 
 election, when his local wire-pullers tell him that the chances 
 are in his favour. Thus the tenure of a member of Parlia- 
 ment is not for a legal term, but during the pleasure of the 
 leader of a dominant faction, and he votes always under peril 
 of dissolution as well as under the dictation of the caucus. 
 The abuse of this prerogative in the colonies, where politicians 
 are under no restraint by unwritten principle or tradition, 
 shows what may be expected in England. Un the last occa- 
 sion in Canada, the Dominion Parliament was dissolved on a 
 false pretext which was exposed upon the spot, simply because 
 the party leader thought that the wind at that moment was in 
 his favour. A middle course would be to leave the preroga- 
 tive of dissolution, but provide that it shall be exercised only 
 on the advice of the Privy Council, or on that of a Senate. 
 There would be an end also of general elections. These, 
 again, are a survival, and in surviving have totally changed 
 their nature. They were originally a summons to the people 
 to send up representatives of their counties and boroughs to 
 inform the Crown about local needs, and vote the subsidies. 
 Each of them is now an enormous faction fight, the prizes of 
 which are the offices of State and the control of the national 
 policy. Each of them is a civil war without arms, and excites 
 the same anti-social and anti-national passions which civil 
 war itself excites, sometimes with results hardly less grave. 
 A false and dangerous stimulus is given to innovation, be- 
 cause each of the parties, especially the party of movement, 
 has to allure support by promises, which in the excitement of 
 the game become reckless, as Avell as by denunciation of its 
 opponent. The Newcastle programme, drawn up to gain votes, 
 raises issues which together Avould be enough to bring on
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 135 
 
 revolution. Legislation itself is in fact fast becoming a mode 
 of canvassing for the next general election. The public 
 time is wasted by the introduction of measures which, it is 
 known, cannot pass, for the sake of raising a storm on whicli 
 the party may ride to power at the polls. In America, civil 
 war ensued upon a presidential election, which corresponds 
 to a general election in England. No country can bear 
 forever these convulsions, which grow more violent as tlie 
 suffrage is extended, and more frequent as the exercise of 
 the prerogative of dissolution becomes more unrestrained. 
 
 The plebiscite, where it can be used, as it well might be in 
 the case of any amendment to the constitution, has the im- 
 mense advantage of submitting a single and definite question 
 to the vote, clear of all alien issues, and as clear as possible 
 of personal and local influence. It might be that the people 
 would decide in favour of woman suffrage ; but they could not 
 be worried or coaxed into voting for it as individual members 
 of a legislature are; nor would they, like party leaders, suc- 
 cumb to the fear of offending and estranging a coming vote. 
 
 A parliament which is sovereign, having unlimited power 
 of legislation on all subjects, has over a parliament bound by 
 a written constitution, like the American Congress, the ad- 
 vantage of a greater freedom of adaptation and national devel- 
 opment ; though it would not be necessary to copy the extreme 
 rigidity of American safeguards. But the present course of 
 events in England seems to indicate that in a democratic 
 republic a written constitution may be indispensable. With- 
 out it there may be a perpetual danger of a revolutionary ex- 
 ercise of the legislative power by any ephemeral faction in tlie 
 moment of its ascendancy. For something of the kind tlie 
 radical " bugle " is now being sounded, and if this prospect is 
 pleasant for political sportsmen, every man of sense must 
 know what is in store for the nation. 
 
 To reascend the slope of democratic concession under the 
 elective system, with tin' parties bidding against each other 
 for votes, is not less difl^ieult tluin tlic descent is easy. To 
 very extended male suffrage you have already come. To
 
 136 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 universal male suffrage, with one man, one vote, you are 
 visibly coming. To universal suffrage, male and female, you 
 are very likely to come. With universal suffrage, male and 
 female, and without a written constitution, or any check what- 
 ever except the "throne," upon the exercise of sovereign power 
 by the "will" of such a "people," you may look forward to 
 interesting times. In the end, perhaps, by a convulsive effort 
 of society to escape from confusion, the truncheon may revert 
 to the Protector's hand. But in the meantime what may hap- 
 pen to a highly commercial nation, most sensitively organised, 
 to which a moment of confusion means widespread distress? 
 It is surely irrational to assert that any man has a right to a 
 vote, that is, to a share of political power, whether he is 
 capable or whether he is incapable of using it for the general 
 good and his own. It has been truly said that if such a right 
 exists, it must exist in every human being, in the Hottentot as 
 well as in the civilised man. To fix a standard of age is to fix 
 a standard of fitness, and to fix a standard of fitness is to bar 
 ignorance and irresponsibility as well as nonage. The right 
 which every one has is that of qualifying himself for the 
 exercise of political power, if he can. Audiences of working- 
 men, however democratic, seemed not to resent the assertion 
 that political power was a trust, and that a man ought to 
 qualify himself and give some guarantee for its right exer- 
 cise. A property or residence qualification as assurance of 
 a stake in the country may be obsolete, or no longer feasible, 
 though there is surely still some sense in the axiom that 
 representation and taxation should go together, while the 
 experience of American and of Colonial democracy appears 
 to show that unless representation and taxation do go together, 
 expenditure is likely to be free. But property qualification as 
 a test of industry, frugality, and responsibility can never be 
 obsolete till communism reigns and property is no more. Still 
 less can it be said by any one but a Jacobin that an educa- 
 tional qualification is obsolete, or tliat while on every subject 
 but politics, ignorance is fatal, a man is fit to decide by his 
 vote the question of Home Kule who hardly knows on which
 
 THE POLITICAL CRISIS IN ENGLAND. 137 
 
 side of England Ireland lies. If it is our duty to educate our 
 masters, it is the duty of our masters to get themselves edu- 
 cated, and to give proof that they liave had schooling sufficient 
 to be capable of understanding at least what the political ques- 
 tions mean. Nor is there any reason, except the tyrannical 
 exigencies of party, why the suffrage should be thrust by a 
 self-acting system of registration upon the man who does not 
 care enough for it or for public qu.estions to take the trouble 
 of putting himself upon the Register. An educational quali- 
 fication, which there are simple methods of ascertaining, and 
 personal application for the vote as a guarantee for a spark of 
 civic duty are surely no more than the commonwealth has a 
 right to require. 
 
 After all, what is a vote? That is a question which 
 socialistic radicalism, if it goes to the length of dismember- 
 ment and rapine, may force people to ask themselves in 
 earnest. Is the right of majorities divine? Are people bound 
 in conscience to allow themselves to be voted to perdition 
 when the real force is on their side and they might save them- 
 selves, if they chose, by the strong hand? Nobody pretends 
 to believe that a majority is infallible, or even that it is a 
 very strong guarantee for wisdom, truth, and justice. If any 
 one did, the history of opinion would rise up in judgment 
 against him. By agreeing to count heads, men avoided deci- 
 sion by force, the only arbitrator in that primitive state of 
 things of which the Polish liberum veto was a relic. Counting 
 heads was not weighing brains; still it was an invaluable 
 invention, and communities owe it, if not invariable wisdom, 
 unbroken peace, freedom at least from physical violence. 
 Decision by count of heads is an institution as worthy of 
 profound respect, as sacred, if you will, as utility can make it. 
 But utility cannot give a title higher than itself, and if in nine 
 hundred and ninety-nine cases out of a thousand it is right for 
 those who think they have the real force upon their side to 
 yield for the sake of peace and order to the more numerous 
 yet weaker party, in the thousandth case it may not be right. 
 A vote is, in a great number of cases, an artificial power
 
 138 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 which strength concedes to weakness, and which places weak- 
 ness politically on a level with strength. If weakness abuses 
 the artificial power beyond a certain limit, strength would 
 appear to be morally at liberty to assert itself. People are 
 not bound to fold their arms in tame submission when they can 
 prevent the cruel indulgence of class hatred, public rapine, or 
 the dismemberment of the nation, aiiy more than they are 
 bound to fold their arms in tame submission when the tyranny 
 of a despot becomes insufferable. There are international 
 situations, though few, out of which the only exit is war. 
 There are domestic situations, far fewer still, out of which, as 
 Mirabeau saw, the only exit is civil war, or the display of a 
 determination to face civil war rather than suffer the extremity 
 of wrong. A majority, conscious that its power is artificial, 
 and that the real strength is on the other side, will almost 
 always decline the conflict and refrain from further aggression. 
 If it does not, the national destiny at all events will be 
 decided, not by demagogic appeals to passion and the love of 
 plunder, or by the craft of Old Parliamentary Hands, but by 
 the genuine force and manhood of the nation.
 
 THE EMPIRE.
 
 THE EMPIRE. 
 
 The name Empire stirs in the British heart a sentiment of 
 pride which the writer thoroughly shares, but which, unless it 
 is kept within the bounds of fact and policy, may be the pre- 
 cursor of a fall. When the House of Comnions has passed a 
 bill for the severance of the British Islands from each other, 
 to discuss the advantages and disadvantages of remote depend- 
 encies can hardly be deemed an insult to the national honour. 
 
 Freeman did us a service in making us think what we meant 
 by "Empire." The vague use of the name is practically delu- 
 sive and perilous. British Empire in India is Empire in the 
 true sense of the term, since Hindostan is governed with 
 imperial sway. So, in their way, are the military dependencies 
 such as Malta and Gibraltar. But the self -governed colonies 
 are not Empire at all. The reasons for retaining the three 
 classes of possessions are totally different, as are the rules for 
 dealing with them. The West India Islands, again, a set of 
 extinct slave plantations, are a case by themselves. No plan 
 or systematic policy has governed this motley accumulation of 
 possessions. England has had no Will of Peter the Great. The 
 only pervading agency, besides tlie aggressive energy of a high- 
 strung race, fruitful of splendid adventurers, has been the mari- 
 time superiority which enabled and induced England, while she 
 had not the means of putting a great land force on European bat- 
 tle-fields, to extend her acquisitions by sea at the expense of 
 less maritime rivals. Cases essentially different, common sense 
 requires to be differently treated, and as to all cases, common 
 sense says that change of circumstance ought to be taken into 
 account. But in approaching the question of Empire from a 
 rational point of view, and essaying to test the value of its 
 
 141
 
 142 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 several elements, we are met at once by the cry of "prestige." 
 Give up anything, we are told, and you ruin the prestige of 
 that Empire on which the sun never sets. What is prestige? 
 Etymologically, a conjuring trick. Actually, a sham force. 
 Is it possible that there can be anything really valuable in a 
 sham? Will not your enemy see through it as well as your- 
 self? Wooden guns may be of use till it is found out that 
 they are wooden, after which they are hardly worth defending. 
 Dependencies widely scattered and which you have no adequate 
 force to guard must be military weakness, of which your 
 enemy cannot fail to be aware. Your enemy, in fact, is aware 
 of it, and acts in his dealings with you upon the knowledge 
 that you are vulnerable in all parts of the globe. England 
 deems herself the happy nation that has no frontier. She has 
 a frontier in India of vast extent, menaced, as is supposed, by 
 the greatest military power in the world, to say nothing of the 
 neighbourhood, on the other side, of China, which may some 
 day become military. In Canada she has a frontier of three 
 thousand miles perfectly open to the attack of a nation of 
 sixty-five millions, which the other day had a million of men 
 in arms, and can at any moment throw an irresistible force 
 across the line. The primacy of the sea remains to her. 
 Supremacy is no longer hers, as it was at the time when the 
 navies of Erance and Spain had fallen into decrepitude and 
 that of Russia was but just born ; or again, when Duncan had 
 crushed the navy of Holland at Camperdown, and Nelson 
 had crushed the navies of France and Spain at Trafalgar. 
 Steam, too, has changed the aspect of naval affairs. Hoche 
 would now be sure of his landing in Bantry Bay. Nor, till 
 the fearful experiment of a naval war with ironclads has been 
 tried, can we tell how far the pre-eminence of the British 
 sailor will be affected by the change from the Victory to the 
 turret and the ram. A Frenchman, though inferior to a 
 Briton in close action or in boarding, may behind his iron 
 wall show as much intelligence in handling a machine. 
 
 There is surely no disparagement in saying that England's 
 real strength was always in herself. It was in her race of
 
 THE EMPIRE. 143 
 
 men, her position, good for commerce with both hemispheres, 
 her coal and iron, the spirit of her free institutions. Opponents 
 of territorial aggrandisement are always taxed with insularity. 
 What is it that makes British policy insular? Cromwell's 
 policy was not insular, nor was that of the statesmen of Eliza- 
 beth. What compelled England to stand aloof, lending no 
 help but protocols, while Italy was struggling for independence? 
 What would compel her to stand aloof if Russia and France 
 should set on Germany and overturn the balance of power in 
 Europe with the ultimate humiliation of Great Britain herself 
 in view? What but those dispersed possessions which she 
 knows herself to be unable to defend. When the advocate of 
 prudence is flouted as a " little Englander " his answer is that 
 bulk is not sinew and that he prefers the strong man to 
 the stuffed giant. 
 
 Thirty years ago the question arose of ceding the Ionian 
 Islands to Greece. They were useless to England as posses- 
 sions. Their people, though well treated, were fractious, and 
 were always giving trouble. Not only did they bring no 
 strength, but in case of war with a Mediterranean Power, 
 either they must have been abandoned with disgrace, or a force 
 which could not have been spared must have been shut up in 
 them and would probably have been lost. Yet the cry was 
 raised at once that cession would be a betrayal of weakness, 
 and would be fatal to imperial prestige. The Islands were 
 ceded, nevertheless, and by Lord Palmerston, the Minister of 
 aggrandisement, whose ambition it was to make the name of 
 Englishman as formidable as that of Roman had been of old. 
 Did Great Britain thereby lose a particle of real strength or of 
 genuine reputation? Did she not rid herself of weakness and 
 gain reputation for wisdom? Of the present generation, per- 
 haps few are conscious that England was ever possessed of the 
 Ionian Islands, any more than they know that the King of 
 England was once King of Corsica, and for good reasons 
 resigned that Crown. 
 
 Spanish historians begin the reign of Philip II. with the 
 resounding roll of the kingdoms, provinces, colonies, and for-
 
 144 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 tresses of which he was lord in all parts of the globe. "He 
 possessed in Europe the kingdoms of Castile, Aragon, and 
 Navarre, those of Naples and Sicily, Milan, Sardinia, Eous- 
 sillon, the Balearic Islands, the Low Countries, and Franche 
 Comte; on the western coast of Africa he held the Canaries, 
 Cape Verd, Oran, and Tunis; in Asia he held the Philippines 
 and a part of the Moluccas; in the New World he held the 
 immense kingdoms of Mexico, Peru, and Chili, and the pro- 
 vinces conquered in the last years of Charles V., besides Cuba, 
 Hispaniola, and other islands and possessions. His marriage 
 with the Queen of England had placed in his hands the power 
 and resources of that kingdom. So that it might well be said 
 that the sun never set in the dominions of the King of Spain, 
 and that at the least movement of that nation the whole world 
 trembled." We now know what relation all these possessions 
 and titles bore to real strength and to the sources of a genuine 
 prosperity. How does the refusal to examine rationally the 
 Imperial policy of Great Britain on the ground that you 
 detract from her prestige, differ from the blind pride that 
 went before the fall of Spain? Suppose some bold man at the 
 Council Board of Philip II. had said that Spain in grasping 
 the globe was losing Spain, would he not have forfeited his 
 head? Yet would not his voice have been that of true patri- 
 otism and real greatness? Spain was at the height of her 
 " prestige " when Drake, seeing her impotence, went into Cadiz 
 and singed the Spaniard's beard. The policy of real strength 
 must be the patriotic policy ; the policy of real weakness, how- 
 ever colossal, must be that which a true patriot would discard. 
 This will not be a mere truism till it is accepted as the truth. 
 
 The British Empire in India is an Empire in the true sense 
 of the term, and the noblest the world has seen, though the 
 Eoman Empire had the honour of being the mould in which 
 modern Europe was cast. Never had there been such an at- 
 tempt to make conquest the servant of civilisation. About 
 keeping India there is no question. England has a real duty 
 there, she has undertaken a great work and stands pledged
 
 THE EMPIRE. 145 
 
 before the world to perform it. She has vast interests and 
 investments. Her departure would consign Hindostan to the 
 sanguinary and plundering anarchy from which her advent 
 rescued it. The Hindoo and the Mahometan, between whom 
 she with difficulty keeps the peace, would again grapple in 
 murderous strife, while Mahrattas and Pindarees would recom- 
 mence their raids. The "cultivated baboo," who, owing his 
 being to the Empire, sometimes rails against it, would be the 
 first to perish, crushed like an egg-shell amidst the warring 
 elements which its withdrawal would let loose. 
 
 No moral compunction need be felt in retaining this con- 
 quest. It is a monument not of British rapacity but of British 
 superiority, especially at sea. England was only one of four 
 competitors for the prize. Portugal came first, but she was 
 too small to retain so distant an Empire, and at the critical 
 moment she fell into the paralysing grasp of Spain. Holland 
 had, as has been remarked, the advantage of undivided devotion 
 to the aims of commerce, while England was divided between 
 those of commerce and those of territorial aristocracy; but 
 she, again, was too small, and she also was crippled at the 
 critical moment, being attacked by France, who thus unwit- 
 tingly played the game of England. France herself was the 
 most formidable rival, and by the hand of Dupleix she had all 
 but grasped the prize. But being less maritime than England, 
 she was less capable of securing the sea base essential to the 
 tenure of an Empire formed, unlike preceding Empires, unless 
 we except the Carthaginian and Spanish, by extension not 
 from a territorial centre, but from a sea base. The navy of 
 France once overpowered, her access by sea once barred, her 
 military force was useless. Her government also was corrupt, 
 was swayed by harlots, was weak yet despotic, and meddled 
 mischievously with the French East India Company while the 
 British East India Company had political power to back it and 
 a comparatively free hand.^ The British had also the great 
 advantage over Catholic powers of religious toleration. The 
 Portuguese brought the Inquisition with them to Goa and pro- 
 
 iSee Sir Alfred Lyall's The Bise of the British Dominion in India.
 
 146 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 claimed a war of extermination against paganism. The reli- 
 gion of the Englishman was political. If he persecuted Papists 
 or Dissenters, it was on political grounds. He was willing, 
 like the Roman, to respect the religions or superstitions of 
 other races so long as they did not rebel against his rule. He 
 carried this so far as to own Juggernaut and swear by the sun, 
 moon, and earth to the observance of a treaty. Far from seek- 
 ing to convert the heathen by force, he looked, in the early 
 days of the Empire, with little complacency even on voluntary 
 conversion. When to these advantages are added the qualities 
 of the race, the schooling of its institutions, and the appear- 
 ance on the scene of such men as Clive, Hastings, and Welles- 
 ley, British dominion in India is seen to be no accident. 
 
 Still less can the Empire be said to be the fruit of a settled 
 policy of aggrandisement. An act of Parliament in 1793 
 declared that '' to pursue schemes of conquest and extension of 
 dominion in India are measures repugnant to the wish, the 
 honour, and the policy of this nation." Both on the part of 
 the Government and on that of the Company there was a desire 
 to restrain extension and keep out of native embroilments 
 which sometimes went the length of pusillanimity and deser- 
 tion of allies. The pioneers of British lordship over India 
 were Clive and Hastings. But the idea of lordship dates only 
 from the proconsulate of Wellesley, who, after his Imperial 
 achievements, wrote to his chief in England that he did not 
 know whether he would be praised or hanged for what he had 
 done. The invasion of Scinde by the hot-headed Napier was 
 an aggression, and was generally condemned. Against the 
 annexation of Oude protests were raised, but it was justified 
 by the necessity of putting an end to the misgovernment of the 
 native dynasty, which became insufferable, and the responsi- 
 bility for which rested on the protecting power. With these 
 exceptions, it may be said that from the repulse of Surajah 
 Dowlah's attack on Calcutta to the repulse of the Sikh inva- 
 sion, which was totally unprovoked, British empire in India 
 has been acquired by defensive war. By no moderate or 
 timorous counsels could the march of destiny be stayed.
 
 THE EMPIRE. 147 
 
 Threatened by the French and Dutch as well as by the anarchy 
 around it, the Company could not help taking arms. In the 
 chaos of devastation, plunder, and massacre which followed the 
 fall of the Mogul Empire, a power at once of force and of 
 order could not help gaining ground. The fragments of the 
 shattered structure were sure to gravitate towards the only 
 centre of reorganisation. No other power was left save those 
 of the Mahrattas, not rulers, but raiders, with the fell Pin- 
 darees in their train, of the Sultans of Mysore, mere barbaric 
 conquerors, and of the militant sect of Sikhs beyond the Sutlej, 
 who would have waged against the Mahometans a war of 
 extermination. Our title has been force, but it has not been 
 rapine, which was the title of the chief native dynasties and 
 powers. 
 
 No national feeling has been trampled on. Hindostan has 
 never been a nation. It is a vast expanse of social tissue of 
 which the cell is the village community, while the pervading 
 influences are religion and caste. The great movements have 
 been religious and not political: Buddhism, which asserted 
 spiritual equality against caste, Vishnuism, a liberal and 
 philanthropic reform of Hindooism, and Sikhism, a Hindoo 
 schism which gave birth to a military sect. Government had 
 always been sheer despotism. For centuries it had been the 
 despotism of conquerors who swooped from the mountains of 
 the north upon the languid population of the plains, and would 
 probably have repeated their inroads if the British had not 
 come upon the scene. Conquest might also have resumed its 
 desolating march from the mountain home of the Mahratta, 
 who was already levying his blackmail far and wide, or from 
 the table-land of Mysore. The Moguls were foreigners as well 
 as the British. Their court and government were foreign, they 
 were the heads of a dominant race, alien to the Hindoo in 
 blood and religion, and sometimes persecuting, for though 
 Akbar might be tolerant, not so was Aurungzebe. Caste itself 
 was probably the result of the conquest in remote antiquity 
 by an Aryan race of the pre-Aryan races whose remains are 
 found under various names — Bheels, Kols, Sonds, Meenas —
 
 148 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 in the corners and crannies of Hindostan, and who have no 
 connection or fellowship with either Hindoo or Mahometan, 
 while the British have brought them law, humanity, and the 
 rudiments of civilisation. What domination can be more 
 oppressive than caste? What insolence of the haughtiest of 
 conquerors can match the self-exaltation of the Brahmin in 
 the sacred books of the Hindoos? What degradation of the 
 most despised of subject races can match the degradation 
 of the Sudra? 
 
 Between the second and third visits of Clive to India, there 
 was a period of scandalous intrigue and corruption, attended 
 with robbery and oppression of the natives. At that time 
 the Company's servants, being very poorly paid, were tempted 
 to pay themselves by foul means, while the political power, 
 which by force of circumstances they had irregularly acquired, 
 being yet unrecognised, was not coupled with responsibility. 
 Clive applied the sure antidote to corruption by giving good 
 and regular pay. He coupled responsibility with power by 
 obtaining a legal grant of the province from the Emperor at 
 Delhi. The memorable proconsulate of Warren Hastings, 
 though beneficent, and felt by the natives to be beneficent on 
 the whole, as well as marked by consummate genius for govern- 
 ment and diplomacy, was not untainted by contact with oriental 
 statecraft, or by the financial cravings of a commercial company 
 for gain which Hastings was compelled to satisfy. But the 
 crimes ascribed to Hastings and Impey are mainly the ravings 
 of Burke's generous but riotous fancy set at work by the 
 malignant infusions of Philip Francis. Thanks to Sir James 
 Stephen,^ we know that the judicial murder of Nuncomar is 
 a fiction. Thanks to Sir John Strachey,^ we know that the 
 Kohilla charge was far less grave than it was believed to be ; 
 that the Kohillas, instead of being an agricultural people Avith 
 a tinge of poetry, were a body of Afghan freebooters, with no 
 calling but that of arms, who had imposed their yoke on the 
 
 1 The Story of Nuncomar and the Impeachment of Sir Elijah Impey. 
 By Sir James Fitzjames Stephen, K.C.S.I., 2 vols. 
 
 2 Hastings and the Bohilla War. By Sir John Strachey, G.C.S.I.
 
 THE EMPIRE. 149 
 
 Hindoo population, that they were not exterminated, and that 
 Hastings reproved instead of countenancing the atrocities of his 
 native ally. It is scandalous that such a tissue of falsehoods 
 as Macaulay's "Essay on Hastings" should be still in every- 
 body's hand, should be read in India, and be used in schools. 
 That he flung the head of Hastings to his enemies, probably 
 under the sinister influence of Dundas, is one of the worst 
 blots on the character of Pitt. From the time when the Com- 
 pany ceased to be commercial, and as a political power was 
 brought under Imperial control, crime and corruption ceased, 
 though from ignorance of the land and people, blunders, 
 notably in land settlements and in the judicial department, 
 continued to be made. 
 
 The conquest of India was no accident, yet was it most 
 marvellous. The native armies enormously outnumbered the 
 British; Plassey was won by four thousand men against sixty 
 thousand; the arms were equal; the natives had sometimes 
 been trained by European ofiicers ; the British soldier had to 
 fight and march, sometimes to make forced marches in pur- 
 suit of a nimble enemy^ beneath the Indian sun, without the 
 palliatives which he has now. Most Englishmen still know 
 little of the achievements or the heroes. They have heard the 
 names of Clive and Lake, Wellington and Havelock, but not 
 those of Pattinson and Pottinger. That story remains yet to 
 be worthily told. The grandest scene perhaps is the last, the 
 struggle with the Sikhs. Nothing can appeal to the imagina- 
 tion more than the night of Eerozeshah, with Lord Hardinge, 
 who, nobly loyal to duty, had sunk the Governor- General in 
 the soldier, moving over the field to brace his troops for the 
 renewal of the mortal conflict on the morrow. A striking 
 part of the history is the devotion of the Sepoys, Avhich seems 
 to show that the Englishman is not so utterly incapable, as is 
 supposed, of winning the hearts of other races. Sikhs and 
 Goorkhas, received, after a tough conflict with them, as worthy 
 brethren in arms, became the most faithful soldiers of the 
 Empire, and helped to save it in the Mutiny. 
 
 Great have been the feats of war; fully as great have been
 
 150 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 the feats of civilisation, sucli as were performed among the 
 Bheels by Outram, among the Mairs by Dixon, among the 
 Klionds, steeped in human sacrifice, by MacPherson; above 
 all, by John Lawrence in the Punjaub. The devout belief of 
 such a man as John Lawrence in the goodness of his work, 
 was strong proof that the work was good. He could hardly 
 have thought as he did that the Empire was upheld and 
 blessed by God, if it had been a kingdom of the devil. In 
 Lawrence, too, and in his compeers, we have a type with which 
 the world can hardly afford to part, of the public servant 
 whose character has been formed by duty, not by party or 
 quest of votes. We might prize the Indian civil service, if it 
 were for this alone. 
 
 To the conquered the Empire has given peace, peace un- 
 broken, saving by the Mutiny, for forty years, under which 
 population has so increased that the Empire is in some dis- 
 tricts oppressed by the results of its own beneficence. It has 
 given vast growth to trade. It has given railways, canals, 
 and bridges, the fruits of a public expenditure not less liberal 
 than that of the Mogul Emperors, and untithed by the pride 
 and folly which built a mausoleum over a tooth. It has 
 given facilities of distribution which mitigate famine. It 
 has given education, which, if not widely diffused, is diffused 
 enough to open the leading Hindoo minds to western civili- 
 sation, and of a stationary to make, in prospect at least, a 
 progressive race. It has given medical science and some 
 notion of sanitary reform. It has given redemption from 
 suttee, human sacrifice, female infanticide, slavery; the hope 
 of redemption from infant marriage, if philanthropy will 
 be circumspect; and perhaps the hope of ultimate redemp- 
 tion from caste, which seems to be yielding in some measure 
 to the railway. It has given release from the cruelty, the 
 corruption, and the extortion of oriental despotism. It has 
 given a system of taxation regular, not predatory, and moder- 
 ate compared with that of the Mogul or with the Mahratta 
 blackmail. It has given good faith as the rule of statesman- 
 ship in place of eastern perfidy. It has given, above all, in
 
 THE EMPIRE. 151 
 
 place of lawless power, law, the realm of which advances 
 with the British flag, with the Anglo-Saxon race. That can- 
 not be an Empire of mere force which in a population of two 
 hundred and eighty millions rests on a British army of seventy 
 thousand men. Metternich, who said that you could do any- 
 thing with bayonets but sit upon them, would find here no 
 exception to his rule. Of the civil administration it may 
 safely be said that, whether it is the cheapest or not, the most 
 beneficent or not, it is the purest in the world. Its purity is 
 secured by good pay, and by the bracing exigencies of a service 
 always arduous and seldom free from peril. Since the estab- 
 lishment of the Empire there has been no rising against Brit- 
 ish rule except in the wake of mutiny. 
 
 What is the condition of the Hindoo peasant? Some re- 
 formers say that he is the most miserable of mankind. On 
 the other hand. Dr. Birdwood, a high authority, says, "for 
 leagues and leagues rovmd the cities of Poona and Sattara 
 there stretch the cultivated fields. . . . Glad with the dawn, 
 the men come forth to their work, and glad in their work they 
 stand all through the noontide, singing at the well, or shout- 
 ing as they reap or plough; and when the stillness and the 
 dew of evening fall upon the land like the blessing and the 
 peace of God, the merry-hearted men gather with their cattle, 
 in long Avinding lanes to their villages again. . . . Thus day 
 follows day and the year is crowned with gladness." ^ In some 
 districts, evidently, the check of war being removed, popula- 
 tion, in spite of child-marriage and filth, has increased too 
 fast, and the unwelcome discovery of Malthus is once more 
 confirmed. Everywhere the Hindoo peasant has little. In 
 his climate he can do with little, perhaps hardly cares for 
 more. As he does not and cannot work hard, his production 
 cannot be large. His harvest, whatever it is, he reaps. It is 
 not reaped, nor is he butchered or tortured, by Mahrattas or 
 Pindarees. Nothing can be taken from him or be done to 
 him except by course of law. 
 
 1 Industrial Arts of India. Quoted by iSir K. Temple iu his India in 
 1880, p. 103.
 
 152 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Of the progress of Christianity in India, it is difficult to 
 speak. The government of the Company feared to encourage 
 the missionary, and almost disavowed Christianity. The 
 Queen's government is bolder. It has discovered that the 
 Brahmin is not an enemy of theological discussion, though he 
 is jealously tenacious of caste. It is Christian while it is 
 strictly tolerant. John Lawrence was emphatically both. It 
 would seem that some impression has been made on the Hin- 
 doos, on the Mahometans none. The great obstacle to the 
 spread of Christianity in India is the failure of belief in it 
 at home. Strange to say, the West is now receiving a faith 
 from the East; for the mind of philosophic Europe, perplexed 
 with theological doubt, seems inclined to accept something 
 like Buddhism as an anodyne, if not as a creed. 
 
 It is said, and it would not be hard to believe, that the 
 natives prefer native rule with all its evils to that of the 
 stranger. One answer is that, if they did, there would proba- 
 bly be more migration to the native States, which still cover 
 nearly half a million of square miles, with a population of 
 fifty-five millions, proving by their existence that the rapacity 
 of the conqueror is not boundless. The rulers of all these 
 trust, and, since the recognition of adoption and the restora- 
 tion of Mysore to its native dynasty, have had the best reason 
 to trust, the good faith of the Empire. When Russian inva- 
 sion threatens, they all come forward with offers of aid. Their 
 subjects perhaps may have some reason to question the benefi- 
 cence of a protectorate which guarantees misgovernment, till 
 it passes all boiinds, against the rough eastern remedy of 
 dynastic revolution. Still the average may be an improve- 
 ment, since eastern misgovernment did not seldom pass all 
 bounds. 
 
 The press, native as well as European, is free; free enough, 
 at all events, to criticise even with violence the acts of govern- 
 ment. Lord Hastings, as Governor-General, declared freedom 
 of publication "the natural right of his fellow-subjects, to be 
 narrowed only by urgent cause assigned," affirming that "it 
 was salutary for supreme authority, even when most pure, to
 
 THE EMPIRE. 153 
 
 look to the control of public opinion." The Hindoo who in 
 an American periodical denounces the tyranny of the British 
 in India, shows by that very act and by the freedom of his 
 language that the tyranny is not extreme.^ 
 
 We must not gloss over the hideous Mutiny or its still more 
 hideous repression. A mutiny, it seems, it was, and nothing 
 more, having its sources in the insolence of a pampered sol- 
 diery, paucity of European officers, consequent laxity of disci- 
 pline, and, at last, that suspicion of an assault on caste which 
 had caused the Vellore and other mutinies before it. Its hor- 
 rors cancelled many a glorious page of the history, while it 
 added such pages as those of the defence of Lucknow and the 
 capture of the vast and strongly walled Delhi by an army of 
 three thousand men. The fiendish passions of a dominant 
 race, rage mingling witli panic, were excited to the highest 
 pitch. Lord Elgin was there ; in his diary he says : 
 
 " It is a terrible business, liowever, this living amongst inferior races. 
 I have seldom from man or woman, since I came to the East, heard a 
 sentence which was reconcilable with the hypothesis that Christianity 
 had ever come into the world. Detestation, contempt, ferocity, ven- 
 geance, whether Chinamen or Indians be the object. There are some 
 three or four hundred servants in this house. When one first passes by 
 their salaaming, one feels a little awkward. But the feeling soon wears 
 off, and one moves among them with perfect indifference, treating them 
 not as dogs, because in that case one would whistle to them and pat them, 
 but as machines with which one can have no communion or sympathy. 
 Of course, those who can speak the language are somewhat more en rap- 
 port with the natives, but very slightly so, I take it. When the passions 
 of fear and hatred are engrafted on this indifference, the result is fright- 
 ful ; an absolute callousness as to the sufferings of the objects of those 
 passions, which must be witnessed to be understood and believed." 
 
 The next entry is : 
 
 "... tells me that yesterday at dinner the fact that government had 
 removed some commissioners, who, not content with hanging all the 
 rebels they could lay their hands on, had been insulting them by destroy- 
 
 1 See "English Rule in India," by Amrita Lai Roy, in the Nvrth 
 American Bevkw, April, 1886.
 
 154 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 ing their caste, telling them that after death they should be cast to the 
 dogs to be devoured, etc., was mentioned. A reverend gentleman could 
 not understand the conduct of government ; could not see that there was 
 any impropriety in torturing men's souls ; seemed to think that a good 
 deal might be said in favour of bodily torture as well ! These are your 
 teachers, Israel ! Imagine what the pupils become under such lead- 
 ing!"! 
 
 But the terrorism of this clergyman and his compeers, as well 
 as that of sanguinary sentimentalists in England, were in 
 some measure redeemed by the mixture of clemency with firm- 
 ness in Canning and Lord Lawrence. 
 
 Of Lord Elgin's words, part was true only of the period of 
 the Mutiny; part remains true. British dominion in India is 
 and ever must be that of the stranger. Between the ruling 
 and the subject race a great gulf is fixed. The Moguls came 
 from abroad, but they made India their home. The English- 
 man, incapable of acclimatisation, can only be a sojourner. 
 He is more so than ever, since he is no longer severed by a six 
 months' voyage from his own country. His rule is feared, 
 respected, perhaps regarded with gratitude ; but it can never 
 be loved. Nothing, says a writer on India, is sooner forgotten 
 than a British triumph, or longer remembered than a British 
 reverse. It is implied that what the people remember long- 
 est is that which pleased them most. Association in govern- 
 ment and the judiciary has probably been carried nearly as far 
 as it can be without abdication. There it must stop. Social 
 fusion there appears to be none. It would be barred by caste 
 on the one side, as well as by pride on the other. Sir Monier 
 Williams wondered why certain Pandits always called on him 
 very early in the morning. He found that they wanted time 
 for purification after contact with the unclean. Nor can it be 
 expected that the demeanour of the lower members, at all 
 events, of the dominant race towards the subject race should 
 be free from haughtiness. It has probably not improved since 
 the personal connection of the European with India has been 
 
 1 Letters and Journals of James, Eighth Earl of Elgin. Edited by 
 Theodore Walroud, pp. 199, 200.
 
 THE EMPIRE. 155 
 
 loosened. Officials of the old school whose time had been 
 passed in India, however strong their prejudices, never spoke 
 of the natives, at least of those of the higher class, with disre- 
 spect. Nor can we suppose that an imported civilisation will 
 equal in value or vitality one of natural growth. Whatever 
 there was of peculiarly native excellence could hardly fail to 
 suffer in the process. Manchester goods there may be in 
 plenty; but where these fill the market there will no longer 
 be the products, some of them marvellous, of native taste and 
 skill; there will no longer be the joy of the native workman 
 over his exquisite work. Buildings there may be of utility, 
 better than mosques or mausoleums; but there will be no 
 Pearl Mosque or Taj Mahal. Perhaps to the Oriental, the 
 pageantry of his native dynasty made up in some measure for 
 oppression. 
 
 The process of lifting a race not more than half civilised 
 to a high plane of civilisation, is costly as well as difficult. 
 India, though gorgeous, is poor. She is poor because the 
 power of Avork and the rate of production are low. Yet the 
 administration is expected to come up to the standard and ful- 
 fil the ideals of the wealthiest of European nations. How 
 can it dispense with the salt tax, which no doubt is oppressive, 
 or with the opium duty, which scandalises, though perhaps 
 it is only the spirit duty of Hindostan? Finance apparently 
 is not only a difficulty, but a peril, and if British constituen- 
 cies meddle witli it, it will be a greater peril still. Hard, too, 
 it must be to infuse the western spirit of justice and probity 
 into native policemen and officials of the low class. Home 
 opinion exacts of the Indian government an administration 
 up to a mark higher than has been reached by half the coun- 
 tries of Europe, while home philanthropy demands of it the 
 abandonment of its revenue from opium. 
 
 As soon as the Com])any became military and political, it 
 was of necessity brought under the control of the Home Gov- 
 ernment. An Empire could not be left outside the Empire 
 with separate powers of peace and war. This was the first 
 step. The second was to divest the Company entirely of the
 
 156 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 commercial character wliich vitiated and enfeebled political 
 action. The Mutiny brought the end of the Company's rule. 
 The army on which its authority rested had gone to pieces, 
 and the Empire passed to the Crown. Yet the incorporation 
 of a vast and despotic Empire with a free commonwealth was 
 regarded with misgiving both by some who feared the influence 
 of the Empire on the commonwealth, and by some who feared 
 the influence of the commonweath on the Empire. 
 
 The Company discouraged the settlement of Europeans in 
 India. By the Queen's government it is encouraged. Besides 
 being an Empire, India is now a considerable British colony, 
 though the settlers are birds of passage. It will be more 
 clearly seen in time how the presence of a European commu- 
 nity with its Magna Charta will consist with the administra- 
 tion of an empire necessarily autocratic. Community of 
 danger is a strong curb on dissension, yet it may not always 
 prevail. The resistance of Indian manufacturers to the ex- 
 emption of British cottons from import duties looks like the 
 commercial revolt of a dependency. 
 
 What does the Indian Empire bring to Great Britain? Not 
 tribute, except in the shape of the pensions and savings of the 
 civil servants. It brings a large trade, though no monopoly, 
 England having opened the ports of India to the world. Of 
 military force it brings so much as is indicated by that some- 
 what theatrical appearance of a Sikh corps in the Mediter- 
 ranean which bespoke lack of British troops rather than the 
 availability of Sepoys for European wars ; and by the employ- 
 ment the other day of a Sikh corps in Egypt. No one sup- 
 poses that the Sepoys generally could be used on western 
 fields. A British array of seventy thousand is maintained by 
 India, but in case of war could not be withdrawn. The mate- 
 rial value of the possession is, after all, secondary to its moral 
 value as a field of achievement, which, though the days of 
 romantic enterprise as well as those of fabulous gains are over, 
 is still, for a young man of capacity and courage, about the 
 finest in the world. The competitive system has thrown it 
 open to all, not without some risk, perhaps, to the nerve and
 
 THE EMPIRE. 157 
 
 muscle as well as to the corporate unity of the service, yet, it 
 seems, with good results; so at least thought John Lawrence. 
 The place of family or social connection as a bond of corporate 
 unity has perhaps been supplied by partnership in responsi- 
 bility and possible peril. On the debit side of the material 
 account must be set down the danger and difficulty of maintain- 
 ing so distant a possession in time of maritime war; the enmity 
 with Russia which the Crimean war entailed; the supposed 
 necessity of occupying Egypt at the risk of embroilment with 
 France; the general effect of this vast liability on British 
 diplomacy, and on the influence of England in her own circle 
 of nations. What is the real danger on the side of Russia, 
 apart from mere mess-room talk, it is for those who have 
 read the genuine Will of Peter the Great to say. In the game 
 of Empire, Russia has the great advantage of keeping her own 
 counsels. The extension of her Asiatic dominions has been 
 as natural as the extension of our own; and there seems no 
 reason why, each Empire having reached its limit, the two 
 should not rest amicably side by side. From subduing and 
 annexing barbarous tribes, it is a Avide step to invading a civi- 
 lised power. Our fatal expedition to Afghanistan in 1840 is 
 a warning against rushing to meet imaginary danger. Russia 
 will be unfriendly and will no doubt menace the Indian 
 Empire by way of diversion as long as England persists in 
 barring her way to an open sea. But why should England 
 persist in barring Russia's way to an open sea? Why should 
 Russia be more dangerous to England in the Mediterranean 
 than the other Mediterranean powers? Why should she not 
 rather, if England can keep on good terms with her, help to 
 balance those powers? It is for statesmen, not for a student, 
 to say. 
 
 What may be fermenting in the dark depths of the Hindoo 
 mind, few, it seems, pretend to tell. At times there is a 
 ruffling of the surface which bespeaks some agitation below. 
 Yet danger of a serious kind from internal insurrection there 
 appears to be none, so long as the army is faithful and while 
 tlie people remain so intersected by differences of race, religion.
 
 158 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 and language, so totally disunited, and so incapable of 
 organising rebellion as they are. The uniting influence of 
 the Empire itself is, perhaps, so far as things on the spot are 
 concerned, the greatest, though a very remote danger. There 
 is now no dynasty or standard of any kind round which in- 
 surrection on a large scale could rally, and the government 
 will take care never to tread on caste ; if it is left alone, it 
 will take care to keep rash hands off the Zenana. The Maho- 
 metans, whom we thrust from power, no doubt are sullen ; but 
 they are a minority ; they are hated, as constant broils show, 
 by the Hindoo ; and sullenness is not insurrection. The cloud 
 of Wahabee fanaticism seems to have passed away. 
 
 A greater danger, and one far more imminent than Russian 
 invasion or Hindoo insurrection, is British democracy, if it 
 meddles with Indian government, as meddle with Indian gov- 
 ernment it almost certainly will, indeed is already beginning 
 to do ; while Hindoo politicians are joining hands with it by 
 presenting themselves as candidates for Radical constituencies 
 in England. The shadow cast some years ago by demagogic 
 Vice-Royalty has been lingering since. That a dependent 
 Empire should be governed on demagogic principles is im- 
 possible, and the impossibility cannot fail soon to appear. A 
 conquest, however clement and beneficent the conqueror, is a 
 conquest, and if it is to be held at all, it must be held as it 
 was won. 
 
 "There are, of course," says Sir Edwin Arnold, in pleading 
 for the retention of India, "many collateral considerations 
 which ought to move the popular mind; such as commercial 
 benefit, colonial advantage, and national prestige; but these 
 are weak in comparison with the force which ought to be 
 exercised upon the general imagination by the sublime duty 
 laid upon Great Britain, if ever any duty was sublime, by the 
 visible decree of Providence itself." The clearest of the in- 
 ducements to retain India, perhaps, is the duty, 
 
 Egypt, occupied by Great Britain, may be regarded as an 
 annex to India, to which Egypt controls, or is thought to
 
 THE EMPIRE. 159 
 
 control, the present access. As a possession in itself, its 
 value is partly a tradition of the past, like that of Eome, once 
 the capital of a Mediterranean empire rather than of Italy; 
 that of Constantinople, once the link between the Empires of 
 the East and West ; or that of Cyprus, once in a peopled angle 
 of those waters. In the infancy of agriculture, the mud of 
 the Nile, which produced without human effort, was priceless. 
 Egypt, however, like Hindostan, is a field not only of ambition 
 or profit, but of beneficent achievement. Impartial Ameri- 
 cans have borne the strongest testimony to the improvement 
 made by British rule in the condition of the Egyptian people. 
 For the first time since the Pharaohs, the Fellaheen see the 
 face of Ju.stice. The price is the jealous enmity of France, 
 who, for some mysterious reason, imagines that Egypt is hers. 
 
 British empire has been won by the great adventurers of 
 whom Clive was a type. Nor is the breed extinct. Gordon 
 was a specimen of it, as under a religious guise and in the 
 missionary sphere was Livingstone. Unlike the Spanish 
 adventurers, who conquered and wasted Mexico and Peru, 
 these men are organisers and pioneers of civilisation, owing 
 their ascendancy not to the arquebus, but to character and 
 mind. There may be fresh fields for them in Africa, and 
 possibly, when the Turkish Empire comes to its end, in the 
 provinces now subject to its rule. They may redeem by their 
 exploits in distant regions the reign of political degeneracy 
 which seems to have set in at home. But they Avill do well 
 to remember Khartoum, and trust to themselves alone. 
 
 As to the military dependencies, such as Malta and Gibral- 
 tar, all that a civilian can have to say is that their occupation 
 and retention ought surely to be regulated by sound military 
 reasons and not by empty pride. A general would not be 
 thought great who persisted in holding a useless and untena- 
 ble post because he had once occupied it. The coaling stations 
 are necessary in an age of steam, but they were not necessary 
 before the age of steam, and it would be folly to cling to them
 
 160 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 if steam were superseded, by some new motor. Weakness can 
 never be shown by wisdom. Nor can the memory of any 
 glorious exploit be cancelled or dimmed by abandonment of 
 the spot which happened to be its scene. We are not the less 
 proud, or proud with less reason, of the defence of Torres 
 Vedras or of Hougoumont because the lines of Torres Vedras 
 and the farm of Hougoumont are no longer in our hands. 
 Nor would Eliott's defence of Gibraltar be the less memorable 
 or the less inspiring if policy had led the British government 
 to restore Gibraltar to Spain. 
 
 Is it the policy of Great Britain, as once it was, to domi- 
 nate in the Mediterranean? Is such a policy any longer pos- 
 sible, since the growth of other Mediterranean navies, French, 
 Spanish, and Italian, since the change which steam has made 
 in naval warfare, and since the unification of French power 
 effected by the railway and the telegraph between Brest and 
 Toulon? In case of war with France and Russia combined, 
 would there be naval forces disposable for command of the 
 Mediterranean? What is the practical object of this policy? 
 Is it safe access to the Suez Canal? Could that route be used 
 in time of war? Would not international law close the Canal 
 against belligerents? Would not the Canal itself be easily 
 obstructed by an enemy? Could convoy be afforded for trade 
 through the Mediterranean? Would it not be necessary to 
 resort to the route by the Cape of Good Hope? In that case, 
 would not military expenditure at the Cape of Good Hope be 
 wiser? If Great Britain means permanently to hold Egypt, 
 there is conclusive reason for the retention of her rule over 
 the Mediterranean. But does she intend permanently to hold 
 Egypt, or merely to accomplish her mission of reform and 
 then depart? The other day British commerce raised a panic 
 cry for an increase of the fleet. One who laid his ear to the 
 ground might have heard a murmur, not from unpatriotic or 
 peace-mongering lips, that the best way of increasing the fleet 
 for the protection of British commerce was to call the Medi- 
 terranean squadron home. It is vain to suppose that England 
 can remain for ever on the pinnacle of maritime ascendancy to
 
 THE EMPIRE. 161 
 
 which she was raised by the destruction of all the other fleets 
 in the French war. 
 
 If command of the Mediterranean is to be retained, no ques- 
 tion will arise about the retention of Malta. Malta, it seems, 
 with the requisite works and with a sufficient garrison, is 
 deemed by military men impregnable, while belonging by 
 nature to nobody, geographically or ethnologically, it is an 
 uninvidious possession, and by its occupation no enmity is 
 incurred. Far different is the case of Gibraltar, the price of 
 retaining which is the perpetual enmity of Spain. The 
 parallel of a Spanish flag flying on the Isle of Portland is 
 hackneyed, but it is just. Great Britain poured out blood and ■ 
 money to rescue Spain from Napoleon. Yet tlie feeling of the 
 Spaniards now is better towards France than towards Great 
 Britain. When Cobden expressed to a Spanish friend his 
 surprise at this, the Spaniard's answer was, " We have got rid 
 of the French, of you we have not got rid." The sight of a 
 foreign flag on his fortress can hardly be made more agreeable 
 to the Spaniard by the recollection that England took Gibral- 
 tar, not in international war, but when she was acting as the 
 ally of her candidate for the Crown of Spain. Again and 
 again in the days of her decrepitude, Spain, passionately desir- 
 ing to recover her great fortress, dragged her half -paralysed 
 limbs to the attack. Nothing else led her to join the league 
 against Great Britain at the time of the American war; for the 
 colonists were her enemies in America, and she was as far as 
 possible from seeking their aggrandisement or sympathising 
 with tlicir republican aspirations. Gibraltar alone it was that 
 sent Spanish ships to join the combined armament by which 
 the British fleet was chased down the Channel. Up to the 
 last and greatest of the three sieges, the cession of Gibraltar 
 as a post mor(> dangerous than profitable was always in the 
 thoughts of lU-itish statesmen. It was contemplated by Stan- 
 hope, by vSlielburne, even by Chatham. But Eliott's famous 
 defence, coming as it did with Rodney's victory to redeem the 
 humiliation of defeat in America, gave the Ixock such a hold on. 
 English sentiment that thenceforth those who talked of ceding 
 
 M
 
 162 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 it spoke with a lialter round their necks. Shelburne mooted 
 the question in negotiating for peace with America; but he at 
 once drew upon him the denunciation of Fox, who on that 
 single occasion acted the part of patriot. A recital of Fox's 
 arguments and those of Burke, who followed in the same strain, 
 is enough to show how circumstances and the objects of policy 
 have changed. "A sagacious ministry," said Fox, "would 
 always employ Gibraltar in dividing France from France, Spain 
 from Spain, and the one nation from the other." This posses- 
 sioa it was, according to Fox, which gave us respect in the 
 eyes of nations, and the means of obliging them by protection. 
 " If we gave it up to Spain, the Mediterranean would become 
 a pool which they could navigate at their pleasure and without 
 control. As the States of Europe bordering on the Mediter- 
 ranean would no longer look to England for the free navigation 
 of the sea, it would no longer be in her power to be useful, and 
 we could expect no alliances." It is due to Fox and Burke to 
 remember that Gibraltar, if it was not the sole title of England 
 to the respect of nations, or her only hope of obtaining allies, 
 was the only British stronghold in the Mediterranean, Minorca 
 having been lost, and Malta being not yet ours. The question 
 was again mooted thirty years ago, when the change in the 
 military value of Gibraltar, owing to steam and the improve- 
 ments of artillery, was just beginning to appear, and when the 
 cession would have thoroughly won the heart of Spain. But 
 discussion was still branded as treason. Now, a naval writer 
 in the Fortnightly Review proclaims the military decadence of 
 the fortress, which he says can no longer shelter a fleet lying 
 under it; while as a mere post by itself it would be worthless, 
 and its garrison would be wasted, since it does not, as most 
 Englishmen fondly believe, command the strait. Nor does it 
 any longer retain its equivocal value as a dep6t of contraband 
 trade. Apparently it does nothing which is not better done 
 by Malta without offence to anybody's feelings or flag. When 
 it comes to a question of bargain with Spain, Ave have to 
 remember that during the last quarter of a century the post 
 has been losing strength and value, and that of this the Span-
 
 THE EMPIRE. 163 
 
 iards must be aware. We are told that they have a plan of 
 siege ready, and are confident of success. An exchange for 
 Ceuta is proposed and seems natural. But Ceuta would be of 
 use, like Malta, only for the purpose of commanding the 
 Mediterranean. Another suggestion is that Spain should cede 
 to England the Canaries as a field for emigration. That 
 England is becoming over-crowded, and needs an outlet for 
 population fully as much as a fortress, is too certain. But 
 after all the greatest object, not merely of sentiment but of 
 policy, is the friendship of Spain, who is now taking her place 
 again among the nations. 
 
 Heligoland has been ceded at last. The retention of it after 
 the fall of the Napoleonic Empire and the Continental System 
 on which its value as a post depended, was an instance of the 
 tendency to cling to everything on which the flag has once been 
 set up, however useless it may have become. Fortunately the 
 power to which Heligoland belonged was friendly, or cession 
 might have been attended with disgrace. 
 
 Of Cyprus, the flashy acquisition of a theatrical policy in a 
 dead angle of the jMediterranean, the chief use seems to be to 
 commit England more deeply to enmity with Russia and sup- 
 port of the Turk, whose barbarous sway blights what were once 
 the fairest regions of the earth. A force could hardly be spared 
 to hold it if England were ever fighting for her life with great 
 maritime poAvers, while abandonment would be humbling and 
 an avowal of weakness. 
 
 To come to the colonial dependencies. It is of colonial 
 dependencies that we speak, not of colonies, the value of which 
 no man contests any more than the necessity of migration. 
 Greece had colonies which were not dependencies and were 
 bound to the motlier country only by a filial tie. England 
 herself Avas a colony of some district or districts of North 
 Germany, though she was not under the German Colonial 
 Office, The founders of NeAV England and other British col- 
 onies were as fit for independent self-government as any Greek, 
 and independent they Avould have been from the beginning, had
 
 164 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 it not been for the twin superstitions : Discovery, which made 
 a European king sovereign over every shore sighted by his 
 subjects ; and Personal Allegiance, which made the emigrant 
 indefeasibly a subject of the realm in which he had been born. 
 To these beliefs is traceable the relation of colonial dependence 
 with its natural consequences, incessant friction, rupture when 
 the colony grew strong, and the American Revolution. There 
 is nothing of which an Englishman has more reason to be proud 
 than the colonies ; there are few things of which he has less 
 reason to be proud than the Colonial Office. 
 
 To the colonial dependencies so large a measure of self- 
 government has, after a long course of altercation, ending in 
 Canada with a rebellion, been conceded, and to such a shadow 
 has the supremacy of the imperial Kingdom over them been 
 reduced, that the other day a colonial governor, to pay a com- 
 pliment to his colony, denied that it was a dependency at all. 
 But a community which receives a governor from an imperial 
 country, whose constitution is imposed upon it by the Act of 
 an Imperial Parliament, Avhich has not the power of amending 
 that constitution, which has not the power of peace and war, 
 of making treaties, or of supreme justice, play witli language 
 as you will, is a dependency. It has and can have no place 
 among the nations. 
 
 Of what use, then, are colonial dependencies now to the 
 imperial country? This is a distinct and reasonable question 
 apart from the question of sentiment, which nobody would 
 wish to disregard. Fiscally, the colonies have gone out of the 
 Empire. They have asserted and have freely used the power 
 of levying not only duties, but protective duties, on British 
 goods. A Canadian politician, who poses as the organ of 
 Canadian loyalty in England, in Canada receives credit as the 
 author of a protective duty for the exclusion of British iron. 
 There is something almost humiliating in the position of Great 
 Britain, bound as she is to protect the trade of colonies which 
 are waging a tariff war against her. If they were independent 
 she might negotiate commercial treaties with them, or suppos- 
 ing she thought fit to adopt that policy, force their ports open
 
 THE EMPIRE. 165 
 
 by retaliation. Formerly the colonies were prized for the 
 monopoly of their trade and markets, the right of the mother 
 country to which was, as we know, asserted by Chatham in 
 emphatic terms. Trade, we are still told, follows the flag. 
 Trade follows profit wherever it is to be found. Colonies, 
 before they have manufactures, import from the mother country, 
 not because she is their mother, but because she makes the 
 articles they want. How can trade follow the flag when the 
 flag no longer makes it free? When colonists propose an 
 imperial zollverein, the answer is, that the colonial trade which 
 the zollverein would foster is small compared with the foreign 
 and Indian trade which it would impair. The returns show 
 that for the five years 1886-90 England's imports from foreign 
 countries averaged 77.1 per cent, of her total imports, whilst 
 her imports from the colonies including India averaged 22.9 
 per cent. Her exports to foreign countries amounted to 70.5 
 per cent, of her whole export trade, and her exports to the 
 colonies to 29.5. It is not true, as often alleged, that her trade 
 with the colonies is advancing very much faster than her trade 
 with foreign countries. For the five years 1856-60 her imports 
 from and exports to foreign countries averaged 77.5 and 77.1 
 per cent, respectively of her total import and export trade; and 
 her imports from and exports to the colonies 22.5 and 28.9 
 respectively. Nor, in spite of the security apparently afforded 
 by imperial jurisdiction, does British capital seem to find a 
 field for investment more in the colonies than in foreign coun- 
 tries. Whether investors under the flag are exempt from loss, 
 the stockholders of Australian banks, and of Canadian rail- 
 ways, those of the Chignecto Ship Railway among others, can 
 tell. The Chignecto case is notable because political connec- 
 tion was probal)ly part of the inducement. Had Canada not 
 been a dependency, all the millions which have been sunk in 
 the Grand Trunk might have remained in the pockets of 
 British investors. 
 
 But the colonies, we are told, though they lay protective 
 duties on the mother country's goods, do not discriminate 
 against her. That there was to be no discrimination against
 
 166 
 
 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 the mother country was the cry raised by Canadian Protec- 
 tionists when they wished to stave off Commercial Union with 
 the United States. Commercial Union would have done Great 
 Britain no harm. It would have added to the value of her 
 $650,000,000 of investments much more than it took away from 
 the amount of her exports. But the fact seems to be that 
 Canada does discriminate against the mother country in favour 
 of the United States by her tariff as a whole, if not on specific 
 articles, to the amount of at least 4 per cent, in the aggregate.^ 
 
 1 The Toronto Olohe gives a table compiled from the official returns, 
 which discloses the actual ad valorem paid in 1892, in cases where specific 
 or mixed specific and ad valorem duties are imposed. It appears that 
 specific duties are aimed at cheap goods, to which the protected Canadian 
 industries are most hostile, and, British goods being cheap, they suffer. 
 
 Iron rivets or bolts from Great Britain 64 
 
 Iron rivets or bolts from United States 42 
 
 Sewing machines from Great Britain ... 40 
 
 Se^ving machines from United States. . . 33^ 
 
 Nails and spikes, average 40 
 
 Railway fish plates, Great Britain 41 
 
 Railway fish plates. United States 301 
 
 Rolled iron or steel angles, Great Britain 45J 
 
 Rolled iron or steel angles, United States 29| 
 
 Iron or steel screws. Great Britain 64 
 
 Iron or steel screws. United States 37 
 
 Skates from Great Britain and United 
 
 States 43 
 
 Skates from Germany 62 
 
 Bar iron from Great Britain SSJ 
 
 Bar iron from United States 2T^ 
 
 Boiler iron from Great Britain 41 
 
 Boiler iron from United States 23^ 
 
 Cast iron vessels from Great Britain 32 
 
 Cast iron vessels from United States. . . 30 
 
 Cast iron pipe from Great Britain 52 
 
 Cast iron pipe from United States 483 
 
 Cut tacks and brads from Great Britain 133^ 
 
 Cut tacks and brads from United States 39 
 Cut tacks and brads, over 16 oz. per M, 
 
 Great Britain 43^ 
 
 Cut tacks and brads, over 16 oz. per M, 
 
 United States 301 
 
 Wrought iron tubes, Great Britain and 
 
 United States 50 
 
 Wire fencing(barbed) from Great Britain 40 
 
 Cufi's from Great Britain 62^ 
 
 Cuffs from United States 48| 
 
 Cuffs from other countries 69| 
 
 Linen shirts 41 
 
 Wire fencing(barbed)from United States 4S 
 Wire fencing (Buckthorn) from United 
 
 States 31 
 
 Wire fencing (Buckthorn) from Ger- 
 many 45 
 
 Wrought iron or steel nuts, bolts, Great 
 
 Britain 55 
 
 Wrought iron or steel nuts.bolts. United 
 
 States 41 
 
 Steel ingots, slabs, etc.. Great Britain.. 39 
 
 Steel Ingots, slabs, etc.. United States 25 
 
 Chopping axes 33 
 
 Picks, sledges, etc., Great Britain 36| 
 
 Picks, sledges, etc., United States 38 
 
 Stereotype plates, average rate 119 
 
 Plated cutlery from Great Britain 50 J 
 
 Plated cutlery from United States 43| 
 
 Lead pipe from Great Britain 46 
 
 Lead pipe from United States 23 
 
 Lead shot from Great Britain 40 
 
 Lead shot from United States 29 
 
 Show cases from Great Britain 76 
 
 Show cases from United States 52 
 
 Cotton shirts, from Great Bi-itain (per 
 
 cent.) 43 
 
 Cotton shirts from United States 44 
 
 Cotton shirts from other countries 41 
 
 Cotton stockings from Great Britain ... 42 
 
 Cotton stockings from United States.. 41 
 
 Cotton stockings from other countries 43 
 
 Winceys from Great Britain SSJ 
 
 Cloths from United States 28 
 
 Cloths from Germany 32 
 
 Coatings from Great Britain 36 
 
 Coatings from United States 2T
 
 THE EMPIRE. 
 
 167 
 
 That the colonies are sources of military strength, or could 
 help England in time of war, few would maintain. They are 
 always being exhorted to arm themselves, which they will not 
 do effectively so long as they feel that they have a claim upon 
 Great Britain for protection. Australia sent a regiment to 
 Suakim, but it seems she will not do the like again. Canada 
 distinctly declined to follow the example, Conservative journals 
 being most emphatic in protesting, to avert suspicion, that there 
 was no intention of the kind. She sent a party of Voyageurs 
 at British cost. To bid her arm against the Americans is to 
 bid her arm against a community with which she is in a state 
 of social fusion, in which half her people have sons, brothers, 
 or cousins, to which the most fervent of Canadian Tories does 
 not hesitate to transfer himself and his allegiance when interest 
 calls. Her arming against France would be vetoed by the 
 French Canadians who control her legislature, and whose 
 hearts would be on the French side. The French would refuse 
 
 Glass bottles 38^ 
 
 Waterproof clothing 34 
 
 2 and 3 pronged forks 45i 
 
 4 and 6 pronged forks, Great Britain . . . 53 J 
 
 4 and 6 pronged forks, United States. .. 52 
 
 Hoes from Great Britain 52 
 
 Hoes from United States 4T 
 
 Garden rakes 50^ 
 
 Scythes from Great Britain 49^ 
 
 Scythes from United States 4S| 
 
 Spades and shovels from Great Britain 44^ 
 
 Spades and shovels from United States 42J 
 
 Axles from Great Britain GI 
 
 Axles from United States 44 J 
 
 Fire engines, average 35 
 
 Forgings of iron and steel. Great Britain 37 
 
 Forgings of iron and steel, United States 35 
 
 Hoop or band iron from Great Britain . . 47 
 
 Hoop or band iron from United States 28^ 
 
 Iron in slabs, blooms, etc., Great Britain 58 
 
 Iron in slabs, blooms, etc.. United States 42 
 
 Iron bridges from Great Britain 42 
 
 Iron bridges from United States 37 
 
 Pig and scrap iron, Great Britain 34 
 
 Pig and scrap iron, United States 2(i:v 
 
 Blankets from Great 15ritain 55 
 
 Blankets from lliiit<'d States 37 
 
 Blankets from other countries ;!1 
 
 Cashmeres from Great Britain 34 
 
 Cashmeres from United States 20 
 
 Cloths from Great Britain 33 
 
 Coatings from other countries 29 
 
 Meltons from Great Britain 3S 
 
 Tweeds, Great Britain and United States 32 
 
 Felt cloth from Great Britain 30 
 
 Felt cloth from United States 29 
 
 Hor.se collar cloth. Great Britain 41 
 
 Flannels from Great Britain 34 
 
 Flannels from United States 31 
 
 Woollen socks from Great Britain 39 
 
 Woollen socks from United States 38 
 
 Woollen socks from Germanv 41 
 
 Knitting yarn, Great Britain and United 
 
 States 33 
 
 Knitting yarn from Germany 35 
 
 Woollen cloaks from Great Britain 32 
 
 Woollen cloaks from United States 29 
 
 Coats, vests, etc., from (ireat Britain.. 34 
 
 Coats, vests, etc., from United States.. 30 
 
 Shirts, drawers, etc., from Great Britain 38 
 
 Shirts, drawers, etc., from United States 32 
 
 Horse clothing, .shaped. Great Britain.. 42 
 
 Horse clothing, shaped, United States. . 33 
 
 All other clothing, Great Britain 32 
 
 All other clothing, United States 29 
 
 Woollen carpets. Great Britain 37 
 
 Woollen carpets. United States 38 
 
 Woollen carpets, oilier ('(Uiutries 24 
 
 Vinegar from Great Britain 65 
 
 Vinegar from United States C7 
 
 Vinegar from France 81
 
 168 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 to pay for any British armaments whatever. To defend the 
 three thousand miles of open frontier, including a chain of great 
 lakes, the colony has an army of four companies of regular 
 infantry, two squadrons of regular cavalry, a small force of 
 artillery, and a militia numbering about 38,000, of which half 
 is drilled for a fortnight in each year. That Canada will not 
 contribute to imperial armaments has been distinctly admitted 
 by the Canadian High Commissioner, who says that she has 
 done enough, he means apparently for all time, in constructing 
 the Pacific Railway, deepening the canals, and suppressing 
 the Kiel rebellion. Upon hearing this the Imperial Federa- 
 tion League in England broke up. By her friendly voice in 
 the councils of her own continent Canada might greatly help 
 her mother country. She is not likely to help her in any other 
 way. 
 
 A grand scheme is on foot for making Canada the link 
 between Great Britain and Australia by a line of communica- 
 tions carried over Canadian territory, where it will be secure, 
 as the projectors suppose, in time of war. Whatever line is 
 made will, through almost its entire length, be within easy 
 grasp of the Americans, and will be liable to be broken by any 
 enemy who can apply dynamite to a bridge or cut a telegraph 
 wire in the deserts or mountain regions through which it 
 will run. That the highway of the world's commerce can be 
 made permanently to traverse the wintry wilds of the sub- 
 Arctic region seems unlikely, whatever lavish expenditure may 
 effect for a time. 
 
 Emigration returns which show 152,000 emigrants to the 
 United States against 27,000 to the North American colonies 
 are a conclusive answer to any allegation that tlie colonial 
 independencies are necessary as new homes. The political 
 connection may sometimes misdirect emigration, as those who 
 have seen the Skye Crofter settlements in Manitoba will be 
 inclined to suspect. There are now nearly a million of 
 Canadians in the United States. The object of the emigrant 
 in leaving his home is to better his condition, and he goes 
 where this will most surely be done. If he feels any other
 
 THE EMPIRE. 169 
 
 attraction, it is to the place whither his friends and relatives 
 have gone before him. 
 
 Some appear to suppose that the political influence of the 
 colonies, especially Canada, on the mother countr^^ is likely to 
 be of great value. It would surely be pretty much the same 
 even if they were independent. The progress of the mother 
 country in democracy hardly needs any impulse from without. 
 Australia contributes to British strikes, and Canadian legisla- 
 tures, under the auspices of a Ministry styled Conservative, to 
 gain the Irish vote passed resolutions in favour of Home Rule, 
 that is of the dismemberment of the British Empire. 
 
 To the colony, what is the use of dependence? Does it 
 really give military protection? Could Great Britain, in case 
 of war with a maritime power, afford fleets and armies for her 
 distant possessions? From Canada, we are told plainly, she 
 would have at once to withdraw. It would be a death-trap to 
 her arms and to her honour. So thought Lord Sherbrooke, 
 who says that Lord Palmerston agreed with him; and it is 
 understood that the War Office is of much the same mind. Yet 
 protection may fairly be demanded, since it is through the 
 connection with Great Britain, and the liability to be involved 
 as dependencies in her quarrels, that the colonies are in danger 
 of attack. Australia and Canada the other day might have 
 been involved in a war between Great Britain and France about 
 Siam. They may any day be involved in a quarrel about 
 Afghanistan, Egypt, or some African territory in which they 
 have not the remotest interest. Their trade may be cut up, 
 possibly they may be exposed to invasion, which, as even the 
 best militia never stand against regulars, they could hardly 
 meet. The sole danger of Canada arises from the connec- 
 tion. Since the extinction of slavery the people of the United 
 States have had no thought of territorial aggrandisement; they 
 have shrunk even from natural extension. Canada, were she 
 independent, might sleep in perfect safety "under the gigantic 
 shadow of her rapacious neighbour." Nobody can doubt this 
 who knows the American people. While Canada is exposed 
 to danger by the connection. Great Britain hardly dares to
 
 170 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 stand erect when she deals with the American Republic, because 
 her North American dependencies are a pledge in the adver- 
 sary's hands. In almost all negotiations the impotence of 
 Great Britain on the American continent has been felt. In 
 each dispute about boundaries, Canada has been obliged to give 
 way. She has complained, but what else could she expect? 
 British diplomacy has done its best, but diplomacy is little 
 without cannon. 
 
 Commercially the colonies may be thought to have an 
 advantage in a special facility of borrowing, though Spain, 
 Turkey, Mexico, the Argentine Republic, have been able to 
 borrow from England on a liberal scale. But it may be 
 doubted whether facility of borrowing, if it is apparently a 
 blessing, is not really a curse in disguise. 
 
 Is any political advantage derived by the colonies from 
 dependence? Is it possible that a salutary tutelage should be 
 exercised by a democracy in Europe over a democracy in 
 America or at the antipodes, its equal in intelligence, its equal 
 in power of self-government, and placed in circumstances 
 widely different? The idea is ludicrous. What does one 
 Englishman in ten thousand know or care about Australian or 
 Canadian affairs? What does Parliament know or care about 
 them? Does not a colonial question clear the House? The 
 Constitution imposed by Parliament on Canada twenty years 
 ago has disclosed serious defects. The Senate, especially, has 
 proved a dead failure or worse. Yet the Constitution is 
 practically riveted on the colony because Parliament could 
 never be got to attend to amendments. Thus the political 
 development of the young nation, instead of being aided by 
 the tutelage, is impeded in the most important resj^ect. All 
 the machinery of British Parliamentary government the colo- 
 nies in common with many independent nations have. The 
 spirit of British statesmanship you cannot impart, unless you 
 send out British statesmen instinct with it in virtue of their 
 peculiar training and traditions. The game of colonial faction 
 will not give birth to it; perhaps its life may not be long in 
 the mother country herself. Whether the standard of politi-
 
 THE EMPIRE. 171 
 
 cal morality in a colony is raised by the connection, Canadian 
 scandals have too clearly shown, though the government having 
 barred the door against inquiry, only a part, probably, of the 
 truth has come to light. Any one of those disclosures would 
 have ruined an aspirant to high political place in the United 
 States. Mr. Blake complains of " lowered standards of public 
 virtue, deathlike apathy of public opinion, debauched con- 
 stituencies, and increased dependence on tlie public chest." 
 Government has been unblushingly corrupt. Subsidies to 
 railways and local works have been notoriously used for the 
 purpose of influencing elections. No President of the United 
 States, as a candidate for re-election, would have dared to 
 assemble the protected manufacturers in the parlour of a 
 hotel, assess them to his election fund, and pledge to them the 
 fiscal policy of the country. 
 
 A Governor is now politically a cipher. He holds a petty 
 court, and bids champagne flow under his roof, receives civic 
 addresses, and makes flattering replies; but he has lost all 
 power, not only of initiation, but of salutary control. His 
 name serves only to cloak and dignify the acts of colonial 
 politicians. It makes the people put up witli things against 
 which public self-respect even at a low ebb might revolt. 
 Parliament in Canada was dissolved the other day for the 
 convenience of the Minister, who wanted to snap a verdict, 
 on the pretence that a popular mandate was required for 
 negotiations respecting the tariff which were on foot with the 
 government of the United States. The pretence Avas false, 
 and the falsehood was at once exposed by the American Secre- 
 tary of State, who declared that no negotiations whatever Avere 
 on foot. In the fraud thus practised on the people, the 
 representative of the Crown, who can hardly have failed to 
 know the truth, was constrained constitutionally to bear a part. 
 In the noted case of the Pacific Railway scandal, while public 
 morality was struggling, perhaps for the last time, with cor- 
 ruption, the weight of the Governor-General's authority was 
 actually cast into the wrong scale. By the advice of the 
 accused Ministers, which he deemed it his constitutional duty
 
 172 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 to take, he transferred the inquiry from Parliament, which 
 was seised of it, to a Royal Commission appointed by the 
 Ministers themselves, Avhose object manifestly was to evade 
 justice, as they would probably have succeeded in doing had 
 not public indignation been too strong. 
 
 Nor does the political connection form anything in the way 
 of social character which a man of sense would value, or from 
 which a man of sense would not turn away. There is no need 
 of using harsh words in order to suggest to what colonial 
 worship of a coronet must lead. The tendency at present is 
 to revive the system of colonial titles. Anybody can guess 
 what titles and title-hunting in colonial society must beget. 
 The accolade does not confer chivalry. In the Pacific Rail- 
 way scandal, out of four men implicated, three were knights 
 at the time, the fourth was afterwards knighted, and as a 
 knight got into other scrapes of the same kind. A knight 
 pays with a place in a government department a printer who 
 has stolen proofs from his office for the use of the party at an 
 election. A baronet employs without shame, for a political 
 purpose, private letters, the property of other persons, which 
 he cannot have obtained in an honourable way. Few can 
 believe it possible to plant aristocracy in the New World. Pitt 
 tried it and utterly failed. An hereditary Peerage clearly can- 
 not live without entailed estates; you might have a mar- 
 quess blacking boots. Even a baronetcy is a temptation to 
 provide an estate for its heirs at the public cost. The tendency 
 of the whole system is to breed subjects for a colonial Thack- 
 eray. By the good sense of the Canadian people it is regarded 
 with aversion, and if it depended on their vote, it would come 
 to an end. As to any influence of titles or of the political 
 connection generally on social manners, all that need be said 
 is that the manners of honest industry are good enough if they 
 are let alone, and that the character of the English gentleman 
 is highly susceptible of imitation on its bad side. 
 
 Nationality exalts and saves. To the self-respect of a 
 nation appeals are seldom made wholly in vain. Appeals are 
 not made in vain to the self-respect of the people of the United
 
 THE EMPIRE. 173 
 
 States. Americans outside the political ring are ambitious of 
 being great citizens ; for that name they will work hard, and, 
 if they have wealth, spend it freely. The natural ambition of 
 a colonist who has made a fortune is to get a title, go to Court, 
 have his wife presented, and gain a footing in the aristocratic 
 society of the imperial country. His affections and aspira- 
 tions do not centre in the colony. Not seldom he leaves it 
 during a great part of the year, sometimes wholly, for London. 
 He must, if he is made a Peer. In public munificence, a 
 dependency, even allowing for the difference of wealth, will 
 not bear comparison Avith a nation. Deadlift efforts may be 
 made to cultivate national spirit in dependencies. Like all 
 efforts to cultivate artificial sentiment, they will be made in 
 vain. If England is to be the mother of free nations, the 
 nations must be free. 
 
 The case of Canada is not to be confounded with those of 
 Australia and South Africa. Australia lies in an ocean of her 
 own, without great neighbours nearer than China, or fear of 
 collision, save possibly with European interlopers in her 
 sphere. South Africa has no neighbours except the Boers and 
 the savages. The Canadian Dominion, as a glance at the map 
 — the physical and economical, not the political map — will 
 show, is the northern rim, broken by three wide gaps, of a 
 continent of which the inhabitants are a people of the same 
 race, language, religion, and institutions, with whom its people, 
 severed only by an obsolete quarrel, are rapidly blending and 
 would unite if nature had her way. In the United States is 
 Canada's natural market for buying as well as selling, the 
 market which lier productions are always struggling to enter 
 through every opening in the tariff wall, for exclusion from 
 which no distant market either in England or elsewhere can 
 compensate her, the want of which brings on her commercial 
 atrophy and drives the flower of her youth by thousands and 
 tens of thousands over the line. Her own market, as a whole, 
 is not large, and it is broken into four, between which there is 
 hardly any natural trade, and little has been forced even by 
 the most stringent system of protection. A correspondent of
 
 174 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 the Times tells his readers that Canada cannot trade with the 
 United States because the productions of both are the same; 
 as though productions were the same over the whole continent 
 from Labrador to Louisiana! The same writer states that 
 Canada is 35 per cent, of the whole British Empire, which she 
 may be if he includes the north pole. The demand for aid for 
 settlers may have awakened England to the fact that the 
 Canadian ISTorth-West remains unpeopled. It remains unpeo- 
 pled while the neighbouring States of the Union are peopled 
 because it is cut off from the continent to which it belongs by 
 a fiscal and political line. 
 
 There is an especial danger in the retention of Canada, both 
 to the imperial country and to the colony. Canada, British 
 Canada at least (and England cannot be too often reminded 
 that there is a French Canada as well as a British), with her 
 Governor-General's court and her mimic aristocracy of bar- 
 onets and knights, presents herself as a political outpost of 
 monarchical and aristocratic England on the territory of 
 American democracy. In this spirit her fervent loyalists act, 
 all the more because they cannot help feeling that nature is 
 drawing together the two sections of the English race on 
 the continent, and that only by cultivating antagonism can the 
 attraction be countervailed. Being safe, as they think, under 
 the shield of England, and not called upon even to pay the 
 expense of their own diplomacy, they are tempted to indulge 
 in a dangerously spirited bearing. Thus are bred disputes, 
 of one of which arbitration may fail to dispose. At the last 
 election the government distinctly appealed to anti-American 
 feeling, and leaders made anti- American speeches which they 
 afterwards tried to soften, but which had been faithfully 
 taken down; while their less responsible followers, going 
 greater lengths, insulted the American name and flag. Sup- 
 pose, to use the illustration once more, Scotland were an 
 American possession and an outpost of American Anglophobia. 
 
 A reunion of the Anglo-Saxon race in a political or diplomatic 
 sense there can hardly be. The race is too much scattered, 
 the circumstances of its members differ too Avidely, some of
 
 THE EMPIRE. 175 
 
 them are too much mixed with other races, for any combina- 
 tion of that kind. How coukl Great Britain confederate, even 
 in the loosest way, with the United States? Where would 
 the centre of such a union be, and what would be its objects? 
 If the object were merely to keep the peace among the mem- 
 bers of the confederacy, that might be done in a simpler way; 
 if to impose the will of the confederacy upon the world, the 
 world would rise against the confederacy. This is a day- 
 dream. But there is nothing visionary in the hope of a moral 
 reunion of the race in which would be buried the old quarrel 
 with all its miserable traces, including that subserviency to 
 people alien to the Anglo-Saxon mission of law, into which 
 partly by their dissensions both sections have been betrayed. 
 England was bound, after the American Eevolution, to keep 
 her flag flying over the loyalists who had settled in Canada as 
 well as over the French Catholics, who had taken her side. 
 This duty has been done; and if Canada, situated as she is 
 commercially as well as geograpliically, and with a solid 
 French nationality in the midst of her, is capable of being 
 and desires to be an independent nation, from American 
 aggression, once more, she has nothing to fear. The Ameri- 
 cans have territory enough ; though they cannot fail to see the 
 advantages of a imited continent, they are too wise to incor- 
 porate disaffection. They know that if they wish to put 
 pressure on Canada, they might do it, without giving England 
 a pretext for drawing her sword, by stopping the bonding 
 system, depriving Canada of winter ports, excluding her pro- 
 ducts from their markets, and laying a hostile hand upon her 
 railways, including the Canadian Pacific, which, though Eng- 
 lishmen seem to be unaware of the fact, runs through the 
 State of Maine. Let England, then, fairly weigh the advan- 
 tages and disadvantages of this possession both to herself and 
 to the dependency, and let her not be beguiled by official reports 
 or by those of Governors-General who do not live in the castle 
 of truth. It was to such sources that England and her govern- 
 ment continued to trust for information while the current of 
 events was drawing them towards the American Revolvition.
 
 176 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Sentiment, apart from utility, nobody would disparage; but 
 apart from utility it cannot long subsist. ISTor is loyalty, how- 
 ever loud, or even sincere, worth much unless it is attested by 
 self-sacrifice. A Canadian Parliament, a Conservative Min- 
 ister leading the way, voted sympathy with Home Rule. This 
 was done, as a leading Conservative confessed on the platform 
 the other day, because, an election being near, it was necessary 
 to capture the Irish Catholic vote. Judge whether these men 
 are likely to pour out their blood without stint for British 
 connection; see at least, first, whether they are ready to pour 
 out a little money or to reduce their duties on your goods. 
 "Loyalty," said Cobden, "is an ironical term to apply to 
 people who neither pay our taxes nor obey our laws, nor hold 
 themselves liable to fight our battles, who would repudiate our 
 right to the sovereignty over an acre of their territory, and 
 who claim the right of imposing their own customs duties even 
 to the exclusion of our manufactures." ^ Nothing can be more 
 
 1 Cobden visited Canada and the United States more than once, and 
 when the Confederation Act was on the stocks wrote as follows to a 
 friend: "I cannot see what substantial interest the British people have 
 in the connection to compensate them for guaranteeing three or four 
 millions of North Americans living in Canada against another commu- 
 nity of Americans living in their neighbourhood. "We are told indeed of 
 the loyalty of the Canadians, but this is an ironical term to apply to 
 people who neither pay our taxes, nor obey our laws, nor hold themselves 
 liable to fight our battles, who would repudiate our right to the sover- 
 eignty over an acre of their territory, and who claim the right of impos- 
 ing their own customs duties even to the exclusion of our manufactures. 
 We are two peoples to all intents and purposes, and it is a perilous delu- 
 sion to both parties to attempt to keep up a sham connection and depen- 
 dence, which will snap asunder if it should ever be put to the strain of 
 stern reality. It is all very well for our Cockney newspapers to talk of 
 defending Canada at all hazards. It would be just as possible for the 
 United States to sustain Yorkshire in a war with England as for us to 
 enable Canada to contend against the United States. It is simply an 
 impossibility. Nor must we forget that the only serious danger of a 
 quarrel between the two neighbours arises from the connection of Canada 
 with this country. In my opinion, it is for the interest of both that we 
 should, as speedily as possible, sever the political thread by which we are
 
 THE EMPIRE. 177 
 
 kindly than the feeling of ordinary Canadians, who seek no 
 titles and have no railways to vend, towards the mother coun- 
 try; but it does not prevent them from thinking of their own 
 interest first. Every one who has lived in the United States 
 knows that there is many an American of the better class 
 whose heart has turned to Old England. The affection of 
 these men is undeniably genuine, and would perhaps stand as 
 severe a test as the loyalty of the dependency. That the love 
 of colonists other than those whose special interests or aspira- 
 tions are bound up with the present system would be lessened 
 by the dissolution of the political tie, there is not the slightest 
 reason for believing. It has not been lessened by the reduc- 
 tion of the tie to a mere thread ; why should it be lessened by 
 the dissolution? Eace, history, literature, depend not on 
 political connection. The Governor-Generalship as a channel 
 of British influence on the Canadian mind would be well 
 exchanged for the free importation of British books. 
 
 This question of the relation of the colonies cannot be set 
 aside as unpractical. It may at any moment present itself in 
 the most practical form; for a maritime war would at once 
 reveal the inability of England to protect her distant depen- 
 dencies and the inability of the dependencies to defend their 
 own trade. At some time it must come, for nobody believes 
 that Australia and Canada can forever remain in a state of 
 dependence. Nobody imagines that the American colonies, 
 which are now the United States, even if there had been no 
 quarrel with George III., covild have remained to the present 
 
 as communities connected, and leave tlie individuals on both sides to 
 cultivate the relations of commerce and friendly intercourse as with other 
 nations. I have felt an interest in this Confederation scheme because I 
 thought it was a step in the direction of an amicable separation. I am 
 afraid from the last telegrams that there may be a diflficulty either in your 
 province or in Lower Canada in carrying out the project. Whatever may 
 be the wish of the colonies will meet with the concurrence of our Gov- 
 ernment and I'arliament. We have recognized their right to control 
 their own fate even to the point of asserting their independence when- 
 ever they think fit, and which we know to be only a question of time." — 
 Morley's Life of Cobden, Vol. II., pp. 470, 471.
 
 178 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 day dependencies of Great Britain. "There is a period," said 
 Lord Blatcliford, " in the life of distant nations, however close 
 their original connection, at which each mnst pursue its own 
 course, whether in domestic or foreign politics, unembarrassed 
 by the other's leading. And the arrival of that period depends 
 upon growth. Every increase of colonial wealth, or number, 
 or intelligence, or organisation, is in one sense a step towards 
 disintegration. The Confederation of Canada was therefore 
 such a step." The opinion of Sir G. Cornewall Lewis in his 
 "Government of Dependencies," though, like all his opinions, 
 cautiously worded, is easy to read. Even Lord Beaconsfield 
 told Lord Malmesbury in confidence that the colonies would be 
 independent in a few years, nor did he shrink from saying that 
 they were a millstone round the neck of England in the mean- 
 time. ^ If the question must come, then, why not face it? 
 Because British governments are ephemeral, and in the per- 
 petual faction fight have enough to do to-day without thinking 
 of to-morrow. Probably the end will come in the form of a 
 crash or shock of some kind. But discussion will at least 
 teach statesmanship to interpret the event and deal wisely 
 with it when it comes. 
 
 The West India Islands are lovely, romantic, steeped in 
 historic memories. But as a British possession they are 
 almost penal. Profit or strength from them Great Britain 
 derives no more. In case of a maritime war, they would be a 
 real burden to her. But she is bound to sustain what remains 
 of a white race, and to keep peace between the races, so that 
 there may be no more Jamaica massacres. This penalty she 
 pays for her share in the gains of slavery, gains which them- 
 selves were losses, for the West Indian slave-owners corrupted 
 her society and her politics. Peace, it is to be feared, can be 
 kept between whites and blacks only by a power superior to 
 both of them, and it would be probably better for the islands 
 if they were dependencies outright, and ruled by imperial 
 governors, provided the governors were strong men and impar- 
 
 1 See Lord Malmesbury's Memoirs of an Ex-Minister, Vol. I., p. 344.
 
 THE EMPIRE. 179 
 
 tial, not febrile partisans like Governor Eyre. Negro demo- 
 cracy, after a pretty long trial in Hayti, seems to be a total 
 failure, even when due allowance is made for the inauspicious 
 circumstances of its birth. The Americans do not want to 
 incorporate barbarous populations which would send corrupt 
 elements to Congress, nor do they want to annex islands for 
 the defence of which they would have to keep a large fleet. 
 They emphatically declined the offer of San Domingo. 
 
 There is an impression that the question of the colonial 
 system and of the Empire generally was mooted some time ago 
 by the Manchester school, and that the mercenary ideas of the 
 school prevailed for a time, but were presently discarded, 
 while imperialism resumed its generous sway. Opinion is a 
 plant not only of slow, but of fitful growth. The Manchester 
 movement, as it is styled, swept away military occupation. 
 Before that time there had been large bodies of British troops 
 in the colonies, and, as a consequence, a series of Maori and 
 Kaffir wars. The movement got rid of the useless and trouble- 
 some protectorate of the Ionian Islands. It gave a general 
 impulse to colonial emancipation, which has constantly ad- 
 vanced since that time. Almost every question has been 
 determined in favour of colonial self-government, till at last 
 the colonies stand upon the brink of independence. Canada is 
 now claiming even diplomatic independence in the matter of 
 commercial treaties, which she proposes to make for herself 
 under the name and on the responsibility of the British Foreign 
 Office. She has half emancipated herself judicially from the 
 Privy Council by the creation of her own Supreme Court. She 
 begins to be rather restless under the military command of 
 generals sent from England. At this point there is a natural 
 recoil, as there is sure to be at any parting, however inevitable, 
 at the breaking of any tie, familiar, though it may be obsolete. 
 Moreover, there are classes whoso interests and aspirations are 
 bound up with the system. There are tlie circle of colonial 
 governors and the candidates for imperial titles. Another 
 reactionary influence of a subtle kind is felt. I[ouio Rulers
 
 180 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 find in fervent imperialism a set-off against their separatism 
 at home. Tliey promise tliemselves and their country an 
 ample reunion as compensation for dismemberment. Hence 
 the movement in favour of Imperial Federation. On this 
 subject the writer can only repeat what he has said in another 
 work, which, being on a special question, is not likely to have 
 met the eye of the reader of this book.^ 
 
 "It was probably the sight of the tie visibly weakening and 
 of the approach of colonial independence that gave birth, by a 
 recoil, to Imperial Federation. But the movement has been 
 strangely reinforced from another source. Home Rulers, who 
 under that specious name would surrender Ireland to the 
 Parnellites, think to salve their own patriotism and reconcile 
 the nation to tlieir policy by saying that in breaking up the 
 United Kingdom they are but providing raw materials for a 
 far ampler and grander union. In the case of the late Mr. 
 Forster, the only statesman who has very seriously embraced 
 the project, something might be due to the Nemesis of 
 imagination in the breast of a Quaker. 
 
 "The Imperial Federationists refuse to tell us their plan. 
 They bid our bosoms dilate with trustful enthusiasm for 
 arrangements which are yet to be revealed. They say it is 
 not yet time for the disclosure. Not yet time, when the last 
 strand of political connection is worn almost to the last thread, 
 and when every day the sentiment opposed to centralisation is 
 implanting itself more deeply in colonial hearts! While we 
 are bidden to wait patiently for the tide, the tide is running 
 strongly the other way. Now Newfoundland claims the right 
 of making her own commercial agreements with the United 
 States independently of other colonies. Disintegration, surely, 
 is on the point of being complete. 
 
 " At least we may be told of whom the Confederation is to 
 consist. Are the negroes of the West Indies to be included? 
 Is Quashee to vote on imperial policy? But above all, what 
 is to be done with India? Is it, as a Colonial Federationist of 
 thoroughgoing democratic tendencies demanded the other day, 
 
 1 Canada and the Canadian Question, pp. 296-309.
 
 THE EMPIRE. 181 
 
 to be taken into Federation and enfranchised? If it is, the 
 Hindoo will outvote us five to one, and what he will do with 
 us only those who have fathomed the Oriental mystery can 
 pretend to say. Is it to remain a dependency? If it is, to 
 whom is it to belong? To a Federation of democratic com- 
 munities scattered over the globe, some of which, like Canada, 
 have no interest in it whatever? Its fate as an Empire would 
 then be sealed, if it is not sealed already by the progress of 
 democracy in Great Britain. Or is it to belong to England 
 alone? In that case one member of the Confederacy will have 
 an Empire apart five times as large as the rest of the Confed- 
 eration, requiring separate armaments and a diplomacy of its 
 own. How would the American Confederation work if one 
 State held South America as an Empire? Some have suggested 
 that Hindostan should be represented by the British residents 
 in India alone. If it were, woe to the Hindoo ! 
 
 " Again, the object of the Association surely must be known. 
 Every Association of a practical kind must have a definite 
 object to hold it together. The objects which naturally sug- 
 uest themselves are common armaments and a common tariff. 
 But Canada, as we have seen, refuses to contribute to common 
 armaments, and Australia, though she sent a regiment to the 
 Soudan, now apparently repents of having done it. Great 
 Britain is a war power; the colonists, like the Americans, are 
 essentially unmilitary, and here would be the beginning of 
 troubles. As to the tariff, the Canadian Protectionists, who 
 make use of Imperial Federation as a stalking-horse in their 
 struggle against free trade with the United States, are always 
 careful to say that they do not mean to resign their right of 
 laying protective duties on British goods. Victoria also seems 
 wedded to her Protective system. What remains but improve- 
 ment of postal communication and a Colonial Exhibition, 
 neither of which surely calls for a political combination 
 unprecedented in history? 
 
 "Unprecedented in history the combination would be. The 
 Roman Empire, the thought of which and of its Civis Romanus 
 sum, is always hovering before our minds, was vast, but it was
 
 182 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 all in a ring-fence. Moreover, it had its world to itself, no 
 rival powers being interposed between Rome and her Pro- 
 vinces. It was an Empire in the proper sense of the term. Its 
 members were all alike in strict subordination to its head. The 
 head determined the policy without question, and danger to 
 unity from divided counsels there was none. We confuse our 
 minds, as was said before, by an improper use of the term 
 Empire. The name applies to India, but to nothing else con- 
 nected with Great Britain unless it be the fortresses and Crown 
 Colonies. Our self-governed colonies are not members of an 
 Empire, but free communities virtually independent of the 
 mother country, which for the purpose of Confederation would 
 be called upon to resign a portion of their independence. Of 
 the Spanish Empire it is needless to speak. Its name is an 
 omen of disaster and a warning against the blind ambition 
 which mistakes combination for union and colossal weakness 
 for power. After all, the Roman Empire itself fell, and partly 
 because the life was draAvn from the members to the head. 
 
 "The Achaean League, the Swiss Bund, the Union of the 
 Netherlands, the American Union, all were perfectly natural 
 combinations, not only suggested but commanded by a common 
 peril. In three out of the four cases the communities which 
 entered into the compact were kindred in all respects ; in the 
 case of the Swiss Bund they were equal. In the case of the 
 Confederation now proposed, they would be neither kindred 
 nor equal; and fasten the people of the British Islands, those 
 of self-governed colonies, the Hindoo, the African, and the 
 Kaffir together with what legislative clamps you will, you 
 cannot produce the unity of political character and sentiment 
 which is essential to community of counsels, much more to 
 national union. 
 
 " Steam and telegraph, we are told, have annihilated dis- 
 tance. They have not annihilated the parish steeple. They 
 have not carried the thoughts of the ordinary citizen beyond 
 the circle of his own life and work. They have not qualified a 
 common farmei-, tradesman, ploughman, or artisan to direct 
 the politics of a world-wide State. How much does an ordi-
 
 THE EMPIRE. 183 
 
 nary Canadian know or care about Australia, an ordinary 
 Australian about Canada, or an ordinary Englishman, Scotch- 
 man, or Irishman about either? The feeling of all the 
 colonists towards the mother country, when yovi appeal to it, 
 is thoroughly kind, as is that' of the mother country towards 
 the colonies. But Canadian notions of British politics are 
 hazy, and still more hazy are British notions of the politics of 
 Canada. When John Sandfield Macdonald, the Prime Minis- 
 ter of Ontario, died, his death was chronicled by British 
 journals as that of Sir John A. Macdonald, the Prime Minister 
 of the Dominion. 
 
 " The different Provinces of Canada cannot be made to sink 
 their local interests in that of the Dominion. How much less 
 could all the colonies be made to sink their local interests in 
 that of the Imperial Federation ! 
 
 " About India Englishmen know more, because their interest 
 in it is so great; but Canadians know nothing. The framers 
 of these vast political schemes, having their own eyes fixed on 
 the political firmament, forget that the eyes of men in general 
 are fixed on the path they tread. The suffrage of the Federa- 
 tion ought to be limited to far-reaching and imaginative minds. 
 
 " A grand idea may be at the same time practical. The idea 
 of a United Continent of North America, securing free trade 
 and intercourse over a vast area, with external safety and in- 
 ternal peace, is no less practical than it is grand. Tlie benefits 
 of such a union v/ould be always present to the mind of the 
 least instructed citizen. The sentiment connected with it 
 would be a foundation on which the political architect could 
 build. Imi)erial Federation, to the mass of the people com- 
 prised in it, would be a mere name conveying with it no 
 definite sense of benefit on which anything could be built. 
 
 " To press this receding vision a little closer, what would be 
 the relation of the Federal Government to the British mon- 
 archy? Would the same Queen be sovereign of both? Would 
 she have two sets of advisers? Suppose they should advise 
 her different ways ! Would she appoint, as she does now, the 
 heads of all the other members of tlie Federation? It would
 
 184 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 hardly do to let the President of the United States appoint all 
 the State Governors. How would the Supreme Court be con- 
 stituted? Such an authority would certainly be needed to 
 interpret the Constitution, and the British monarchy would 
 have to be a suitor before it. How would the decrees of the 
 Federal Government be enforced, say, in case of refusal to 
 send the war contingent? How, again, would the representa- 
 tion in the Federal Parliament be apportioned? If by popula- 
 tion, the representation of the British Islands would so out- 
 number the rest that the rest would deem their representation 
 practically a nullity, and jealousy and cabals would at once 
 arise. The very number, too, would be a difficulty. If Great 
 Britain had members in proportion to St. Helena and Fiji, the 
 Parliament would have to meet on Salisbury Plain. These are 
 not questions of detail, nor do they attach only to a particular 
 scheme; they are fundamental, and attach to every scheme 
 that can be conceived. 
 
 "The Parliament of Great Britain must cease to be a Sover- 
 eign Power. The imperial Congress itself would not be a 
 Sovereign Power. Like the Congress of the United States, it 
 would be subject to the Federal Constitution, and would have 
 so much authority only as that Constitution assigned it. The 
 Sovereign Power would be the people of the Empire at large, 
 and a curious Sovereign they would be. 
 
 " The same person could not be the head at once of a Federa- 
 tion and of one of the communities included in it, any more 
 than the same person could be President of the United States 
 and Governor of the State of New York. Her Majesty would 
 have to choose between the British and the Pan -Britannic 
 Crown. 
 
 " Canada is a Confederation in herself. Movements are on 
 foot for a Confederation of the Australian Colonies and of 
 those of South Africa. Confederation of the West India 
 Islands has also been proposed. We should thus have a strik- 
 ing novelty in political architecture in the shape of a Con- 
 federation of Confederations. But it seems certain that New 
 Zealand would not, and that some isolated colonies could not.
 
 THE EMPIRE. 185 
 
 join any Federation, in which ease the members of the Central 
 Parliament would represent partly Federations, partly single 
 communities. Strange, apparently, would be the complica- 
 tion of fealties, obligations, and sentiments which would hence 
 arise. 
 
 "This Union, so complex in its machinery, with its members 
 scattered over the world, and distracted by interests as wide 
 apart as the shores of its members, Home Rulers think they 
 could maintain, while they bid us despair of maintaining the 
 Parliamentary Union of Ireland with Great Britain. 
 
 " Even to assemble the Constituent Convention would be no 
 easy task. The governments, British and Colonial, are all 
 party governments and all liable to constant change. The 
 delegate trusted by one party would not have the confidence 
 of the other, and before the Convention could proceed to busi- 
 ness somebody's credentials would be withdrawn. We have 
 seen in the case of Canadian Confederation how Nova Scotia, 
 New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island flew off from the 
 agreement at which their delegates had arrived. In truth 
 there would probably be a general falling away as soon as 
 payment for Imperial armaments came into view. 
 
 " The Federation would be nothing if not diplomatic. But 
 whose diplomacy is to prevail? That of Great Britain, a 
 European Power and at the same time Mistress of India? 
 That of Australia, with her Eastern relations and her Chinese 
 question? Or that of Canada, bound up with the American 
 Continent, indifferent to everything in Europe or Asia, and 
 concerned only with her relation to the United States? Aus- 
 tralia, we have been told, already betrays her intention of 
 breaking away from England should British policy ever take a 
 line adverse to her special interests in the East, and such a line 
 British policy must take if the special interests of Australia 
 are ever to lead her into a conflict with the Chinese. 
 
 "Switzerland, the Netherlands, and the United States, all 
 federated under the pressure of necessity, which, stern and 
 manifest as it was, had yet scarcely the power to overcome the 
 centralised forces. To do the Avork of that necessity there
 
 186 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 ought at least to be an equally strong desire. But what proof 
 have we of the existence of such a desire? Australia, far 
 from being eager, seems to be adverse ; in some of her cities 
 the missionary of Imperial Federation can scarcely find an 
 audience. From South Africa comes no audible response. In 
 British Canada the movement has no apparent strength except 
 what it derives from an alliance with Protectionism, which, as 
 has already been said, repudiates a commercial union of the 
 Empire and insists on maintaining its separate tariff. To the 
 French ISTationalists of Quebec anything that would bind their 
 country closer to Great Britain is odious, and they were recently 
 disposed to receive a Governor-General coldly because they 
 suspected him of favouring such a policy. In Great Britain 
 itself the movement shows no sign of strength. For several 
 years, under Lord Beaconsfield, Imperialism had everything 
 its own Avay, yet not a step was taken towards Federation. 
 This was the grand opportunity; but Federationists failed to 
 grasp it by the forelock. Nothing has been done to this hour 
 beyond holding a meeting of colonists, absolutely without 
 authority, which dined, wined, and talked about postal com- 
 munications, all power of dealing with the great question hav- 
 ing been expressly withheld. Lord Beaconsfield's successor 
 in the Tory leadership has plainly declined to commit himself 
 to the project. We seem to be a long way from a spontaneous 
 and overwhelming vote, nothing short of which would suffice. 
 
 " The approach to centralisation at once sets all the centri- 
 fugal forces in action; it did this even in the American 
 Federation, so that the project narrowly escaped wreck; and 
 miscarriage would beget, instead of closer union, discord, 
 estrangement, and perhaps rupture. Let us bear in mind the 
 warning example of the rupture with the American colonies. 
 
 " What is the real motive for encountering all the difficulties 
 and perils of this more than gigantic undertaking, for running 
 laboriously counter to the recent course of colonial history, as 
 well as to the natural tendencies of our race, and for takinsr 
 the political heart and brain, as it were, out of each of these 
 free communities and transferring them to London? We are
 
 THE EMPIRE. 187 
 
 told that the Federal Empire would impose peace upon the 
 world. This assumes that dispersion is strength, and that 
 Great Britain would be made more formidable in war by being 
 bound up with unwarlike communities. But suppose it true ; 
 surely the appearance of a world-wide power, grasping all the 
 waterways and all the points of maritime vantage, instead of 
 propagating peace, would, like an alarm gun, call the nations 
 to battle? The way to make peace on earth is to promote the 
 coming not of an exclusive military league but the Parliament 
 of Man, the moral Parliament of Man at least, by enlarging 
 the action of international law and repressing the ambitious 
 passions to which, however philanthropic may be our profes- 
 sions, Imperialism really appeals. 
 
 " If no distinct object can be assigned, if no definite plan can 
 be produced, if the projectors are conscious that there is no 
 practical step on which they can venture, surely the project 
 ought to be frankly laid aside and no longer allowed to darken 
 counsel, hide from us the real facts of the situation, and pre- 
 vent the colonies from advancing on the true path. 
 
 " There is a federation which is feasible, and, to those who 
 do not measure grandeur by physical force or extension, at 
 least as grand as that of which ihe Imperialist dreams. It is 
 the moral federation of the whole English-speaking race 
 throughout the Avorld, including all those millions of men 
 speaking the English language in the United States, and parted 
 from the rest only a century ago by a wretched quarrel, whom 
 Imperial Federation would leave out of its pale. Nothing is 
 needed to bring this about but the voluntary retirement of 
 England as a political power from a shadowy Dominion in a 
 sphere which is not hers. 
 
 " Unless all present appearances on the political horizon are 
 delusive, the time is at liand when the upheaval of the labour 
 world, and the social problems which are coming into view, 
 will give politicians more serious and substantial matter for 
 thought than the airy fabric of Imperial Federation. 
 
 ''The old project of giving the colonies representation in the 
 Imperial Parliament appears to have been laid aside. The
 
 188 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 objections urged against it by Bnrke on the ground of distance 
 have been to a great extent removed by steam, though it 
 might even now be difficult to call together a world-wide 
 Parliament in time of maritime war. But the objection still 
 decisive is that the colonies would not pat their affairs into the 
 hands of an Assembly in which their representation would be 
 overwhelmingly outnumbered. ISTor could they trust represen- 
 tatives domiciled in London who, under the influence of London 
 society, would be apt to become more British than the British 
 themselves. These new countries, which have such difficulty 
 in finding suitable men for their own legislatures, would have 
 difficulty in finding men to represent them at Westminster at 
 all. They might have to fall back on expatriated men of 
 wealth, in whom, as representatives of colonial sentiment, very 
 little confidence could be placed. Supposing that the members 
 for the colonies remained colonial, and tried to make up for 
 their lack of numbers at Westminster by combining among 
 themselves and log-rolling, they might become a serious addi- 
 tion to the distractions of the British Parliament, which 
 assuredly need no increase. 
 
 " Let it be taken as certain and irreversible that the colonies 
 will not part with any portion of their self-government. If a 
 scheme can be devised by which they can be governed by an 
 Assembly at Westminster without any loss to them of self- 
 government it may, supposing it be presented to them in an 
 intelligible and practical form, stand a chance of consideration 
 at their hands. 
 
 "A crumb of comfort has just fallen to the advocates of 
 Imperial Federation in the shape of a Peerage conferred on a 
 colonist. This is hailed as representation of the colonies in 
 the British Parliament. The number of such Peers must 
 always be very small, while the House in which they sit is not 
 that of power but that from which power has departed. But 
 who can less represent colonial sentiment than a millionaire 
 transplanted to Mayfair? A millionaire, to be made a Peer a 
 man must be, and to have made money out of the Colony rather 
 than to have done service in it will be the indispensable quali-
 
 THE EMPIRE. 189 
 
 fication for the honour. In particular cases the two qualifica- 
 tions may no doubt be combined; but the general fruits of the 
 practice are likely to be false ambition and enhanced desire 
 of gain. 
 
 " The Imperial Federationists seem now to be splitting into 
 sections with different policies and organs. Apart from the 
 advocates of an Imperial Parliament, whose confidence seems 
 to be failing, stand the advocates of a military league on one 
 hand and of a fiscal league on the other, or, if the German 
 words are preferred, of a Kriegsverein and a Zollverein. The 
 advocates of a Kriegsverein have had their answer, so far as 
 Canada is concerned, from the Canadian Commissioner, who 
 tells them that liberty of transit over Canadian roads, at the 
 regular rates, will be Canada's contribution. They are now 
 confronted by fact. The advocates of a Zollverein will find 
 themselves confronted by fact as soon as they choose to put to 
 the protected manufacturer of Canada the question whether he 
 is willing, in consideration of imperial discrimination in her 
 favour, to reduce the import duties on British goods. Had the 
 apostle of fiscal Imperialism, who fancies that he has all Canada 
 in his favour, mooted that point before an audience at Toronto 
 or Montreal, a chill would at once have come over the assembly. 
 
 " The latest scheme is that proposed by the Canadian Com- 
 missioner, who suggests that to cement the imperial fabric he 
 and his two fellow-Commissioners from Australia and South 
 Africa should be made Privy Councillors and members at once 
 of the imperial and the colonial Cabinet. He at the same 
 time lauds the practice of making colonial Peers. It is to be 
 feared that among these Commissioners only one would be 
 found capable of thus mentally bestriding the ocean and shar- 
 ing at once the councils of two Cabinets, perhaps belonging to 
 opposite parties and having different ends in view. The 
 scheme has found as yet but one adherent." 
 
 As war is the peril of Empire, a paper on the subject of the 
 Empire is hardly complete withoiit a word as to the jn-oba-
 
 190 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 bilities of war. Is the tendency to war declining? Are the 
 hopes of the Peace Society on the eve or near the eve of being 
 fulfilled? More men are under arms in Europe than ever were 
 under arms before. There can be no doubt that in the course 
 of history the war spirit has on the whole grown weaker. It 
 plainly recedes before the advance of civilisation. An Assyr- 
 ian or Persian king made his annual war as regularly as a 
 king of Prance made his annual hunt; and the same was the 
 habit of the Turkish Sultans while their Empire was strong. 
 War in the eyes of a Greek or Ptoman was the highest of 
 occupations, and Plato's ideal citizens are warriors. Industry 
 was the lot and badge of the slave. War is now not normal 
 but exceptional. Of late there has been a distinct growth of 
 moral sentiment against the use of the sword. Charles V. 
 told a young soldier who pined for action that he loved peace 
 no more than the youth himself. At a much later day Chat- 
 ham avowed himself " a lover of honourable war; " and in the 
 writings of Burke will be found a general recognition of suc- 
 cess in war as a test of national happiness and greatness. 
 Peace sentiment is of course confined to the domain of moral 
 civilisation ; it does not prevail among the Turks, or among the 
 people of South America; nor does it prevail in its moral form 
 among the Chinese, though they have an industrial antipathy 
 to arms and the military profession, yit can scarcely be said 
 that religion has done much to quell the spirit of war. The 
 Polytheistic religion of the ancients encouraged it by identify- 
 ing the god with the victory and aggrandisement of the tribe. 
 The books which embody the tribal religion of the Jew incited 
 him to wage internecine war with the neighbouring tribes, and 
 Christian believers in the authority of the Old Testament have 
 thence learned to fight the battles of the Lord. The Gospel is 
 in principle against war, yet does not expressly condemn it, 
 but, on the contrary, recognises the soldier's calling as lawful, 
 and by likening the Christian's fight to that of the warrior 
 seems to imply that there is nothing in the warrior's fight 
 repugnant to Christian sentiment. It is needless to say that 
 Christianity has not persuaded nations to turn the other cheek
 
 THE EMPIRE. 101 
 
 to the smiter. National churches have lapsed into something 
 very like tribalism in this respect. They have assumed that 
 the Lord of Hosts went forth with the national army to battle. 
 They have sung Te Deum, hung up trophies in their temples, 
 and blessed standards, to say nothing of the part played by the 
 clergy as trumpeters of religious warr^ 
 
 The tendency of democracy appears to be against war. 
 Rome, though a Republic, was not a democracy, but an aris- 
 tocracy ending in an empire. Athens, which has been often 
 cited as an example of military ambition in a democracy, was 
 a slave-owning State. The Italian Republics were born into 
 a Avorld of feudal Avar; but they presently showed their ten- 
 dency by hiring mercenaries to do the fighting on their behalf. 
 If the motive power here was industry rather than democracy, 
 the two commonly go together, and it is only under democracy 
 that industry rules the State. The case of revolutionary France 
 was manifestly abnormal. Under the Convention she was a 
 dictatorate in commission, not a democracy, and the forces 
 which her masters wielded were inherited by them with the 
 power of conscription from the military monarchy, while the 
 supplies were raised by confiscation. Among the South 
 American States there has been constant fighting ; but they are 
 democratic in form only, in reality they are dictatorates, power 
 passing usually by violence from hand to hand. The American 
 democracy made the greatest war since those of Napoleon; but 
 this was a war of self-preservation, and no disposition was 
 shown to make use of the vast armaments on foot at its close. 
 The American army was rapidly reduced to its regular number, 
 which is twenty-five thousand for a total community of sixty- 
 five millions, barely sufficient to fight the Indians and secure 
 domestic order; while of the navy, an American wit said 
 that it could be run down by a coal barge. The strongest case 
 on the other side is that of France, where universal suffrage 
 has so far not made the government less military or led to 
 reduction of armaments ; though it might have been suspected 
 that the peasantry who have groaned under the conscription 
 would at once have voted it down. But the Bonapartes, fol-
 
 192 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 lowing the Bourbons, so filled France with military spirit, 
 and obedience to military command is so ingrained, that a 
 change was likely to take time. Democracy is humane, as its 
 criminal code proves ; for no one would set down the French 
 Eeign of Terror as democratic. Its humanity is connected 
 with its equality, which makes all lives of the same value, and 
 forbids the common people to be treated as food for powder. 
 With a military despot like Napoleon, or a high and cold aris- 
 tocracy, the slaughter of peasants goes for nothing. For the 
 same reason democratic wars are expensive, popular sentiment 
 requiring that good provision shall be made not only for the 
 general but for all alike. The American War of Secession 
 was enormously expensive to the democratic North, which 
 supplied its armies lavishly, gave large bounties for enlist- 
 ment, and is now paying in pensions an annual sum equal to 
 the total cost of a great European army. The slave-owning 
 aristocracy of the South could raise its forces by sheer con- 
 scription, and force them to fight without pay and sometimes 
 without food. 
 
 Of the old causes of war, some may be said to have died out 
 so far as the civilised world is concerned. No civilised gov- 
 ernment would now set out, like Sennacherib or Xerxes, on an 
 unprovoked career of territorial conquest. No civilised gov- 
 ernment, or government pretending to be civilised, except 
 perhaps that of a Bonaparte, would even commit such terri- 
 torial aggression as was committed by Louis XIV. Frederick 
 the Great set up a legal claim, at all events, to Silesia. The 
 last great exception to this improvement of sentiment, a 
 tremendous exception certainly, were the conquests of Napo- 
 leon, especially his piratical invasion of Spain. Napoleon was 
 not a child of moral civilisation; he was a child of Corsican 
 brigandage and barbarism, whose military genius, called into 
 play by the wars of the Eevolution, made him for a time 
 almost master of the civilised world. His influence did not 
 end with his fall. He had evoked a spirit of militarism 
 which, like his ascendancy, may be regarded as an accident of 
 history and destined to pass away. Eussia, among other
 
 THE EMPIRE. 193 
 
 characteristics of a backward civilisation, may still be capable 
 of a war of sheer conquest. But her ambition points in one 
 direction, that of Constantinople, and seeks at least to reconcile 
 itself with morality by pleading the decadence of Turkey and 
 the duty of rescuing from oppression the Slav and Christian 
 subjects of the Porte. The fear, real or affected, of Russian 
 ambition it was that, by bringing on the Crimean war, broke 
 the spell, which Europe had begun to hope would be lasting, 
 of the forty years' peace. Of the religious wars which deso- 
 lated Europe in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries we 
 shall hear no more. Faith is now too weak for Catholic 
 leagues as well as for crusades. By the middle of the seven- 
 teenth century the conflict had lost much of its religious char- 
 acter and become political or territorial. Presently we have 
 the Pope himself, as an Italian Prince, on the same side with 
 Protestant Powers. Dynastic wars may also be considered as 
 numbered with the past; so may the commercial wars which 
 owed their origin to the monopolist fallacies of the last cen- 
 tury. On the other hand, we have recently had wars of national 
 revival and reconstruction; the war between Austria and Ger- 
 many, which attended the restoration of German unity, and 
 the war between Germany and France, whicli the French 
 jealousy of the restored unity of Germany entailed. There 
 may yet be more trouble of this kind in the Austrian Empire, 
 in the Turkish Empire, and possibly in Scandinavia, in Poland, 
 and the Baltic Provinces of llussia. The thirst of France for 
 glory seems still unslaked, and to it has been added a thirst 
 for revenge. The break-up of the Turkish Empire and a 
 scramble for its spoils are always in prospect. A new set of 
 disputes is also arising out of rival claims to fields for coloni- 
 sation in Africa. Similar disputes may arise about other 
 Avaste places of the earth, as Europe becomes overcrowded and 
 the need of outlets grows. Though religious revolution as a 
 source of war has lost its force, it seems not impossible that 
 social revolution may take its place. The wars to which 
 social revolution Avould lead would be likely, it is true, to be 
 civil rather than international. But it is conceivable that
 
 194 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 some military power born of social revolution, like the Spanish 
 Intransigentes or the French Comnmnists, may get hold of a 
 government and imitate the crusading fury of the Jacobins. 
 Nor, while we scan the horizon of the civilised world, ought it 
 to be forgotten that there is a world outside, of which China 
 is the greatest power, still uncivilised, which may give birth 
 to military force, and arm itself with the weapons of civilisa- 
 tion. This Avould be a sufficient reason against universal 
 disarmament, such as the Peace Society preaches, even if we 
 could dispense with the soldier as an upholder of order and an 
 example of discipline amidst a general dissolution of authority. 
 
 The enormous armaments which the European Powers now 
 have on foot appear to make war at some time certain, since it 
 would seem that the tension must at last become insufferable, 
 and that somebody must break. On the other hand, the very 
 apprehension of conflict with forces so vast and engines of war 
 so destructive acts as a strong deterrent, and may prevail over 
 international hatred and other incentives to war till financial 
 deficit enforces reduction. The change in the mode of warfare 
 from embattled hosts to long-range projectiles, and from fleets 
 such as fought at Trafalgar to turrets and rams, is probably in 
 favour of peace ; not only because it makes war more dreadful 
 by increasing its destructiveness (which indeed may be 
 doubted), but because by taking away the pride, pomp, and 
 circumstance of the battlefield, it robs war and the soldier's 
 trade of much of their hold upon the imagination. Waterloo 
 or Trafalgar must have been a superb and enthralling sight. 
 Cannae and Actium must have been still more so. But Sedan, 
 as painted by Zola, has nothing in it superb or enthralling. 
 It is a prosaic scene of scientific butchery. As to the " plumed 
 troop " of Life Guards, it is now of no more use than the 
 Beefeaters, and is probably maintained upon the same grounds. 
 
 By the introduction of the new and long-range weapons 
 advantage has apparently been given to the defence over the 
 attack. This is in favour of the invaded, and against the 
 invader. It does not seem, however, that the change of 
 weapons has diminished the ascendancy of discipline, fighting
 
 THE EMPIRE. 195 
 
 as a skirmisher needing even more discipline than fighting in 
 line or in column. The hope of political enthusiasts, that 
 long-range rifles will be the death of standing armies, is, 
 therefore, not likely to be fulfilled. Still less is the hope 
 excited in revolutionists by dynamite. 
 
 Arbitration has now been so often employed and with so 
 much success, as to raise very high the hopes of its advocates. 
 Yet apparently there are still limits to its operation. Reso- 
 lute ambition or fierce passion would hardly yield to it. Nor 
 can it be expected that the strong will always forego their 
 prerogative and allow every question to be settled by a tribunal 
 before which they would stand on a level with the weak. 
 
 How Great Britain would now face a great war is a serious 
 question for British statesmen, especially for those who seek 
 to combine a policy of aggrandisement abroad with socialistic 
 radicalism at home. Through the war with Napoleon Great 
 Britain was borne by the firmness of an aristocracy, resolute as 
 that of Rome, and, though narrow, intensely patriotic in its 
 way, which unflinchingly supported the Government through 
 all reverses and placed at its command the entire resources of 
 the nation. In place of this aristocracy we have now a 
 democracy which, in the Crimean war, upset the Government 
 upon the first reverse; the artisan masses of which are as 
 destitute of patriotism as it is possible for the natives of any 
 country to be; and which refuses to pay any additional taxes, 
 insisting, when naval expenditure is required for national 
 safety, that the whole burden shall be thrown on income tax 
 and succession duty paid by a small class. The Civis Romanus 
 policy, besides being in a world no longer suited to it, requires, 
 to carry it on, a Roman Senate.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 It is not necessary, in entering upon this question, to dilate 
 on its sentimental side. Nothing can add force or tenderness 
 to the names of wife and home. Suffice it to say, that man 
 cannot withhold from woman anything that is good for her, or 
 give her anything that is bad for her, without injuring himself 
 and their children in the same measure. 
 
 Shall man make over to woman half of the sovereign power 
 which has hitherto been his, and which, if he chooses, he can 
 keep? This is the question broadly stated. Woman, in mak- 
 ing the demand, shows confidence in man's affection. The rule 
 by which the question is to be settled is the joint interest 
 which the two sexes have in good government, not any abstract 
 claim of right. For an abstract claim of right there appears 
 to be no foundation. Power which is natural carries with it 
 right, while it is subject to the restraints of conscience. 
 Weakness cannot be said to have a right to artificial power, 
 though the concession of such power within reasonable limits 
 may be not only kind but wise, just, and beneficial to humanity 
 and civilisation. That to which every member of a com- 
 munity, whether man, woman, or child, whether white or black, 
 whether above or below the age of twenty-one, has a right, is 
 the largest attainable measure of good government. If this 
 or any other political change would be conducive to good 
 government, the whole community has a right to it; if it would 
 not, the whole community, including the women, or those, 
 whoever they may be, whom it is proposed to enfranchise, 
 have a right to a refusal of the change. The number of 
 women who spontaneously sought the change appears to have 
 been small. Great efforts and vehement appeals on the part of 
 
 199
 
 200 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 the ladies with whom the movement originated were required 
 to set any considerable part of the sex in motion. This is 
 important as an indication both of the absence of any great 
 grievance and of the unbiassed judgment of the sex with regard 
 to its own interests. But were the demand more spontaneous 
 and general it would still be incumbent on the present holders 
 of power before abdicating to consider whether in the common 
 interest their abdication was to be desired. 
 
 As to the equality of the sexes, no question is raised; they 
 may be perfectly equal though their spheres are different, that 
 of the man being public life, that of the woman the home. 
 Nor is there any occasion for pitting male or female gifts or 
 qualities against each other. Supposing woman even to be 
 superior, it does not follow that the field of her superiority is 
 public life. 
 
 That the tendency of civilisation has been to elevate woman 
 is true. But elevation is a different thing from assimilation 
 to man. We are told, not so much by women, perhaps, as by 
 their champions, that the time for protection and chivalry has 
 past and the time for justice has come. But it is not made 
 evident that the bare justice, which regulates the relation 
 between man and man, would suit the relation between man 
 and woman, or that chivalry and protection on the one side, 
 with the corresponding recognition of them on the other, do 
 not in this case constitute justice. 
 
 The woman suffrage movement is a part of a general 
 attempt to change the relations between the sexes, to set 
 woman free from what hitherto have been considered the limi- 
 tations of her sex, and make her the competitor instead of the 
 helpmate of man.^ Women are forcing their way into the male 
 professions, including that of law, into the dissecting-room, in 
 company with the male students, into male places of educa- 
 tion, and into the smoking-room. Some of them have lately 
 taken to riding astride. From England we hear that ladies 
 have been undergoing military drill; from New York that they 
 
 ^ See Mrs. E. Lynn Linton on women as social insurgents in the 
 Nineteenth Century of October, 189L
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 201 
 
 have been emulating the training of male athletes and the 
 horsemanship of the steeplechaser. We are reminded of the 
 Roman ladies under the Empire who when other excitement 
 had been exhausted took to that of the gladiatorial school. 
 
 The old foundations of authority are shaken by the collapse 
 of beliefs on which social order as well as personal morality 
 has hitherto rested, and by the political disturbance attending 
 the advent of democracy. We are in the ferment of a revolu- 
 tionary age, and of that ferment the Revolt of Woman, as one 
 of the leaders of the movement called it, is a part. 
 
 Among the features of a revolutionary era is the prevalence 
 of a feeble facility of abdication. The holders of power, how- 
 ever natural and legitimate, are too ready to resign it on the 
 first demand. They do not take time to consider whether their 
 power is rightful or not, whether it has or has not on the 
 whole been used for good, whether, if in any case it has not 
 been used for good, they cannot amend their course, or whether 
 it is likely to be better employed by those to whom they are 
 called upon to transfer it. The nerves of authority are shaken 
 by the failure of conviction. It is an inherent consequence 
 of the demagogic system that every demand for the suffrage, 
 reasonable or unreasonable, should prevail as soon as it shows 
 strength, because the politician is afraid by opposition to make 
 an enemy of the coming vote. 
 
 It is evident that sexual revolution must have its limita- 
 tions if the human race is to continue. There are some land- 
 marks of nature which cannot be removed, and the females of 
 every species must be the organs of its perpetuation. Women 
 must bear and nurse children; and if they do this, it is impos- 
 sible that they should compete with men in occupations which 
 demand complete devotion as well as superior strength of 
 muscle or brain. There appears to be a tendency among the 
 leaders of the Revolt of Woman to disparage matrimony as a 
 bondage, and the rearing of children as an aim too low for an 
 intellectual being. Such ideas are not likely to spread widely, 
 or they would threaten the life of the race. They prevail 
 chiefly in the highly educated and sentimental classes, not in
 
 202 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 the homes of labour. Nature, it may be said, will look to this 
 and in the end vindicate her own law. No doubt she will, yet 
 the revolt against her may cost us dear. 
 
 If it is a question of right, children have their rights as well 
 as women. They have not less right to motherly care than 
 they and their mother have to being fed by the husband's 
 labour. 
 
 At present the demand in England is only for the enfran- 
 chisement of spinsters and widows. But this limitation, while 
 it betrays a consciousness that there Avould be danger to the 
 family in the full measure, is understood to be merely a 
 stroke of tactics. Widow and spinster suffrage is the thin 
 edge of the wedge. From the political point of view there 
 would be manifest absurdity and wrong in making marriage 
 politically penal, and excluding from the franchise the very 
 women who are commonly held to be best discharging the 
 duties of their sex, and would be likely to be its fairest 
 representatives. Already the thoroughgoing section of the 
 party repudiates the limitation. The spinster and widow vote 
 would be an irresistible lever whenever political parties were 
 nearly balanced. When the suffrage had been conceded to all 
 women, as the women slightly outnumber the men, and many 
 of the men, sailors, for example, or men employed on railways, 
 or in itinerant callings, could not go to the poll, the woman's 
 vote Avould preponderate, and government, if it was in unison 
 with the votes, would be more female than male. Nor is it by 
 the leaders and chief authors of the movement intended that 
 we should stop here. The woman of the political platform 
 does not limit her ambition to a vote. She wants to sit in 
 Parliament or in Congress. When she gains her first point 
 she will have practically established her claim to the next; 
 those who are qualified to give a mandate, she will say, are 
 qualified to bear it; those who are qualified to decide prin- 
 ciples of legislation are qualified to legislate; those who are 
 qualified to dictate a policy are qualified to carry it into effect. 
 In New Zealand, having gained the franchise, she has already 
 preferred the further claim. It might shock our prejudices at
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 203 
 
 first to see a woman taking part in a Parliamentary debate. 
 It shocks our prejudices at first to see her taking part in a 
 faction light, mounting the pulpit, or thundering from a plat- 
 form, as well as to see her in half male attire, or riding in 
 man's fashion. Established sentiment and old ideas of deli- 
 cacy have been already set aside. The female aspirant to a 
 seat in Parliament or Congress, and to a place in the Cabinet, 
 will have, therefore, little difficulty in proving her claim. 
 She will have no difficulty whatever in enforcing it. That, 
 the woman's vote will do for her. A tenth part of the 
 woman's vote might do it for her if the parties were nearly 
 balanced and the politicians were alarmed. Politics under the 
 party system are a demagogic auction, and an inevitable slide 
 down hill. In the United States, where all qualifications for 
 the suffrage other than that of simple citizenship have been 
 abolished or practically nullified, female suffrage, like male 
 suffrage, would no doubt be universal. That the change thus 
 presents itself at once in its full extent may partly account for 
 the general conservatism of the American people on this sub- 
 ject. But there is also the safeguard of the special process 
 which is required in the States as well as in the Federation 
 for amendments of the Constitution, and which enforces the 
 submission of the question to a constituency beyond the range 
 of the arts and influences to which individual legislators are 
 apt to yield. 
 
 Political power has hitherto been exercised by the male sex; 
 not because man has been a tyrannical usurper and has brutally 
 thrust his weaker partner out of her rights, but in the course 
 of nature, because man alone could uphold government and 
 enforce the law. Let the edifice of law be as moral and as intel- 
 lectual as you will, its foundation is the force of the com- 
 munity, and the force of the community is male. Women 
 have not yet thought of claiming the employment of policemen, 
 nor of petitioning that they may be bound to answer to the 
 call of the sheriff when he summons the citizens to put down 
 disorder. This fundamental fact that law rests on public force 
 may bo hidden from sight for the moment by the clouds of
 
 204 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 emotional rhetoric, but it will assert itself in the end. Laws 
 passed by the woman's vote will not be felt to have force behind 
 them. Women are the great prohibitionists, having only too 
 strong inducements, many of them, to support any supposed 
 antidote to drunkenness, and not seeing that the taste of a 
 man engaged in heavy labour and exposed to the weather for 
 the stimulus of wine or beer may be as natural as the taste of 
 his home-keeping partner for the stimulus of tea. With 
 woman suffrage we should have Prohibition. Prohibitionists 
 advocate woman suffrage on that account. Behind prohibition 
 of strong drinks begins to loom prohibition of tobacco. We 
 have had proposals from women to extend capital punishment 
 to cases of outrage on their sex. Would the stronger sex obey 
 such laws when it was known that they were enacted by the 
 weaker? Would it obey any laws manifestly carried by the 
 female vote in the interest of the women against that of 
 the men? If it would not, the result would be contempt for 
 the law and anarchy, which would not be likely to enure 
 to the advantage of the weak. Man would be tempted to resist 
 woman's government when it galled him, not only by the con- 
 sciousness of his strength, but by his pride, which would make 
 itself heard in the end, though its voice for a time might be 
 stifled by sentimental declamation. "In muscle," says the 
 Report of Mr. Blair's Committee of the United States Senate 
 in 1889, "woman is inferior to man. But muscle has nothing 
 to do with legislation or government. In intellect she is 
 man's equal, in character she is, by his own admission, his 
 superior and constitutes the angelic portion of humanity." 
 We have seen reason for thinking that muscle has something 
 to do, if not with the acts of legislatures or governments, with 
 that which gives those acts their force. Mr. Blair might have 
 felt this if, at the time of the strike, he had been at Chicago. 
 
 In Dahomey there are female warriors. There may have 
 been Amazons in primitive times. But in the civilised world 
 the duty of defending the country in war falls on the male sex 
 alone, and it would seem that there ought to be some connection 
 between that duty and political power. To this it is answered
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 205 
 
 that not all men perform the duty, and that women as well as 
 men contribute as taxpayers to the support of the army. In 
 some countries, as in Germany, all men of military age are, 
 and in every country they ought to be, liable to military 
 service. But everywhere the responsibility rests on the men, 
 who would have to meet the necessity if it arose. That some 
 men are old or disqualified for arms signifies nothing; political 
 rules must be general and disregard exceptions. The women, 
 it is said, or such of them as have property of their own, con- 
 tribute to the military expenses. But so do the men, in addi- 
 tion to the male duty of personal service. Nor is the plea that 
 they send their husbands and sons much to the purpose when 
 the question is as to their own qualifications for serving in war. 
 
 At the same time it would be a mistake to think that female 
 rulers have been averse from war, and that if the power were 
 in female hands war would be no more. Women are apt to be 
 warlike because their responsibility is less. In the Southern 
 States at the time of Secession no partisans of the war were 
 fiercer than the women. Few male rulers have been more 
 bellicose than Catherine of Russia, Elizabeth Queen of Spain 
 (the Termagant, as she was called), Maria Theresa of Austria, 
 Madame de Pompadour, and the Empress Eugenie. ISTor is it 
 unlikely that female sentiment might be in favour of some war 
 when male sentiment or prudence was against it. French 
 women might have voted for a crusade in aid of the Pope. 
 English women might have voted for armed intervention in 
 favour of the Queen of Naples, whose heroism touched their 
 imaginations at the time. Would the men obey? Would they 
 shoulder their muskets and march or bid the army march? 
 They would not; and here again law and government would 
 break down. 
 
 Besides, the transfer of ]iower from the military to the 
 unmilitary sex involves a change in tlie character of a nation. 
 It involves, in short, national emasculation. What would be 
 the fate of a community in some dire extremity if it were 
 largely ruled by its women? Philanthropy, theosophy, and 
 Utopianism have not yet triumphed. This is the age of
 
 206 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Bismarck, of the Franco-Prussian War, of the War of Seces- 
 sion. How would the North have fared in its conflict with the 
 South if, at each turn of the wavering and desperate struggle, 
 it had been swayed by the emotions of its women? One of 
 the ladies whose evidence was taken before Mr. Blair's Com- 
 mittee, admitted that, in the days of force, when women needed 
 the protection of man, male government may have been justi- 
 fiable ; but these, she said, were piping times of peace. Piping 
 times of peace, when America is paying the pension list of an 
 enormous war and Europe has millions of men in arms! 
 Woman does not in civilised countries need the protection of 
 the individual man except as policeman or escort. But she 
 does need, or may at any time need, the armed protection of 
 the male sex as a whole. 
 
 We have had successive extensions of that which is called 
 liberty, but ought, if we would think clearly, to be called 
 political power; for a man may have liberty without a vote 
 and a vote without liberty. But hitherto the changes, though 
 some of them have been blind and dangerous enough, have 
 imperilled only the State. The change now proposed vitally 
 affects the family, which, until the Socialists have their way, 
 will be of fully as much consequence to us as the State. The 
 family is in fact the grand issue. The solidarity of the family 
 it is which the various movements for what is called the 
 emancipation of women tend collectively to subvert. It is 
 easy to draw ideal pictures of husband and wife agreeing to 
 differ on political questions, going at elections to opposite 
 committee-rooms, perhaps speaking on opposite platforms, 
 voting on opposite sides, and then returning to a blissful 
 hearth, with harmony and affection unimpaired. This ideal 
 might be realised in the case of such a couple as Mr. and Mrs. 
 John Stuart Mill. But what are the effects of a faction fight 
 on the tempers of ordinary mortals? In America at the time 
 of the Civil War would unbroken harmony have prevailed 
 between a Unionist husband and a Secessionist wife? Would 
 unbroken harmony prevail between a Unionist husband and a 
 Gladstonian wife at the present day ?
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 207 
 
 Hitherto the family has been a unit represented in the State 
 by its head, and whatever storms may have raged in the com 
 monwealth, the peace and order of the home have remained 
 usually undisturbed. A change which throws the family into 
 the political caldron calls surely for special consideration. In 
 political and economical discussion our attention is commonly 
 turned to wealth, education, or some factor of our well-being 
 which is increased or diminished by government or legislation. 
 We seldom think so distinctly as we ought how large a measure 
 of happiness as well as of excellence depends upon affection. 
 A man who prized his home would probably say that if it was 
 thought fit that his wife should have the vote instead of 
 himself, she might have it, but that he protested against any 
 proposal to give the family more than one vote. 
 
 Caution is the more necessary since it is clear that party has 
 laid hold of this question. Each party, or a section of each 
 party in England, fancies that it would gain by the change. 
 Some Conservatives believe that the nature of woman is con- 
 servative, and that she would vote under the influence of 
 traditional sentiment, perhaps also under that of her priest. 
 The late leader of the Conservatives in England was in favour 
 of enfranchising the women, as he was in favour of enfranchis- 
 ing the proletariat, with the same expectation of votes. But 
 Conservatives who play this game should remember that the 
 conservative woman as a rule is probably feminine and likely 
 to stay at home, while the radical woman is pretty sure to go 
 forth rejoicing to the fray. Nor would the clerical influence 
 be all on one side. Every Catholic Irishwoman would be 
 brought to the poll by the priest. Assuredly the female char- 
 acter is not unsusceptible of revolutionary violence. France 
 saw the Maenads of the Revolution, and has had her Louise 
 Michel. In New York a female enthusiast has been heard 
 inciting the destitute to armed violence and public rapine. 
 However this may be, when party lays its hand on the home, 
 those who care for the home more than for party receive a 
 warning to be on their guard. 
 
 Previous extensions of the suffrage have been to an unrepre-
 
 208 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 sented class, and a class which might plead that its special 
 interest would suffer by want of representation, though pos- 
 sibly in some cases those interests were likely to suffer as much 
 by the influence of enfranchised ignorance on government as 
 by any class bias. But women are not a class, they are a sex. 
 Their class interests throughout the scale are identical with 
 those of the man, and are effectually represented by the male 
 vote. It would probably be impossible to devise a case in 
 which a legislature dealing Avith female interests in regard to 
 property, taxation, or any other subject, could be misled by 
 motives of class. 
 
 If property held by women is taxed without being repre- 
 sented, so is that held by men, in the United States absolutely, 
 and in England, saving only the trifling amount of property 
 still required, directly or indirectly, as a qualification for the 
 suffrage. 
 
 Have women as a sex any wrongs which male legislatures 
 cannot be expected to redress, so that in order to obtain justice 
 it is necessary that there shall be an abdication by man of the 
 sovereign power? If there are, whether in England or the 
 United States, let them be named. Named hitherto they have 
 not been. The law regarding the property of married women 
 has been so far reformed in the interests of the wife, that, 
 instead of being unduly favourable to the husband, it seems 
 rather inspired by mistrust of him. The practice is still more 
 so. It has become the custom to tie up a woman's property 
 on marriage so that she shall not be able, even if she is so 
 inclined, to make provision for her husband, in case he sur- 
 vives her, in old age, and save him from the necessity of 
 receiving alms from his own children. The lawyers naturally 
 are active in the work which multiplies legal relations and 
 interests. About everything has been done which civil legis- 
 lation could do to impress the wife with the belief that her 
 interest and that of her husband are not only separate but 
 adverse; that she does not leave her father's home when she is 
 married; that her husband is not one flesh with her; and that 
 all her relations by blood are nearer to her, in interest at all
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 209 
 
 events, than the man on whose breast she lays her head. 
 Matrimonial superstition has been effectually rebuked by 
 enabling husband and wife to sue each other. The laws of 
 Massachusetts discriminate in favour of women by exempting 
 unmarried women of small estate from taxation ; by allowing 
 women and not men to acquire a settlement without paying a 
 tax; by compelling husbands to support their wives, but 
 exempting the wife, even when rich, from supporting an 
 indigent husband; by making men liable for debts of wives, 
 and not vice versa^ In the State of New York a husband 
 cannot dispose of his wife's dower in his lands without her 
 consent, but the wife can, without her husband's consent, dis- 
 pose of all her property ; a husband can be made to pay for 
 necessaries supplied to a wife, a wife cannot be made to pay 
 for necessaries supplied to a husband; a wife's dower-right 
 cannot be divested by a will, but a wife can will away all her 
 property without leaving provision for her husband; women 
 are privileged in cases of execution for debt; women are sub- 
 stantially exempt from arrest in all civil cases; while the 
 factory laws and other laws abound in exceptional protection 
 for women. Legal reformers are able to boast that they have 
 "emancipated woman from the domination of her husband." 
 They must not forget that the domination carries with it 
 maintenance and protection which will not be given without 
 return. Make the marriage contract too onerous to the man, 
 and he in his turn will some day begin to think of emancipa- 
 tion. If he does he is the stronger. Nothing can alter that 
 fact or its practical significance in the long run. Of this the 
 leaders of the Revolt of Woman will do well to take note. 
 
 That the administration of the law has been unfavourable 
 to women, few will contend. In jury cases, at least, the diffi- 
 culty is not for women to get justice against men, but for men 
 to get justice against women. It is doubtful whether the 
 introduction of women into the jury-box, for which woman- 
 suffragists contend, could make juries more partial to women 
 
 1 See Minoritu Report of Mr. Blair's Committee of the Senate of the 
 United States, February, 1889, p. 14. 
 
 p
 
 210 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 tlian they are; if it did, the faihire of justice would be mon- 
 strous indeed. In criminal cases mercy has been shown to the 
 woman. "Since I have been in Parliament," said John 
 Bright, "I think I could specify nearly a score of instances in 
 which the lives of women would be spared where the lives of 
 men would be taken." Can it be believed that the efforts 
 which have been made to save Mrs. May brick from punishment 
 would have been made in favour of a husband convicted of the 
 murder of his wife? There is no reason for this partiality 
 except one which implies a radical difference between the sexes 
 and the willingness of the weaker sex to accept the protection 
 of the stronger. Nor will the privilege long survive the ground 
 of it; women cannot have both equality and privilege. 
 
 Does the grievance consist in any bar to the competition of 
 women with men in the professions or trades? Such bars have 
 by male legislation been largely removed. We have female 
 doctors of medicine everywhere, and if their practice is limited, 
 it is because women themselves in the graver cases seem still 
 to put more confidence in men. Women are being admitted to 
 the law. To their addressing themselves to the feelings of 
 juries there seems to be an objection apart from delicacy, if 
 justice is the object of courts. They have been admitted into 
 male universities, we shall presently see with what effect on 
 the masculine character of the system, while, in spite of the 
 principle on which coeducation is based, female colleges are 
 not yet thrown open to men. They have got the school- 
 teacherships largely into their hands; with doubtful benefit, 
 whatever theorists may say, to the characters and manners of 
 the boys. Government clerkships and offices of all kinds are 
 now filled with women, who are thus made independent of 
 marriage, though this cannot be done without at the same time 
 withdrawing employment from men who might have main- 
 tained women as their wives. It is complained that female 
 workers are underpaid, and female claimants of the franchise 
 say that if they had power, they would legislate so as to raise 
 woman's wages. Legislation of tliis kind would require sup- 
 plementary enactments forbidding employers and capital to go
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 211 
 
 out of the trade. But are women underpaid? Are they paid 
 less than the men when their work is of equal value? It may 
 be that in some cases custom has been unjust to them, as it 
 often is to male workers also. This time will redress. It is 
 only the lighter trades that women can ply, and a needlewoman 
 can hardly expect to be paid like an engine-driver or a steve- 
 dore. In some trades certain continuance is an element of 
 value, and certain continuance is impossible for woman unless 
 she renounces marriage. Fashionable dressmakers, female 
 artists, singers, and actresses are not underpaid. The gains 
 of prima donnas are enormous ; their exactions are notorious, 
 and they stint without compunction the inferior performers of 
 their own sex. 
 
 A proof of man's injustice to woman commonly cited was 
 the difference made in the treatment of the two sexes in 
 regard to infidelity. The law can hardly now be said to be 
 unjust; that the social penalty should be the same in both cases 
 is not to be expected, for the simple reason that the offence is 
 not the same. The sin of the woman is a sin not only against 
 her partner, but against the family, into which she brings an 
 adulterine child. A pointsman and the man who tends a 
 furnace may alike fall asleep at their posts without any 
 difference in their moral guilt, but one lets a fire go out, and 
 the other wrecks a train. 
 
 All the legislation and all the language on the subject of 
 seduction assume that the blame rests entirely on the man, 
 though there are many cases in which he is more the seduced 
 than the seducer, and in no case where the woman is grown 
 up and is consenting can the guilt be wholly on one side. 
 To assume that the guilt is wholly on one side and that the 
 woman, however freely she consents, must be blameless, is to 
 subvert the safeguard of honour in the female breast. 
 
 Mr. Blair's Report indeed proclaims that '' without the exer- 
 cise of the natural and inalienable right of suffrage neither 
 life, liberty, nor property can be secured." If by liberty is 
 meant the exercise of political power, that part of the allega- 
 tion is undeniably true. To say that neither life nor property
 
 212 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 can be secure without the suffrage would be to say that no 
 security for life or property has existed in most of the coun- 
 tries of Europe till within the last half century, nor for the 
 great majority of the people even in England. To the ordinary 
 observer it appears not only that the lives, liberties, and 
 properties of American women are secure, but that they are 
 more secure, if anything, than those of the men; and that the 
 attitude of men in the United States toward women is rather 
 that of subjection than that of domination. "Actual and 
 practical slavery, " Avhich one of the ladies who gives evidence 
 declares to be the condition of woman without the ballot, has 
 certainly in the case of the American slave disguised itself in 
 very deceptive forms. "No one," says another lady, "has 
 denied to women the right of burial, and in that one sad 
 necessity of human life they stand on an equal footing with 
 men." Such language seems to mock our understandings. 
 Comparisons of the condition of woman denied the suffrage 
 with that of the Negro in the South, have often been made, 
 and in this Eeport we are told that the exclusion of women 
 from a convention " constituted the startling revelation of a 
 real subjection of woman to man world-wide and in many 
 respects as complete and galling, when analysed and duly con- 
 sidered by its victims, as that of the Negro to his master." 
 The Negro, nevertheless, would not have been sorry to change 
 conditions. The papers the other day gave an account of a 
 raid made upon a saloon by a party of women in masks, who 
 beat the proprietor with clubs. Several such acts of violence 
 on the part of women have been recorded; but they are com- 
 mitted apparently not only with impunity but with general 
 approbation. Eesistance to them appears to be proscribed. 
 American women, also, seem to use the cowhide, whenever 
 they think fit, to avenge their personal wrongs. These are not 
 practices in which the Negro was allowed to indulge toward 
 his master before emancipation, or in which he has even been 
 allowed to indulge since. If the men of the United States 
 were called to account for their treatment of the women, and 
 the women at the same time for the performance of their special
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 213 
 
 duty to the race, it seems doubtful, at least supposing that 
 American writers on these subjects tell the truth, whether 
 before an impartial tribunal judgment would go against the 
 men. 
 
 Against wife-beating, or cruelty of any sort to wives, which 
 is commonly confined to the dregs of humanity, the law seems 
 now severe enough; if it were more than severe enough it 
 would be in danger of becoming a dead letter. Male brutality 
 finds vent in bodily outrage, which can be reached by law. 
 The bad wife can make her husband's home miserable by vexa- 
 tions which no law can reach. Many years ago an English 
 clergyman was convicted of the murder of his wife, but his 
 sentence was commuted when it was learned what his life had 
 been. A man in England narrowly escaped imprisonment as 
 a felon on a false charge of uttering base coin, cast on him by 
 the machinations of a perfidious wife who wanted to live with 
 her paramour. Law could have done nothing in the first case, 
 practically could do iiothing in the second. Children are less 
 able to make their wrongs known than are women, yet cases 
 not seldom come to light of cruel ill-treatment of children by 
 women, especially by step-mothers. These cases, like those 
 of wife-beating, are hideous. We punish the criminals when 
 we can, but we do not propose to alter domestic relations. We 
 trust, and in the immense majority of cases with reason, to 
 affection, which is stronger than law. That affection is 
 stronger than law is a fact often forgotten in dealing with 
 these questions. It seems to be thought that the Statute Book 
 is all. Nothing in the Statute Book, it has been truly said, 
 prevents the most courteous of hosts from turning his guests 
 out of his house at midnight in a storm. 
 
 That the man should exercise authority in his family may 
 be deemed unnatural and unjust when he ceases to be held 
 responsible for the household. At present the State casts 
 upon him the undivided responsibility. What the leaders of 
 the woman's rights movement practically seek is, for the 
 Avoman, power without responsibility, for the man, responsi- 
 bility without power. But this is an arrangement in which
 
 214 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 man, though he may be talked into it for the moment, is not 
 likely in the end to acquiesce. 
 
 Is the marriage tie still too tight ?^ Is divorce not easy 
 enough? One would think that divorce was easy enough in 
 America, when in some States you have a divorce for every ten 
 marriages, when a judge at Chicago can dissolve eight mar- 
 riages in sixty-two minutes, when wedlock is beginning to be 
 talked of as an experiment which may be terminated if it is 
 not found pleasant to both sides. ^ This does not fall far short 
 of the civilised form of promiscuity the tendency to which one 
 advanced reformer hails, or from the idea of another who lays 
 it down that "there is nothing impure, nothing wrong, in the 
 voluntary sexual act per se though not sanctioned by what we 
 now term marriage."^ Mormonism, if its polygamy is de- 
 nounced, has matter for a retort. American legislatures 
 themselves are beginning to recoil. In Great Britain divorce 
 is not so easy, yet it is surely not too difficult if the marriage 
 tie is to be preserved. The children, who cannot fail to suffer 
 by the wreck of the family, are entitled to consideration as 
 well as the parents. Society at large is entitled to considera- 
 tion. Though marriages are made not in heaven but on earth, 
 it may safely be said that the great majority of them are 
 happy ; at least that the partners are happier united than they 
 would have been alone. But their success depends, in ordinary 
 cases, on the permanence of the bond, which enforces restraint 
 of temper and mutual accommodation. If divorce were always 
 open, compatibility would be seldom found ; the bond would be 
 broken by the unscrupulous as often as matrimony failed to 
 realise the dreams of courtship. It is easy to paint horrible 
 
 1 See Mona Caird's articles in the Fortnightly (Vol. liii.) and Westminster 
 Seviews (Vol. cxxx.). See also Mill's The Subjection of Woman, Chap. ii. 
 
 2 It seems that the largest number of divorces are found in the com- 
 munities where the advocates of female suffrage are most numerous, and 
 where the individuality of woman in relation to her husband, which such 
 a doctrine inculcates, is greatest. The movement, therefore, or at least 
 the tendencies, appear to be connected. See Minority Report^ p. 10. 
 
 ^ Westminster Review, May, 1894.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 216 
 
 pictures of unwilling union after mutual disappointment. 
 Such things do happen, and very tragical and deplorable they 
 are. The remedy is caution before marriage, not the virtual 
 overthrow of an institution on which, so far as we can see, the 
 order, purity, and happiness of society depend.^ 
 
 Marriage may be described from one point of view as a 
 restraint imposed upon the passions of the man for the benefit 
 of the woman. Cold-blooded philosophers choose to speak of 
 the sexual passion in man as brutal. Mighty it is; it is no 
 more brutal than any other passion or appetite gratification of 
 which is necessary to the preservation of life and the race. It 
 is the physical basis of sentiments the most beautiful and 
 refined. At all events it is in most natures imperious. Were 
 it not, man could hardly be induced to take on him the burden 
 of maintaining wife and children. Being imperious, it will be 
 gratified, if not by marriage, in other ways, and woman would 
 not be the gainer by the change. 
 
 The matrimonial history of Shelley is instructive and full 
 of warning because he was so highly refined, and raised so much 
 above the animal passions of ordinary men. Shelley, as his 
 admiring biographer frankly tells us, finding after some two 
 years or more of marriage, that his Harriet " did not suit him," 
 though she " had given no cause whatsoever for repudiation by 
 breach or tangible neglect of wifely duty," cast her off in an 
 "abrupt de facto manner" and took Mary to his arms. Mary, 
 of course, was of the same opinion. " Shelley," says the biog- 
 rapher, " was an avowed opponent on principle to the formal and 
 coercive tie of marriage; therefore in ceasing his marital con- 
 nection with Harriet, and assuming a similar relation to Mary, 
 he did nothing which he regarded as wrong, though as far as 
 anything yet published goes, it must distinctly be said that he 
 consulted his own option rather than Harriet's." The biogra- 
 
 1 Reference cannot be made to this momentous subject without ac- 
 knowledging the great service rendered to society by the Rev. Samuel W. 
 Dike, LL.D., Corresponding Secretary of the United States National 
 Divorce Reform League, whose laborious mvestigations have brought the 
 facts before us.
 
 216 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 plier asserts that Harriet, after the separation, connected 
 herself with some other protector, a charge which, it is to be 
 presumed, lie would not make without knowing it to be true, 
 and the truth of which would not in any way mend the case.^ 
 Legislation on these lines would suit some men better than any 
 woman. It did not suit poor Harriet. 
 
 It appears that in the series of legislative reforms which in 
 the course of a century has been bringing Europe finally out 
 of the feudal system, with its quasi-military relations, and with 
 the vestiges of tribalism which lingered in it, into the system 
 of modern society, the interests of both sexes have been 
 embraced, and that of the female sex has had its full share. 
 This, as the legislatures were male, seems to prove not only 
 that men in legislating are unlikely to forget their wives, 
 mothers, sisters, and daughters, but that women without votes 
 can exercise great influence on legislation. The press is open 
 to them, it is poAverful, and not a few of them make use of it. 
 The platform is open to as many of them as do not shrink from 
 its publicity. They have access under the most favourable con- 
 ditions to those by whom the law is made. That they have 
 confidence in the justice and affection of men their present ap- 
 peal, as has been said before, shows ; for it is from man's free 
 will that they must expect the concession of the suffrage. Some 
 of them, it is true, threaten us with a terrible vengeance if 
 their petition is not heard, but they are powerless to give effect 
 to their threats. They will renounce their present influence in 
 grasping the vote. Let them appear as a separate interest in 
 the political arena, and they will, like every other separate 
 interest, waken an antagonism which does not now exist. 
 
 That women are treated as citizens only for the purpose of 
 taxation is the summary of their wrongs blazoned in mani- 
 festos by the leaders of the movement. The answer is that the 
 State treats them in all respects as citizens, giving them pro- 
 tection for person, property, and character, with every benefit 
 
 1 See Mr. William Michael Eossetti's Me.moir prefixed to his edition of 
 Shelley's Poetical Works. London: Moxon, 1870. Different versions 
 have been given, but there can be no dispute about the main facts.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 217 
 
 which civil government can bestow, and therefore full value 
 for their taxes. 
 
 The plain question then presents itself in the joint interest 
 of the two sexes, whether the exercise of political power by 
 wonaen would be generally conducive to good government. If 
 it would not, the concession, it must be repeated, would be a 
 wrong done to the whole community. We know very well 
 that in some gifts and qualities woman is superior to man. 
 Suppose she is superior to him on the whole. Suppose, to 
 adopt the somewhat amatory language of Mr. Blair's Com- 
 mittee, she is the angelic portion of humanity. It does not 
 fcjllow that she is political any more than man is maternal or 
 adapted for housekeeping. Nor is the absence of political 
 qualities a disgrace to her any more than the absence of 
 maternal or housekeeping qualities is to him. Difference of 
 spheres, we must repeat, the spheres being equal in impor- 
 tance, implies no disparagement. As a rule, it is in the 
 affections and graces that woman is strong; and these, the 
 affections at least, though they may be worth more than 
 the practical qualities needed in politics, are not the practical 
 qualities. But the training also is wanting. The political 
 wisdom of men in general, to whatever it may amount, is 
 formed by daily contact and collision with the world in which 
 they have to gain their bread, and which impresses upon them 
 in its rough school caution, prudence, the necessity of com- 
 promise, the limitations of their will. Some of them are 
 flighty enough after all, and the world just now is in no small 
 peril from their flightiness. But their general tendency as a 
 sex is to be commonplace and practical. Their life usually is 
 more or less public, while that of woman is in the liome. 
 Moreover, they feel as a sex the full measure of responsibility 
 in public action. This is not felt so strongly by their partners. 
 If rash measures get the community into trouble, it is by the 
 men that it must be got out again. To them it will fall to pull 
 the waggon through the slough. The exception taken to 
 female legislators, or Ministers of State, or judges, on account 
 of the interruptions of the nursery might be met by appointing
 
 218 QUESTIDNS OF THE DAY. 
 
 only spinsters or widows. But it would be impossible, with- 
 out change of sentiment, to hold the female legislator, admin- 
 istrator, or judge to the full measure of male responsibility. 
 If they were called to account they would plead their sex. We 
 are told that ladies in New York objected to the appointment 
 of education commissioners of their own sex on the ground that 
 they were exempted from criticism by the gallantry of the men. 
 
 It is supposed that women would allay the angry strife of 
 faction and rehne its coarseness by imparting their gentleness, 
 tenderness, and delicacy to ]3ublic life. But is it not because 
 they have been kept out of politics and generally out of the 
 contentious arena that they have remained gentle, tender, and 
 delicate? Weakness thrown into an exciting struggle usually 
 shows itself, not by superior gentleness, but by loss of self- 
 control. Of this, the crusade against the Contagious Diseases 
 Act in England has given some yjroof . By the use which both 
 the political parties in England have of late been making of 
 women for electioneering purposes, the fury of the fray does 
 not seem to have been allayed. 
 
 "Corruption of male suffrage," says Mr. Blair's Report, "is 
 already a well-nigh fatal disease." Would it be cured by 
 throwing in the other sex? That women would be likely, by 
 taking part in public life, to make it pure, that they are less 
 prone than men to favouritism, jobbery, and corruption, is 
 contrary to experience, which shows that they are prone to 
 these minor vices while they are comparatively seldom guilty 
 of the greater crimes. 
 
 In a paper prepared at the request of an association of 
 women, which is cited in the Minority Report of the Senate 
 Committee, Mr. Francis Parkman says of the female politician 
 as she is and is likely to be in the United States : 
 
 " It is not woman's virtues tliat would be prominent or influential in 
 the political arena, they would shun it by an invincible repulsion ; and 
 the opposite qualities would be drawn into it. The Washington lobby 
 has given us some means of judging what we may expect from the woman 
 'inside politics.' If politics are to be purified by artfulness, effrontery, 
 insensibility, a pushing self-assertion, and a glib tongue, then we may
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 219 
 
 look for regeneration ; for the typical female politician will be richly 
 endowed with all these gifts. 
 
 "Thus accoutred for the conflict, she may fairly hope to have the 
 better of her masculine antagonist. A woman has the inalienable right of 
 attacking without being attacked in return. She may strike, but must 
 not be struck either literally or figuratively. Most women refrain from 
 abusing their privilege of non-combatants ; but there are those in whom 
 the sense of impunity breeds the cowardly courage of the virago. 
 
 "In reckoning the resources of the female politicians, there is one 
 which can by no means be left out. None know better than woman the 
 potency of feminine charms aided by feminine arts. The woman ' inside 
 politics ' will not fail to make use of an influence so subtle and so strong 
 and of which the management is peculiarly suited to her talents. If — 
 and the contingency is in the highest degree probable — she is not gifted 
 with charms of her own, she will have no difficulty in finding and using 
 others of her sex who are. If report is to be trusted, Delilah has already 
 spread her snares for the Congressional Samson ; and the power before 
 which the wise fail and the mighty fall has been invoked against the 
 sages and heroes of the Capitol. When ' woman ' is fairly ' inside 
 politics ' the sensation press will reap a harvest of scandals more lucrative 
 to itself than profitable to public morals. And as the zeal of one class of 
 female reformers has been and no doubt will be largely directed to their 
 grievances in matters of sex, we shall have shrill-tongued discussions of 
 subjects which had far better be let alone. 
 
 " It may be said that the advocates of female suffrage do not look to 
 political women for the purifying of politics, but to the votes of the sex at 
 large. The two, however, cannot be .separated. It should be remembered 
 that the question is not of a limited and select female suffrage, but of a 
 universal one. To limit would be impossible. It would seek the broadest 
 areas and the lowest depths, and spread itself through the marshes and 
 malarious pools of society." i 
 
 That some women are political and many men are not, is as 
 true as it is that some men are unmilitary and a few women are 
 Amazons. But this does not alter the general fact; and it is 
 upon general facts that political institutions must be founded. 
 
 Mill, appealing to history, bids us mark that so excellent a 
 judge of practical ability as Charles V. set women to govern 
 the Netherlands. Charles V. appointed women because he 
 had no males in his family to appoint. It was in fact this 
 
 1 31iuorUij licjiurt, p. 24.
 
 220 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 failure of males in dynasties, combined with the superstition 
 of hereditar}^ I'ight, that led to the introduction in Europe of 
 what John Knox called "the monstrous regiment of women." 
 Charles's experiment was not happy, since the result was the 
 revolt of the Netherlands. Blanche of Castile, is also cited by 
 Mill. She appears to have been a woman of masculine quali- 
 ties, not to say a virago, to have held her excellent but rather 
 weak-minded son in complete subjection, and to have governed 
 with vigour and judgment as his vicegerent; but there were 
 evidently two sides to her character; which of them prevailed 
 on the whole, we have hardly evidence enough to decide. 
 
 If we are to go to history, to history let us go; only remem- 
 bering that the examples are those of queens regnant, or 
 women placed by their circumstances in positions of power, and 
 that they afford no certain indication of what women would be 
 when they had climbed to power as demagogues after passing 
 through the party mill. 
 
 In England, the women who have wielded power legally or 
 practically have been Matilda, the claimant of the crown 
 against Stephen, about whom we know little, but who seems 
 to have injured her party b}^ her arrogance; Eleanor, the jeal- 
 ous and intriguing Queen of Henry II., who laboured to secure 
 the succession for John, and whose own record is not fair; 
 Isabella, the paramour of Mortimer, and with him guilty of 
 the murder of Edward II. ; Margaret, the Queen of Henry VI., 
 whose violence and favouritism helped to bring on the War of 
 the Eoses ; Mary, of whom it need only be said that she was 
 probably not a bad woman, but misled by influences to which 
 her sex is specially exposed ; Elizabeth ; Henrietta INIaria, who 
 by her feminine violence had, like Margaret of Anjou, no small 
 share in plunging the country into civil war ; and Queen Anne, 
 who, under personal influences and at the instigation of a 
 favourite waiting- woman, upset a great ministry and deprived 
 the country of the fruits of victory, while, had she lived 
 longer, her fondness for her family would have probably led to 
 an attempt to restore the Stuarts. The star is Elizabeth. But 
 Elizabeth's reputation for anything except the arts of popu-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 221 
 
 larity, in wliich she was supreme, has suffered terribly by the 
 researches of Motley and other recent writers. Her deceit- 
 fulness, perfidy, and ingratitude to those who had served her 
 and the country best, were pretty well known, as were her 
 vanity and her coquetry. But her reputation for statesman- 
 ship is now greatly reduced, and it is clear that the country 
 was saved not by her, but by itself; from the Armada it was 
 saved in her despite. Mr. Froude, who set out as her fervent 
 admirer, has in the end to say that her conduct in the transac- 
 tion which preceded the sailing of the Armada " would alone 
 suffice to disqualify Elizabeth from being cited as an example 
 of the capacity of female sovereigns." And when the countrj- 
 was saved, whom did the Queen select for the honour? Whom 
 did she prefer on this and all other occasions above the great 
 servants of the State? The good-looking but worthless Leices- 
 ter, "infamed," as Burleigh said he was, "by the death of his 
 wife." Her ungrateful persecution of the Puritans in the 
 latter part of her reign sowed the wind from which her 
 unhappy successors reaped the Avhirlwind. She had the good 
 fortune to be the crowning figure of an heroic age, and her sex 
 threw about her a romantic halo, the brightness of which was 
 enhanced by the calamities, partly her bequest, which ensued. 
 In France the more recent list is Catherine de Medici, whose 
 name suffices ; Anne of Austria, who was in the able hands of 
 Mazarin-, Madame de Maintenon, to whose female piety France 
 owed the revocation of the Edict of ISTantes, while to her ten- 
 derness for the Catholic Stuarts it owed a great war; Madame 
 de Pompadour, whose name again suffices; Marie Antoinette, 
 who, besides helping to dismiss Turgot and to complete the 
 ruin of French finances by plunging France into the war of 
 the American Eevolution, did so much to bring on the crash of 
 the French Eevolution that her misdeeds were scarcely washed 
 out by her tears. The story is closed by the influence, partly 
 religious, partly dynastic and domestic, which, Frenchmen say, 
 made the Franco-German war and finished the Avork by interfer- 
 ing with its conduct in the interest of the dynasty and deterring 
 the Emperor and his army from falling back on Paris,
 
 222 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Isabella of Castile graced her crown and formed a noble 
 queen of chivalry in the war against the Moors. As a ruler, 
 she had Ferdinand at her side. That it was to her feminine 
 instinct that the genius of Columbus was revealed, recent 
 researches have made less certain than it is that her piety 
 established the Inquisition in Castile, and that great numbers 
 of persons were burned by it in her reign. 
 
 Monuments of a female influence over government more 
 certainly beneficent were the crosses which Edward I. erected 
 in memory of the Queen who seems to have softened his 
 sternness with her love, while she displayed the beauty of 
 affection on the throne. England also owes a debt of gratitude 
 to Caroline of Brunswick, by whose unambitious support Wal- 
 pole, the best statesman of an unheroic time, was kept in power. 
 
 Nothing need be said about queens nominally regnant who 
 have reigned but not governed, and whose influence has been 
 happily exerted in the social sphere which all admit to be the 
 realm of woman. 
 
 Queen Victoria, however, is often cited as a proof that a 
 woman can rule an Empire without male help. What says 
 Queen Victoria herself ? " Lord Melbourne was very useful to 
 me, but I can never be sufficiently thankful that I passed 
 safely through those two years to my marriage. Then I was 
 in a safe haven, and there I remained for twenty years. Now 
 that is over, and I am again at sea, always wishing to consult 
 one who is not here, groping by myself, with a constant sense 
 of desolation." ^ 
 
 Suppose now that a crisis should come in this political 
 struggle, as conceivably it may, laying a strain on the personal 
 force and resolution of the wearer of the British crown. Sup- 
 pose a Kadical majority should demand the destruction of the 
 House of Lords by a swamping creation of Peers. Could a 
 lady be advised or expected to do anything which would expose 
 her to danger or annoyance even in the utmost necessity of 
 the State? 
 
 1 The Life and Correspondence of Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D., late 
 Dean of Westminster, by Rowland E. Trothero, M.A., Vol. II., p. 127.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 223 
 
 Mill has told us tliat Begums have shone as rulers in India. 
 He was in the India House aud his authority is good, though 
 he does not give the names. It is hardly credible that a 
 woman brought up in a Zenana should be a great ruler, but she 
 might be better than a hog or a tiger. Not all Begums have 
 escaped the common influence of the Durbar. We have one, 
 styled a heroine, making away successively with her father-in- 
 law, her husband, and her son, because they stood in her way, 
 enrolling cut-throats, and practising corruption as freely as 
 any male.^ The superiority can hardly be such as to give 
 much assurance of safety in revolutionising the relations be- 
 tween the sexes. 
 
 On the whole, experience apparently so far fails to show 
 that the introduction of women into jiolitics would be likely 
 to lead to any improvement of government or legislation suf- 
 ficient to countervail the danger of misdirecting the aspira- 
 tions of woman and withdrawing her from her proper and 
 transcendently important work as a wife and mother. 
 
 The writer of this paper signed, in company Avith John 
 Bright, John Stuart Mill's first petition in favour of suffrage 
 for unmarried women. Mr. Bright, as well as the writer, was 
 a good deal influenced by his respect and regard for Mill. 
 Both of them afterwards changed their minds, and Bright 
 spoke strongly against the measure. The writer found that 
 the women of his acquaintance for whom he had most respect, 
 and who seemed to him the best representatives of their sex, 
 were opposed to the change, fearing that the position and 
 privileges of women in general would be sacrificed to the 
 ambition of a few. 
 
 Since that time Mill's Autobiography has appeared, and has 
 revealed the history of his extraordinary and almost portentous 
 education, the singular circumstances of his marriage, his 
 hallucination (for it surely can be called nothing else) as to 
 the surpassing genius of his wife, and peculiarities of char- 
 acter and temperament such as could not fail to prevent him 
 from fully appreciating the power of influences which, whatever 
 
 1 See C. Forjelt's Our Real Danger in India, p. 39.
 
 224 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 our philosophy may say, reign and will continue to reign 
 supreme over questions of this kind. To him marriage was a 
 union of two philosophers in the pursuit of truth, and wedded 
 life was intellectual intercourse. In his work on " The Sub- 
 jection of Women " not only does he almost leave maternity 
 out of sight, but sex and its influences seem hardly to be 
 present to his mind. Of the distinctive excellence and beauty 
 of the female character, or of the conditions essential to its 
 preservation, it does not appear that he had formed any idea, 
 though he dilates on the special qualities of the female 
 understanding. 
 
 Mill has allowed us to see that his opinions as to the politi- 
 cal position of women were formed early in his life, probably 
 before he had studied history rationally, perhaps before the 
 rational study of history had come into existence. The con- 
 sequence, with all deference to his great name be it said, is 
 that his historical presentment of the case is fundamentally 
 unsound. He and his disciples represent the lot of the 
 woman as having always been determined by the will of the 
 man, who, according to them, has willed that she should be 
 the slave, and that he should be her master and tyrant. 
 " Society, both in this [the case of marriage] and other cases, 
 has preferred to attain its object by foul rather than by fair 
 means ; but this is the only case in which it has substantially 
 persisted in them even to the present day." This is Mill's 
 fundamental assumption ; and from it, as every rational student 
 of history is now aware, conclusions utterly erroneous as well 
 as injurious to humanity must flow. The lot of the woman 
 has not been determined by the will of the man, at least in 
 any considerable degree. The lot both of the man and of the 
 woman has been determined from age to age by circumstances 
 over which the will of neither of them had much control, and 
 which neither could be blamed for accepting or failing to 
 reverse. Mill and his disciples assume that the man has 
 always willed that he should himself enjoy political rights, 
 and that the woman should be his slave ; forgetting that it is 
 only in a few countries that man does enjoy political rights,
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE, 225 
 
 and that, even in those few countries, freedom is the birth 
 almost of yesterday. It may pj-obably be said that the number 
 of men who have really and freely exercised the suffrage up to 
 the present time is not very much greater than the number of 
 those who have in different ages and in various ways laid down 
 their lives or made personal sacrifices of other kinds in bring- 
 ing elective government into existence. 
 
 In the early stages of civilisation the family was socially 
 and legally, as well as politically, a unit. Its head repre- 
 sented the whole household before the tribe, the State, and all 
 persons and bodies without 5 while within he exercised absolute 
 power over all the members, male as well as female, over his 
 sons as well as over his wife and daughters. On the death of 
 the head of a family his eldest son stepped into his place, and 
 became the representative and protector of the whole house- 
 hold, including the widow of the deceased chief. This system, 
 long retained in conservative Home, was there the source of 
 the national respect for authority, and, by an expansion of 
 feeling from the family to the community, of the patriotism 
 which produced and sustained Roman greatness. Its traces 
 lingered far down in history. It was not male tyranny 
 that authorised a Tudor queen to send members of the royal 
 household to the Tower by her personal authority as the mis- 
 tress of the family, without regard to the common law against 
 arbitrary imprisonment. Such a constitution was essential to 
 the existence of the family in primitive times; without it the 
 germs of nations and of humanity would have perished. To 
 suppose that it was devised by the male sex for the gratifica- 
 tion of their own tyrannical propensities, would be most 
 absurd. It was at least as much a necessity to the primitive 
 woman as it was to the primitive man. It is still a necessity 
 to woman in the countries where the primitive type of society 
 remains. What Avould be the fate of a female Bedouin if she 
 were suddenly invested with Woman's Eights, and emanci- 
 pated from the protection of her husband? 
 
 That the present relation of women to their husbands liter- 
 ally has its origin in slavery, and is a hideous relic of that
 
 226 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 system, is a theory which Mill sets forth in language such as, 
 if it could sink into the hearts of those to whom it is addressed, 
 might turn affection to bitterness, and divide every household 
 against itself. Yet this theory is without historical founda- 
 tion. It seems indeed like a figure of invective heedlessly 
 converted into history. Even in the most primitive times, 
 and those in which the subjection of the woman was most 
 complete, the wife was clearly distinguished from the slave. 
 The lot of Sarah is different from that of Hagar ; the authority 
 of Hector over Andromache is absolute, yet no one can con- 
 found her position with that of her handmaidens. The Roman 
 matron who sent her slave to be crucified, the Southern matron 
 Avho was the fierce supporter of slavery, were not themselves 
 slaves. Whatever may now be obsolete in the relations of 
 husband and wife is not a relic of slavery, but of primitive 
 marriage, and may be regarded as at worst an arrangement 
 once indispensable which has survived its hour. Where real 
 slavery has existed, it has extended to both sexes, and it has 
 ceased for both at the same time. Even the Oriental seclusion 
 of women, perhaps the worst condition in which the sex has 
 ever been, has its root not in the slave-owning propensity so 
 much as in jealousy, a passion which, though extravagant and 
 detestable in its excessive manifesta,tion, is not without an 
 element of affection. The most beautiful building in the East 
 is that which Shah Jehan raised as the monument of a beloved 
 wife. Is it possible that an American lady living in Paris on 
 the fruits of her husband's toil at New York, or looking on 
 Avhile a porter at Saratoga toils beneath her colossal trunk, 
 should deem herself a slave? 
 
 If the calm and philosophic nature of Mill is ever betrayed 
 into violence, it is in his denunciations of the present institu- 
 tion of marriage. He depicts it as a despotism full of mutual 
 degradation, and fruitful of no virtues or affections except the 
 debased virtues and the miserable affections of the master and 
 the slave. The grossest and most degrading terms of Oriental 
 servitude are used to designate the relations of husband and 
 wife throughout the book. A husband who desires his wife's
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 227 
 
 love is only seeking " to have in the woman most nearly con- 
 nected with him, not a forced slave, but a willing one; not a 
 slave merely, but a favourite." Husbands have, therefore, 
 "put everything in practice to enslave the minds of their 
 wives." If a wife is intensely attached to her husband, 
 "exactly as much may be said of domestic slavery." "It is a 
 part of the irony of life that the strongest feelings of devoted 
 gratitude of which human nature seems to be susceptible are 
 called forth in human beings towards those who, having the 
 power entirely to crush their earthly existence, voluntarily 
 refrain from using their power." Even children are only links 
 in the chain of bondage. By the affections of women "are 
 meant the only ones they are allowed to have, those to the men 
 to whom they are connected, or to the children who constitute 
 an additional and indefeasible tie between them and a man." 
 Such a description of British matrimony seems to be scarcely 
 sane. The Jesuit is an object of sympathy because he is the 
 enemy of the domestic tyrant, and it is assumed that the hus- 
 band can have no motive but the love of undivided tyranny for 
 objecting to being superseded by an intriguing interloper in 
 his wife's affections. As though a wife would regard with 
 complacency, say a female spiritualist installed beside her 
 hearth! Mill's book, written with his usual clearness and 
 impressiveness, having been the manifesto, has remained the 
 manual of the movement. It is therefore still necessary to 
 deal with it, nor can there be anything invidious, as some of 
 his admirers seem to have fancied, in reviewing it by the light 
 of the Autobiography. For what purpose is the life of a 
 philosopher published if it is not to enable us better to under- 
 stand his works? The book might ]ioison marriage if it Avere 
 not read with a knowledge of the influence under which it was 
 written. Mill himself seems at last to start from the picture 
 which he has drawn and to be inclined to qualify it. But he 
 does this faintly and too late. 
 
 If, in this most imperfect Avorld, woman, through the 
 changeful ages, has, like her partner, had much to undergo, 
 and too often at her partner's hands, she has also had advan-
 
 228 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 tages which she would have been soriy to forfeit, and which 
 she would be sorry to forfeit now. She has sat safe in her 
 home while her partner was toiling, hunting, battling with the 
 sea, fighting for her abroad. By her partner's labour and with 
 peril of his life the earth has been subdued for her and made 
 fit for her habitation. When she complains that she has been 
 treated as a toy, does she mean that she has been wronged 
 because man has taken most of the rough and hard work to 
 himself? War has comparatively spared her; public justice 
 has been lenient to her; in a shipwreck she has been put first 
 into the boat, while the slave to whom she noAv likens herself 
 has been thrown overboard to save the provisions. In civilised 
 countries she is on all occasions served and considered first; 
 special provisions are made for her comfort and convenience. 
 Is this the lot of a slave, or of one even more miserable than 
 a slave? 
 
 Sometimes woman has had man's hard work to do. But this 
 has been mostly in times of special need or of general bar- 
 barism, and the revulsion which any such employment of her 
 causes, denotes her general immunity. The Eed Indian used 
 his mate as a beast of burden. But the Red Indian was a 
 savage. Even he, hoAvever, might have pleaded special need. 
 The hunter, by the product of whose chase the wigwam was 
 fed, would have been spoiled, his powers of endurance would 
 have been reduced, and the keenness of his sense would have 
 been impaired, by heavy domestic labour. 
 
 Marriage has risen in character with the general progress of 
 civilisation from the primeval contract of force or purchase to 
 a free contract, of a contract generally of love. Primeval 
 practice was not regulated by the will of those generations, 
 but by primeval circumstance, and the improvement of the 
 marriage tie has come, as all other great improvements of 
 human relations have come, in the course of secular evolution. 
 It was something when the passions of the male were subjected 
 to a regular and lasting bond of any kind. If women are now 
 to be made independent of marriage, which appears to be the 
 aim of some of their champions, they will be made indepen-
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 229 
 
 dent of that in which the happiness of a creature formed for 
 affection usually consists. Perhaps if they take advantage of 
 their independence many of them will owe their champions 
 but scanty thanks in their old age. 
 
 The anomalies in the property law affecting married women, 
 to which remedial legislation has recently been directed, are, 
 like whatever is obsolete in the relations between the sexes 
 generally, not deliberate iniquities, but survivals. They are 
 relics of feudalism or of still more primitive institutions incor- 
 porated by feudalism; and while the system to which they 
 belonged existed they were indispensable parts of it, and must 
 have been so regarded by both sexes alike. Any one who is 
 tolerably well informed ought to be ashamed to represent them 
 as the contrivances of male injustice. It is not on one sex 
 only that the relics of feudalism have borne hard. 
 
 The exclusion of women from professions is cited as another 
 proof of constant and immemorial injustice. But what woman 
 asked or wished to be admitted to a profession a hundred or 
 even fifty years ago? What Avoman till quite recently would 
 have been ready to renounce marriage and maternity in order 
 that she might devote herself to law, medicine, or commercial 
 pursuits? The demand is probably in some measure connected 
 with an abnormal and possibly transient state of things. The 
 expensiveness of living in a country where the fashion is set 
 by millionaires, combined with the overcrowded condition of 
 the very callings to which women are demanding admission, 
 has put extraordinary difficulties in the way of marriage. 
 Many women are thus left without an object in life, and they 
 naturally try to open for themselves some new career. The 
 utmost sympathy is due to them, and every facility ought 
 in justice to be afforded them; though unhappily the addition 
 of fresh competitors for subsistence to a crowd in which some 
 are already starving Avill be as far as possible from removing 
 the real root of the evil, to say notliing of the risk which a 
 woman runs in committing herself irrevocably to an undo- 
 mestic calling, and closing against herself the gate of married 
 life. But the demand, as has already been said, is of yester-
 
 230 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 day, and probably in its serious form is as yet confined to the 
 countries in whicb impediments to early marriage exist. It is 
 not always easy to distinguish the serious demand from a pas- 
 sion for emulating the male sex which is hardly more respec- 
 table in women than the affectation of feminine tastes and 
 habits would be in a man. With regard to the profession of 
 law, indeed, so far as it is concerned with the administration 
 of justice, there is, as was said before, and while human 
 emotions retain their force always will be, a reason, independent 
 of the question of demand, for excluding women, at least for 
 excluding one of the two sexes from jury trials. The influence 
 of a pretty advocate appealing to a jury, perhaps in behalf of 
 a client of her own sex, would not have seemed to Mill at all 
 dangerous to the integrity of public justice; but most people, 
 and especially those who have seen anything of sentimental 
 causes in the United States, or even in more phlegmatic Eng- 
 land, will probably be of a different opinion. 
 
 What has been said as to the professions is equally true of 
 the universities, which were schools for the professions. A few 
 years ago, what girl would have consented to leave her home 
 and mingle with male students? What girl would have 
 thought it possible that she could go through the whole of the 
 medical course with male companions of her studies? Even 
 now what is the amount of settled belief in "co-education"? 
 What would be said to a young man who applied for admission 
 in the name of that principle at the door of any female college? 
 Without arraigning what has been done, those whose duty 
 it is may reconsider with due deliberation the two distinct 
 questions — whether it is desirable that the education of both 
 sexes shall be the same, and whether it is desirable that the 
 young men and the young women of the wealthier classes 
 shall be educated together in the universities. Beneath the 
 first question lies the still deeper question whether it is 
 good for humanity that woman, who has hitherto been the 
 helpmate and the complement, should become, as the leaders 
 of the Woman^s Rights movement evidently desire, the rival 
 and competitor of man. Both she cannot be; and it is by no
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 231 
 
 means clear that in deciding which she shall be the aspirations 
 of the leaders of this movement coincide with the interests of 
 the sex. Marriage, if that is to be considered, is surely more 
 enriched by diversity than by uniformity of acquirements 
 on the sides of the two partners, universal accomplishment 
 being possible to neither. 
 
 If the education of women has hitherto been defective, so 
 has that of men. We are now going to do our best to improve 
 both. Surely no accomplishment in the acquisition of which 
 woman has been condemned to spend her time could well be 
 less useful than that of writing Greek or Latin verses has been 
 to the generality of male students. That the education of 
 woman has hitherto been lighter than that of men is no proof 
 that for the purposes of woman's destination it has been worse. 
 Among other things, it is to be considered whether the children 
 would be healthy if the brain of the mother, as well as that of 
 the father, were severely tasked. One medical authority at 
 least holds that the principal cause of the increasing avoidance 
 and prevention of child-bearing in the United States is the 
 physical and nervous deterioration of the women, which, in 
 his opinion, is largely due to the severe strain of modern life 
 and education.^ That the comparative absence of works of 
 creative genius ainong women is due entirely to the social 
 tyranny which has excluded, or is supposed to have excluded, 
 them from literary or scientific careers, cannot be said to be 
 self-evident. The case of musical composition, often cited, 
 seems to suggest that there is another cause, and that the career 
 of intellectual ambition is in most cases not likely to be hap- 
 pier than that of domestic affection, though this is no reason 
 why the experiment should not be fairly tried. Perhaps the 
 intellectual disabilities under which women have laboured, 
 even in the past, have been somewhat overstated. If Shelley 
 was a child to Mrs. Mill, as Mr. Mill says, no " social disa- 
 bilities" hindered Mrs. INIill from publishing poems which 
 would have eclipsed Shelley. The writer once heard an 
 
 1 Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 
 July, 1894, p. 50.
 
 232 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 American lecturer of eminence confidently ascribe tlie licen- 
 tiousness of English fiction in the early part of the last century 
 to the exclusion of women from literary life. The lecturer 
 forgot that the most popular novelist of that period, and cer- 
 tainly not the least licentious, was Mrs. Aphra Behn. This 
 lady's name suggests the remark that as the relations of the 
 sexes have been the most intimate conceivable, the action of 
 character has been reciprocal, and the level of moral ideas and 
 sentiments for both pretty much the same. 
 
 Mill, seeing that the man is the stronger, seems to assume 
 that the relations between man and woman must always have 
 been regulated by the law of the strongest. But strength is 
 not tyranny. The protector must always be stronger than the 
 person under his protection. A mother is overwhelmingly 
 superior in strength to her infant child, and the child is com- 
 pletely at her mercy. The very highest conception that 
 humanity has ever formed, whether it be founded in reality or 
 not, is that of power losing itself in affection. St. Paul (who, 
 on any hypothesis as to his inspiration, is an authoritative 
 expositor of the morality which became that of Christendom) 
 affirms with perfect clearness the essential equality of the 
 sexes and their necessary relations to each other as the two 
 halves of humanity. Yet he no less distinctly ratifies the 
 unity of the family, the authority of its head, and the female 
 need of that headship; a need which, supposing it to be 
 natural, has nothing in it more degrading than the need of 
 protection.^ 
 
 Subjection is a word of sinister import, and Mill, in adopt- 
 ing it, prejudices the question. Subordination, or obedience, 
 where it is necessary, implies no disparagement. Nothing 
 grates on ordinary feelings when Beatrice, in "Much Ado 
 about Nothing," says that she "will tame her wild heart to 
 the hand " of the man whom she is to wed. Not the soldier 
 only, but most of us have some one whom we are bound to 
 obey, and whom, it being necessary, we obey without humilia- 
 tion. A head of the family there must be if there is not to 
 
 1 1 Cor. xi., 7-12 ; Ei)h. v., 22-33 ; Col. iii., 18.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 233 
 
 be domestic anarcliy. Children must know to whom their 
 obedience is due. Mill proposes that the authority shall be 
 divided between the husband and wife in the marriage con- 
 tract, and that the subjects in which each is to be supreme 
 shall be set out in a schedule ; but he has not given us a draft 
 of such a contract. He had himself no children. In the 
 whole of this movement of sexual revolution the family, though 
 it may not, with anyone but a Nihilist, be the object of inten- 
 tional or conscious attack, is practically threatened with dis- 
 solution. One Utopian reformer, as we have seen, proposes not 
 only that the Avife shall be made independent of the husband, 
 but that the children shall be made independent of the parents. 
 
 "Enfranchise women," says Mr. Blair's Keport, "or this 
 Republic will steadily advance to the same destruction, the 
 same ignoble and tragic catastrophe, which has engulfed the 
 male republics of history." This seems to imply a new read- 
 ing of history, according to which republics have owed their 
 fall to their masculine character. The Greek republics were 
 overwhelmed by the Macedonian monarchy, their surrender to 
 which was assuredly not due to excess of masculine force. 
 The Eoman republic was converted by the vast extension of 
 Roman conquest into a military empire. The city republican- 
 ism of the Middle Ages was crushed by the great monarchies. 
 The short-lived Commonwealth of England owed its overthrow 
 to causes which certainly had nothing to do with sex. The 
 Swiss republic, the American republic, the French republic 
 still live, so do several constitutional monarchies, including 
 Great Britain and her colonies, which are republics in all but 
 name. It is true that these commonwealths, though, we may 
 hope, less directly threatened with tlie wrath of heaven than 
 the report assumes them to be, are yet not free from peril; but 
 their peril apparently lies in the passions, the giddiness, the 
 anarchical tendencies of the multitude, and would hardly be 
 averted by opening another floodgate and letting in all at once 
 the full tide of feminine emotion. 
 
 Woman, if she becomes a man, will be a weaker man. Yet 
 she must be prepared to resign her privileges as a woman.
 
 234 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Privilege and equality at once she cannot hope to have. To 
 don the other sex she must doff her own, a process in which she 
 will run some risk of ceasing to be, or at least to be deemed, 
 the "angelic portion of humanity." For the time, perhaps, 
 the ancient sentiment might linger; but the total change of 
 relations would in the end bring a change of feeling. Chivalry 
 depends on the acknowledged need of protection, and what is 
 accorded to a gentle helpmate would not be accorded to a rival. 
 Man would not be bound nor inclined to treat with tenderness 
 and forbearing the being who was jostling with him in all the 
 walks of life, wrangling with him in the law courts, wrestling 
 with him on the stump, manoeuvring against him in elections, 
 haggling with him on 'Change or in Wall Street. Take mere 
 sex apart from character, and there will be nothing in the female 
 of the human species more than in the female of any other 
 species to command our respect or devotion. Aphrodite, in 
 her heart, perhaps flatters herself that her Cestus will preserve 
 her privilege, while she gains the advantage of equality. So 
 much poetry has been addressed to her that she may well be 
 excused for not forming a prosaic estimate of the probable 
 results. But the outspoken Schopenhauer has told her that 
 beauty is rarer in her sex than in the other. It takes more to 
 make a beautiful woman than a handsome man. Of this we 
 may be sure, that the attractions of women generally depend 
 upon their being women. Mrs. Mill, be it observed, remained 
 a woman. If she had put on her wig and gown to go into 
 court and cross-examine witnesses, or had stood against her 
 husband for AVestminster, we should have seen the great 
 experiment really tried. That she has had social advantages 
 while she has lain under political disabilities, woman, espe- 
 cially in America, can hardly deny ; her sex has been an object 
 of respect, sometimes of a worship almost fatuous, irrespective 
 of her personal qualities. This is partly traceable to histori- 
 cal accident. Jonathan Oldbuck is a cynic, but he is not far 
 wrong in saying that it was by the fantastic imagination of 
 chivalry that Dulcineas were exalted into despotic goddesses. 
 He might have added that Mariolatry had played its part.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 235 
 
 It is averred that women, unless they share political power, 
 cannot take aii interest in public affairs. It has even been 
 said that they cannot read history. That they can not only 
 read but write history experience shows. It sliows also that 
 many of them do take interest in public affairs. Apart from 
 politics the whole field of charity, benevolence, and social 
 reform invites their action. In it they have produced a train 
 of worthies such as Miss Nightingale, and the same field is pre- 
 ferred by many of the best men, who shrink from the political 
 arena in its present state. Politics, after all, are not the 
 greatest part of life. It was under the despotism of a foreign 
 conqueror that Christianity came into the world. 
 
 The far western State of Wyoming, the mining State of 
 Colorado, and New Zealand have made the experiment of 
 Woman's Suffrage. Let them fairly try it, and if the result 
 is good, let the rest of the world follow. In every field of 
 action, except that of politics, use is made of experiment. A 
 new engine is tested before it is put on all the railways or into 
 all the steamships. A new medicine, however promising, is 
 tried in one or two cases before it is applied universally. If 
 an airship were invented, aeronauts would be called upon to 
 prove its safety before all the world ascended. But in politics 
 sweeping changes are irrevocably made upon the strength of 
 what even an advocate of the change, if he had any fairness of 
 mind, would allow to be a mere balance of argument in its 
 favour. Had extensions of the suffrage, or changes in the 
 form of local government been tried in one or two districts or 
 cities first, a pause of salutary reflection might have ensued. 
 But political changes, for the most part, are the result of con- 
 flict, not of reasoning; of the desire of a class or party for 
 power, not of broad conviction as to the public good. Woman's 
 Suffrage is a change fraught with the most momentous results, 
 not only to the commonwealth, but to the household. Let 
 Wyoming, Colorado, and New Zealand give it a full trial. 
 The success of the Wyoming experiment is publicly pro- 
 claimed, and the universe is exhorted to go and do likewise 
 by Wyoming, whose voice is that of the female voters.
 
 236 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Otlier accounts are not so favourable,^ nor have neighbouring 
 States, which must have the clearest view of the results, been 
 induced to follow the example. In Nebraska, in spite of a 
 laborious canvass headed by Miss Susan B. Anthony, Woman 
 Suffrage was defeated by two to one.^ To Wyoming and Col- 
 orado, Woman's Suffrage in the United States remains confined. 
 The New Zealand experiment will be more satisfactory, though 
 New Zealand, having no warlike neighbours, does not run the 
 same risk in emasculating her government which is run by 
 a European State. If after effectual trial it appears from 
 the experiments that legislation and government have become 
 wiser, more far-sighted, and more just, without any detri- 
 ment to the peace and order of the home, let the world 
 follow the example, and be grateful to those by whom the first 
 experiment was made. 
 
 At the present juncture in Europe sexual revolution would 
 be especially perilous. Among other things tendency to the 
 personal ascendancy of great demagogues, which has shown 
 itself as a result of the enfranchisement of masses ignorant of 
 political principles and questions, could not fail to be aggravated 
 by the enfranchisement of all the women, the inclination of the 
 sex being to personal rather than constitutional government. 
 In Erance, with Woman Suffrage, the Kej)ublic could hardly 
 live. 
 
 Mr. Blair's Report ends by saying that men can have no 
 motive for refusing the suffrage to women but the selfish one 
 of unwillingness to part with half of the sovereign power. 
 Selfishness in this matter would undoubtedly be not only 
 wickedness but folly. What is good for woman is good in the 
 same measure for man, and ought not to be withheld. One 
 lady in her evidence warns Congress, if it will not give way, 
 that the wild enthusiasm of woman can be used for evil as well 
 as good, and threatens in America a repetition of the scenes of 
 the Erench Commune. More terrible even than this menace 
 is the fear of doing an injury to man's partner, and thereby a 
 
 1 See the paper by Governor Crounse of Nebraska, North American 
 Eevieio, June, 1894. 2 /jj^^.
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 237 
 
 deeper injury to man himself. But the change ought to be 
 proved good. Before man hands over the government to 
 woman, he ought to be satisfied that he cannot do what is right 
 himself. In an age of " flabby " sentiment and servile worship 
 of change, we have had enough of weak and precipitate sur- 
 renders. It was to weak and precipitate surrender that the 
 world owed the French Eevolution and the deluge of calamity 
 which followed. To man, as he alone could enforce the law, 
 the sovereign power came naturally and righteously. Let him 
 see whether he cannot make a just use of it, in the interest of 
 his wife and children as well as in his own, before he sends in 
 his resignation. 
 
 But in the rage of the universal faction fight the voice of 
 prudence is drowned, and the world is hurried from change to 
 change, not by conviction, but by the exigencies and accidents 
 of the party strife. A New Zealander, writing in the Fort- 
 nightly Review,^ gives us his account of the way in which 
 female suffrage was carried. Only a few "wild women," he 
 says, so far as he by careful inquiry could ascertain, really 
 desired it, though thousands were induced to sign the petition. 
 But some Conservative politicians thought it would strengthen 
 their party. The Prohibitionists — never caring what may 
 happen to the commonwealth so long as they carry their own 
 measure — were most strenuous in favour of the change. Thus 
 the measure slipped through the House of Representatives. 
 It would, according to the writer, have been thrown out by the 
 Legislative Council had not one or two of the members of that 
 Council wished to embarrass the Ministry. So a measure 
 " which no one but a few fanatics and a few Conservative politi- 
 cians reall}' desired, andAvhich at the least ninety -five per cent, 
 of the population neither desired nor approved of was passed 
 into law." So it will be elsewhere, and a political change, 
 far more momentous than any extension of the male fran- 
 chise, will be forced on one community after another by the 
 fanaticism of Prohibitionists, aided by the shifty politicians, 
 and the desire or fear of votes. The reception of Wyoming as 
 
 1 February, 1894.
 
 238 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 a State with a female constitution was strongly resisted in 
 Congress and was carried, it is believed, through the need felt 
 by a political party of two more Senatorial votes. Every 
 demand for an extension of the suffrage is pretty sure in like 
 manner to prevail. When to all the existing masses of the 
 electorate, with its medley of sections, interests, and agita- 
 tions, has been added the whole female sex with emotions, 
 passions, objects, and issues of its own, and with the new order 
 of demagogism to which it is sure to give birth, the system of 
 demagogic and party government will have reached its climax, 
 and the world may be led to consider whether to escape con- 
 fusion it will not be necessary to set up in one form or another 
 a strong, stable, and impartial government.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 
 
 Jewish ascendancy and the anti-Semitic movement provoked 
 by it form an important feature of the European situation, and 
 are beginning to excite attention in America. Mr. Arnold 
 White, Baron Hirsch's commissioner, says, in a plea for the 
 Russian Jews,^ that "almost without exception the press 
 throughout Europe is in Jewish hands, and is largely produced 
 by Jewish brains " ; that " international finance is captive to 
 Jewish energy and skill"; that in England the fall of the 
 Barings has left the house of Eothschild alone in its supremacy; 
 and that in every line the Jews are fast becoming our masters. 
 Wind and tide, in a money-loving age, are in favour of the 
 financial race. At the same time the anti-Semitic movement 
 gains ground. From Russia, Germany, Austria, and the Dan- 
 ubian Principalities it spreads to the Ionian Islands; it has 
 broken out in France ; symptoms of it have appeared even in 
 the United States. Yet there is a persistent misapprehension 
 of the real nature of the agitation. It is assumed that the 
 quarrel is religious. The anti-Semites are supposed to be a 
 party of fanatics renewing the persecutions to which the 
 Jews were exposed on account of their faith in the dark ages, 
 and every one who, handling the question critically, fails to 
 show undivided sympathy with the Israelites is set down as a 
 religious persecutor. The Jews naturally foster this impres- 
 sion, and, as Mr. Arnold White tells us, the press of Europe 
 is in their hands. 
 
 In 1880, anti-Semitic disturbances broke out in Russia. A 
 narrative of them entitled "The Persecution of the Jews in 
 
 1 "The Truth about the Russian Jew," in the Contemporary lievieio^ 
 May, 1892. 
 
 241 R
 
 242 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Russia, " ^ was put forth by the Jewish community in England 
 as an appeal to the British heart. In that narrative the 
 Russian Christians were charged with having committed the 
 most fiendish atrocities on the most enormous scale. A tract 
 of country equal in area to the British Islands and France 
 combined had, it was averred, been the scene of horrors there- 
 tofore perpetrated only in times of war. Men had been ruth- 
 lessly murdered, tender infants had been dashed on the stones 
 or roasted alive in their own homes, married women had been 
 made the prey of a brutal lust which had in many cases caused 
 their death, and young girls had been violated in sight of their 
 relatives by soldiers who should have been guardians of their 
 honour. Whole streets inhabited by Jcavs had been razed, and 
 the Jewish quarters of towns had been systematically fired. 
 In one place, Elizabethgrad, thirty Jewesses at once had been 
 outraged, two young girls in dread of violation had thrown 
 themselves from the windows, and an old man, who was 
 attempting to save his daughter from a fate worse than death, 
 had been flung from the roof, while twenty soldiers proceeded 
 to work their will on the maiden. This was a specimen of 
 atrocities which had been committed over the whole area. 
 The most atrocious charge of all was that against the Christian 
 women of Russia, who were accused of assisting their friends 
 to violate the Jewesses by holding the victims down, their 
 motive being, as the manifesto suggests, jealousy of the 
 superiority of the Jewesses in dress. The government was 
 charged with criminal sympathy, the local authorities generally 
 with criminal inaction, and some of the troops with active 
 participation. 
 
 The British heart responded to the appeal. Great public 
 meetings were held, at one of which the Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury, with a Roman Cardinal, as the representative of religious 
 liberty in general, and especially of opposition to Jew-burning, 
 at his side, denounced the persecuting bigotry of the Russian 
 Christians. Indignant addresses were largely signed. Russia 
 
 ^Persecution of the Jews in Eussia, 1881. Reprinted from The 
 Times.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 243 
 
 ■was accused of re-enacting tlie worst crimes of the Middle 
 Ages. It was taken for granted on all sides that religious 
 fanaticism was the cause of the riots. 
 
 Russia, as usual, was silent. But the British government 
 directed its consuls at the different points to report upon the 
 facts. The reports composed two Blue Books, ^ in which, as 
 very few probably took the pains to look into them, the 
 unpopular truth lies buried. Those who did read them 
 learned, in the first place, that though the riots were deplor- 
 able and criminal, the Jewish account was in most cases 
 exaggerated, and in some to an extravagant extent. The 
 damage to Jewish property at Odessa, rated in the Jewish 
 account at 1,137,381 roubles, or, according to their higher 
 estimates, 3,000,000 roubles, was rated, Consul-General Stanley 
 tells us, by a respectable Jew on the spot at 50,000 roubles, 
 while the Consul-General himself rates it at 20,000. At 
 Elizabethgrad, instead of whole streets being razed to the 
 ground, only one hut had been unroofed. It appeared that 
 few Jews, if any, had been intentionally killed, though some 
 died of injuries received in the riots. There were conflicts 
 between the Jews who defended their houses and the rioters. 
 The outrages on women, by which public indignation in Eng- 
 land had been most fiercely aroused, and of which, according 
 to the Jewish accounts, there had been a frightful number, no 
 less than thirty in one place and twenty-five in another, 
 appeared, after careful inquiries by the consuls, to have been 
 very rare. This is the more remarkable because the riots 
 commonly began with the sacking of the gin shops, which were 
 kept by the Jews, so that the passions of the mob must have 
 been inflamed by drink. The horrible charge brought in the 
 Jewish manifesto against the Russian women, of having 
 incited men to outrage Jewesses and held the Jewesses down, 
 is found to be utterly baseless. The charge of roasting chil- 
 dren alive also falls to the ground. So does the charge of 
 violating a Jew's wife and then setting fire to his house. The 
 
 1 Correspondence respecting the Treatment of Jews in Russia., Nos. 1 
 and 2, 1882, 1883.
 
 244 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Jewish manifesto states that a Jewish innkeeper was cooped 
 in one of his own barrels and cast into the Dnieper. This 
 turns out to be a fable, the village which was the alleged scene 
 of it being ten miles from the Dnieper and near no other river 
 of consequence. The Russian peasant, Christian though he 
 may be, is entitled to justice. As a rule, while ignorant and 
 often intemperate, he is good-natured. There was much 
 brutality in his riot, but fiendish atrocity there was not, and 
 if he struck savagely, perhaps he had suffered long. For the 
 belief that the mob was "doing the will of the Tsar," in other 
 words, that the government was at the bottom of the rising, 
 there does not appear to have been a shadow of foundation. 
 The action of the authorities was not in all cases equally 
 prompt. In some cases it was culpably slack. At Warsaw 
 the commandant held back, though as Lord Granville, the 
 British ambassador, bears witness, his motive for hesitation 
 was humanity. But many of the rioters were shot down or 
 bayoneted by the troops, hundreds were flogged, some were 
 imprisoned, and some were sent to Siberia. That any of the 
 military took part in the riots seems to be a fiction. It was 
 not likely that the Russian government, menaced as it is by 
 revolutionary conspiracy, would encourage insurrection. Peo- 
 ple of. the upper class, who fancied that in the agitation they 
 saw the work of Socialists, though they might dislike the 
 Jews, would hardly sympathise with the rioters. Efforts were 
 made by the government to restore Jewish property, and hand- 
 some sums were subscribed for the relief of the sufferers. Yet 
 those who, while they heartily condemned outrage, were will- 
 ing to accept proof that the Christian men and women of 
 Russia had not behaved like demons, were saluted as modern 
 counterparts of Haman by an eminent Rabbi, who, if the 
 objects of his strictures had cared to retort, might have been 
 asked whether the crucifixion of Haman's ten sons and the 
 slaughter of seventy-five thousand of the enemies of Israel in 
 one day, which, after the lapse of so many centuries, the feast 
 of Purim still joyously commemorates, were not horrors as 
 great as any which have been shown to have actually occurred 
 at Odessa or Elizabethgrad.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 245 
 
 The most important part of the evidence given in the con- 
 suls' reports, however, is that which relates to the cause of 
 the troubles. At Warsaw, where the people are Roman Catho- 
 lics, there appears to have been a certain amount of passive 
 sympathy with the insurgents on religious grounds. But 
 everywhere else the concurrent testimony of the consuls is 
 that the source of the agitation was economical and social, not 
 religious. Bitterness produced by the exactions of the Jew, 
 envy of his wealth, irritation at the display of it in such things 
 as the fine dresses of his women, jealousy of his ascendancy, 
 combined in the lowest of the mob with the love of plunder, 
 were the motives of the people for attacking him, not hatred of 
 his faith. Vice-Consul Wagstaff, who seems to have paid par- 
 ticular attention to the question and made the most careful 
 inquiry, after paying a tribute to the sober, laborious, thrifty 
 character and the superior intelligence of the Jew, and ascrib- 
 ing to these his increasing monopoly of commerce, proceeds : 
 
 "It is chiefly as brokers or middlemen that the Jews are so promi- 
 nent. Seldom a business transaction of any kind takes place without 
 their intervention, and from both sides they receive compensation. To 
 enumerate some of their other occupations, constantly denounced by the 
 public : they are the principal dealers in spirits ; keepers of ' vodka ' 
 (drinking) shops and liouses of ill-fame ; receivers of stolen goods ; 
 illegal pawnbrokers and usurers. A branch they also succeed in is as 
 government contractors. With their knowledge of handling money, they 
 collude with unscrupulous officials in defrauding the State to vast amounts 
 annually. In fact, the malpractices of some of the Jewish community 
 have a bad influence on those whom they come in contact with. It must, 
 however, be said that there are many well educated, highly respectable, 
 and honourable Jews in Russia, but they foi'm a small minority. This 
 class is not treated upon in this paper. They thoroughly condemn the 
 occupations of their lower brethren, and one of the results of the late 
 disturbances is noticed in the movement at present amongst the Jews. 
 They themselves acknowledge the abuses practised by some of their own 
 members, and suggest remedial measures to allay the irritation existing 
 among the working classes. 
 
 " Another thing the Jews are accused of is that there exists among 
 them a system of boycotting ; they use their religion for business pur- 
 poses. This is expressed by the words ' koul,' or ' kagal,' and ' kherim.'
 
 246 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 For instance, in Bessarabia, the produce of a vineyard is drawn for by 
 lot, and falls, say to Jabob Levy ; the other Jews of the district cannot 
 compete with Levy, who buys the wine at his own price. In the leasing 
 by auction of government and provincial lands, it is invariably a Jew 
 who outbids the others and afterwards re-lets plots to the peasantry at 
 exorbitant prices. Very crying abuses of farming out land have lately 
 come to light and greatly shocked public opinion. Again, where estates 
 are farmed by Jews, it is distressing to see the pitiable condition in 
 which they are handed over on the expiration of the lease. Experience 
 also shows they are very bad colonists. 
 
 " Their fame as usurers is well known. Given a Jewish recruit with 
 a few roubles' capital, it can be worked out, mathematically, what time it 
 will take him to become the money-lender of his company or regiment, 
 from the drummer to the colonel. Take the case of a peasant : if he 
 once gets into the hands of this class, he is irretrievably lost. The pro- 
 prietor, in his turn, from a small loan gradually mortgages and eventually 
 loses his estate. A great deal of landed property in south Russia has of 
 late years passed into the hands of the Israelites, but principally into the 
 hands of intelligent and sober peasants. 
 
 " From first to last, the Jew has his hand in everything. He advances 
 the seed for sowing, which is generally returned in kind — quarters for 
 bushels. As harvest time comes round, money is required to gather in 
 the crops. This is sometimes advanced on hard conditions ; but the 
 peasant has no choice ; there is no one to lend him money, and it is 
 better to secure something than to lose all. Very often the Jew buys the 
 whole crop as it stands in the field on his own terms. It is thus seen 
 that they themselves do not raise agricultural products, but they reap the 
 benefits of others' labour, and steadily become rich, while proprietors are 
 gradually getting ruined. In their relation to Russia they are compared 
 to parasites that have settled on a plant not vigorous enough to throw 
 them off, and which is being sapped of its vitality." ^ 
 
 The peasants, the vice-consul tells us, often say, when they 
 look at the property of a Jew, "That is my blood." In con- 
 firmation of his view he cites the list of demands formulated 
 by the peasants and laid before a mixed committee of inquiry 
 into the causes of the disorder. These demands are all 
 economical or social, with the exception of the complaint that 
 Kussian girls in Jewish service forget their religion and with 
 
 1 Correspondence respecting the Treatment of Jews in Bussia, No. 1, 
 pp. 11, 12.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 247 
 
 it lose their morals. Everything, in short, seems to bear out 
 the statement of the Kussian Minister of the Interior, in a 
 manifesto given in the Blue Book, that " the movement had its 
 main cause in circumstances purely economical"; provided 
 that to "economical" we add "social," and include all that is 
 meant by the phrase " hatred of Jewish usurpation, " used in 
 another document. 
 
 Vice-Consul Harford, at Sebastopol, is in contact with the 
 Jews of the Crimea, who, he says, are of a superior order, 
 while some of them are not Talmudic Jews, but belong to the 
 mild and Scriptural sect of the Karaites. He says that in his 
 quarter all goes well. 
 
 "The spirit of antagonism that animates the Russian against the Jew 
 is, in my opinion, in no way to be traced to the difference of creed. In 
 this part of Russia, wliere we liave more denominations of religion tlian 
 in any other part, I have never, during a residence of fourteen years, 
 observed the sliglitest indication or sectarianism in any class. The peas- 
 ant, though ignorant and superstitious, is so entirely free from bigotry 
 that even the openly displayed contempt of tlie fanatical Mohammedan 
 Crim Tartar for the rites and ceremonies of the Russian Church fails 
 to excite in him the slightest feeling of personal animosity ; his own 
 feeling with regard to other religions is perfect indifference ; he enters a 
 mosque or synagogue just as he would enter a theatre, and regards the 
 ceremony in much the same manner that an English peasant would, 
 neither knowing nor caring to know whether they worshipped God or the 
 moon. As it is evident from this that race and creed are to the minds of 
 the peasantry of no more consequence than they would be to a Zulu, the 
 only conclusion is that the antipathy is against the usurer, and as civil- 
 isation can only be expected to influence the rising generation of Russian 
 peasantry', the remedy rests with the Jew, who, if he will not refrain 
 from speculating (in lawless parts of the Empire) on ignorance and 
 drunkenness, must be prepared to defend himself and his property from 
 the certain and natiu'al result of such a policy." i 
 
 All this confirms the statement of M. Pierre Botkine, Secre- 
 tary of the Kussian Legation in Wasliington, who, writing in 
 the Century Magazine,^ says: 
 
 1 Correspondence respecting the Treatment of Jews in Russia, No. 2, p. 17. 
 '■i February, 1893.
 
 248 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 " Replying to the accusation against Russia in the matter of an alleged 
 religious intolerance, I must first point out a great error I have repeatedly 
 encountered here. The promulgation of the laws and regi.lations against 
 the laws is being generally ascribed in America to persecution on the part 
 of the Orthodox Church. But the Hebrew question in Russia is neither 
 religious nor political ; it is purely an economical and administrative 
 question. The actual meaning of the anti-Semitic measures prescribed by 
 our government is not animosity to the religion of the Jews ; neither are 
 those measures a deliberate hunting down of the feeble by the powerful ; 
 they are an effort to relieve the Empire of the injurious struggle against 
 those particular traits of Hebrew character that were obstructing the 
 progress of our people along their own line of natural development. It 
 may be said in general, that the anti-Semitic movement in Russia is a 
 demonstration by the non-Hebraic part of the population against 
 tendencies of Hebrews which have characterised them the world over, and 
 to which they adhere in Russia. 
 
 "The Hebrew, a.s we know him in Russia, is ' the eternal Jew.' With- 
 out a country of his own, and, as a rule, without any desire to become 
 identified with the country he for the time inherits, he remains, as 
 for hundreds of years he has been, morally unchangeable and without a 
 faculty for adapting himself to sympathy with the people of the race 
 which surrounds him. He is not homogeneous with us in Russia ; he 
 does not feel or desire solidarity with us. In Russia he remains a guest 
 only, — a guest from long ago, and not an integral part of the commu- 
 nity. When these guests without affinity became too many in Russia, 
 when in serious localities their numbers were found injurious to the wel- 
 fare and the prosperity of our own people as a whole, when they had 
 grown into many wide-spreading ramifications of influence and power, 
 and abused their opportunities as traders with or lenders of money to 
 the poor, — when, in a word, they became dangerous and prejudicial 
 to our people, — is there anything revolting or surprising in the fact that 
 our government found it necessary to restrict their activity ? We did not 
 expel the Jews from the Empire, as is often mistakenly charged, though 
 we did restrict their rights as to localities of domicile and as to kinds of 
 occupations — police reputations. Is it just that those who have never had 
 to confront such a situation should blame us for those measures? " 
 
 Whatever may be said against the restrictions as to residence 
 and occupation laid on the Jews in Russia, from the point of 
 view of policy or humanity, it seems certain that their aim is 
 economical and social, not religious. They fall under the 
 same head with measures taken by the people of the United
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 249 
 
 States to guard their nationality and tlieir character against the 
 invasion of the Chinese. There is apparently no expulsion of 
 Jews from the provinces of Russia which were originally their 
 chief settlements, and which they have hitherto been permitted 
 by law to inhabit. They are only forbidden to spread and 
 extend their financial operations over the rest of the Empire. 
 Persecution is not the tendency of the Russian or of the 
 Church to which he belongs. The Eastern Church, while it 
 has been superstitious and somewhat torpid, has been tolerant, 
 and, compared Avitli other orthodox churches, free from the 
 stain of persecution. It has not been actively proselytising, 
 nor sent forth crusaders, unless tlie name of crusades can 
 be given to the wars with the Turks, the main motive for 
 which, though the pretext may have been religious, probably 
 has been territorial ambition, and which were certainly not 
 crusades when waged by Catherine, the patroness of Diderot 
 and the correspondent of Voltaire. This is the more remark- 
 able because the Russians had a struggle for their land Avith 
 the Tartars like that which Spain had with the Moors. 
 Stanley, in his "Eastern Church," dilates upon this character- 
 istic of the Eastern Christians. He says that "a respectful 
 reverence for every manifestation of religious feeling has 
 withheld them from violent attacks on the rights of conscience 
 and led them to extend a kindly patronage to forms of faith 
 most removed from their own " ; and he notices that the great 
 philosophers of antiquity are honoured by portraits in their 
 churches as heralds of the gospel.^ Sir Mackenzie Wallace, 
 who is the best authority, while he admits the inferiority of 
 the Russian priests in education, testifies to their innocence of 
 persecution, saying that "if they have less learning, culture, 
 and refinement than the Roman Catholic priesthood, they have 
 at the same time infinitely less fanaticism, less spiritual pride, 
 and less intolerance towards the adherents of other faiths." ^ 
 The educated classes he represents as generally indifferent to 
 
 1 Lectures on the History of the Eastern Church, 3d edition, p. 35. By 
 Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, D.D. 
 
 - Russia, pp. 58, 59. By Sir D. Mackeuzie Wallace, M.A.
 
 250 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 theological questions. The peasantry are superstitious and 
 blindly attached to their own faith, which they identify with 
 their nationality; but they think it natural and right that a 
 man of a different nationality should have a different religion. 
 In jSTijni-i^ovgorod, the city of the great fair, the Mahometan 
 Mosque or the Armenian church and the Orthodox cathedral 
 stand side by side.^ At one end of a village is the church, at 
 the other the mosque, and the Mahometan spreads his prayer- 
 carpet on the deck of a steamer full of Orthodox Eussians. 
 
 The ecclesiastical constitution of Eussia is incompatible 
 with religious equality, and therefore with full religious 
 liberty. The Tsar is practically, though not theoretically, 
 head of the Church as well as of the State; the commander of 
 Holy Russia as a Caliph is the Commander of the Faithful. 
 In the interest rather of national unity than of religious ortho- 
 doxy he restrains dissent. But it is against innovation and 
 schism within the pale of the State Church rather than against 
 misbelief that his power has been exerted. Some Tsars, such 
 as Peter the Great and the Tsarina Catherine II., have been 
 Liberals, and have patronised merit without regard to creed. 
 Nicholas was full of orthodox sentiment and in all thino-s a 
 martinet, yet Sir Mackenzie Wallace has a pleasant anecdote 
 of his commending the Jewish sentinel at his door who con- 
 scientiously refused to respond to the Tsar's customary salu- 
 tation on Easter Day. jSTo Tsar, however bigoted, has been 
 guilty of such persecution as Philip II. of Spain, Eerdinand of 
 Austria, or Louis XIV. Russia has had no Inquisition. That 
 the JcAvs have had liberty of worship and education, the exist- 
 ence of 6319 synagogues and of 77 Jewish schools supported 
 by the State, besides 1165 private and communal schools, seems 
 clearly to prove. ^ It does not seem to be alleged that any 
 attempt has been made by the government at forcible conver- 
 sion. Whatever may have been the harshness or even cruelty 
 of the measures which it has taken to confine the Jews to their 
 original districts and prevent their spreading over its domin- 
 
 1 See Hare's Studies in Bitssia, p. 360. 
 
 2 Statesman'' s Year-Book; 1891, pp. 854-856.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 251 
 
 ions, its object appears to have been to protect the people 
 against economical oppression and preserve the national char- 
 acter from being sapped by an alien influence, not to suppress 
 the Jewish religion. The law excluding the Jews from Great 
 Russia in fact belongs to the same category as the law of the 
 United States excluding the Chinese. 
 
 That Christian fanaticism at all events Avas not the sole 
 source of the unpopularity of the Jews might have been 
 inferred from the fact that the relation was no better between 
 the Jew and the heathen races during the period of declining 
 polytheism, when religious indifference prevailed and beneath 
 the vast dome of the Roman Empire the religions of many 
 nations slept and mouldered side by side. Gibbon, well quali- 
 fied to speak, for he was himself a citizen of the Roman 
 Empire in sentiment, after narrating the massacres committed 
 by the Jews on the Gentiles in Africa and Cyprus, has 
 expressed in flamboyant phrase the hatred of the Roman world 
 for the Jews, whom he designates as the " implacable enemies, 
 not only of the Roman government but of human kind."^ 
 Tacitus speaks of the Jews as enemies of all races but their 
 own (adversus omnes alios hostile odium),'^ and Juvenal, in a 
 well-known passage, speaks of them as people who would not 
 show a wayfarer his road or guide the thirsty to a spring if he 
 Avere not of their own faith. Those who maintain that there 
 is nothing in the character, habits, or disposition of the Jew 
 to provoke antipathy have to bring the charge of fanatical 
 prejudice not only against the Russians or against Christen- 
 dom, but against mankind. 
 
 In Germany, in Austria, in Roumania, in all the countries of 
 Europe where this deplorable contest of races is going on, the 
 cause of quarrel appears to be fundamentally the same. It 
 appears to be economical and social, not religious, or religious 
 
 1 Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, Chap. xvi. "In Cyrene," 
 Gibbon says, "they massacred 220,000 Greeks; in Cyprus, 240,000," 
 citing Dion Cassius (I., Ixviii., p. 1145), whose account, as regards num- 
 bers at all events, must be greatly exaggerated. 
 
 - Hist, v., V.
 
 252 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 only in a secondary degree. Mr. Baring-Gould tells us that in 
 Germany " there is scarce a village without some Jews in it, 
 who do not cultivate land themselves, but lie in wait like 
 spiders for the failing Bauer." ^ A German who knew the 
 peasantry well said to Mr. Gould that "he doubted whether 
 there were a happier set of people under the sun ; " but he 
 added, after a pause, " so long as they are out of the clutch of 
 the Jew." - Of the German, as well as of the Eussian, it may 
 be said that he is not a religious persecutor. If persecution of 
 a sanguinary or atrocious kind has sullied his annals, the arm 
 of it was the house of Austria, with its Spanish connection, 
 and the head was the world-roving Jesuit. In the case of 
 Hungary, Mr. Paget, who is a Liberal and advocates a Liberal 
 policy towards the Jews, says : " The Jew is no less active in 
 profiting by the vices and necessities of the peasant than by 
 those of the noble. As sure as he gains a settlement in a 
 village the peasantry become poor." ^ "In Austrian Poland," 
 says a Times reviewer, "the worst of the peasant's sluggish 
 content is that it has given him over to the exactions of the 
 Jews." "The Jews," he adds, "are in fact the lords of the 
 country." They are lords not less alien to the people than 
 the Norman was to the Saxon, and perhaps not always more 
 merciful, though in their hands is the writ of ejection instead 
 of the conqueror's sword. 
 
 If we cross the Mediterranean the same thing meets us. In 
 Thomson's "Morocco," we read: 
 
 " As money-lenders the Jews are as maggots and parasites, aggravating 
 and feeding on tiie diseases of the land. I do not know, for my part, 
 which exercises the greatest tyranny and oppression, the Sultan or the 
 Jew, — the one the embodiment of the foulest misgovernment, the other 
 the essence of a dozen Shylocks, demanding, ay, and getting, not only 
 his pound of flesh, but also the blood and nerves. By his outrageous 
 exactions the Sultan drives the Moor into the hands of the Jew, who 
 affords him a temporary relief by lending him the necessary money on 
 
 1 Germany Present and P«s^, Vol. I., p. 114. By S. Baring-Gould, M. A. 
 
 2 7&.,p. 127. 
 
 8 Hungary and Transylvania., Vol. I., p. 136. By John Paget.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 253 
 
 incredibly exorbitant terms. Once in the money-lender's clutches, he 
 rarely escapes till he is squeezed dry, when he is either thrown aside, 
 crushed and ruined, or cast into a dungeon, where, fettered and starved, 
 he is probably left to die a slow and horrible death. 
 
 " To the position of the Jews in Morocco it would be difficult to find 
 a parallel. Here we have a people alien, despised, and hated, actually 
 living in the country under immeasurably better conditions than the 
 dominant race, while they suck, and are assisted to suck, the very life- 
 blood of their hosts. The aim of every Jew is to toil not, neither to 
 spin, save the coils which as money-lender he may weave for the entan- 
 glement of his necessitous victims." ^ 
 
 Even if we cross the Atlantic we find the same phenomenon. 
 Mr. Olmsted, in his "Cotton Kingdom," says : 
 
 " A sw-arm of Jews has within the last ten years settled in nearly 
 every Southern town, many of them men of no character, opening cheap 
 clothing and trinket shops, ruining or driving out of business many of 
 the old retailers, and engaging in an unlawful trade with the simple 
 negroes, which is found very profitable." 2 
 
 And again: 
 
 "If his [the planter's] first crop proves a bad one he must borrow 
 money of the Jews at New Orleans to pay his first note. They will sell 
 him this on the best terms they can, often at not less than twenty-five 
 per cent, per annum." ^ 
 
 Mr. Stevenson says of the Jews in San Francisco : 
 
 "Jew storekeepers have already learned the advantage to be gained 
 from this [unlimited credit] ; they lead on the farmer into irretrievable 
 indebtedness, and keep him ever after as their bond-slave hopelessly 
 grinding in the mill. So the whirligig of time brings in its revenges, and 
 except that the Jew knows better than to foreclose, you may see Ameri- 
 cans bound in the same chains with which they themselves had formerly 
 bound the Mexicans." * 
 
 1 Travels in the Atlas and Southern Morocco : A Narrative of Explo- 
 ration, pp. 418, 419. By Joseph Thomson, F.ll.G.S. 
 
 2 Journeys and Explorations in the Cotton Kingdom, 2d edition, pp. 
 252, 253. By Frederick Law Olmsted. 
 
 3/&., pp. 321, 322. 
 
 * Across the Plains, p. 100. By Robert Louis Stevenson.
 
 254 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 These passages Avere not intended by the writers, nor are 
 they here cited, as general pictures of the Jews, or as pictures 
 of Jews exclusively. In the last, American sharp practice is 
 included. The passages are cited as indications of the real 
 source of the antagonism tending to show that it is economical 
 not religious.-^ 
 
 Light dawned on the writer's mind touching this question 
 when he had been listening with sympathy to speeches in the 
 British House of Commons on the anti-Semitic movement in 
 Roumania, where, as in llussia, the number of Jews is particu- 
 larly large and the feeling against them is proportionately 
 intense. The Jewish member who aj^pealed to the government 
 on the subject, and the Minister who rose in response to the 
 appeal, had both of them assumed that it was a case of reli- 
 gious persecution, and the Minister esj)ecially had dwelt on 
 the mischievous influence of ecclesiastics; with how little 
 justice, so far as the priests of the Eastern Church are con- 
 cerned, we have already seen. The debate over, the writer 
 was accosted by his friend, the late Dr. Humphry Sandwith, 
 distinguished for his share in the defence of Kars against the 
 Russians, who knew the Danubian Principalities well. Dr. 
 Sandwith said that the speakers had been entirely mistaken; 
 that religion was not the motive of the agitation ; that neither 
 the people nor their priests were given to persecution; that 
 the government had granted aid to a synagogue; but that 
 Jewish usurers got the simple-minded peasants into their toils 
 and sold them out of their homesteads till the peasants would 
 bear it no longer, and an outbreak ensued. Dr. Sandwith, 
 being a thorough-going Liberal, would have been the last man 
 to palliate religious persecution. 
 
 1 "In India," says Professor Ashley, " the village usurer is constantly 
 a source of trouble to the administration ; all over Central and South- 
 eastern Europe he is a curse to every district to which he comes ; and in 
 Austria and Russia his mischievous energy is one of the main causes of 
 the anti-Semitic movement." — A)i Introduction to English Economic 
 History and Theory, Part II., p. 436.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 255 
 
 It is doubtful whether, even in the Middle Ages, the quarrel 
 was not less religious and more economical or social than is 
 supposed. That was the age of religious intolerance; Chris- 
 tian heretics, such as the Albigenses, were persecuted with 
 fully as much cruelty as the Jews. Jews who had ventured 
 to settle in the Catholic communities for the sake of gain, 
 braved the same sort of peril which would have been braved 
 by an enterprising trader who had thrust himself into Japan 
 during its close period. But as a rule, though they were hated, 
 they were not persecuted ; they were tolerated and allowed to 
 build their synagogues and worship God in their own way. 
 They were regarded, not like heretics, as religious traitors, 
 but as religious aliens. Their religious blindness, as well as 
 their penal homelessness, was viewed as the act of God. They 
 were privileged in misbelief. Aquinas expressly lays it down 
 that they are to be tolerated as a useful testimony borne, 
 though by adversaries, to the truth of Christianity.^ It is not 
 true that the great Doctor of the Middle Ages sanctions the 
 forcible conversion of the children of Jews. He raises the 
 question and decides it in the negative.^ An argument stated 
 by him only to be set aside has been taken for his conclusion. 
 In the "Corpus Juris Canonici" it is laid down that Jews 
 shall not be baptised against their will or inclination, since 
 enforced baptism does not make a Christian. Their persons 
 are to be secure from violence, their graves from spoliation, 
 their customary rights from invasion, their festivals from 
 interruption, their servants from abduction, their cemeteries 
 from profanation.^ 
 
 By the kings, and notably by the Angevin kings of England, 
 the Jews were protected as the agents of royal extortion, suck- 
 ing by usury the money from the people which was afterwards 
 squeezed out of the usurer by the king. Of the common 
 people it is not, so far as we can see, the tendency to persecute 
 on account of religion, however superstitious they may be. It 
 
 1 Summa Theologica, Secunda Secundce, Qusest. X,, Art. xi. 
 
 2 76., Art. xii. 
 
 3 Decret. Grcrj., Lib. V., Tit. vi.
 
 256 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 is rather by the possessors of ecclesiastical power and wealth, 
 by Archbishops of Toledo and Prince Bishops of Germany, 
 whom dissent threatens with dispossession, or by kings like 
 Philip II. and Louis XIV., under priestly influence, that the 
 engines of persecution are set at work. At the time of the 
 Crusades, Christian fanaticism being excited to frenzy, there 
 were dreadful massacres of Jews, and forced conversions, 
 though no reliance can be placed on the figures of medieval 
 chroniclers, who set down at random twenty thousand victims 
 slain, or two hundred thousand forced conversions. The Jew 
 at that time was odious not only as a misbeliever in the midst 
 of the Christian camp, whose presence would turn from it the 
 countenance of God, but as a suspected friend and ally at heart 
 of the Oriental power. The Jews must have foreseen the 
 storm, and might have escaped by flight, but they were per- 
 haps tempted by the vast harvest afforded them in the general 
 sale of possessions by the Crusaders to buy equipments, while 
 by that traffic their unpopularity was increased. In ordinary 
 times the main causes of the hatred of the Jews among the 
 common people appear to have been usury and a social 
 arrogance, which was particularly galling on the part of the 
 alien and the enemy of Christ. In the riots the people made 
 for the place in which the Jewish bonds were kept. At York, 
 the scene of the worst anti- Jewish riot in England, the chroni- 
 cler tells us there were two Jews, Benedict and Joce, who had 
 built in the middle of the city houses like palaces, where they 
 dwelt like princes of their own people and tyrants of the 
 Christians, keeping almost royal state, and exercising harsh 
 tyranny against those whom they oppressed with their usuries. 
 The usury was grinding and ruthless. In the Chronicle of 
 Jocelin de Brakelond we see how rapidly a debt of twenty- 
 seven pounds, owed to a Jew, grew to eight hundred and 
 eighty. Jews at Oxford were forbidden by edict to take more 
 than forty-three per cent. So it was generally. Political 
 economy will say that this was justifiable, in the circumstances 
 perhaps useful, and the penalty due to the Christian supersti- 
 tion which made the lending of money at interest an unholy
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 257 
 
 and therefore a perilous trade. Nevertheless, it was hateful, 
 at least sure to engender hate. The Lombards and Cahorsins, 
 who, when the Jews were for a time driven from the field, 
 took up the business, incurred the same hatred, though in their 
 case there was no religious or social feeling to aggravate the 
 unpopularity of the trade. A Spanish Chancellor describes 
 the Jews as the bloodsuckers of the afflicted people, as men 
 who exact fifty per cent., eighty, a hundred, and through whom 
 the land is desolate, their hard hearts being callous to tears 
 and groans, and their ears deaf to petitions for delay. ^ Savon- 
 arola, the Christian socialist of his day, revived the Monte di 
 Pieta to rescue his people from the fangs of the Jews. 
 
 The law of the Jews themselves, be it observed, proscribes 
 usury in the case of a tribal brother, permitting it in the case 
 of a stranger. "Thou shalt not lend upon usury to thy 
 brother; usury of money, usury of victuals, usury of anything 
 that is lent upon usury: unto a stranger thou mayest lend 
 upon usury; but unto thy brother thou shalt not lend upon 
 usury : that the Lord thy God may bless thee in all that thou 
 settest thine hand to in the land whither thou goest to possess 
 it" (Devit. xxiii., 19, 20). The Jew, then, on the subject of 
 usury is not less superstitious than the Christian. In truth 
 the Christian superstition may be said to have been derived 
 from the JcAvish law. In practising usury on the Christians 
 among whom he dwelt the Jew showed that he regarded them 
 not as brethren but as strangers. 
 
 The Jews in the Middle Ages after all were not so mal- 
 treated as to prevent them from amassing what was for that 
 time enormous wealth. Of this they appear in those days, as 
 they sometimes do in these, to have made ostentatious and, in 
 the e5^es of natives and Christians, especially if they had been 
 victims of extortion, offensive use. A Cortes in Portugal, in 
 1481, complained of Jewish luxury and display, of Jews who 
 rode splendidly caparisoned horses, wore silk doublets, carried 
 jewel-hilted swords, and entered churches where they mocked 
 
 1 See The History of the Jews from the War with Borne to the Present 
 Time, p. 215. By Kev. II. C. Adams, M.A. 
 
 S
 
 258 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 tlie worship. Jewish haughtiness seems sometimes even to 
 have indulged in insults to the popular religion. At Oxford 
 it mocks the miracles of St. Frydeswide before her votaries, 
 assaults a religious procession, and tramples on the cross. At 
 Lynn the Jews attack a church to drag out a convert from 
 Judaism to Christianity, for whose blood they thirsted, and the 
 people of the place are half afraid to resist them, knowing 
 that they are protected by the king. Besides their usury, the 
 Jews were suspected of clipping the coin. Their function as 
 the middlemen of royal rapacity must have been most odious, 
 not least when they handled for the king Church estates which 
 he had wrongfully taken into his hands. In expelling them 
 from England, Edward I., the best of kings, no doubt thought 
 that he was doing a good deed, while his people were unques- 
 tionably grateful. The worthy Abbot Samson, of St. Edmond- 
 bury, in the same way earned the gratitude of the people of 
 that place by ridding it of the Jews. The clearest, as well as 
 the most terrible, case of persecution of the Jews for religion 
 was in Spain, and there, it must be remembered, when the Jew 
 was burned, the Christian suspected of heresy was burned at 
 his side. Even in Spain it is not easy to say how much was 
 hatred of religion, how much was hatred of race. For cen- 
 turies the Spanish Christians had struggled for the land with 
 Islam, and the history of Spain had been one long Crusade. 
 The Jew was identilied with Islam. A Jewish writer. Lady 
 Magnus, in her history of her race, says : 
 
 " Both in the East and in the West the rise of Mohammedanism was, 
 in truth, as the dawn of a new day to the despised and dispersed Jews. 
 If we except tliat one bitter quarrel between the earliest followers of the 
 Prophet and the Jews of Arabia, — and that, we must note, was no organ- 
 ized or systematic persecution, but rather an ebullition of anger from an 
 ardent enthusiast at his first unexpected rebuff, — we shall find that Juda- 
 ism had much reason to rejoice at the rapid spread of Mohammedanism. 
 Monotheists, like the Jews, abhorring like them all forms of image wor- 
 ship, worshipping in simple fashion their one God Allah, observing dietary 
 laws like those of Moses, the Mohammedans both in their faith and in 
 their practice naturally found more grounds for agi'eement with Jewish 
 doctrine than with the Christian dogma of a complex Godhead, or with
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 259 
 
 the undeveloped aspirations of the heathen. And besides some iden- 
 tity of principle and of race between the Mohammedan and the Jew 
 there soon discovered itself a certain hardly definable kinship of habit 
 and custom, — a sort of sympathy, in fact, which is often more effectual 
 than even more important causes in promoting friendly relations either 
 nationally or individually. Then, also, there was the similarity of lan- 
 guage ; for Arabic, like Hebrew, belongs to what is called the Semitic 
 group. . . . Nearly a century of experience of the political and social 
 results of the Mohammedan conquests must, inevitably, have made the 
 year 710 stand out to the Jews of that time as the beginning of a gi-and 
 new era in their history. Centuries of cruelty had made the wise loyal 
 counsel of Jeremiah to ' pray for the peace of the land whither ye are 
 led captive ; its peace shall be your peace also,' a hard task for the most 
 loyal of consciences ; and in that early year of the eighth century, when 
 Spain was added to the list of the Mohammedan victories, and the trium- 
 phant flag of the Crescent was hoisted on tower and citadel, the liberty 
 of conscience which it practically proclaimed must have been in the 
 widest sense a cause for national rejoicing to the Jews." ^ 
 
 The kindness of the Mahometan to the Jew may here be 
 overrated, but the sympathy between Judaism and Islam can- 
 not be questioned, and it meant common antipathy to Christen- 
 dom, which Christendom could not fail to reciprocate, especially 
 in its crusading mood. We sit at ease and sneer at the fanat- 
 icism of the Crusaders. But some strong motive was needed 
 to make men leave their homes and their wives and go to die 
 as the vanguard of Christendom on Syrian battlefields. Let 
 us not forget that the question whether Christianity and 
 Christian civilisation or Islam, with its despotism and its 
 harem, should reign in Europe came to be decided, not without 
 long and perilous debate, so near the heart of Christendom as 
 the plain of Tours. The Jews of Southern France, like those 
 of Spain, were suspected of inviting the invaders. If they did 
 they were not without excuse. But their excuse could hardly 
 be expected to pass muster with Charles Martel. 
 
 From religious intolerance in the Dark Ages, or long after 
 the end of the Dark Ages, nobody was free. The Jew was 
 not. He had striven as long as he had a chance, by all means 
 in his power, unscrupulously using the Roman or the Persian 
 
 1 AbotU the Jews since Bible Times, pp. 195-197. By Lady Magnus.
 
 260 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 as liis instruments, to crush Christianity. His own law pun- 
 ished blasphemy with death and bade the worshipper of 
 Jehovah slaughter everything that breathed in a captured city 
 of the heathen. It was hence, in fact, that the Inquisitor 
 partly drew his inspiration. Medieval darkness had passed 
 away when Judaism sought the life of Spinoza and scourged 
 Uriel Acosta in the synagogue. 
 
 Although the lot of a Jew in the Middle Ages was hard in 
 itself, it was perhaps not so hard compared with that of other 
 classes, notably with that of the serf, as the perpetual addition 
 of piteous epithets to his name by common writers might lead 
 us to suppose. "Ivanhoe" is not history; Freeman's works 
 are. Freeman says : 
 
 " In the wake of the conqueror the Jews of Rouen found their way 
 to London, and befoi-e long we find settlements of the Hebrew race in 
 the chief cities and boroughs of England : at York, "Winchester, Lincoln, 
 Bristol, Oxford, and even at the gate of the Abbot of St. Edmonds and 
 St. Albans. They came as the king's special men, or more truly as his 
 special chattels, strangers alike to the Church and the commonwealth, 
 but strong in the protection of a master who commonly found it his 
 Interest to protect them against all others. Hated, feared, and loathed, 
 but far too deeply feared to be scorned or oppressed, they stalked defi- 
 antly among the people of the land, on whose wants they throve, safe 
 from harm or insult, save now and then, when popular wrath burst all 
 bounds, when their proud mansions and fortified quarters could shelter 
 them no longer from raging crowds who were eager to wash out their 
 debts in the blood of their creditors. The romantic picture of the 
 despised, trembling Jew, cringing before every Christian whom he 
 meets, is, in any age of English history, simply a romantic picture." ^ 
 
 The Jews found it worth their while to buy their way back 
 into lands from which they had been banished, and their 
 existence in which is pictured by historians as a hell. If they 
 were heavily taxed and sometimes pillaged, they were exempted 
 from the most grievous of all taxes, service in war. Their 
 badge, though a stigma, was also a protection, since it marked 
 them as serfs of the king. Even the Ghetto, where there was 
 
 1 The Beign of William Biifus and the Accession of Henry the First, 
 Vol. I., p. 160. By Edward A. Freeman.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 261 
 
 one, would be comparatively a small grievance when nation- 
 alities, crafts, and family clans had their special quarters in 
 cities. Any immigrant would have been less at home in the 
 closely organised communities of feudalism and Catholicism 
 than in the loose society of the Roman Empire. But the Jew 
 was there by his own choice. The tenure of land in a feudal 
 realm, being military, land could hardly be held by a Jew. 
 But Jews were not forbidden by law to hold land in England 
 till late in the reign of Henry III., when it was found that they 
 were getting estates into their hands by mortgage, which would 
 have been ruinous to the feudal system. A community has a 
 right to defend its territory and its national integrity against 
 an invader whether his weapon be the sword or foreclosure. 
 In the territories of the Italian Republics the Jews might, 
 so far as we see, have bought land and taken to farming had 
 they pleased. But before this they had thoroughly taken to 
 trade. Under the falling Empire they were the great slave- 
 traders, buying captives from barbarian invaders and probably 
 acting as general brokers of spoils at the same time. They 
 entered England in the train of the Norman conqueror. There 
 was, no doubt, a perpetual struggle between tlieir craft and the 
 brute force of the feudal populations. But what moral pre- 
 rogative has craft over force? Mr. Arnold White tells the 
 Russians that, if they would let Jewish intelligence have free 
 course, Jews would soon fill all high employments and places 
 of power to the exclusion of the natives, who now hold them. 
 Russians are bidden to acquiesce and rather to rejoice in this 
 by philosophers, who would perhaps not relish the ci:p if it 
 were commended to their own lips. The laAV of evolution, it 
 is said, prescribes the survival of the fittest. To which the 
 Russian boor may reply, that if his force beats the fine intelli- 
 gence of the Jew the fittest will siirvive and the law of evolu- 
 tion will be fulfilled. It was force rather than fine intelligence 
 which decided on the field of Zama that the Latin, not the 
 Semite, should rule the ancient and mould the modern Avorld. 
 Religious antipathy, no doubt, has always added and con- 
 tinues to add bitterness to the social quarrel. Among ignorant
 
 262 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 peasants it still takes grotesque, sometimes hideous, shapes, 
 such as the cruel fancy that the Jews sacrifice Christian chil- 
 dren and spread pestilence. The Jew has always been felt to 
 be a power of evil, and the peasant imagination lends to the 
 poAver of evil horns and hoofs. But even the peasant imagina- 
 tion does not lend horns and hoofs to any power which is felt 
 to be harmless, much less to one which has always been 
 beneficent, as we are asked to believe that the Jews have been. 
 The people are not everywhere fools or fiends. Let it be 
 remembered, too, that the Jewish religion is not merely a 
 religion of peculiar opinion. It is a religion of social exclu- 
 siveness, of arrogated superiority to Gentiles, and treatment of 
 them as unclean, of the Pentateuch with its Chosen People, 
 and of the feast of Purim. Milman thinks it possible that in 
 the offensive celebration of the feast of Purim some of the 
 calumnies about the Jews may have had their source. 
 
 People of a higher class, whom Jewish usury does not touch, 
 object to Judaism on higher grounds. They object to it 
 because it is at variance with the unity of the nation and 
 threatens to eat out the core of nationality. Admitting the 
 keenness of Jewish intelligence, they say that intelligence is 
 not always beneficent, nor is submission to it always a matter of 
 duty, especially when its ascendancy is gained by such means 
 as the dexterous appropriation of the circulating medium, and 
 when it is, as they believe, the result not of individual effort 
 in a fair field, but of the collective effort of a united, though 
 scattered race, aided by a press in Jewish hands. They demur 
 to having the high places of their community monopolised, as 
 Mr, Arnold White says they might be in Russia, by unsympa- 
 thetic aliens turning the rest of the nation into hewers of wood 
 and drawers of water. This feeling, if it is selfish, is natural, 
 and should be charitably viewed by those who are free from 
 the danger. Some of the opposition to Jewish ascendancy 
 arises from dread of materialism, the triumph of which over 
 the spiritual character and aspirations of Christian communi- 
 ties would, it is apprehended, folloAv the victory of the Jew, 
 an impersonation of the power of wealth. Among the anti-
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 263 
 
 Semites are Christian Socialists seeking the liberation of the 
 labouring class from the grasp of usury and the money power. 
 Herr Stoecker belongs, it seems, to this sect, and far from 
 being an enemy of the Jewish people, is a devout believer in 
 the Old Testament. To be opposed on social or patriotic 
 ground to Judaism as a system is not to be a hater of the 
 Jews, any more than to be opposed to Islam or Buddhism as a 
 system is to be a hater of the Mahometan or the Buddhist. 
 
 The impression prevails that Judaism during the Middle 
 Ages was a civilising power, in fact the great civilising power, 
 while its beneficent action was repressed by a barbarous Chris- 
 tendom. The leading shoot of civilisation, both material and 
 intellectual, was republican Italy, where the Jews, though 
 they were not persecuted, never played a leading part. You 
 may read through Sismondi's History almost without being 
 made aware of their existence. Intellectually superior in a 
 certain sense no doubt they were; their wealth exempted them 
 from manual labour, and gave them an advantage, as it does 
 now, in the race of intelligence. They were also practically 
 exempted from military service. They preserved Hebrew and 
 Oriental learning, and to them Europe owed the transmission 
 of the works of Aristotle through Arabic translations. But in 
 their medieval roll of celebrated names the great majority are 
 those of Talmudists or Cabbalists. The most illustrious is 
 that of Maimonides, whose influence on the progress of 
 humanity surely was not very great, albeit he was let and 
 hindered only by the narrow and jealous orthodoxy of his own 
 people. Jews were in request as physicians, though they seem 
 to have drawn their knowledge from the Arabians. They had 
 much to do with the foundation of the medical school of 
 Montpellier; the origin of that at Salerno was Benedictine. 
 But if they founded a medical science, what became of the 
 medical science which they founded? At the close of the 
 Middle Ages there was none. A Jewish physician, no doubt 
 the most eminent of his class, is called in by Innocent VIII. 
 His treatment is transfusion of blood. He kills three boys in 
 the process and then runs away. Of the money trade the
 
 264 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Jews were generally the masters, though in Italy that, too, was 
 in the hands of native houses, such as the Medici, Bardi, and 
 Peruzzi, while at a later period the Fuggers of Augsburg were 
 the Rothschilds of Germany. But the Jews never were the 
 masters of the grand commerce or of that maritime enterprise 
 in which the Middle Ages gloriously closed. Eosseeuw Saint- 
 Hilaire has observed in his history of Spain that their addic- 
 tion was to petty trade. Showing abundant sympathy for 
 Jewish wrongs, he finds himself compelled to contrast the 
 " narrowness and rapacity " of their commerce with the bold- 
 ness and grandeur of Arab enterprise.^ The slave trade, which 
 in the early Middle Ages was in Jewish hands, was not then 
 the reproach that it is now, yet it never was a noble or a 
 beneficent trade. Spain is supposed to have owed her fall to 
 the expulsion of the Jews, but the acme of her greatness came 
 after their expulsion; and her fall was due to despotism, civil 
 and religious, to her false commercial system, to the diversion 
 of her energy from industry to gold-seeking and conquest, and 
 not least to the overgrown and heterogeneous empire which 
 was the supposed foundation of her grandeur. England, in 
 the period between the expulsion of the Jews under Edward T. 
 and their readmission under Cromwell, became a commercial 
 nation and a famous naval power; and the greatness thus 
 achieved was English, not Gibeonite, as it would have been 
 under Jewish ascendancy ; it was part of the fulness of national 
 life, and was j)rolific not only of VVhittingtons and Drakes, but 
 of Shakespeares and Bacons. As financiers it is likely that 
 the Jews were useful in advancing money for great works; 
 they also furnished money for enterprises such as Strongbow's 
 expedition to Ireland. But the assertion, often repeated, that 
 they provided the means for building the churches, abbeys, 
 and colleges of England must be qualified in face of the fact 
 that the greater part of the edifices is of dates subsequent 
 to the expulsion of the Jews. Salisbury Cathedral was built 
 before the expulsion. But we happen to know that the forty 
 thousand marks which it cost were supplied by contributions 
 
 1 Histoire cVEspagne, Vol. III., p. 147.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 265 
 
 from the Prebendaries, collections from different dioceses, and 
 grants from Alicia de Bruere and other benefactors.-^ 
 
 No financial or material advantage at all events could have 
 made up to a nation for the ascendancy of a tribe of alien 
 usurers. 
 
 Judaism is now the great financial power of Europe, that is, 
 it is the greatest power of all. It is no longer necessary, out 
 of pity for it, to falsify history, and tradu.ce Christendom. 
 
 Of the two works on which, during the Middle Ages, Jewish 
 intellect was chiefly employed, the Cabbala is on all hands 
 allowed to be mystical nonsense. Of the Talmud, Dr, Farrar, 
 assuredly no Jew-baiter, in his Preface to a volume of selec- 
 tions from it, says : 
 
 " Wisdom there is in the Talmud, and eloquence and high morality ; 
 of this the reader may learn something even in the small compass of the 
 following pages. How could it be otherwise when we bear in mind that 
 the Talmud fills twelve large folio volumes, and represents the main lit- 
 erature of a nation during several hundred years ? But yet I venture to 
 say that it would be impossible to find less wisdom, less eloquence, and 
 less high morality, imbedded in a vaster bulk of what is utterly valueless 
 to mankind, — to say nothing of those parts of it which are indelicate 
 and even obscene, — in any other national literature of the same extent. 
 And even of the valuable residuum of true and holy thoughts, I doubt 
 whether there is even one which had not long been anticipated, and 
 which is not found more nobly set forth in the Scriptures of the Old and 
 New Testament." 2 
 
 This judgment is fully borne out by the selections which 
 follow, and which are made by Mr. Hershon, a known Hebrew 
 scholar, on an impartial principle. It is supported by other 
 independent critics, such as Thirlwall, who spoke of the 
 Talmud as an ocean of nonsense. The writer will not presume 
 to speak, though he looks back upon the perusal of a Latin 
 translation of the Mishna as one of the least pleasant labours 
 of a student's life. Dr. Deutsch's counterfeit presentment of 
 
 1 See Murray's Handbook to the Cathedrals of England. Soutliern 
 Division, Part I., p. 94. 
 
 2 A Talmudic Misrelhiny. Compiled and translated by Paul Isaac 
 Hershon, with introductory preface by Rev. P. W. Parrar, U.D., P.R.S.
 
 266 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 the Talmud, to which Dr. Farrar refers, is a standing caution. 
 In every page of Mr. Hershon's " Talmudic Miscellany " we 
 have such things as this : 
 
 , ' ' There were two things which God first thought of creating on the eve 
 of the Sabbath, which, however, were not created till after the Sabbath 
 had closed. The first was fire, which Adam by divine suggestion drew 
 forth by striking together two stones ; and the second was the mule, pro- 
 duced by the crossing of two different animals." — P^sachim, fol. 54, 
 col. 1. 
 
 "The Rabbis have taught that there are three reasons why a person 
 should not enter a ruin : 1. Because he may be suspected of evil intent ; 
 2. Because the walls might tumble upon him ; 3. And because of evil 
 spirits that frequent such places." — Berachoth, fol. 3, col. 1. 
 
 " The stone which Og, King of Bashan, meant to throw upon Israel is 
 the subject of a tradition delivered on Sinai. 'The camp of Israel I see,' 
 he said, ' extends three miles ; I shall therefore go and root up a mountain 
 three miles in extent and throw it upon them.' So off he went, and find- 
 ing such a mountain, raised it on his liead, but the Holy One — blessed be 
 He! — sent an army of ants against him, which so bored the mountain 
 over his head that it slipped down upon his shoulders, from which he 
 could not lift it, because his teeth, protruding, had riveted it upon him." 
 — Berachoth, fol. 54, col. 2. 
 
 "Three things are said respecting the finger-nails : He who trims his 
 nails and buries the parings is a pious man ; he who burns these is a 
 righteous man ; but he who throws them away is a wicked man, for mis- 
 chance might follow, should a female step over them." — 3Ioecl Xatan, 
 fol. 18, col. 1.1 
 
 Abraham's height, according to the Talmudists, was that of 
 seventy-four men put together. His food, his dress, and his 
 strength were those of seventy-four men. He built for the 
 abode of his seventeen children by Keturah, an iron city, the 
 walls whereof were so lofty that the sun never penetrated 
 them. He gave them a bowl full of precious stones, the 
 brilliancy of which supplied them with light in the absence of 
 the sun. He had a precious stone suspended from his neck, 
 upon which every sick person who gazed was healed of his dis- 
 ease, and Avhen lie died God hung up the stone on the sphere 
 of the sun. Before his time there was no such thing as a 
 
 1 Quoted in Hershon's Miscellany.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 267 
 
 beard ; but as many mistook Abraham and Isaac for each other, 
 Abraham prayed to God for a beard to distinguish him, and it 
 was granted him. Every one has a thousand malignant spirits 
 at his left side, and ten thousand at his right. The crowding 
 at the schools is caused by their pushing in. If one would 
 discover traces of their presence, he has only to sift some ashes 
 on the iloor at his bedside, and next morning he will see the 
 footmarks as of fowls. If he would see the demons them- 
 selves, he must burn to ashes the afterbirth of a first-born 
 black kitten, the offspring of a first-born black cat, put some 
 of the ashes into his eyes, and he will not fail to see the 
 demons. The medical and physical apophthegms of the 
 Talmud do not give much evidence of science: "dropsy is a 
 sign of sin, jaundice of hatred without a cause, and quinsy of 
 slander"; "six things possess medicinal virtue: cabbage, 
 lung-wort, beet-root, water, certain parts of the offal of animals, 
 and, in the opinion of some, little fishes." Mr. Hershon's col- 
 lection abounds with nonsense on this sirbject as absurd as 
 anything in medieval quackery. Other features of the work 
 are an Oriental indelicacy, and a pride of Rabbinical learning 
 which treats illiteracy as almost criminal, looking down upon 
 the illiterate as an American would look down upon the negro. 
 The most superstitious of Christian writings in the Dark Ages 
 could not be more tainted with demonology and witchcraft, 
 nor in any monkish chronicle do we find fables so gross. Few 
 would set the Talmud, as presented by Mr. Hershon, or the 
 Cabbala, above the works of such writers as Anselm, Aquinas, 
 the author of "Imitatio Christi," the authors of hymns and 
 liturgical compositions of the Christian Middle Ages; or, in the 
 department of science, above the works of Roger Bacon. 
 
 We have been speaking, be it observed, of the Talmud as 
 the work and monument of Jewish intelligence and morality 
 in the Dark Ages ; we have not been speaking of the intelli- 
 gence or morality of the Jews of the present day. The charge 
 is constantly brought against Christendom of having by its 
 barbarous bigotry repressed the beneficent action of Jewish 
 intellect, which would otherwise have enlightened and civilised
 
 268 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 the world. The answer is apparently fonnd in the Cabbala 
 and the Talmud. By the account of the Jewish historian 
 Graetz, it would seem that Rabbinical orthodoxy was not less 
 opposed than Papal orthodoxy to science, philosophy, and cul- 
 ture. We are led to believe that, at last, Talmudic bigotry 
 and obscurantism had prevailed, when Judaism was rescued 
 by Moses Mendelssohn, who himself owed his emancipation to 
 Lessing. Nathan the Wise is a philosopher and philanthropist 
 of the eighteenth century, not a Talmudic Jew. 
 
 Still more notable, however, than the absurdities are the 
 passages indicative of a tribal morality which prescribes one 
 mode of dealing with those who are, and another mode of 
 dealing with those who are not, of the tribe. 
 
 "If the ox of an Israelite bruise the ox of a Gentile, the Israelite is 
 exempt from paying damages ; but should the ox of a Gentile bruise the 
 
 ox of an Israelite, the Gentile is bound to recompense him in full." 
 
 Bava Kama, fol. 38, col. 1. 
 
 "When an Israelite and a Gentile have a lawsuit before thee, if thou 
 canst, acquit the former according to the laws of Israel, and tell the latter 
 such is our law; if thou canst get him off in accordance with Gentile 
 law, do so, and say to the plaintiff such is your law ; but if he cannot be 
 acquitted according to either law, then bring forward adroit pretexts and 
 secure his acquittal. These are the words of the Rabbi Ishmael. Kabbi 
 Akiva says, 'No false pretext should be brought forward, because, if 
 found out, the name of God would be blasphemed ; but if there be no 
 fear of that, then it may be adduced.' " — /7j., fol. 113, col. 1. 
 
 " If one finds lost property in a locality where a majority are Israelites, 
 he is bound to proclaim it ; but he is not bound to do so if the majority 
 be Gentiles. " — jBaTO Metrda, fol. 24, col. 1. 
 
 " Rabbi Shemuel says advantage may be taken of the mistakes of a 
 Gentile. He once bought a gold plate as a copper of a Gentile for four 
 zouzim, and then cheated him out of one zouz into the bargain. Rav 
 Cahana purchased a hundred and twenty vessels of wine from a Gentile 
 for a hundred zouzim, and swindled him in the payment out of one of the 
 hundred, and that while the Gentile assured him that he confidently 
 trusted to his honesty. Rava once went parts with a Gentile and bought 
 a tree which was cut up into logs. This done, he bade his servant go and 
 pick him out the largest logs, but to be sure to take no more than the 
 proper number, because the Gentile knew how many there were. As 
 Eav Aghi was walking abroad one day he saw some grapes growing in a
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 269 
 
 roadside vineyard, and sent his servant to see whom they belonged to. 
 ' If they belong to a Gentile,' he said,' bring some here to me ; but if they 
 belong to an Israelite, do not meddle with them.' The owner, who hap- 
 pened to be in the vineyard, overheard the Rabbi's order and called out, 
 ' What ! is it lawful to rob a Gentile ? ' 'Oh, no,' said the Rabbi eva- 
 sively ; ' a Gentile might sell, but an Israelite would not.' " — Bava Kama, 
 fol. 118, col. 2.1 
 
 The principle which animates these passages appears in a 
 milder form in the Hebrew Scriptures, which license perpetual 
 bondage as well as the taking of interest in the case of a Gen- 
 tile, not in that of a Hebrew. Such a principle, however 
 mildly expressed, was too likely to be extended in practice. 
 Dr. Edersheim, the author of " The Life and Times of Jesus 
 the Messiah," is favourable enough on religious grounds to the 
 Jews; but in describing their relations to the Gentiles, as 
 regulated by the Talmud, he says : 
 
 "To begin with, every Gentile child, so soon as born, was to be 
 regarded as unclean. Those who actually worshipped mountains, hills, 
 bushes, etc. , — in short, gross idolaters — should be cut down with the 
 sword. But as it was impossible to exterminate heathenism. Rabbinical 
 legislation kept certain definite objects in view, which may be thus sum- 
 marised : To prevent Jews from being inadvertently led into idolatry ; 
 to avoid all participation in idolatry ; not to do anything which might 
 aid the heathen in their worship; and, beyond all this, not to give 
 pleasure, or even help, to heathens. The latter involved a most dan- 
 gerous principle, capable of almost indefinite application by fanaticism. 
 Even the Mishna goes so far as to forbid aid to a mother in the hour of 
 her need, or nourishment to her babe, in order not to bring up a child 
 for idolatry ! But this is not all. Heathens were, indeed, not to be 
 precipitated into danger, but yet not to be delivered from it. Indeed, 
 an isolated teacher ventures even upon this statement : ' The best among 
 the Gentiles, kill ; the best among serpents, crush its head.' Even more 
 terrible was the fanaticism which directed that heretics, traitors, and 
 those who had left the Jewish faith should be thrown into actual danger, 
 and, if they were in such, all means for their escape removed. No inter- 
 course of any kind was to be had with such, — not even to invoke their 
 medical aid in case of danger to life, since it was deemed that he who 
 had to do with heretics was in imminent peril of becoming one himself, 
 
 1 Hershon's Miscellany.
 
 270 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 and that, if a heretic returned to the true faith, he should die at once, — 
 partly, probably, to expiate his guilt, and partly from fear of re- 
 lapse." 1 
 
 Not less significant are the Talmudic expressions of tribal 
 pride and contempt of common humanity. " All Israelites are 
 princes." " All Israelites are holy. " " Happy are ye, Israel, 
 for every one of you, from the least even to the greatest, is a 
 great philosopher." "As it is impossible for the world to be 
 without air, so also is it impossible for the world to be with- 
 out Israel." "One empire cometh and another passeth away, 
 but Israel abideth for ever." "The world was created only 
 for Israel: none are called the children of God but Israel; 
 none are beloved before God but Israel." "Ten measures of 
 wisdom came down to the world. The land of Israel received 
 nine, the rest of the world but one." 
 
 Critics of Judaism are accused of bigotry of race, as well as 
 of bigotry of religion. The accusation comes strangely from 
 those who style themselves the Chosen People, make race a 
 religion, and treat all races except their own as Gentiles and 
 unclean. 
 
 The notion that the Jews are to be maltreated because their 
 ancestors by the hand of Pilate crucified Christ, has long been 
 discarded and derided by all enlightened Christians. But 
 equally baseless is the notion that Christianity owes homage 
 to Judaism, has any particular interest in it, or any particular 
 duty concerning it. To Talmudic Judaism, at all events, it 
 owes nothing. Whether in its origin it owed anything to the 
 liberal school of Hillel, we cannot tell. The Talmud is a vast 
 repertory of legalism, formalism, ceremonialism, and casuistry. 
 Nothing can be more opposed to the spontaneity of conscience, 
 trust in principle, and preference of the spirit to the letter 
 characteristic of the Gospel, in which even the Ten Command- 
 ments are superseded by the Two. The pervading intention 
 of the Talmud is, by multiplying ceremonial barriers, to keep 
 the Chosen People separate from the Gentiles among whom 
 
 Vol. I., pp. 90, 91.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 271 
 
 they lived; in other words, to perpetuate the tribe. Chris- 
 tianity is a religion of humanity. Baptism is a rite of initia- 
 tion into a universal brotherhood. Circumcision, the Jewish 
 circumcision at all events, is the mark of enrolment in an 
 exclusive tribe. The fundamental antagonism of Judaism to 
 Christianity was shown, not only in the murder of Christ, but 
 in the bitter persecution of his followers. Christianity had 
 its antecedents, but it begins with Christ : it has no relation to 
 Talmudic Judaism but those of reaction and secession. 
 
 We have given up the fancy that the Jew is accursed. We 
 must cease to believe that he is sacred. Israel was the fa- 
 vourite people of Jehovah, as every tribe was the favourite of 
 its own god. The belief that the Father of all and the God 
 of justice had a favourite race, made with it a covenant sealed 
 with the barbarous rite of circumcision, pledged himself to 
 promote its interest against those of other races, destroyed all 
 the innocent first-born of Egypt to force Pharaoh to let it go, 
 licensed its aggrandisement by conquest, stopped the sun in 
 heaven to give it time to slaughter people whose lands it had 
 invaded without a cause, and gratified its malignity by enjoin- 
 ing it when it took one of the cities which were given it for its 
 inheritance to save alive nothing that breathed, ought now to 
 be laid aside, with all its corollaries and consequences, includ- 
 ing the passionate, and, to the Hebrew, somewhat offensive ef- 
 fort to convert this particular race to Christianity. We have 
 been told from the pulpit that at the last day the world will 
 be judged by a Jew, and a religious lady once suggested to a 
 Jew who had been converted to Christianity that he should go 
 on circumcising his sons. We shall have little right to com- 
 plain of the tribal arrogance of the Jew so long as the Old 
 Testament continues to be indiscriminately read in our churches 
 and we persist, by talking of a chosen people, in ascribing 
 favouritism to the Almighty. The belief that " God has made 
 of one blood all nations of men to dwell on the face of the 
 earth," is the foundation of a religion of humanity, and 
 Judaism is its practical denial. 
 
 Jesus called himself the Son of Man. He was a Galilean,
 
 272 QUESTIONS OF TUE DAY. 
 
 that is, in high Jewish estimation, an inferior Jew, setting 
 aside the " endless " or " profitless " genealogies which the 
 writer of the First Epistle to Timothy classes with fables and 
 bids us not to heed. Born into Judaism, he accepted it and 
 " fulfilled " all its " righteousness," while he must have known, 
 as his antagonists did, that his principles would subvert it. 
 Because he did this, we have taken upon our understandings 
 and hearts a belief in the divine authority of the Old Testa- 
 ment, that is, of the whole mass of Hebrew literature ; we have 
 bound ourselves to see inspiration, not only in its more ele- 
 vated, spiritual, and moral parts, but in those which are not 
 elevated, spiritual, or even moral. We torture our consciences 
 into approval of the spoiling of the Egyptians by a fraud, the 
 slaughter of the Canaanites, the slaying of Sisera, the hewing 
 of Agag in pieces before the Lord, and David's legacy of ven- 
 geance; our intellects into the acceptance of the Book of 
 Chronicles as authentic history, and of such miracles as the 
 stopping of the sun, the conversion of Lot's wife into a pillar 
 of salt, the speaking ass of Balaam, the destruction of the 
 children who mocked Elisha by a bear, and the sojourn of 
 Jonah in the belly of a whale. In church we read, with psalms 
 of universal beauty, psalms of Oriental vindictiveness. We 
 constrain ourselves to see divine meaning, not only in the 
 sublime passages of Isaiah, but in the obscurest and most 
 incoherent utterances of his brother prophets. We read theo- 
 logical mysteries into a love-song because it is a part of the 
 sacred volume. Till this superstition is cast out we shall ill 
 appreciate what is really divine in the Old Testament. Not 
 in the darker side of the Puritan character alone are the evil 
 effects of this idolatry to be traced. 
 
 There was much that was infinitely memorable, but recent 
 criticism forbids us to believe that there was anything miracu- 
 lous, in the history of Israel. Whatever may have been the 
 local origin of the Jews, who spoke the same language as the 
 other inhabitants of Canaan, the race, we may be sure, was 
 cast in the same primeval mould as the kindred races. The 
 story of the Patriarchs and the Exodus being in all its parts
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 273 
 
 the primitive theophanies in the tents of Patriarchs, the 
 
 supernatural birth of Isaac, the destruction of Sodom and 
 Gomorrah, the transformation of Lot's wife, the wrestling of 
 Jacob with Jehovah, the marvellous story of Joseph, the 
 miraculous multiplication of the Israelites, the competition 
 between the envoys of Jehovah and the Egyptian magicians, 
 the plagues of Egypt, the drying up of the Eed Sea, the forty 
 years' wandering in the barren Sinaitic desert, the prodigies 
 which there took place, the giants of Canaan, and the stopping 
 of the sun — manifestly poetical, it would seem that the narra- 
 tive as a whole must, in accordance with a well-known canon 
 of criticism, be dismissed from history and relegated to another 
 domain.^ Of the exact process by which the finer spirits of 
 Israel attained a tribal monotheism, which at last verged on 
 monotheism pure and simple, and carried with it a high 
 morality, while the grosser spirits were always hankering after 
 the groves and images of their idolatry, no exact account has 
 been given us, though the prophets, as moral reformers, clearly 
 played a great part in it. But it involved no miracle, since 
 without miracle Socrates and Plato, Marcus Aurelius and 
 Epictetus could rise to the same level. The peculiar service 
 rendered to humanity by Judaism was the identification of 
 religion with morality through the conception of a God of 
 righteousness and of justice and mercy as his law. Against 
 which we have to set the dark shadow cast on our spiritual life 
 by the cruel fanaticism of the Jew and the sombre denuncia- 
 tions of his prophets. The doctrine of the immortality of the 
 soul was extraneous to Judaism, and was rejected by one of its 
 sects ; the tribal idea of immortality being the perpetuation of 
 the family in the tribe. 
 
 Nor is there anything miraculous, penal, or even mysterious, 
 
 1 It seems not unlikely from analogy that the story of the Exodus may 
 be in part an explanation of the institution of the Passover and other 
 Jewish rites and customs of which the origin was lost. The figures of 
 Jewish captives on Egyptian monuments may be accounted for by Egyp- 
 tian conquest. Nothing can be less satisfactory than Kenan's attempt to 
 rationalise the story of the Patriarchs and the Exodus. 
 
 T
 
 274 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 about the Jewish dispersion or its commercial character. The 
 case of Israel is one, though incomparably the most sharply 
 defined, as well as the most memorable, of a number of cases 
 of parasitism, to borrow that phrase from botany. Other cases 
 are those of the Armenians, the Parsees, the Greeks of the 
 dispersion, ancient and modern, and humblest of all, the 
 Gipsies, by the disappearance of whose wandering camp with 
 its swarthy brood from the country wayside a feature more 
 dear than respectable has been taken from the landscape of 
 rural life in England. The Italians, when their country was 
 in the hands of foreign powers, showed a tendency of the same 
 kind. The dispersion of the Jews was anterior to the destruc- 
 tion of Jerusalem, for Paul found Jewish settlements, mer- 
 cantile no doubt, wherever he went. It may have begun with 
 the transplantation to Babylon, and have been extended by the 
 transplantation to Egypt under the Ptolemies. But its prin- 
 cipal cause probably was the narroAvness of the Jewish terri- 
 tory, combined with the love of gain in the Jew. The Hebrew 
 was the near kinsman of the Phoenician, who by the narrowness 
 of his territory and his love of gain was likewise impelled to 
 adventure; and Jewish parasitism is the counterpart, under 
 another form, of that Phoenician colonisation which, unlike the 
 colonisation of the Greek, was strictly mercantile in its aim. 
 The land of the Jew was not so maritime as that of the 
 Phoenician ; it had not such harbours, such store of timber for 
 ship-building close to the water, or such sites for seaboard 
 cities like Tyre and Sidon. Moreover when the Jewish char- 
 acter was being formed, the Philistine held the coast. Appar- 
 ently, there was a religious party in Judea which wished to 
 make the people simple and pious tillers of the soil, and from 
 which emanated that ideal polity of husbandmen with heredi- 
 tary lots and a year of jubilee, ascribed by its framers to the 
 great lawgiver of the race. But the trading instinct was too 
 strong. In the stories of the patriarch who bought the birth- 
 right of his hungry brother, of the Jewish vizier who taught 
 Pharaoh how to obtain the surrender of all the freeholds of his 
 people by taking advantage of the famine^ and of the Hebrews
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 275 
 
 who spoiled the Egyptians by pretending to borrow jewels 
 which they never meant to return, we see the gleamings of a 
 character which was not likely to be content with the moderate 
 gains of a small farming community. 
 
 Jewish parasitism, still to use the botanic metaphor, could 
 not fail to be confirmed by the fall of Jerusalem, which 
 deprived the dispersed nationality of its centre, though the 
 holy city even in its desolation remained the Mecca of 
 Judaism. Renan thinks that in the period which followed, 
 Israel took up extraneous elements by conversion, so that the 
 supposed purity of race is imaginary, and the identity of 
 feature is only the imprint of a common dwelling-place and 
 mode of life ; in which case the rhapsodies of " Daniel Deronda " 
 have little meaning. There is a passage in the Talmud which 
 suggests that the putative descent of a Gentile from the ten 
 lost tribes might legalise intermarriage with him.* But 
 nationality was preserved by the Mosaic law, the Talmud, and 
 circumcision, the last being probably the strongest bond of all. 
 "That the Jews," says Spinoza, "have maintained themselves 
 so long in spite of their disorganised or dispersed condition, is 
 not at all to be wondered at when it is considered how they 
 separated themselves from all other nationalities in such a way 
 as to bring upon themselves the hatred of all, and that, not 
 only by external rites contrary to those of other nations, but 
 also by the sign of circumcision, which they most religiously 
 retain." 
 
 Any other race of strong vitality with the same bonds and 
 barriers might have retained their nationality equally well. 
 The Parsees, though a much weaker community in their origin, 
 have retained their separate existence for eleven centuries. 
 The Gipsies appear to have retained their separate existence 
 for five centuries. There is therefore nothing miraculous 
 about the wandering Jew, nor need we suppose that he is the 
 special object either of the wrath or the favour of heaven. 
 
 Circumcision, deemed by Spinoza the bond of Judaism, is a 
 
 ^ See Yevamoth, fol. 10, col. 2, quoted in Hershon's Tahmidic Miscel- 
 lany, p. 134.
 
 276 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 practice which, if Jews are to be citizens, and citizens are to 
 be patriots, owing the community not bare obedience but the 
 allegiance of the heart, governments would seem entitled to 
 restrain. It has nothing to do with religious opinion, nor, in 
 repressing it, would religious liberty be infringed. It is a 
 barbarous tribal rite, the object of which is to cut off the 
 members of the tribe from the rest of mankind, and which per- 
 formed on an infant dedicates him for life, without his own 
 consent, to a social antagonism not less contrary to his proper 
 relations with his fellow citizens than it is obsolete and 
 senseless. That Jewish circumcision was really tribal, the 
 account of its origin^ seems to prove. That it has served the 
 purpose of tribal isolation since the dispersion of the Jews is 
 certain. Nor could a more effective badge or barrier have been 
 devised. 
 
 Israel henceforth definitely became what it has always 
 remained, a tribe scattered yet united, sojourning in all com- 
 munities, blending with none, and forming a nation within 
 each nation. The natural tendency of a race without a country 
 was not to agriculture but to such trades as the Jew has plied, 
 especially the money trade. The insecurity and uncertainty 
 of his residence would deter him from owning property which 
 could not easily be removed. Habit became ingrained and the 
 attempts to form agricultural colonies of the Jews at the present 
 day appear to be uniformly unsuccessful. Laurence Oliphant 
 was interested in these experiments, feeling that " the great fault 
 and weakness of the Jews was their inability for handiwork; 
 and to train even a few into that and into a co-operative man- 
 ner of life would be a great gain."^ But the trading instinct 
 seems to have been too inveterate even when Jews have been 
 carried back to their own land. The Jew has thus worn 
 everywhere the unpopular aspect of an intruder, who by his 
 
 1 Genesis xvii. 10-14 ; Exodus iv. 24-26. If circumcision is not tribal, 
 but in the broad sense religious, what is its religious import and why 
 should it be confined to race ? 
 
 2 Memoirs of the Life of Laurence Oliphant, Vol. II., p. 231. By 
 Margaret Oliphant "VV. Oliphant.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 277 
 
 financial skill was absorbing tlie wealth of the community 
 without adding to it. Not to produce but to make a market 
 of everything has been his general tendency and forte. Among 
 other things he has made a market of war. He bought Chris- 
 tian captives and spoils of the barbarian invaders of the Roman 
 Empire. He bought up at forced sales the property of those 
 who were departing for the Crusades. He has constantly 
 followed in the wake of armies, making his profit out of the 
 havoc and out of the recklessness of the soldier. General 
 Grant found it necessary to banish Jews from his camp. On 
 the field of Austerlitz Marshal Lannes bids one who accosts 
 him to wait till he has stopped the depredations of the Jews. 
 That the Jew clings not only to his religion but to his 
 nationality, and that the tAvo are blended together, or rather 
 are identical, can hardly be doubted when we find in a Jewish 
 Catechism such a passage as this : 
 
 " Q. What other ordinances has God made to prevent our falling into 
 sin? 
 
 "■A. Those which forbid our associating with bad men or intermarry- 
 ing with wicked and idolatrous nations. 
 
 " ' Thoushalt not follow a multitude to do evil.' — Exod. xxiii. 2. 
 ' ' ' Neither shalt thou make marriage with them (the nations) , 
 thy daughter thou shalt not give to his son, nor his daughter 
 shalt thou take unto thy son.' — Deut. vii. 3. 
 " Q. Is this latter command important ? 
 
 " A. Yes, it is of the greatest moment, and the experience of the past 
 has shown its importance. 
 " Q. In what manner ? 
 
 '■'■A. Whenever our people have intermarried with other nations, they 
 have fallen into their idolatries. 
 
 " ' But they were mingled among the heathen and learned their 
 works ; and they served their idols which were a snare unto 
 them.' — Ps. cvi. 34, 35. 
 " Q. Does the law lay much stress upon this precept ? 
 " A. Yes, we are repeatedly enjoined to keep from admixture of race, 
 and many of the laws relating to the soil are I'eferable to this subject." 
 
 Again, 
 
 " Q. Are we commanded still to keep ourselves distinct from other 
 nations ?
 
 278 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 " ^. Assuredly ; we may love them as ourselves, help them in their 
 need, and labour with them for the good of our fellow-creatures, but we 
 must not intermarry with them, lest we should be led away from the 
 Law."i 
 
 The Roman Catholic Church, it is true, discourages mixed 
 marriages on religious grounds. But she does not teach her 
 children that " assuredly they are a nation, " and she does try 
 to bring all mankind within her fold. If the Jews, as one of 
 their chief Rabbis seems to intimate, are not a nation but a 
 church, why do they not proselytise? How came it to be said 
 of them, by one of their own race, that they no more desire 
 to make converts than does the House of Lords? However, 
 supposing religion to be the bond, it is the religion of Moses. 
 Does not the religion of Moses separate the people of Jehovah 
 from mankind? The Eastern Jew, the Russian or Polish Jew, 
 and the orthodox Jew everywhere, it appears, still hold by the 
 Talmud. Mr, Hershon says that "to the orthodox Jew the 
 Talmud is like the encircling ocean, — inserts itself into and 
 makes itself felt in every nook and corner of his existence, 
 like an atmosphere encompasses the whole round of his being, 
 penetrates into all centres of vitality, presses with incumbent 
 weight upon every class irrespective of age or sex or rank, is 
 all-inspiring, all-including, and all-controlling, covers in the 
 regard of thp illuminated the whole field of life, and with its 
 principles affects, or ought to affect, every thought and every 
 action of every member of the Jewish state." The wealthy 
 and enlightened Jew of London, Paris, or New York, perhaps, 
 is no longer Talmudic; his religion is probably Theism com- 
 bined with a vague belief in the sanctity and the superior 
 destiny of his race ; yet even he keeps himself much apart from 
 the Gentiles, and if he remains a Jew at all he must observe 
 the law of Moses, that is, a separatist law. In fact those who 
 have studied the subject carefully say that alike by the rich 
 Jew of Bayswater and the middle class Jew of Highbury the 
 safeguards of tribalism are kept as far as possible without 
 
 ' Jewish School Books — No. 1. The Law of Moses, a Catechism of the 
 Jewish Religion, new edition, pp. 08, 69. By the Rev. A. P. Mendes.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 279 
 
 actual offence to Gentile society. The "Polish" Jew, alike in 
 Poland and in Whitechapel, is still strongly Talmndic. If the 
 Jew keeps Christian servants in his house it is to do for him 
 what he is not permitted to do for himself on the Sabbath. 
 By making this use of the heathen he shows that Moab is still 
 his wash pot. 
 
 That the Jews have, as a rule, observed the laws and per- 
 formed their civic duties in the countries of their sojourn, no 
 one will deny, and it was natural that they should not take 
 more upon them than they could help of public imposts which 
 to them were unsweetened by patriotism. In countries where 
 military service is part of the duties of a citizen, as it is in 
 Germany, they have not sought to evade it, though they do 
 not voluntarily enlist. It is understood that they behaved 
 well as soldiers in the German army. Wealth has inclined 
 them to conservatism, and the stories about their sinister 
 activities in the French Revolution are fables, though Karl 
 Marx and Lassalle were the founders of Socialism, and Judaism 
 is believed to have contributed its quota to Nihilism in Russia. 
 When a Jew plays revolutionist, we may generally expect to 
 see him top the part. To top the part is natural when it is 
 played in a spirit of exploitation. Some Jews have been 
 noted as citizens for beneficence not confined to their own 
 tribe. It is likely, too, that in lands where the Jew has been 
 long established, the sentiment of home has grown strong 
 enough to countervail that of tribal nationality in his breast, 
 and to make removal very cruel. Still, he is a Jew dwelling 
 among Gentiles. He is one of the Chosen People. He has a 
 nationality apart, with Messianic hopes, more or less definite, 
 of its own, and vague anticipations of future ascendancy. It 
 seems impossible that any man should belong in heart to two 
 nationalities and be a patriot of each. He may be a conform- 
 ing and dutiful citizen of the community among which he 
 dwells as long as there is no conflict of national interest. But 
 when there is a conflict of national interests his attachment to 
 his own nationality will prevail. 
 
 Mr. Oliphant, in his "Land of Gilead," dwells more than
 
 280 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 once on the great advantages which any European government 
 might gain over its rivals by an alliance with the Jews. 
 
 "It is evident," he says, "tliat the policy which I proposed to the 
 Turkish government [i.e. the restoration of Palestine] might be adopted 
 with equal advantage by England or any other European Power. The 
 nation that espoused the cause of the Jews and their restoration to 
 Palestine, would be able to rely on their support in financial operations 
 on the largest scale, upon the powerful influence which they wield in the 
 press of many countries, and upon their political co-operation in those 
 countries, which would of necessity tend to paralyse the diplomatic and 
 even hostile action of Powers antagonistic to the one with which they 
 were allied. Owing to the financial, political, and commercial importance 
 to which the Jews have now attained, there is probably no one Power 
 in Europe that would prove so valuable an ally to a nation likely to be 
 engaged in a European war, as this wealthy, powerful, and cosmopolitan 
 race." i 
 
 Perhaps the writer of these words hardly realised the state 
 of things which they present to our minds. We see the 
 governments of Europe bidding against each other for the 
 favour and support of an anti-national money power, which 
 would itself be morally unfettered by any allegiance, would be 
 ever ready to betray and secretly paralyse for its own objects 
 the governments under the protection of which its members 
 were living, and of course would be always gaining strength 
 and predominance at the expense of a divided and subservient 
 world. The allusion to the influence wielded by the Jews in 
 the European press has a particularly sinister sound. In the 
 social as in the physical sphere new diseases are continually 
 making their appearance. One of the new social diseases of 
 the present day, and certainly not the least deadly, is the 
 perversion of piiblic opinion in the interest of private or 
 sectional objects, by the clandestine manipulation of the 
 press. 
 
 Such a relation as that in which Judaism has placed itself to 
 the people of each country, forming everywhere a nation within 
 the nation, cherishing the pride of a Chosen People, regarding 
 
 1 The Land of Gilead, p. 503. By Laurence Oliphant.
 
 THE JEWISH QUESTION. 281 
 
 those among whom it dwelt as Gentiles and unclean, shrinking 
 from social intercourse with them, engrossing their wealth by 
 financial skill, but not adding to it by labour, plying at the 
 same time a trade which, however legitimate, is always 
 unpopular and makes many victims, could not possibly fail to 
 lead, as it has led, to mutual hatred and the troubles Avhich 
 ensue. Certain as may be the gradual prevalence of good over 
 evil, it is a futile optimism which denies that there have been 
 calamities in history. One of them has been the dispersion of 
 the Jews. As was said before, it is incredible that all the 
 nations should have mistaken a power of good for a power of 
 evil, or have been unanimous in ingratitude to a power of 
 good. None of them want to hurt the Jew or to interfere 
 with his religious belief; what they all want is that if possible 
 he should go to his own land. As it is. Western Europe and 
 the western hemisphere are threatened with a fresh invasion 
 on the largest scale by the departure of Jews from Russia. 
 American politics are already beginning to feel the influence. 
 A party, to catch the Jewish vote, puts into its platform a 
 denunciation of Russia, the best friend of the American 
 Republic in its day of trial. Jews are becoming strong in the 
 British House of Commons and one of them the other day 
 appealed to his compatriots to combine their forces against 
 the political party which had been opposed to Jewish 
 interests. 
 
 That the Jew should be de-rabbinised and de-nationalised, 
 in other words that he should renounce the Talmud, the tribal 
 parts of the Mosaic law, and circumcision, is the remedy pro- 
 posed by M. Leroy-Beaulieu, a writer by no means unfavour- 
 able to Israel. There seems to be no other way of putting an 
 end to a conflict which is gradually enveloping all nations. 
 This being done, whatever gifts and graces may belong to the 
 race of Moses, David, and Isaiah, of the writers of the Book 
 of Job and of the Psalms, of Judas Maccabseus and Hillel, will 
 have free course and be glorified. If Israel has any message 
 for humanity, as he seems to think, it will be heard. Jewish 
 merit will no longer be viewed with jealousy and distrust as
 
 282 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 having a sinister confederation at its back; and no man need 
 fear in the present age that in any highly civilised community 
 he will suffer persecution or disparagement of any sort on 
 account of his religion. But the present relation is untenable. 
 The Jew will have either to return to Jerusalem or to forget 
 it, give his heart to the land of his birth and mingle with 
 humanity.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 
 
 It is proposed that Celtic and Catholic Ireland shall be made 
 a separate nation with a Parliament of its own, and that into 
 this nation Saxon and Protestant Ulster shall, against its will 
 and in spite of its passionate appeals to the honour of the 
 British people, be forced. A separate Irish nation is what 
 Home Rule means. Devolution of the business of an over- 
 loaded Parliament on a local Assembly, though sometimes so- 
 phistically confounded with Home Rule, is a very different 
 thing. To devolution there is no objection, unless Parliament 
 can, by giving less of its time to faction fighting, find more 
 time to do the business, and if in a country so united in inter- 
 est subjects purely local and at the same time important enough 
 to make work for a legislature can be found. 
 
 Why are the Celtic and Catholic districts of Ireland, any 
 more than the Celtic and Methodist districts of Wales, to be 
 severed from the United Kingdom and invested with a separate 
 nationality? One reason, or rather one motive, operating in a 
 certain quarter presents itself to view as often as from the 
 gallery of the House of Commons we look down upon the group 
 of Irish members, and mark what its demeanour indicates, or 
 read the account of the disputes between its two sections over 
 the party fund. If the Home Rule Bill were passed, these 
 men would, besides commanding a legislature and a govern- 
 ment, enter into the control of a great revenue and into the 
 possession of a patronage which, as at the outset everything 
 would have to be given away at once, ^vould be dazzling. A 
 fanatical hatred, Avhich breaks forth whenever it is not 
 restrained by policy, would be gratified at the same time. 
 
 But another separatist interest besides that of the squadron 
 
 285
 
 286 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 of Irish politicians is at work for the dismemberment of the 
 United Kingdom. On the other side of St. George's Channel 
 stands the Catholic Priesthood, ready as soon as Ireland is cast 
 adrift by Great Britain to«renew its reign. It stands with the 
 Encyclical and Syllabus in its hand, to be executed wherever 
 and whenever it has the power. 
 
 These two interests command by organisations, political or 
 sacerdotal, before which the peasant cowers, the people of the 
 Celtic and Catholic districts. The voice which we hear, though 
 it is called that of Ireland, is theirs. 
 
 There has never been an Irish nation. The savage tribes, 
 constantly waging intertribal war, in whose occupation Strong- 
 bow found the island, were not a nation. The Celtic tribes 
 and the Anglo-Saxon Pale, waging internecine war with each 
 other, while the wars among the tribes themselves never 
 ceased, were not a nation. The English or Scotch and Protes- 
 tant colonies in Leinster and Ulster, encircled by the Celtic 
 and Catholic tribes, with which internecine war was still car- 
 ried on, were not a nation. The dominant race of Grattan's 
 Parliament, and the subject race which was excluded from that 
 Parliament and treated by it as a race of political and social 
 serfs, were not a nation. Tyrconnel's Celtic and Catholic 
 Parliament, with its sweeping proscription of all the Saxons 
 and Protestants, was not even so much as Grattan's Parliament 
 the Parliament of a nation. Kor would the Parnellite Parlia- 
 ment be the Parliament of a nation when it proceeded, as 
 assuredly and almost avowedly it would, to legislate in the 
 same spirit. 
 
 There are not within the range of the United Kingdom any 
 other two districts between which so strong an antagonism 
 prevails as prevails between Celtic Ireland and Ulster, of 
 which it is proposed by Liberals and philosophers to compound 
 with the bayonet this Irish nation. 
 
 The populations of the two islands are now intermixed. 
 There is a large Saxon element in Ireland; there are masses 
 of Celtic Irish in Great Britain, as the British artisan knows 
 to his cost, The language of both islands is the same ; Erse,
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 287 
 
 at least, is on the verge of extinction, and Ireland has no 
 literature but the English. She has no political institutions 
 but those which she has derived from England. She has no 
 liistory of her own except one of savage wars of race and 
 religion. The Celts have no native dynasty or centre of 
 political unity of any kind, unless it be their religious subjec- 
 tion to a foreign priest. 
 
 The Channel has been a great obstacle to union, but it is 
 now bridged by steam. If an arm of the sea were always to 
 be fatal to union, Corsica could not be united to France, 
 Sardinia and Sicily to Italy, Majorca and Minorca to Spain, 
 the Ionian Islands to Greece, Prince Edward Island to Canada. 
 The central desert of America is a good deal broader than the 
 Irish Channel, yet it does not prevent the union of Pacific with 
 Atlantic States. Politicians who propose to unite the ends of 
 the earth under an Imperial Federation can hardly say that 
 nature forbids the union of the two British islands under one 
 government. The population of the two islands is not so 
 large as that of France, nothing like so large as that of Ger- 
 many, Kussia, or the United States. Not Kent itself is more 
 thoroughly incorporated with the United Kingdom than the 
 North of Ireland. Not Kent itself in being torn from the 
 United Kingdom would feel a greater pang. 
 
 The map shows at once that the destinies of the two islands 
 are linked together. The two will, in all probability, either 
 be united or be enemies, and if they are enemies, woe to the 
 weaker. The smaller island is cut off from the continent by 
 the larger and thus placed under its power. Economically, the 
 two are complements of each other, Great Britain having the 
 wheat land and the coal, while Ireland has the grass. When 
 people wail over the Irish exodus, they forget the numbers of 
 Irish who find bread in the manufacturing cities of Great 
 Britain, and who, while Ireland remains in the United King- 
 dom, are as much in their own country as if they were at Cork. 
 
 Territorial rapacity is folly as well as wickedness. Let 
 every nation be content with that which by nature it has. But 
 a nation has a right to maintain its natural boundaries against
 
 288 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 secession as well as against invasion. This, Americans, at all 
 events, cannot deny. The doctrine of rebellion as a universal 
 right and an object of unlimited sympathy could not survive 
 the iirst shot of the War of Secession. By the loss of the 
 sister island, Great Britain would be reduced to a second-rate 
 power; amidst a circle of military nations she would live in 
 peril. Her citizens, at least, may be pardoned for thinking 
 that her fall would be a misfortune not to herself alone, that 
 her influence would be missed by the nations of her hemi- 
 sphere, and that European progress would lose its moderating 
 power. Italian Liberals are among the best of Liberals. 
 How much sympathy have they shown with Irish secession? 
 
 Irish history is a piteous tale. But there is no sailing up 
 the stream of time. We must deal with things as they are 
 now, not immolate present policy to the evil memories of the 
 past. Detestable is the art of the demagogue who rakes up 
 those memories to obtain for his schemes from passion the 
 support which reason and patriotism would not give. No 
 living man is now responsible for anything done seven cen- 
 turies or a single century ago. He who persists in accusing 
 England of cruelty to Ireland, Avlien the last three or four 
 generations of Englishmen have been as much as possible the 
 reverse of cruel, only gives way to his evil temper and darkens 
 counsel. 
 
 Race character may not be congenital or indelible. But there 
 is no disputing that its influence has been strong, and in the 
 case of the Celt is marked. Mommsen, in a well-known pass- 
 age, ends a review of Celtic character, with its graces and 
 Aveaknesses, by pronouncing the race politically useless. He 
 holds, and declares his judgment in language too frank to 
 be graciously repeated, that the Celt politically is only 
 material to be worked up by stronger races. ^ Mommsen has 
 Bismarckian iron in his blood as he has the tramp of the 
 German armies in his style. But Bishop Lightfoot has no 
 Bismarckian iron in his blood. He says : 
 
 1 See his History of Rome, Bk. V., ch. vii.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 289 
 
 "The main features of the Gaulish character are traced with great 
 distinctness by the Roman writers. Quickness of apprehension, prompti- 
 tude in action, gi-eat impressibility, an eager craving after knowledge, — 
 this is the brighter aspect of the Celtic character. Inconstant and quar- 
 relsome, treacherous in their dealings, incapable of sustained effort, easily 
 disheartened by failure, — such they appear when viewed on their darker 
 side. It is curious to note the same eager, inquisitive temper revealing 
 itself under widely different circumstances, at opposite limits both of time 
 and space, in their early barbarism in the West and their worn-out civi- 
 lisation in the East. The great Roman captain relates how the Gauls 
 would gather about any merchant or traveller who came in their way, 
 detaining him even against his will, and eagerly pressing him for news. 
 A late Greek rhetorician commends the Galatians as more keen and 
 quicker of apprehension than the genuine Greeks, adding that the moment 
 they catch sight of a philosopher they cling to the skirts of his cloak as 
 the steel does to the magnet. It is chiefly, however, on the more forbid- 
 ding features of their character that contemporary writers dwell. Fickle- 
 ness is the term used to express their temperament. This instability of 
 character was the great difficulty against which Caesar had to contend in 
 his dealings with the Gaul. He complains that they all, with scarcely an 
 exception, are impelled by the desire of change. Nor did they show 
 more constancy in the discharge of their religious than of their social obli- 
 gations. The hearty zeal with which they embraced the Apostle's teach- 
 ing, followed by their rapid apostasy, is only an instance out of many of 
 the reckless facility with which they adopted and discarded one religious 
 system after another. To St. Paul, who had had much bitter experience 
 of hollow profession and fickle purposes, this extraordinary levity was 
 yet a matter of unfeigned surprise. ' I marvel,' he says, ' that ye are 
 changing so quickly.' He looked upon it as some strange fascination. 
 ' Ye senseless Gauls, who did bewitch you ? ' The language in which 
 Roman writers speak of the martial courage of the Gauls, impetuous at 
 the first onset, but rapidly melting in the heat of the fray, well describes 
 the short-lived prowess of these converts in the warfare of the Christian 
 Church. 
 
 " Equally important in its relation to St. Paul's epistle is the type of 
 religious worship which seems to have pervaded the Celtic nations. The 
 Gauls are described as a superstitious people, given over to ritual observ- 
 ances. Nor is it, perhaps, a mere accident that the only Asiatic Gaul of 
 whom history affords more than a passing glimpse, Deiotarus, the client 
 of Cicero, in his extravagant devotion to augury, bears out the character 
 ascribed to the parent race." ^ 
 
 1 The Epistles of St. Paul : Epistle to the Galatians, Introduction, I. 
 
 u
 
 290 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 In France the Celt underwent Roman and afterwards Frank- 
 ish training. What he would have been without that training 
 Brittany, amiable but thriftless, slatternly, priest-ridden, saint- 
 worshipping, legendary, is left to tell. We know how even 
 the Celt who had undergone Roman and Frankish training 
 behaved in the French Revolution. Nor is it likely that the 
 strongest and most gifted part of the race would be that which 
 in the primeval struggle for existence was thrust away to the 
 remotest island of the West. 
 
 The mountains, bogs, rivers, and forests, for forests there 
 then were, of Ireland, like the isolated glens of the Scotch 
 Highlands, helped to perpetuate the tribal divisions with their 
 clannish ways and sentiments, the mould in which the political 
 character of the Irish was formed; for the Celtic Irishman is 
 still not a constitutionalist bi;t a clansman, with clannish 
 attachments, clannish feuds, and clannish love of political 
 spoils. Between the general influence of race and that of the 
 local circumstances of the Irish. Celt, a character was formed 
 which is as distinct as that of any individual man, and which 
 it Avould be as absurd to overlook or to pretend not to see in 
 dealing with the race as it would be to overlook or to pretend 
 not to see personal character in dealing with a man. That 
 the Irish Celt has gifts, that under a good master or commander 
 he makes a good worker or soldier, nobody who knows him 
 will deny. Nobody who knows him will deny his social 
 charm. Nobody who knows how Irish emigrants have been 
 assisted by their kinsmen in America will deny that the Irish- 
 man has strong domestic affections and a generous heart. But 
 nobody who is not angling for his vote will affirm that in 
 Cork, in Liverpool or Glasgow, in New York, in the Aus- 
 tralian colonies, or anywhere, he has as yet become a good 
 citizen under free institutions. Nobody who is not angling 
 for his vote will affirm that he is by nature law-abiding, or 
 that when his passions are excited, whether his victims be his 
 agrarian enemies in Ireland or the hapless negroes in New 
 York, he is not capable of dreadful crimes. The Anglo-Saxon, 
 when he takes to rioting, may be brutal; in the Lord George
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 291 
 
 Gordon riots he was brutal enough ; but he does not card or 
 hough, nor does he cut off the udders of kine. The Phoenix 
 Park murders were a Celtic, not an Anglo-Saxon, deed. 
 
 Lists are given of Irish statesmen and commanders, such as 
 Canning, Castlereagh, Clare, Wellington, Wellesley, Grattan, 
 Plunket, the two Lawrences, Napier, Roberts, and Wolseley. 
 These are Saxon, not Celtic Irish. Even Parnell and Butt 
 before him were of that intrusive race which it was the object 
 of their movement to expel. Of Parnell, Mr. T. P. O'Connor 
 tells us that his manner was Saxon in its reserve and his speech 
 was still more Saxon in its rigidity. Parnell probably owed 
 largely to the coolness and tenacity of his Saxon character his 
 despotic ascendancy over his train. There has been no Celtic 
 leader of eminence except O'Connell, Avho was an agitator, not 
 a statesman. Burke had in him a Celtic strain which showed 
 itself in his more declamatory and passionate moods. That 
 the Celt is politically weak, ten centuries of wail without 
 achievement are surely proof enougli. 
 
 In the North of Ireland are prosperous industry and com- 
 merce, with Protestant liberty of conscience. In the South are 
 unthrift and poverty under the dominion of the priest. The 
 political institutions and the relation to Great Britain are 
 exactly the same in both cases; it seems to follow that the 
 character of the people is not. 
 
 When, beckoned by tribal revenge, the Norman Strongbow 
 landed in Ireland, he found there no germ of national unity 
 beyond the transient ascendancy of powerful chiefs, nor, except 
 in the little Danish settlements of the seaboard, any solid 
 civilisation, though there was an aptitude for decorative art, 
 of which the monuments are elaborately carved crosses, illu- 
 minated books, the golden ornaments displayed in the Celtic 
 Museum at Dublin. Everywhere were tribal divisions and 
 intertribal wars. The brief reign of the powerful chief, or 
 king, as he is styled, Brian Boru, had served only to show by 
 its result the prevalence of the centrifugal force. The Brehon 
 Law was common to the tribes, but it was a mere repertory of 
 tribal customs, real or imaginary; the jurisdiction of its
 
 292 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 courts went not beyond the assessment of damages or the 
 imposition of fines ; nor was there any authority to enforce it, 
 saving habit and a precarious opinion. Tliere was hardly any 
 agriculture; cattle were the only wealth. There were no 
 cities ; the Irish indeed have not founded cities either in their 
 own land or in America, though as labourers they have helped 
 to build many. The Church, a surviving remnant, like that 
 in Wales, of the Church of the British Celts before Augustine, 
 ruder than that of Rome, but not more Protestant, had for a 
 moment marvellously shone in missionary enterprise, and, if 
 Irish traditions are true, in pursuit of learning. But without 
 cities it could not be opulent or imposing. It seems to have 
 suffered severely at the hands of the Danes. It was presently 
 crushed under the hoofs of tribal barbarisni and rapacity, and 
 stretched out its hands to Canterbury for aid. Its chief 
 monuments are those romantic Round Towers, its refuges 
 probably in time of raids. The chief, whose revenge had 
 called in Strongbow, after the battle plucked from a heap of 
 heads that of his enemy, and mangled it with his teeth. 
 
 Alarmed at the progress of his vassal, Henry II. produced 
 and proceeded to execute a Papal decree, awarding him the 
 lordship of Ireland under the Pope if he would reform the 
 manners of the people, annex their Church to the dominion of 
 Rome, and make the island pay Peter's pence. This warrant, 
 a laughing-stock now, was deemed valid in those days. The 
 Anglo-iSTorman conquest of Ireland, falsely called the English 
 conquest, was thus a supplement to the conquest of England 
 by a Norman who bore the signet ring of Rome and came to 
 subdue the national Church of England for the Papacy as well 
 as the kingdom for himself. The Synod of Cashel at which 
 the Irish Church became the vassal of Rome was the counter- 
 part of the Synod of Winchester at which the English Church 
 bowed her neck to the same yoke. Henry received the sub- 
 mission of the chiefs, and though at his departure they 
 returned to their wild life, they had become his liegemen, 
 and he and his successors might thenceforth deem themselves 
 lawful lords of Ireland.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 293 
 
 Unhappily, neither Henry II. nor his successors for three 
 centuries made good, their lordship. The Norman conquest of 
 England by a great army, with the king at its head, was com- 
 plete ; it gave birth over the whole country to a new order of 
 things and to an aristocracy which presently became national, 
 and at length the champion and trustee of national liberty. 
 But in Ireland once only after Henry II., in the person of 
 Kichard II., did the king with the power of the kingdom for a 
 moment appear on the scene. The centre of the English 
 power was distant, the natural route lay through Welsh moun- 
 tains, with a wild population long unsubdued or half subdued, 
 while the arm of the sea was broad in the days before steam. 
 A chimerical ambition diverted the power of the monarchy 
 from its proper work of consolidating the island realm to what 
 seemed brighter and richer fields of enterprise in France. 
 Ireland was left to private adventure, which, from its weak- 
 ness, its want of unity, the difficulties of a country ill suited 
 for the action of men-at-arms or archers, and the mobility of 
 pastoral tribes, totally failed. The outcome was an Anglo- 
 Norman Pale, with Dublin and the grave of Strongbow for its 
 centre, carrying on incessant war with the Septs, which con- 
 tinued to war with each other and to lift each other's cattle at 
 the same time. Some of the Anglo-Norman Barons, finding 
 tribal even more lawless than feudal anarchy, doffed the 
 hauberk, donned the saffron mantle of Irish tribalism, and 
 became chiefs of bastard Septs. The Crown, by enactments 
 which sound like an inhuman perpetuation of the estrange- 
 ment between the races, strove to prevent this lapse of the 
 Englishry into barbarism, but strove in vain. 
 
 Without a king, the feudal system, introduced into Ireland, 
 lacked its regulative and controlling power. The grantees of 
 great fiefs were counts palatine without a suzerain. When, 
 by the degeneration of the Anglo-Norman lords, the chief was 
 blended with the feudal baron, the result seems to have been a 
 mixture of the evils of both systems. The earl-chieftain 
 became the leader of a band of lawless and insolent mercenaries 
 or gallowglass, who were quartered, under the name of Coyne
 
 294 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 and Livery and other titles of extortion, on the hapless people. 
 The historic thread, if slight, is not invisible which connects 
 these Bosses with the Bosses of New York. 
 
 The very presence of royalty, as a power superior to all these 
 anarchies, did good. The sojourn of Lionel, Duke of Clarence, 
 son of Edward III., produced a momentary reformation. 
 "Because," says Sir John Davis, "the people of this land, 
 both English and Irish, out of a natural pride, did ever love 
 and desire to be governed by great persons." If British mon- 
 archs could only have seen this and done their duty ! 
 
 Bad was only made worse when Ireland was invaded by 
 Edward Bruce, brother of the Xorman adventurer who had 
 won for himself the throne of Scotland. The campaign was 
 like those of the Bruces and Wallace in their own lands, one 
 of merciless destruction. The death blow was dealt to the 
 ambition of Edward Bruce by the generalship of John de 
 Bermingham, which turned the wavering scale in favour of 
 English connection. But Bruce, though he was called in by 
 the Irish chiefs, seems to have experienced the fickleness of 
 Irish alliances. The Irish Annals of Clonmacnoise declare 
 that he was slain "to the great joy and comfort of the whole 
 kingdom in general, for there was not a better deed, that 
 redounded more to the good of the kingdom since the creation 
 of the world, and since the banishment of the Fine Fomores 
 out of this land, done in Ireland, than the killing of Edward 
 Bruce ; for there reigned scarcity of victuals, breach of prom- 
 ises, ill performance of covenants, and the loss of men and 
 women, throughout the whole Kingdom, for the space of three 
 years and a half that he bore sway; insomuch that men did 
 commonly eat one another, for want of sustenance, during 
 his time." ^ 
 
 Nothing is more cruel or more hideous than a protracted 
 struggle of the half-civilised with the savage. A native was 
 to the Englishman as a wolf, and the native skene spared no 
 Englishman. Nothing could prosper. In the little English 
 
 1 Quoted by A. G. Richey, LL.D., in his Short History of the Irish 
 People, pp. 196, 197. Edited by K. K. Kane, LL.D.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 295 
 
 sea-board towns, petty commonwealths in themselves, there was 
 order and some commerce. Galway preserves in her architect- 
 ure and her legends the picturesque and romantic traces of 
 her trade with Spain. Elsewhere was nothing but turbulence 
 and havoc. A Parliament there was in the Pale, but it was a 
 scarecrow. Judges there were in the Pale, after the English 
 model, but they had little power to uphold law. The Church 
 was feeble, coarse, and almost worthless as an instrument of 
 civilisation. What there was of it was rather monastic than 
 parochial, the monastery being a fortalice, and, in a general 
 reign of crime, probably drawing endowment from remorse. 
 Only the Friars were zealous in preaching. The Church seems 
 not to have acted as a united body, to have held no synods, and 
 to have been intersected, like the people, by the race line. 
 Ecclesiastics fought like laymen, and appear to have been as 
 little revered. A chieftain pleaded as an excuse for burning 
 down a cathedral that he had thought the Archbishop was in 
 it. In the Celtic districts the calendar of ecclesiastical crimes, 
 or crimes against ecclesiastics, given by the Four Masters 
 between 1500 and 1535, comprises Barry More, killed by his 
 cousin, the Archdeacon of Cloyne, who was himself hanged by 
 Thomas Barry ; Donald Kane, Abbot of Macosquin, hanged by 
 Donald 0' Kane, who was himself hanged; John Burke, killed 
 in the monastery of Jubberpatrick; Donaghmoyne Church, set 
 on fire by M'Mahon during mass; Nicholas, parson of Deven- 
 ish, wrongfully driven away by the laity; Hugh Maguinness, 
 Abbot of Newry, killed by the sons of Donald Maguinness; 
 the Prior of Gallen, murdered by Turlough Oge Macloughlin ; 
 O'Quillan, murdered, and the Church of Dunboe burned, by 
 O'Kane.i 
 
 While England was torn and her government paralysed by 
 the Wars of the Eoses, the Pale was reduced to a district 
 comprising parts of four counties and defended by a ditch. 
 Had there been among the Celts any national unity or power 
 of organisation, here was their chance of Avinning back their 
 lands. But they were fighting among themselves just as 
 
 1 Richey, p. 284.
 
 296 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 fiercely as they fought with the Pale, As Kichey says, 
 patriotism did not exist; there was no sentiment broader than 
 that of the clan, nor was the rival clan less an object of enmity 
 than the Englishry. 
 
 Soon the chance of the Celts was lost. Out of the Avreck of 
 the aristocracy in the civil war rose the powerful monarchy of 
 the Tudors. In Ireland conquest resumed its march. Henry 
 VII. brouglit the Irish Parliament under the control of the 
 Privy Council by Poyning's Law. Henry VIII. crowned him- 
 self King of Ireland, instead of being only Lord under the 
 Pope. The policy first tried was that of ruling Ireland 
 through great native chiefs. This failing, dominion was 
 advanced by arms. Could the full force of the monarchy have 
 been thrown on Ireland, there would have been a merciful end 
 of the struggle. But the greater part of that force was engaged 
 upon the Continent, first by the vanity of Henry VIII., or the 
 schemes of his minister, and afterwards by the dire exigencies 
 of the conflict with the Catholic powers. Here, as elsewhere, 
 the unwise parsimony of Elizabeth starved the service. In- 
 stead of systematic subjugation, there were hostings or mili- 
 tary raids, and the soldiers, being unpaid, lived by rapine. 
 The conquest was very slow, and forms an exceptionally cruel 
 page even in the cruel history of the conflict between the half- 
 civilised and the savage. As the Red Indian is to the Ameri- 
 can frontiersman, so was the Irishman under the Tudors to the 
 Englishman in Ireland. The gentle Spenser, in speaking of 
 him, forgets the language of humanity. Spenser, like Ealeigh, 
 was one of a body of adventurers who took part in the conquest 
 and were paid by sweeping confiscations of native land. 
 Nothing can be more horrible or heartrending than the pic- 
 tures of the state of the island and its people, drawn by the 
 conquerors themselves. 
 
 That the Irish at this time were uncivilised is clear. 
 Cuellar, a Spaniard, who had been thrown among them, says : 
 
 " The habit of those savages is to live like brutes in the mountains, 
 which are very rugged in the part of Ireland where we were lost. They 
 dwell in thatched cabins. The men are well made, with good features,
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 297 
 
 and as active as deer. They eat but one meal ^nd that late at night, oat- 
 calie and butter being their usual food. They drink sour milk because 
 they have nothing else, for they use no water, though they have the best 
 in the world. At feasts it is their custom to eat half-cooked meat without 
 bread or salt. Their dress matches themselves — tight breeches and 
 short, loose jackets of very coarse texture ; over all they wear blankets, 
 and their hair comes over tlieir eyes. They are great walkers, and stand 
 much work, and by continually fighting they keep the Queen's English 
 soldiers out of their country, which is nothing but bogs forty miles either 
 way. Their great delight is robbing one another, so that no day passes 
 without fighting ; for whenever the people of one hamlet know that 
 those of another possess cattle or other goods, they immediately make 
 a night attack and kill each other. When the English garrisons find out 
 who has lifted the most cattle, they come down on them, and they have 
 but to retire to the mountains with their wives and lierds, having no 
 houses or furniture to lose. They sleep on the ground upon rushes full 
 of water and ice. Most of the women are very pretty but badly got up, 
 for they wear but a shift and a mantle, and a great linen cloth on the 
 head rolled over the brow. They are gx'eat workers and housewives in 
 their way. These people call themselves Christians and say mass. They 
 follow the rule of the Roman Church, but most of their churches, mon- 
 asteries, and hermitages are dismantled by tlie English soldiers and by 
 their local partisans, who are as bad as themselves. In sliort, there is no 
 order nor justice in the country, and every one does that which is right 
 in his own eyes. The savages are well affected to us Spaniards, because 
 they realise that we are attacking the heretics and are their great ene- 
 mies. If it was not for those natives who kept us as if belonging to 
 themselves, not one of our people would have escaped. We owe them a 
 good turn for tliat, though they were first to rob and strip us when 
 we were cast on shore, from whom and from tlie three ships which con- 
 tained so many men of importance those savages reaped a rich harvest 
 of money and jewels." ^ 
 
 The Lord Deputy Sidney wrote in 1567 of the people of 
 Munster and Connaught : 
 
 "Surely, there was never people that lived in more misery than they 
 do, nor as it should seem of worse minds, for matrimony among them is 
 no more regarded in effect than conjunction between unreasonable beasts. 
 Finally, I cannot find that they make any conscience of sin, and I doubt 
 whetlier tliey christen their children or no ; for neither find I place 
 
 1 Dnro's Ai'mada Invencible, Vol. II., pp. 358-360. Quoted by Mr. 
 Richard Bagwell in his Ireland under the Tudors, Vol. III., pp. 185, 186.
 
 298 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 where it should be done, nor any person able to instruct them in the rules 
 of a Christian ; or if they were taught, I see no grace in them to follow 
 it ; and when they die, I cannot see they make any account of the world 
 to come." 1 
 
 Sidney may have been an adverse witness, but he was a man 
 of high character, and in describing that which was before his 
 eyes we can believe that he spoke the truth. 
 
 The wars of the Irish chiefs among themselves did not cease 
 and were hardly less cruel than that waged upon the natives 
 by the invaders. "It is but fair," says the learned and 
 impartial Eichey, "to judge the Celtic tribes by their own 
 historians, not by the reports of English statesmen concerning 
 them. The Annals of the Four Masters are thoroughly imbued 
 with the Irish spirit of this period. Although detailed as to 
 the annals of the Ulster and Connaught clans, they pass by 
 without notice many of the transactions of Leinster and 
 Munster, and the events they record do not comprise the entire 
 history of the period; yet the analysis of the annals from 1500 
 to 1534 gives the following results: Battles, plunderings, etc., 
 exclusive of those in which the English government was 
 engaged, 116; Irish gentlemen of family killed in battle, 102; 
 murdered, 168, — many of them with circumstances of great 
 atrocity ; and during this period, on the other hand, there is no 
 allusion to the enactment of any law, the judicial decision of 
 any controversy, the fouiiding of any town, monastery, or 
 church; and all this is recorded by the annalist without the 
 slightest expression of regret or astonishment, and as if such 
 were the ordinary course of life in a Christian nation." ^ 
 
 Another and a terrible element of evil had now come in. 
 To the enmity of race that of religion had been added. The 
 history of Ireland must henceforth be read not by itself but in 
 connection with the great European struggle between Catholi- 
 cism and Protestantism, in which to its ruin the island was 
 involved. England and the Pale had become Protestant, at 
 least had revolted from the Pope. This was enough to make 
 the native Irishman more Papal than before. Moreover, the 
 
 1 Quoted by Mr. Bagwell, II., 113. 2 pp. 247, 248.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 299 
 
 form in which tlie new faith was presented to the Irish was 
 most unhappy. Anglicanism, sober, decorous, and genteel, has 
 never suited the hot and enthusiastic Celt. The dissolution 
 of the monasteries bore hard on Ireland, where the Church was 
 eminently monastic; so did iconoclasm, the images and relics 
 being dear to the Irish heart. Disaffected Ireland presented 
 itself to the Catholic powers as the point for a diversion 
 against England. Spanish and Italian troops landed, and the 
 tragedy of Smerwick, where a body of Italians were put to the 
 sword by the Lord Deputy Grey after their surrender, might 
 be compared to the atrocities perpetrated by the Roman 
 Catholic soldiery of Alva and Parma, or afterwards by that of 
 Tilly. The alliance did not prevent the savage Irish from 
 stripping and murdering the crews of the Armada cast upon 
 their coast. But Catholic Ireland had become the feeble 
 satellite of the Catholic powers, of whose acts she was deemed 
 the accomplice, and another vial of wrath was thus poured out. 
 
 By the beginning of the reign of James I. the conquest had 
 been completed after a fashion; the last great chief had been 
 dispossessed; the last tribe had been broken up; Ireland had 
 been carved into English shires; English institutions and 
 English law, the land-law of England among the rest, ostensibly 
 prevailed. James I. was weak, but he was cultured and he 
 had Bacon at his ear. He tried to endow Ireland with English 
 civilisation. He called a Parliament for all Ireland. When 
 it met there was a division on the Speakership. While the 
 majority was out, the minority seated its man in the chair. 
 The majority, when it returned, seated its man in the other 
 man's lap. Under James, however, was founded the Scotch 
 colony in the North of Ireland, the beginning of Ulster, the 
 hope of industry, commerce, and civilisation. 
 
 It seems pretty clear that for the people the change from 
 the tribal to the manorial system in itself would have been a 
 blessing. Whatever the fancy about clan brotherhood might 
 be, the fact, according to the best authority, appears to have 
 been that the humble clansman was more degraded, more 
 trampled on, more plundered by the coshering chief, with his
 
 300 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 brigand tail of gallowglass, than ever was tenant or peasant 
 under tlie lord of a manor. The owners and lenders of cattle, 
 which constituted wealth and was the indispensable means of 
 livelihood in a grass country, seem to have been not less 
 tyrannical than are owners of land. The law might not be 
 rational or suitable; but the people were brought, at all events, 
 under the domain of law, with the hope that the code would 
 become rational and be administered with justice. Unhappily, 
 the lord of the manor was a stranger by race and by religion, 
 while to the chief there had been an hereditary tie which had 
 partly reconciled his clansmen to his oppression. The land, 
 confiscated by James I. as the property of the rebel chiefs, 
 Avas, in theory at least, the property not of the chief but of the 
 tribe, though the chief being a local despot, this may have 
 been a distinction rather than a difference. How deep the 
 sense of the wrong thus done sank into the heart of the people, 
 and how far the recollection has lived and helped to sustain 
 agrarian war, are questions about which authorities are not 
 agreed. The sequel proves clearly enough that the Celts 
 bitterly resented the transfer of the land to the stranger. 
 
 Nothing can keep the peace between hostile races on the 
 same soil but an authority superior to them both and wielded 
 by an impartial hand. Strafford was born to rule, and his 
 despotism in Ireland would have been beneficent had he not 
 been under the necessity of providing a force to support 
 absolutist and High Church reaction in England. This drove 
 him into sweeping confiscations of land under form of law. 
 At the same time, by the policy which made Ireland a lever 
 of Stuart conspiracy against English liberty and religion, yet 
 another vial of wrath was poured out. 
 
 By the quarrel between Charles and the Parliament an 
 opportunity was once more given to the Celts. They embraced 
 it by either murdering outright, or casting out to perish of 
 destitution and nakedness all the Protestants on whom they 
 could lay hands. Dublin narrowly escaped. To doubt that 
 there was a massacre seems absurd, whether the massacre was 
 premeditated or not, and however great the exaggerations may
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 301 
 
 have been. Could Clarendon, with the best possible means of 
 information and no tendency to magnify Puritan wrongs, have 
 said that forty or fifty thousand Protestants had been killed if 
 there had been no killing at all? There followed a general 
 insurrection headed by ecclesiastics, with the Jesuit in the 
 background, and a revolutionary government was formed at 
 Kilkenny under the presidency of a Papal Envoy. The 
 English force was not only small, but divided against itself, 
 and might have been easily overcome. But the Celts showed 
 their usual lack of the powers of organisation and self- 
 government. The party whose chief aim was the recovery of 
 the land quarrelled with the party whose chief aim was the 
 restoration of the Church. No one worthy to command 
 appeared. There ensued a murderous, aimless, and bootless 
 civil war, in which fearful atrocities were committed on both 
 sides, and quarter was given on neither. None were more 
 ruthless than the settlers from Scotland. The Irish popula- 
 tion of Island Magee, though not involved in the rebellion, 
 was massacred, man, woman, and child, by the Scotch garrison 
 of Carrickfergus. According to the Protestant historian, Bor- 
 lase. Sir W. Cole's regiment performed the exploit of starving, 
 of the vulgar sort whose goods were seized on by it, seven 
 thousand. One redeeming incident alone there was. The 
 evangelical virtues of the Protestant Bishop Bedell protected 
 him and those who took refuge with him from the rage of the 
 Catholics. He was made a prisoner, but was treated with 
 kindness by his captors, and when he died the Irish army 
 buried him with military honours, and joined over his grave 
 in the prayer that the last of the English might rest in peace. 
 At last on the wings of victory came Cromwell, and with one 
 terrible stroke made peace. The great man himself deplored 
 the necessity, in which some of his worshippers now exult. 
 Quarter in those ages was not given to a garrison which after 
 summons had stood a storm. The Catholic and Imperial 
 armies put to the sword not only the garrison but the inhabi- 
 tants of captured cities. The Irish Catholics had given no 
 quarter. Kinuccini, the Papal Envoy, reports with exultation
 
 302 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 that after a victory no prisoners were taken ; " every one, " says 
 the holy man, "slaughtered his adversary, and Sir Phelim 
 O'Neill, who bore himself most bravely, when asked by the 
 colonels for a list of his prisoners, swore that his regiment had 
 not one, as he had ordered his men to kill them all without 
 distinction.'" ^ 
 
 With the ruthlessness common to all parties in those days, 
 Cromwell deported or sent into exile a good deal of the loose 
 savagery which the civil war had left behind. That he meant 
 to extirpate the Irish people is a fiction, but he did mean to 
 extirpate Irish barbarism, and to plant law, order, and indus- 
 try in its room. Confiscation of land there was on a terrible 
 scale to satisfy the claims of the soldiers, who had been paid 
 in land-scrip. But this struck the Catholic proprietors, who 
 had played their game and lost, not the peasantry, who, if they 
 chose to work, would probably be under better, certainly under 
 thriftier, masters. Cromwell proclaimed to the Catholics 
 liberty of private conscience. The Mass in those days he 
 could not have tolerated if he would, and when we consider 
 what the Mass is, what it has done, and how soon the common 
 people would have been weaned from it, we may be rather 
 disposed to wink at this departure from religious liberty. 
 The Protector treated Ireland as "a clean paper," to use his 
 own expression, for the introduction of legal reforms for which 
 the professional " sons of Zeruiah " were too strong in England. 
 But the greatest of all the benefits conferred by him alike on 
 Ireland and Great Britain was the Union, which he was able 
 to accomplish without buying anybody, by the simple exercise 
 of a might which in this case assuredly was right. It is 
 almost heartrending to think that the Irish Question was 
 settled in the right way nearly two centuries and a half ago. 
 
 Of the acts of the Eestoration the worst was the dissolution 
 of the Union. The Protestant proprietary in Ireland had 
 interest enough partly to hold its ground. But the strong arm 
 of beneficent and civilising power was gone, and the helpless 
 country and its people were left to their own courses again. 
 
 ^ The Embassy in Ireland, p. 175, Aiiuie Mutton's translation.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 303 
 
 Another consequence of the Eestoration, big with evil, was 
 the re-establishment of the Anglican State Church in Ireland. 
 
 James II. renewed the attempt of his father against English 
 liberty and religion, and in a form more dangerous and hateful 
 than that in which it had been made by his father, a form 
 which threatened with extinction the political and spiritual 
 life of the nation. Once more Ireland had the misfortune to 
 be used as the lever of the Stuart policy. England saw with 
 disgust and dismay regiments of Irish Papists moving along 
 her highways. Ireland was put into the hands of Tyrconnel, 
 who, though a reckless ruffian, was accepted as the leader of 
 the Catholic Celts at that time. Under this man's auspices a 
 Celtic and Catholic Parliament passed an Act of Attainder 
 proscribing at one swoop, without regard to age or sex, the 
 whole Protestant proprietary of Ireland. It is Tyrconnel's 
 Parliament, a Celtic and Catholic Parliament, not Grattan's 
 Parliament, a Parliament of Protestant gentry, which it is now 
 proposed to revive. 
 
 Overwhelmingly outnumbered and driven to bay behind the 
 mouldering walls of Derry, the stronger race showed in 
 extremity a force which in extremity it may show again. 
 The result, as all know, was the victory of that race and the 
 miserable subjection of the Celt. The most warlike of the 
 Celtic youth went, and for a century afterwards continued to 
 go, as food for powder and at the same time as the soldiery of 
 reactionary despotism, into the service of the Catholic kings. 
 In that service Irish soldiers of fortune won distinction, 
 though Brown and Wall are not Celtic names. 
 
 Then followed the era of the penal code, cruel and hateful. 
 Mark, however, that the penal code was not intended, like the 
 religious codes of Roman Catholic countries and the Inquisi- 
 tion, to rack conscience and compel apostasy, but to keep the 
 Celts disarmed, socially and politically as well as physically, 
 and prevent them from repeating, as, if the power had reverted 
 to their hands, they would have repeated, the acts of Tyrcon- 
 nel's Parliament. Remember too what was being done in 
 countries where Roman Catholicism reigned. Remember how
 
 304 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 in every Roman Catholic kingdom Protestantism was treated 
 as treason; how Louis XIV. was banishing the Huguenots, 
 butchering tliem, sending their ministers to tlie galleys ; how 
 the autos da fe were going on in Spain; how the Jesuit was 
 still busy everywhere with his conspiracy for the extirpation 
 of Protestantism by the Catholic sword. Forty years after 
 this the Roman Catholic Prince Bishop of Salzburg expelled 
 the whole Protestant j)opulation from his dominions. Irish 
 history in these times, to be fairly read, must be read, not by 
 itself, but in connection with that of the great conflict between 
 Protestantism and Roman Catholicism over all Europe. Not 
 a few of the exiled Huguenots settled in Ireland, ocular 
 warnings of the fate which the Protestants might expect if 
 their enemy were unchained. When danger passed away and 
 cruel fear subsided, the penal code was practically relaxed, 
 the growing spirit of religious indifference and free-thinking 
 embodied in Chesterfield's Lord-Lieutenancy helping the pro- 
 cess, and before the autos da fe had come to an end the Roman 
 Catholics in Ireland, though politically unenfranchised, as a 
 Church had become practically free; free, at least, so far as a 
 Church could be while another Church, and that of the 
 minority, was established by the State. 
 
 To the High Church bishops of the Anglican establishment, 
 the Roman Catholics were less the objects of persecuting anti- 
 pathy than the Presbyterians in the North of Ireland, in whom 
 lay the hope of industry, commerce, and civilisation for the 
 rest of the island. Of these, the bishops succeeded in harrying 
 many out of the country, and sending them to fight, with 
 hearts full of the bitterness of wrong, against Great Britain in 
 the American Colonies. The Anglican Church itself did noth- 
 ing, and could do nothing, either for religion or for civilisation. 
 Its system was fatally unsuited to the people. It never made 
 converts, where thorough-going and fervent Protestantism, if 
 it had only had a free course, might have made many. In 
 Prancis Newman's "Phases of Faith," there is a remarkable 
 account of the impression which a Protestant preacher of that 
 type did make. The Anglican Church showed all the worst
 
 THE IKISH QUESTION. 305 
 
 marks of an establishment. Not only did it not advance or 
 propagate; it sank into miserable lethargy, its churches were 
 left unrepaired, sinecurism and pluralism abounded in it, 
 half a dozen of its parishes were clubbed to make an income 
 for one man ; to collect tithe was its chief care ; Irish 
 parsons lived in English cities on pretence that there was no 
 parsonage in their parishes, spending the money which the 
 tithe-proctor wrung for them from a starving peasantry. In 
 addition to the usual evils of establishment, the State Church 
 of Ireland had those of a Church alien to the people; it had 
 also those of a political garrison. Its heads were political 
 intriguers, some of them, such as Stone, of the worst class. 
 Swift could say that the British Government appointed pious 
 and learned men to the Irish bishoprics, but they were all 
 waylaid on Hounslow Heath by highwaymen, who robbed them 
 of their letters patent and stole into their sees. 
 
 In the early part of the eighteenth century Ireland desired 
 union. Union was withheld. The refusal was, saving the 
 dissolution of Cromwell's united Commonwealth, the most 
 calamitous blunder that British statesmanship ever made. If 
 the sons could ever deserve to suffer for the sins of the fathers, 
 the England of our generation would deserve to suffer for this 
 misdeed. Commercial jealousy was, in all probability, the 
 main cause. Commerce has served civilisation well; but there 
 is also a heavy account against her for inhuman cupidity, 
 monopoly, and commercial war. In Ireland's expression of 
 desire for union the voice of her true interest had been heard. 
 
 Instead of union, to Poyning's Law, subjecting the legisla- 
 tion of the Irish Parliament to the control of the Privy Coun- 
 cil, was added the Act of George I. declaring that the British 
 Parliament had power to legislate for Ireland. Thus Ireland 
 was placed in the position of a dependency with a vassal 
 Parliament; that arrangement manifestly pregnant with jeal- 
 ousy, discord, and revolt, to which, after decisive experience 
 of its results, the sagacity of British statesmen now desires to 
 return. The fetters imposed on Irish trade, particularly on 
 the trade in wool, the Irish staple, for the supposed benefit of
 
 306 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 tlie English trader, bespoke the evil spirit which was universal 
 in those days, and were counterparts of those which were laid 
 on the trade of the American Colonies, and, fully as much as 
 any stamp or tea tax, were the cause of the American revolt. 
 Their iniquitous pursuer, together with the friction inevitably 
 caused by the political arrangement, the abuses of the Irish 
 pension list, and the aspirations excited by the possession of a 
 Parliament gave birth, among the dominant race at least, to a 
 sort of bastard nationality, which began to assume the form of 
 a struggle for independence. A bastard nationality only it 
 was, since the mass of the people remained political and social 
 serfs. Molyneux sounded the first note in a treatise on the 
 power of the British Parliament to bind Ireland. Swift, 
 though he hated and despised the country to which his char- 
 acter had banished him, ovit of mere revenge and mischief, 
 played, and of course played venomously, a patriot's part. 
 
 The manorial system has not a little to say for itself, both 
 economically and socially, so long as the landlord pays for 
 improvements, does his duty, resides on the estate, and main- 
 tains kindly relations with his people. But of the Irish land- 
 lords many were absentees, rack-renting their tenants through 
 merciless middlemen. Those who were resident were com- 
 monly aliens in religion, and as a class improvident and 
 worthless, though some of them, especially those of old fami- 
 lies, were popular with the peasantry, not the less on account 
 of the reckless profusion which often brought them to ruin. 
 More oppressive and insolent than the great landlord was the 
 squireen. The landlord rack-rented and yet did not provide 
 improvements. Hence agrarian conspiracy under the name of 
 Whiteboyism, and outrage which assumed forms only too 
 familiar to the cruelly excitable Celt, such as carding, hough- 
 ing, and mutilation not only of men but of cattle. It was, in 
 fact, a desperate social war for the land, in which on both 
 sides ferocitj' reached an almost heroic pitch. A party of 
 Whiteboys entered a house in which were a man, his wife, and 
 their daughter, a little girl. The three were all together in 
 the same room. The ruffians rushed into the room, dragged
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. • 307 
 
 the man out of the house, and there proceeded to murder him. 
 In the room where the woman and the girl remained, there was 
 a closet with a hole in its door, through which a person placed 
 inside could see into the room. The woman concealed the 
 little girl in this closet, and said to her, "Now, child, they 
 are murdering your father downstairs, and when they have 
 murdered him, they will come up here and murder me. Take 
 care that while they are doing it you look well at them, and 
 mind you swear to them when you see them in the court. I 
 will throw turf on the fire the last thing to give you light, and 
 struggle hard that you may have time to take a good view." 
 The little girl looked on through the hole in the closet door 
 while her mother was being murdered. She marked the mur- 
 derers well. She swore to them when she saw them in a court 
 of justice; and they were convicted on her evidence. 
 
 The people multiplied heedlessly, their Church practically 
 encouraging them, as it everywhere does, in improvidence. 
 As the land generally would not well bear grain, even if the 
 holdings had been large enough, the only food by which the 
 swarms could be maintained was the potato, precarious from 
 its liability to disease, as well as barbarous, to force which 
 the soil was recklessly exhausted by burning. The result was 
 a peasantry living sometimes on potato mixed with seaweed, 
 and a reign of misery which Swift grimly characterised by 
 proposing in a horrible squib that babies should be used 
 as food. 
 
 Praise and thanks are due to tlie Catholic priesthood for 
 having been the comfort and the guide of the Irish peasant in 
 his darkest hour. On the other hand, the influence of an 
 anti-economical and obscurantist Church must be the same 
 everywhere, the same in Ireland as in Spain, Portugal, South- 
 ern Italy, Brittany, and the Valais. Had Ireland been left 
 wholly in the hands of a Spanish or Calabrian priesthood, what 
 would have been its state now? The history of Roman Catholic 
 society affords us no reason for believing that the priest would 
 have bearded the landlord in the interest of the peasant. It 
 affords all possible reason for believing that he would have
 
 308 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 complacently shared the fruits of rack-rent. This, at least, is 
 what he did in Spain, in Italy, and in France down to the time 
 of the Revolution. The history of Ireland as it has been is 
 dark enough. What it might have been without British con- 
 nection we cannot tell. That it would have been bright and 
 happy, there is nothing either in the Irish horoscope at the 
 time of the Norman conquest or in any subsequent manifesta- 
 tions to lead us to assume. 
 
 When Great Britain was worsted in the struggle with the 
 American Colonies, and had France, Spain, and Holland, as 
 well as the Colonists, at her throat, the Irish Protestant 
 gentry, who after all depended for their ascendancy and almost 
 for their existence as an order on their connection with her, 
 took advantage, without any false chivalry, of her distress to 
 extort from her Parliamentary independence. This she was 
 fain to concede ; though, had she not been unnerved by faction 
 as well as depressed by defeat, a few regiments of regular 
 troops would probably have sufficed to quell the Volunteers. 
 Grattan, in rhetorical ecstasy, on his knees adored the newly- 
 risen nation in presence of a Parliament which traced its 
 pedigree to the Parliament of the Pale, and was holding in 
 social and political bondage three-fourths of the Irish people. 
 
 Left to themselves, the two Parliaments would have speedily 
 flown asunder. They did, in fact, fly asunder on the question 
 of the Regency, and a rupture of the Kingdom was averted 
 only by the recovery of George III. Generally they were held 
 together in uneasy wedlock by Castle patronage, including the 
 rich bishoprics and deaneries, and by sheer corruption, to- 
 gether with a large number of nomination boroughs in the gift 
 of the Crown. But there was a still stronger though latent 
 bond. Grattan's Parliament of Protestant proprietors knew, 
 amidst all its patriotic declamation against British tyranny, 
 that with British connection its own life was bound uj). Had 
 it broken with England, Tyrconnel's Parliament would have 
 taken its place. It never dared to grant Catholic Emancipa- 
 tion or Parliamentary reform. About its last measure was an 
 Act of Indemnity for the illegal infliction of torture by the
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 309 
 
 lasli on suspected Catliolics. It must always have remained 
 what it was, a scion of the Parliament of the Pale. Eloquent 
 speakers it had. Its corruption, its orgies, its duelling, are 
 facts not less certain. The evidence of Sir Jonah Barrington 
 is enough. 
 
 Pitt, strong in his great majority, and lifted above com- 
 mercial prejudices by the teaching of Adam Smith, projected 
 a liberal measure of commercial union for Ireland. He was 
 baffled as much by Irish jealousy of anything that came from 
 England as by British prejudice or faction. He designed for 
 Ireland political reform, the abolition of corruption and abuses, 
 and a measure of justice to the Catholics. As a harbinger of 
 that policy, Fitzwilliam was sent to Ireland. But Fitzwillam 
 was headlong where he ought to have been most cautious, 
 prematurely proclaimed his mission, and began to dismiss 
 powerful friends of government. Pitt was at the head of a 
 coalition ministry, of which one wing was strongly Tory. 
 The consequence was a break-down of Pitt's liberal policy, 
 and at a moment which unhappily proved to have been critical. 
 
 Then came the French Revolution, and called into activity 
 the free-thinking republicanism which the intolerant bishops 
 of the State Church had helped by their vexations to foster at 
 Belfast. Disturbance, once set on foot among the dominant 
 race, spread, as it had done in the time of Charles I., to the 
 subject race, takiug the usual form of agrarian conspiracy and 
 outrage. The Catholics having risen, the Protestants turned 
 on them as their immemorial enemies, and there ensued over 
 certain districts a reign of terror carried on by the Protestant 
 yeomanry, whose practices were flogging, pitch-capping, picket- 
 ing, and half-hanging, as those of the Catholics were shooting, 
 carding, and houghing. Of the Catholic priesthood a few 
 favoured the insurrection, and one afterwards became the rebel 
 general; but most of them shrank from anything connected 
 with the French Revolution, and not on them rests any of the 
 responsibility of this worse than civil war. At this time they 
 were generally educated abroad, and identified with the Con- 
 tinental Church which the Revolution was threatening to
 
 310 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 destroy. Meanwhile Wolfe Tone, the only real leader whom the 
 Celtic insurrection produced, a brave, gay, clever, and sincere, 
 though light-headed and tipsy, man of action, had won the ear of 
 the French Revolutionary government and obtained from it a 
 promise of assistance. In fulfilment of that promise came an 
 armament commanded by Hoche, which was only prevented 
 from landing by weather, and which had it landed must for a 
 time have overrun Ireland, though it would presently have been 
 cut off by the British fleet. Winds and waves saved the King- 
 dom. iSTapoleon, left supreme by Hoche' s death, liked not the 
 aspect of Irish insurrection and refused to repeat Hoche 's 
 attempt. "Ireland," he said to the Directory, "has made a 
 diversion for you; what more do you want of it?" To the 
 furies of civil war, however, those of invasion had been added. 
 It is useless to recount the infernal history of 1798, the 
 passions of which only the vilest demagogism would wish, for 
 political purposes, to revive. Amidst that murderous chaos 
 the one power of mercy, let the traducers of England take it as 
 they Avill, was the regular army of Great Britain.^ 
 
 Grattan's Parliament and the system upon which it stood 
 had sunk, with social order, in blood and flame. It is most 
 likely that Pitt had before contemplated union, and that it 
 was his deliberate policy, not, as Lord Rosebery says, the 
 
 1 "The respect and veneration with whicli I heard tlie names of Hunter, 
 Skeret, and Stewart . . . pronounced, and the higli encomiums passed on 
 the Scotch and English regiments, under whose protection the misguided 
 partisans of rebellion were enabled to return in safety to their homes, 
 convinces me that the salvation of the country was as much owing to the 
 forbearance, humanity, and prudence of the regular troops as to their 
 discipline and bravery. The moment the militia, yeomanry, and Orange- 
 men were separated from the army, confidence was restored." — AVake- 
 field's Ireland, II., 372. The answer made to this by those who begrudge 
 honour to the British army is that AVakefield was not an ofiicial writer, 
 and that he wrote fourteen years after the event ; as though most histo- 
 rians were official, and a writer could not remember an important and 
 impressive circumstance for fourteen years. The troops, of which Aber- 
 crombie spoke of as " only formidable to their friends," were not the 
 regulars, but the militia. (See Cornwallis's Despatch, Sept. 25, 1798.)
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 311 
 
 counsel of his despair; though they foully slander him who 
 insinuate that, to pave the way for union, he let rebellion 
 have its course. Union now was evidently the only policy. 
 To take both races and religions under the broad aegis of the 
 Imperial Parliament was the sole chance of ending a civil 
 war of devils between them, and of saving the weaker race 
 from the vengeance which would have been hailed upon it by 
 the stronger. Best of all would it have been to follow the 
 example of Cromwell, declare Ireland united to Great Britain, 
 and call her representatives to the Imperial Parliament. On 
 this Pitt did not venture. The alternative was to compound 
 with a powerful oligarchy for the loss of its field of ambition 
 and patronage. This was done, and it was dirty work, as 
 Cornwallis bitterly complains. But it would not have been 
 done by a man so upright and honourable as Cornwallis, had 
 he not been profoundly convinced of the necessity and right- 
 eousness of the measure. That the Union was carried by 
 bribery has been conclusively disproved by Dr. Dunbar In- 
 gram,^ whose treatises they only refuse to read who do not 
 desire to know the truth. The money which has been mis- 
 taken for bribes was compensation for the loss of nomination 
 boroughs given under the authority of Parliament in accord- 
 ance with the notions of that day, and given without distinc- 
 tion to supporters and opponents of the Union. Whence, in 
 fact, could tlie money for bribery so colossal have come? Not, 
 certainly, from Pitt's purse or any fund vinder Pitt's per- 
 sonal control; Avhile if it came from the secret service fund 
 it must have appeared in the public accounts in gross though 
 not in detail. 
 
 That the measure was not imposed by British force is proved 
 by Cornwallis's confidential statement that in July, 1799, 
 when the political struggle was at its height, the army remain- 
 ing in Iicland was sufficient to preserve peace, but totally 
 incompetent to resist foreign invasion. In September, 1798, 
 he reckoned his effective force of British regulars at four 
 
 ^ Two Chapters of Irish History, and A History of the Legislative 
 Union of Great Britain and Ireland.
 
 312 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 regiments, comprising in all eighteen hundred men ; and his 
 total force of all kinds did not really exceed forty-five thou- 
 sand. There was no rising of any importance against the 
 Union even in Dublin, which, as the capital, had most to lose. 
 The leaders of the Catholics are alleged to have been decoyed 
 by a promise of Emancipation. No pledge was given by Pitt; 
 to what extent expectations were held out it is difficult to 
 decide. But there was a motive for acquiescing in the meas- 
 ure, which amidst recondite speculations and conjectures is 
 too much left out of sight. All who had property to be plun- 
 dered or throats to be cut were likely to embrace the only 
 visible mode of escape from a sanguinary chaos. That there 
 was a concerted destruction by British statesmen of their 
 papers relating to this period, to conceal their infamy, is an 
 imagination worthy of those who seem to think that there was 
 no honour or beneficence in British statesmen before their 
 own day.^ 
 
 Some of the leading opponents of the Union, such as Foster, 
 Ponsonby, and Parnell, ratified tlie act when it was done by 
 the acceptance of large sums as compensation. Grattan sat in 
 the Imperial Parliament for an English nomination borough 
 and voted for a Coercion Bill. Plunket likewise sat in the 
 Imperial Parliament. He had said that he would resist Union 
 to the last gasp of his breath and the last drop of his blood, 
 that he would swear his children at the altar to eternal resist- 
 ance to it. Afterwards as a member of the United Parlia- 
 ment and the great advocate of Catholic Emancipation there, 
 he said : " As an Irishman I opposed that union ; as an Irish- 
 man I avow that I did so openly and boldly, nor am I now 
 
 1 The sole basis for the statement appears to be a passage, misread by 
 the eyes of prejudice, in Ross's Preface to the Cornwallis Correspondence ; 
 the preservation of which correspondence is itself a confutation of the 
 statement. Ross uses "purposely," in contrast to the neglect by which 
 he says some of the papers have perished. He does not hint at concert, 
 and, of the papers purposely destroyed, some were distroyed at a late 
 date and by persons not implicated in the transactions. He says that all 
 facilities were given to his investigations both at the State Paper Office 
 and in Dublin Castle.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 313 
 
 ashamed of what I then did. But though in my resistance to 
 it I had been prepared to go the length of any man, I am now 
 equally prepared to do all in my power to render it close and 
 indissoluble. One of the apprehensions on which my opposi- 
 tion was founded, I am happy to say, has been disappointed 
 by the event. I had been afraid that the interest of Ireland, 
 on the abolition of her separate Legislature, would come to be 
 discussed in a hostile Parliament. But I can now state — and 
 I wish when I speak that I could be heard by the whole of 
 Ireland — that during the time that I have sat in the United 
 Parliament, I have found every question that related to the 
 interests or security of that country entertained Avith indul- 
 gence, and treated with the most deliberate regard." ^ 
 
 It is said that Pitt ought to have tested the sentiment of 
 the Irish nation by dissolving the Dublin Parliament and 
 holding a general election on the issue of Union. How could 
 the sentiment of the nation be tested by an election to Parlia- 
 ment to which three-fourths of the nation were not eligible 
 and which was a Parliament of nomination boroughs? There 
 was no Irish assembly or authority of any kind competent to 
 speak for Ireland as a nation. The only authority practically 
 existing in the island was the British power, by which alone 
 law and order were upheld. 
 
 That the Union was politically unfair to Ireland cannot be 
 pretended. She has always had her fair share of the repre- 
 sentation. She has now twenty-three members more than her 
 share, and thus swells to thirty-four a Home Rule majority 
 which would of right be only eleven. For some years under 
 the reign of the Whigs, her members held the balance between 
 the parties, and, as we have good reason to know, they hold 
 it now. 
 
 To all the offices, honours, and employments of the Empire, 
 the native of Ireland has been admitted on a perfect equality 
 with the other citizens of the United Kingdom. India has had 
 two Irisli Viceroys; natives of Ireland command the Britisli 
 
 ' Plunket''s Life, II., 104. Quoted by Dr. Dunbar Ingram in his History 
 of the Legislative Union of Great Britain and Ireland, pp. 93, 9-t.
 
 314 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 armies ; tlie Indian Civil Service and the Indian ofi&ce at home 
 are full of Irishmen. 
 
 If the Irish representation in the House of Commons has 
 been weak in character and has been disgraced by a series of 
 adventurers of the Sadleir type, this has not been due to any 
 unfairness in the terms of Union, nor is it now good reason for 
 giving Ireland over to such hands. If Ireland may fairly 
 complain that Parliament has sometimes neglected her needs 
 to spend its time in faction fights, England, Wales, and Scot- 
 land may do the same, and the remedy is the abolition of 
 party government, not the erection of another House of party. 
 If Parliament is overburdened with local matters, the remedy 
 is to throw off a part of the burden on local assemblies or 
 authorities generally, not to repeal the union with Ireland. 
 Ignorance of Ireland has been pleaded by Mr. Gladstone as an 
 account of his change of mind, and he may extend the plea, it 
 is believed, to Mr. Morley, his reputed partner in the author- 
 ship of his Bill. But Parliament, as a body, has not been 
 uninformed; it has had a hundred Irish members to inform 
 it. To say that British statesmen have not cared for Irish 
 questions, that the Irish problem has not received their anx- 
 ious, their painfully anxious, attention, is most unjust, as 
 every one who has lived among them knows. 
 
 Pledged or unpledged, Pitt desired, and did his best to carry, 
 Catholic Emancipation. That he was insincere and secretly 
 counted on the King's resistance is a vile calumny, for which 
 no shadow of proof has been produced. He was baffled by the 
 intrigue of Wedderburn and the bishops. If he took time, it 
 was only because he wished to get his Cabinet perfectly united 
 on the question before he approached the King. He paid the 
 debt of honour by resignation. He afterwards returned to 
 power without insisting on Catholic Emancipation. But was 
 he to leave the nation leaderless in extremity, or was he to 
 depose the King? Pitt, acting in tremendous times, some- 
 times erred. The contrast between the brightness of the first 
 half of his career and the cloud which overhung the second 
 half is one of the saddest things in our history. But he was
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 315 
 
 an upright English gentleman ; he was a sincere lover of his 
 country; he never left the path of honour, practised deceit, 
 or uttered untruth. We could as easily imagine him traduc- 
 ing his country in a foreign press as giving a pledge to .the 
 Catholics and secretly relying on the King's bigotry for a 
 release. 
 
 Catholic Emancipation, like all domestic reform and im- 
 provement, whether for Ireland or Great Britain, was delayed 
 till the end of the mortal conflict with revolutionary France, 
 and afterwards with the ravening Empire to which she had given 
 birth. Then it came with other liberal measures, though not 
 in the best way, and when by postponement it had lost much 
 of its grace. There followed another pause, after which came 
 the disestablishment of the State Church. In respect of 
 religious equality, Ireland is now in advance of the other two 
 Kingdoms, verifying in this case Cromwell's saying that she 
 offered a clean paper for the trial of reforms. Disestablish- 
 ment might have come earlier if some of the Irish members 
 in the House of Commons would have devoted their attention 
 to justice for Ireland instead of devoting it to the Galway 
 Packet Contract, as for more than one session they did. 
 Whatever pledge had been given, whatever expectation had 
 been held out to the Catholics at the time of the Union, was 
 now virtually fulfilled. The compact, if compact the deed 
 could be called which was written with the finger of necessity, 
 was now perfectly made good, and the last stain of moral 
 invalidity was removed. 
 
 Ireland also received from the Imperial Parliament a system 
 of national education which the priests, saving a few Liber- 
 als, such as Moriarty, opposed, and which, if Home Rule were 
 granted, the priests would to-morrow overturn. Nor can it 
 be truly alleged that the Irish since the Union have been sub- 
 ject to social disparagement in the sliglitest degree, whatever 
 discredit may have been brought upon them in former days 
 by Irish heiress-hunters and adventurers. To say that they 
 have been treated with more studied contumely than the 
 negro in the United States is the very delirium of calumny.
 
 316 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 If men behave as Irish members behave in the House of Com- 
 mons, they will draw odium on themselves and those who 
 sent them there. Otherwise, the peculiarities of Irish charac- 
 ter, like those of English or Scotch character, may have been 
 objects of harmless jest, objects of hatred they have never 
 been. There are no better mirrors of public sentiment than 
 the public schools and the universities ; let any one who has 
 been at them say whether he ever knew an Irish youth in- 
 sulted or ill-treated on account of his place of birth. 
 
 About thirty years ago the writer, during a summer spent 
 in Ireland, enjoyed the intimate converse of some of the best 
 Irish patriots and Liberals. These anen were staunch Union- 
 ists, and would never hear of any paltering with that question. 
 They saw the necessity of social and economical reforms, but 
 the only political grievances, so far as the writer remembers, 
 of which they complained in connection with the Union, were 
 the necessity of going to Westminster for private bill legis- 
 lation and that of carrying appeals to the House of Lords, 
 both processes being troublesome and expensive. The first 
 grievance might be removed by allowing Irish committees of 
 the two Houses of Parliament for private bills to sit in the 
 vacation at Dublin, and to report to Westminster. The second 
 might be mitigated by the institution of a delegate court, 
 though the unity of the Supreme Court could not be broken 
 without breaking the unity of law. A capital grievance is 
 now made of the Vice-Eoyalty, or Castle government as it is 
 styled, which is dubbed an Austrian Satrapy. The Vice- 
 Royalty is, no doubt, a relic of dependence. In 1850, a bill 
 for its abolition passed the House of Commons by an over- 
 whelming majority, and was dropped in deference to protests 
 from Ireland. 
 
 Whatever may have been the shortcomings of Parliament 
 in legislating for Ireland between the Union and this out- 
 break, it may safely be said that the spirit of legislation has 
 been just. The measures, so far as their intention has been 
 fulfilled, have always made for justice. To treat Ireland with 
 kindness and indemnify her for sufferings past, has been the
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 317 
 
 general desire of the English people. Foreign statesmen, as 
 impartial observers, have seen this. Guizot, though an ad- 
 mirer and student of English institutions, was not an Anglo- 
 maniac, and as Prime Minister of France he had quarrelled 
 more than once with British governments. It was about 1865, 
 before the disestablishment of the Irish Church, that he was 
 heard to say that the conduct of England towards Ireland for 
 the last thirty years had been admirable. He was reminded 
 that to do Ireland complete justice, disestablishment was still 
 required. He assented, but at the same time emphatically 
 repeated his encomium. This may be contrasted with the 
 language of American-Irish conventions, which charge the 
 British Parliament with organising famine in Ireland to de- 
 stroy the people whom it has not been able to extirpate with 
 the sword. 
 
 Coercion Bills, alas ! there have been many, but they have 
 been generally agrarian, not political. It cannot be said that 
 for agrarian outrage they have not been needful. Govern- 
 ment cannot abdicate its primary functions, nor can a country 
 be left to savage and murderous lawlessness, though the law 
 may require change. When for giving unpopular evidence a 
 man and his family of seven were burned alive in their house, 
 and outrages of this kind were protected by conspiracy, when 
 a farmer for defending his house against nightly ruffians was 
 shot at the chapel door in the presence of hundreds, who con- 
 nived at the murder, strong measures could hardly be avoided 
 if civilisation was to be saved. Most European governments 
 would have declared martial law. That of Italy, Avhich is 
 liberal enough, represses agrarian conspiracy by armed force. 
 The number of the Coercion Bills, though it sounds appalling, 
 is really a proof of the constant effort to do without coercion 
 and go back to the ordinary course of law. 
 
 Since the Union, not only has there been no civil war or 
 serious conflict between the races and religions in Ireland, 
 but there has been no political rebellion or revolutionary 
 movement of the slightest force. O'Connell's repeal agitation 
 took no hold, and at last degenerated into a protracted farce
 
 318 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 or an excuse for levying O'Connell's "rent" upon the people. 
 Smith O'Brien's insurrection, in 1848, though the air of 
 Europe was charged with revolution, ended in ridicule and a 
 cabbage garden. Other political conspiracies have flashed in 
 the pan. This last, it seems, had its origin, not among Irish 
 patriots, but among Irishmen of the Anglican Church, who 
 resented disestablishment, so that it may be regarded as the 
 last service rendered by a State Church to the State. 
 
 The commercial grievances which existed before the Union 
 have been wholly swept away. Great Britain has opened for 
 Irish produce the best market in the world. She has given 
 employment in her manufacturing cities to hundreds of thou- 
 sands of Irish who would have starved on their own soil. 
 Her capital would open up Irish resources if it were allowed, 
 and the capitalists were sure of receiving dividends in money, 
 not in bullets. 
 
 Whatever appearance of strength political disaffection has 
 shown has been derived from agrarian discontent. This is 
 emphatically true of the present rebellion. It cannot be 
 doubted that the agrarian question in Ireland called for legis- 
 lative interposition. From causes already mentioned, the 
 manorial system had there failed. Absenteeism was only part 
 of the evil, and some of the estates of absentees were very well 
 and liberally managed, though to the Irishman, of all men, 
 nothing can make up for the absence of his social chief. The 
 root of the mischief lay not so much in the system of tenure 
 as in the swarming of the people, under a Church which 
 practically discourages economy, over a soil unfit for grain, 
 and on which they could be maintained only by the treacherous 
 potato. Rents were raised to an excessive amount by the 
 desperate bidding of the people against each other for the land 
 which was their sole means of subsistence. There would be 
 distress from over-population in the Roman Catholic Province 
 of Quebec as there is in Roman Catholic Ireland, were there 
 not a ready outlet into the United States. Unless thrift could 
 be given to the Irish peasant with security of tenure, he would 
 soon be in the hands of the money-lender, who neither resides
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 319 
 
 nor remits, and the more money-lenders were shot the higher 
 interest would be. The Church, too, would probably lay her 
 hands on a large part of that which the landlord had resigned. 
 Those who write most sympathetically on Irish sorrow, if they 
 write at all fairly, do not omit to mention the indisposition of 
 the Irish peasant to steady labour; and the defect, whether 
 inborn or produced by long discouragement, is now too prob- 
 ably ingrained and cannot fail to tell. Still, Irish tenure 
 called for reform. Possibly, it may have been necessary to 
 provide for the general abolition of the dual ownership. But 
 this should have been done by the hand of deliberate caution 
 and impartial justice, not by lawless violence, class passion, 
 and the unscrupulous malignity of faction. As it is, faith in 
 contracts, the foundation of commerce and almost of civilisa- 
 tion, has been seriously shaken in the process, and property 
 has been made generally insecure. Purchasers under recent 
 Acts of Parliament, such as the Encumbered Estates Act, even 
 purchasers from the State under the Disestablishment Act, 
 are despoiled or marked for spoliation without compunction, 
 or rather with insolent delight. Mr. Gladstone and his col- 
 leagues saw what morality and the national honour required. 
 They showed this by their first proposals on the subject, Avhich 
 recognised the claim of the landlords of Ireland to protection 
 and indemnification. They appeared to think that they could 
 draw the line of "rapine" at Ireland; and the factory lords 
 who voted with them seemed to think that they could draw the 
 line at property in land. 
 
 In 1847 the potato brought its periodical dearth on the most 
 frightful scale. Great Britain, charged with organising famine 
 to extirpate the Irish, did everything in her power for their 
 relief. To let in food for Ireland, the fiscal system was sus- 
 pended and the ports were thrown open, which O'Connell had 
 said only an Irish Parliament would do. The present leader 
 of the Irish party in the House of Commons has borne witness 
 as a historian to the good-will and generosity shown on that 
 occasion by the English people. 
 
 There was, nevertheless, a vast exodus to America and a
 
 320 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 proportionate increase of Irish influence, both on the domestic 
 politics of the United States and on the relations between the 
 United States and Great Britain. What Irish influence on 
 American politics and on the affairs of American cities is, it is 
 needless to say. The Irish immigrants, for two generations at 
 least, do not become American citizens, but remain Irish, 
 prosecuting their clan feud. They keep their national or rebel 
 flag, and annually unfurl it in face of American nationality 
 over the City Hall at New York. The name it probably was 
 that drew them into the Democratic party. Into that party, 
 at all events, they went. They almost to a man supported 
 slavery, notwithstanding the generous protests of O'Connell. 
 At the time of the Civil War, rising at New York, they mal- 
 treated and butchered negroes, till the Americans brought up 
 troops, and instead of passing Coercion Bills proceeded to 
 quell murderous lawlessness by summary execution. It may 
 safely be said that on that day twenty times as many Irish fell 
 as have suffered for political offences since the Union. To 
 proclaim indemnity for crime committed on political pretexts 
 would be to put society at the mercy of any brigand who chose 
 to say that his object in filling the country with blood and 
 havoc was not plunder, but anarchy or usurpation. Irish 
 influence upon the relation between the United States and 
 Great Britain has given rise to acts of political subserviency 
 and breaches of international comity on the part of American 
 legislatures, presidents, and statesmen, of which patriotic 
 Americans in private own themselves ashamed. British op- 
 ponents of Irish domination are, in fact, labouring to redeem 
 the politics of both nations from a noxious and humiliating 
 yoke. American Fenianism has reinforced Irish Fenianism 
 with rhetorical vitriol, and, what is of more consequence, with 
 money, the large contributions of which, being at all events 
 for a sentimental object, would be creditable to the race were 
 it not pretty certain that they are to a great extent enforced. 
 Here the danger from American Fenianism ends. To enlist 
 the American people in their own clan feud and drive the 
 Republic into war with Great Britain is the constant object of
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 321 
 
 the American-Irish. But the Americans, whatever the poli- 
 ticians may be constrained to say, have no intention of being 
 enlisted in any one's clan feud, and will never go to war in an 
 Irish quarrel. Nor will they put up with Irish conspiracy 
 beyond a certain point. A strong reaction was caused by the 
 murder of Dr. Cronin. The Germans in the United States are 
 fully as strong as the Irish. They are Germans in feeling 
 still, even those of them who were political refugees, as was 
 seen during the Franco-German war. And so long as England 
 and their mother country are good friends, they will never 
 consent to a war for Ireland. The Prime Minister of 
 England who is not ashamed to threaten the nation with the 
 vengeance of the Irish-Americans if it will not surrender to 
 Home Kule, might spare himself that disgrace and the country 
 that insult. 
 
 To the sister island, also, the famine drove many, and 
 the dreadful Irish quarters of Liverpool and Glasgow became 
 more crowded than before. Irish colonisation of Great Britain, 
 while it practically helps to answer the charge of British 
 cruelty to Ireland, is a serious matter for England and Scotland 
 in a political, a social, and an industrial point of view. " There 
 are no Irishmen," says Mr. T. P. O'Connor, "more fierce or 
 resolute in the national faith than the Irishmen who settle in 
 England or Scotland." "They are far more extreme in their 
 views," he adds, "than the majority of the Irish in America." 
 He depicts them as a clan with a feeling of estrangement from 
 those around them. In confirmation of his description, it may 
 be said that not all of those who, at the time of the PhcBnix 
 Park murders, were going about in Irish quarters of British 
 cities, saw reason to believe that, as Mr. O'Connor says, the 
 blow struck in the Irish cause was regarded by the whole Irish 
 race with unmixed sorrow. It is by the Irish vote in not a 
 few cases that British constituencies have been turned in 
 favour of Home Kule. Make Ireland independent and the 
 Irishry in Great Britain will become the outpost of a foreign, 
 probably of a hostile, power. 
 
 Such, in general outline, is the story. From what part of it 
 
 y
 
 322 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 would any reasonable and patriotic man draw the inference 
 that it would be good for Great Britain and Ireland, or for 
 either of them, to erect Celtic and Catholic Ireland into a 
 separate nation? Whatever unity Ireland has, whatever she 
 has of constitutional government, of free institutions, of civili- 
 sation, has come to her from her partner in the Union, though, 
 owing to unhappy circumstances either of nature or of history, 
 it has come to her in a cruel way. The past may be deplored; 
 undone it cannot be; by an unwise policy its evils may be 
 renewed. We see into what hands Ireland would pass. 
 There, in the House of Commons, turning the debate into a 
 brawl, sits the Home Eule Parliament of Ireland. In Mr. 
 T. P. O'Connor's lively sketch of the recent history of Irish 
 parties, it is instructive to note the pervading assumption that 
 the Irish politician who comes within reach of corruption will 
 infallibly be corrupted. Mr. O'Connor describes to us the way 
 in which, under the "Liberator," O'Connell, the system was 
 worked. "A profligate landlord, or an aspiring but briefless 
 barrister, was elected for an Irish constituency as a follower 
 of the popular leader of the day and as the mouthpiece of his 
 principles. When he entered the House of Commons he soon 
 gave it to be understood by the distributors of State patronage 
 that he was open to a bargain. The time came when in the 
 party divisions his vote was of consequence, and the bargain 
 was then struck, the vote from him and the office from them." 
 Under the auspices of the Eepeal Association there was 
 returned, Mr. T. P. O'Connor says, " instead of seventy inde- 
 pendent and honest Irish representatives, a motley gang of as 
 disreputable and needy adventurers as ever trafficked in the 
 blood and tears of a nation." As it was in O'Connell's time, 
 so, according to the same authority, it continued to be after- 
 wards. " Since the break-up of the Butt party, a number of 
 his most prominent followers have accepted office, and the few 
 that still retain places in the House of Commons have, with 
 scarcely an exception, gone over to the Liberal party, and are 
 notoriously as open to employment as the cabbies in Palace 
 yard." Let him who accuses us of treating Irish politicians
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 323 
 
 with disrespect see what estimate is formed of them by their 
 own kin. In the Galway case Mr. Parnell, in forcing Mr. 
 O'Shea on the electorate, gave us a measure of the indepen- 
 dence of Irish constituencies. What sort of security would 
 there be against the appearance of a series of Sadleirs and 
 Keoghs in a Parliament at Dublin? These battles of Parnell- 
 ites and Anti-Parnellites over the money-bag of the agitation, 
 do they not show us what is to be expected in the way of 
 disinterestedness as well as of concord? 
 
 At first the priest will probably share the power and the 
 spoil with the patriot. There is no use in saying that the 
 Roman Catholic Church would not do what it is a necessity of 
 its nature to do, what it tells you plainly in the Syllabus and 
 Encyclical that it claims a right to do, and what it has every- 
 where done to the full extent of its power. It would begin by 
 putting an end to the popular system of education which the 
 United Parliament has established, or turning the common 
 schools into organs of ecclesiasticism and their teaching into a 
 preparation for the first communion, as it has done in Quebec. 
 It would proceed formally or informally to establish itself, 
 and in so doing it need fear no opposition from Gladstonian 
 Liberals, who are fain to palliate its tyrannical action in the 
 elections and to uphold the sinister rule which enables the 
 priest to oversee and dictate the illiterate vote. Small, to 
 judge from all experience and from such an analogy as that of 
 priestly rule in Quebec, would be the modicum of political 
 freedom which the peasant would be allowed by his Church to 
 enjoy when the last legal safeguard was withdrawn. In time, 
 perhaps pretty soon, a rupture would come between the priest 
 party and that revolutionary party to Avhich the more thorough- 
 going Penians both in Ireland and America belong, and which 
 is affiliated to the revolutionary party in Europe. The torch 
 of intestine discord would then be kindled once more. Be- 
 tween the two islands the relations could not fail to be hostile, 
 when Ireland was a separate nation, owing her existence to 
 successful rebellion, and setting out with bitter hatred in her 
 soul. Let people who talk sentimentally about a union of
 
 324 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 hearts, instead of listening to the voice in Ireland, subdued to 
 the tones of a sucking dove while the work of disunion is being 
 done, listen to the genuine accents of Chicago, or let them 
 look into the graphic pages of Mr. T. P. O'Connor, scan the 
 portraits of the Parnellite leaders painted there, and draw 
 their inference as to the direction which such men would give 
 Irish sentiment and policy towards Great Britain when they 
 had an Irish Parliament in their hands. A British Premier 
 and his colleagues say that they are x^roud to owe their places 
 to the Irish disunionists. Are they equally proud of their 
 connection with the American Clan-na-Gael, bellowing war and 
 dynamite against their country? Are they proud of being 
 helped on as they have been in elections by funds subscribed 
 to a foreign organisation formed by murderous enmity to Great 
 Britain ? 
 
 To a moral certainty, Ireland would become a thorn in the 
 side of Great Britain. To sustain herself against her powerful 
 neighbour, she would attach herself to some foreign enemy of 
 England, as the tribes attached themselves to Spain in the 
 sixteenth century, and as Scotland attached herself to Prance 
 before the Union. This Great Britain could not and would 
 not endure. Ireland would be reconquered and the circle of 
 woe would revolve again. 
 
 The effect on Irish prosperity of a patriot and priestly 
 government is not hard to foretell. Capital would fly the 
 island; employment would fall off. There would be another 
 exodus, and the British artisan who votes and shouts for dis- 
 memberment would pay the penalty in an increased measure 
 of the most depressing of all competition, unless he should 
 insist on immigration laws, in which case misery would abound 
 in Ireland. When this rebellion broke out Ireland was doing 
 well, commerce was improving, the deposits in the savings banks 
 had increased, and pauperism had been greatly diminished. 
 
 There is no reason for believing that the mass of the Irish 
 people want a separate Parliament. Xobody who knew them 
 well ever said that their aspirations were political. It was 
 the land that they wanted, and they were Home Kulers
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 325 
 
 because they were told that a Home Rule Parliament would 
 give them the land. They showed scarcely a spark of resent- 
 ment when the Home Rule Bill was thrown out in the House 
 of Lords. With great difficulty, generous as they are by nature, 
 have they been made to subscribe to the movement, leaving the 
 burden to be mainly borne by their American friends. It is 
 probable that most of them would be glad to be under a strong 
 and just government, enjoying their improved holdings in 
 peace. They are wanting in political independence, and 
 through the whole course of these events have been com- 
 pletely under the control of the terrorist organisations or the 
 priests. If it could be said with regard to the Union that the 
 compact was morally invalid because it had been made by 
 force, not less may it be said with regard to Home Rule that 
 the compact would be morally invalid as having been made 
 under lawless coercion. 
 
 With respect to the case of Ulster, all that need be said 
 more is that we shall only get what we deserve if the noble 
 province, thrust by us in spite of her passionate appeals to our 
 good faith out of the nationality to which she belongs, and 
 forced to accept the yoke of all that she most abhors, instead 
 of our best and firmest friend should become our bitterest 
 enemy. Nor is this unlikely to be the result. 
 
 It is needless again to discuss Mr. Gladstone's Bill. It was 
 torn to pieces by Lord Selborne in the Lords' debate, while 
 the ministers in charge of it could reply only by vague asser- 
 tions that in spite of probabilities all would turn out well, 
 or with a levity, which showed in what spirit, sure of a 
 mechanical majority, they were dealing with the fundamental 
 institutions of the country. The measure is a hopeless jumble 
 of the National, Imperial, Federal, and Colonial systems. 
 Nobody imagines that it could work, or that it is in truth any- 
 thing but a complicated mask for the surrender of Ireland to 
 the rebellion. Mr. Redmond feels sure enough of the sub- 
 serviency of the government, the life of which is practically 
 in his hands, to proclaim openly that the measure is not final; 
 in other words, that the end is to be complete independence,
 
 320 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 or, as Mr. Parnell said, " the severance of the last link which 
 binds Ireland to Great Britain." Mr. Parnell said this when 
 he chose to speak the truth, and if he afterwards disclaimed 
 the statement, we know from his own lips what his disclaimer 
 was worth. ^ On the morrow of Home Eule the Union Jack 
 will be hauled down over Ireland, the rebel Green will take 
 its place, and the last Lord-Lieutenant, if he is a Gladstonian, 
 will humbly lend a hand on the occasion. Mr. Gladstone's 
 Lord-Lieutenant did in fact move joyously through Dublin 
 with green flags all around him, while no British flag but that 
 of his own escort was seen. " If any man attempts to haul 
 down the American flag, shoot him on the spot; " so said the 
 Unionist General Dix at the time of Secession. Americans 
 remember the day. 
 
 Under the Parliamentary system, if there are two Parlia- 
 ments, there are two nations. The Crown is called, ironically 
 as it may be supposed, the golden link. A golden link with 
 a vengeance it was in the daj^s before the Union. But it has 
 now no mass of patronage, no bribery fund, no nomination 
 boroughs in Ireland. Had the government meant to preserve 
 the Union, it would have welcomed, instead of repelling, as 
 it did, amendments distinctly asserting the supremacy of the 
 Imperial over the Irish Parliament. In order to make sure 
 that the ostensible safeguards shall not be real, and at the 
 same time to keep the British party of surrender in power, 
 Ireland is, besides a Parliament of her own, to have a garri- 
 son of eighty Irish members in the Parliament of Great Brit- 
 ain. The affected indifference of the government about this 
 part of their measure only betrayed the depth of the design. 
 Was such a cup of shame ever put to the lips of a great nation? 
 If England needs to be disciplined for her rejection of a politi- 
 cal Messiah, this measure does it with a vengeance. Neither 
 in America nor elsewhere has she an enemy who does not 
 watch its progress with delight. To have voted for it, if the 
 
 ^ See the evidence of Mr. Parnell before the Special Commission, May 
 ?>, 1889 : Report of the Proceedings before the Commissioners, reprinted 
 from The Times, Vol. II., pp. 798, 799.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 327 
 
 nation ever recovers its sense and spirit, will be a brand. No- 
 toriously of those who voted for it many spoke in private 
 against it. They trusted to the Lords to throw it out. These 
 same men will now court popularity by swelling the cry against 
 the Lords. Then perhaps they will read homilies on the 
 knavery of American politicians. 
 
 It is needless to discuss again the false, and for the most 
 part absurd, analogies which have been adduced to lure the 
 British people into dismemberment : that of Iceland, a petty 
 community a thousand miles from Denmark; that of Canada, 
 a colony three thousand miles off, and virtually independent; 
 that of the Scandinavian Kingdoms, whose union is not home 
 rule but federation, and is, moreover, going to pieces before 
 our eyes; that of Germany, which again is a confederation 
 tending probably towards a closer national vmity ; or the un- 
 easy but co-equal wedlock of Austria and Hungary, which 
 presents no point of real resemblance, historical, ethnologi- 
 cal, or structural, to the measure proposed for Ireland. These 
 analogies have not much figured in recent debates. Nor can 
 anybody imagine that the position of States in a federation 
 such as the States of the American Union or the Provinces of 
 Canada, each with its own local government on the same foot- 
 ing and all sharing alike in the federal government, bears any 
 resemblance to that of a vassal State such as Ireland would be 
 made by the Home Rule Bill. The only real analogies are 
 those of vassal Parliaments, and these all point distinctly the 
 same way. Alike in Ireland before the Union, in the Ameri- 
 can Colonies, and in Canada, the institution of a vassal Par- 
 liament, by the aspirations which it excited and the friction 
 which it induced, gave birth to a struggle for complete inde- 
 pendence, which in the case of the American Colonies ended 
 with the Revolution, and in the case of Canada with a twofold 
 rebellion. The Irish politicians who will be the leaders of 
 the Parliament at Dublin, have all, according to an admiring 
 chronicler, been distinguished by their burning hatred of Brit- 
 isli rule, as well as by what he would style the fervour, and 
 others might style the venomous violence, of their patriotism.
 
 328 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Is it likely that their hatred of British rule would become love 
 or even toleration of British supremacy? 
 
 If there is any other analogy really in point, it is that of 
 the Protestant minority under the rule of a Roman Catholic 
 majority in the Province of Quebec. The domination of the 
 priesthood there is controlled by the influence of a Protestant 
 confederation. Yet there is enough to teach Ulster what her 
 doom under Home Eule would be, and how the Exchequer of a 
 Catholic Parliament would be likely to deal with the strong- 
 box of Belfast. 
 
 It is not Ulster or Protestantism alone that desires the 
 preservation of the Union, but almost the entire wealth and 
 intelligence of Ireland, whether Protestant or Catholic. 
 American enemies of Great Britain, while they abet Mr. Glad- 
 stone's policy, admit that he has hardly a supporter among 
 the classes in which, if education and responsibility are essen- 
 tial to political wisdom, the political wisdom of Ireland must 
 reside. 
 
 To turn the United Kingdom into a confederation is possi- 
 ble if you will begin by restoring the divisions of the Hep- 
 tarchy together with the contemporary divisions of Scotland, 
 Wales, and Ireland. You will then have the material for a 
 confederation, which is a large group of tolerably equal States. 
 A federation of England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland would 
 be an everlasting cabal of the three lesser States against the 
 greater. To the reconstruction of the United Kingdom on 
 the federal system the only objection is that the nation, and 
 still more certainly the Empire, would go to pieces in the 
 process. It is singular that this passion for federation should 
 have seized on England, just as in the classic land of the sys- 
 tem the opposite principle has gained the ascendant; for in 
 the United States, thanks to railroads and other unifying 
 influences, together with the sentiment bred of the War of 
 Secession, nationality has been prevailing over State right, 
 and the unification of the laws of commerce and marriage is 
 in the air. Switzerland has moved in the same way. It is 
 only Great Britain that is in love with dissolution.
 
 THE IRISH QUESTION. 329 
 
 The Home Kiile Bill was carried through the House of Com- 
 mons by the help of twenty-three Irish votes, to which, by 
 the admission of the author of the Bill itself, Ireland had no 
 title. Then it was to be palmed upon the country, which is 
 known to be averse to it, by uniting with it a number of incen- 
 diary proposals, and carrying the whole lump by means of 
 appeals to class passions, local antipathies, and the lure of 
 socialistic confiscation. 
 
 To carry Home Rule an appeal has been made, not without 
 success, to the separatist spirit in Scotland and Wales as well 
 as in Ireland, and fires of provincial hatred which slumbered 
 beneath the ashes of centuries have been raked anew. A 
 Scotch member of Parliament speaks of English influence as 
 "foreign," and the government was, under Mr. Gladstone, and 
 is, under his successor, animated by something like hostility 
 to England. Scotland and Wales have long been in a state 
 of social, economical, and intellectual fusion with England, 
 the only exception being, perhaps, the secluded parts of Wales, 
 which are cut off by the lingering of the Celtic language from 
 the general life and progress. Scotland was wafted by the 
 Union from poverty to comparative wealth; she owed to it 
 parliamentary government, her own parliamentary institutions 
 having proved almost abortive; and she owed to it internal 
 union, for the Lowlands were not strong enough to subdue and 
 incorporate the Highlands. Both Scotland and Wales have 
 had their full share of all the advantages, emoluments, and 
 honours of the Empire. What would they be as separate 
 nations with England interposed between them? Nothing 
 that is valuable or picturesque in local character need be lost 
 by union. Was not Walter Scott a Scotchman ? and was 
 he not a Briton? Civil war is a dreadful thing; but there are 
 things even more dreadful than civil war. Submission to the 
 dismemberment of the nation by the sinister machinations of 
 a morally insane ambition, would in the end work more havoc 
 than the civil sword. "I am prepared," said the constitu- 
 tional and cautious Peel, 'Ho make the declaration which was 
 made, and nobly made, by my predecessor, Lord Althorp,
 
 330 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 that, deprecating as I do all war, but, above all, civil war, 
 there is no alternative which I do not think preferable to the 
 dismemberment of this Empire." 
 
 To that dread arbitrament, however, the Irish Question has 
 not yet come. The first object of all British citizens ought to 
 be to insist that this Bill, which is not an ordinary law, or a 
 law at all, but a fundamental change of the national constitu- 
 tion, shall either be frankly abandoned or fairly submitted as 
 a single issue to the constituencies of the United Kingdom. 
 It is insufferable that the nation should be kept in dovibt as to 
 its unity for the purposes of a political game.
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES.
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE 
 UNITED STATES. 
 
 It is evident that English politics are beginning to be dis- 
 turbed, like those of the United States and Canada, by the 
 formation of a Prohibitionist party. The party usually calls 
 itself that of Temperance. Bvit though we may wish to be 
 courteous, we cannot concede a name which not only begs the 
 question at issue, but is a standing libel on those who take 
 their glass of wine or beer without being in any rational sense 
 of the term intemperate. Temperance is one thing, total 
 abstinence is another, and coercion, at which these reformers 
 aim, is a third. As Temperance implies self-restraint, there 
 can be no Temperance, in the proper sense of the term, where 
 there is coercion. 
 
 The " Temperance " people are not usually inclined to listen 
 to anything so rationalistic as the lessons of experience. They 
 tell you that with them it is a matter not of expediency but of 
 principle ; that their cause is the cause of Heaven ; yours, if 
 you are an opponent, that of the darker power; and they 
 intimate, with more or less of gentleness and courtesy, what, 
 if you persist in getting in Heaven's way, will be your deserved 
 and inevitable doom. To those, however, who in practical 
 matters regard the dictates of experience as principles, and 
 who wish before committing themselves to a particular kind of 
 legislation to know whether it is likely to do good or harm, 
 the result of Canadian or American experiment may not be 
 uninstructive. 
 
 In 1878 the Canadian Parliament passed the Canada Tem- 
 perance Act, more commonly called the Scott Act. The pur- 
 port of this Act may be described as county and city option. 
 
 333
 
 334 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 It enables any county or city adopting it by a simple majority 
 of the electors to prohibit the sale of any liquor within the 
 district for local consumption under penalty of a fine of fifty 
 dollars for the first offence, a hundred for the second, and two 
 months' imprisonment for the third. When adopted, the Act 
 remains in force for three years, after which, upon a petition 
 signed by one-fourth of the electors, it may again be submitted 
 to the vote, and if there is a majority against it, repealed. 
 
 In the Province of Ontario there are forty -two counties and 
 eleven cities. Twenty-eight counties and two cities adopted 
 the Act, most of them in 1884 and 1885. In 1888 ten counties, 
 nine of them at once, repealed it ; and in the following year 
 the remaining Scott Act counties and cities also returned to 
 license law. The majorities for repeal were overwhelming. 
 In Ontario the Scott Act is generally regarded as impossible 
 of resuscitation, and the advocates of prohibitive legislation 
 are turning their minds to other measures. This is a genuine 
 verdict of the people. The liquor-trade had exhausted its 
 power of opposition in the early part of the contest ; in fact it 
 hardly appeared in the field without doing mischief to its own 
 cause. Nor has the verdict really been reversed by the 
 " plebiscite " recently taken in Ontario. A *' plebiscite " it is 
 styled, but it is really a mere collection of opinions without 
 legislative effect or the responsibility attaching to legislative 
 effect which alone could bring out the full numbers of the 
 voters and give significance to the vote. Women, who have 
 not the suffrage, were allowed to vote. The Provincial Gov- 
 ernment, embarrassed by Prohibitionists in the Legislature and 
 menaced by the Prohibitionist vote outside, took this mode of 
 getting out of the difficulty. Only fifty-eight per cent, of the 
 vote was polled and the majority for Prohibition was in the 
 ratio of 19 to 11. This is hardly force enough to pass, much 
 less is it force enough to execute a sumptuary law; for we 
 may be sure that while nearly all the Prohibitionists would 
 vote, the mass of those who abstained from voting Avere 
 indifferent or adverse. The Prime Minister of the Dominion 
 thinks it safe to meet the demand of the Prohibitionists with
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 335 
 
 a positive refusal. In a recent Ontario election not much was 
 heard of Prohibition. A Commission of Inquiry has been 
 sitting and when this was written was about to report. 
 
 The general result where the Scott Act was tried appeared 
 to have been the substitution of an unlicensed and unregulated 
 for a licensed and regulated trade. The demand for drink 
 remained the same, but it was supplied in illicit ways. It was 
 found by those who were engaged iu the campaign against the 
 Scott Act that the lowest class of liquor-dealers were far from 
 zealous in their opposition to prohibitive legislation. They 
 foresaw that the result to them would be simply sale of liquor 
 without the license fee. Drunkenness, instead of being dimin- 
 ished, appears to have increased. A memorial signed by three 
 hundred citizens of Woodstock, including nearly all the prin- 
 cipal men of business and professional men, but nobody con- 
 nected with the liquor-trade, said : " The Scott Act in this 
 town has not diminished but has increased drunkenness; it has 
 almost wholly prevented the use of lager beer, which was 
 becoming an article of common consumption ; it has operated 
 to discourage the use of light beverages, substituting therefor 
 in a large measure ardent spirits, and it has led to the opening 
 of many drinking-places which did not exist under the license 
 law, and to the sale of liquor being continued till hours after 
 midnight." "From my own observation," said a leading 
 physician of the same place, "and the most trustworthy 
 information privately and publicly received, I am satisfied 
 that the most extensive illicit traffic prevails in Woodstock, 
 that the abuse of intoxicating liquors is greatly on the increase 
 here, and that there is a lamentable increase of drinking 
 among the younger men of the community." At Milton, in 
 the county of Hal ton, the effects were found to be the same as 
 at Woodstock. Before the adoption of the Act there were but 
 five places in which liquor was sold; after the adoption of the 
 Act there were no fewer than sixteen, and owing to the perse- 
 cution of the hotels the traffic was thrown into the lowest and 
 worst hands. Forty-eight men of business, including the 
 Mayor and Chief Constable, signed a declaration that the Act
 
 336 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 had signally failed to reduce intemperance; that the trade, 
 instead of being in respectable hands, was in those of the 
 bottle -hawkers and keepers of low dens; that the effect of the 
 Act had been the substitution to a great extent of spirituous 
 liquors, for malt, wine, or cider as beverages; that drunken- 
 ness, lawlessness, and perjury were much more prevalent than 
 they had been under license; and that the Scott Act instead 
 of removing temptation from the young had had the contrary 
 effect, and cases of juvenile drunkenness had become shock- 
 ingly frequent. Scores of petitions were sent to Parliament 
 from county councils or other municipal bodies declaring the 
 failure of the Act. 
 
 Professor Blaikie of Edinburgh has been cited as speaking 
 of the general elevation of moral tone in Toronto, and attrib- 
 uting it largely to the control of the liquor traffic. This is 
 remarkable, as Toronto did not adopt the Scott Act. It is 
 true, as the writer, after many years' residence in Toronto 
 gladly bears witness, that drunkenness is seldom seen in her 
 streets, in her places of amusement, in her excursion boats 
 or trains, while such intemperance as there is prevails chiefly 
 among recent immigrants. But the credit is due to spontaneous 
 self-control or to the unforced influences of social opinion, 
 religion, and medical authority. An attempt was made to 
 quicken improvement by withdrawing at once the licenses of 
 eighty places where liquor was sold. The result was un- 
 favourable. Saloon keepers who lost their licenses took to 
 contraband sale, there was an increase of crowding and ex- 
 citement in the houses which remained, a spirit of defiance 
 perhaps was roused by restraint, and an unusually intemperate 
 Christmas ensued. 
 
 Wine, beer, and cider may or may not be injurious, but at 
 all events they are not so injurious as ardent spirits; they 
 stimulate less to criminal violence, the evil against which in 
 dealing with this subject, society is most concerned to guard. 
 A natural tendency of Prohibition, however, as the evidence 
 cited seems to show, is to substitute ardent spirits, which, con- 
 taining a great amount of alcohol in a small bulk, are more
 
 PKOHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 337 
 
 easily smuggled, for the lighter drinks of which the bulk is 
 greater. It is well that the attention of philanthropy, of 
 practical philanthropy at least, should be specially called 
 to this point. Not only does Prohibition appear practically 
 to encourage the use of ardent spirits ; the spirits which it 
 encourages, being sold by the lowest dealers, are apt to be of 
 the most pernicious kind ; sometimes they are literally poison. 
 
 It is true that in some places where Prohibition prevails the 
 liquor-shop no longer invites the passer-by with open doors. 
 But the illicit liquor-seller is probably more active than the 
 licensed publican in thrusting his temptation upon those who are 
 most likely to yield to it, especially on the young. A clandestine 
 drinker is sure to be a deep drinker. He is sure to drink, not 
 with his meals, but in the specially pernicious form of drams. 
 He is sure to drink in bad company. He is sure also to con- 
 tract sneaking habits, and to lose respect for himself as well 
 as respect for the law. 
 
 Witness after witness testifies to the prevalence of perjury 
 in liquor-cases, and this evidence is supported by that of judges 
 and magistrates in the United States and England. The peo- 
 ple were morally dragooned by a powerful organisation and 
 strong ecclesiastical influence into voting for the Act. The 
 pulpit of the Methodist Church, which is very powerful in 
 Canada and has thoroughly identified itself with Prohibition, 
 thundered in favour of the measure, and the Methodist farmers 
 obeyed. But no pulpit-thunder will make the people in their 
 hearts believe that to drink or sell a glass of beer is really 
 criminal, or support the execution of the law as if they did. 
 Archdeacon Farrar himself, in his controversy with the late 
 Baron Bramwell, repudiates as uncharitable and absurd the 
 doctrine that there is anything morally wrong in the use of 
 fermented liquor. He says that he has never preached absti- 
 nence as a matter of duty, even to confirmation classes or to 
 national schools. He admits that moderate drinking is a per- 
 fectly lawful enjoyment, and that multitudes of men indulge 
 in it who are wiser and better than he is himself. Agreeing 
 at heart with this, the people, though they have voted as their
 
 338 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 preacher bade them, cannot bring themselves to take part in 
 ruining a neighbour, sending him to gaol, and perhaps leaving 
 his wife and children destitute, for that which in their con- 
 science they do not regard as criminal. They refuse to back 
 the ministers of the law. When forced to give evidence they 
 prevaricate and too often commit what is morally perjury. 
 The Bruce Herald declared that the Act in that county, 
 though nominally in force, was " dead as Julius Csesar," add- 
 ing that the idea that the law would be sustained by reverence 
 for authority soon vanished, and that prosecutions failed from 
 the unwillingness of witnesses to give evidence against the 
 hotel-keepers, who had public sympathy on their side, the peo- 
 ple feeling that the Act sought to destroy a business and to 
 confiscate property erected under the sanction of previous law. 
 Have we not in the history of the poaching bred by tyrannical 
 game-laws and the smuggling bred by excessive customs-duties, 
 abundant proof of the danger of putting the moral sense of the 
 people at variance with the law ? To break the law is always 
 wrong, but it is also wrong to make laws which, as they are 
 unsupported by any moral obligation, the people are sure to 
 break. 
 
 The testimony borne by municipal councils in all parts of 
 Ontario to the fact that there was an increase of drunkenness 
 under the Act was not invalidated by the decrease, in some 
 counties, of the number of arrests for that offence. Under the 
 prohibitive system the liquor-seller, his trade being illicit, is 
 afraid to call, as the licensed tavern-keeper does, for the inter- 
 vention of the police. He does his best to conceal the drunk- 
 ard whose detection would be the betrayal of his own breach 
 of the law. 
 
 The Prohibitionists themselves hardly show confidence in 
 their own moral code. They do not propose to punish a man 
 for drinking a glass of ale, though the drinking and the sell- 
 ing being parts of the same transaction, both must be criminal 
 or neither. The framers of the Scott Act did not even go so far 
 as to make the manufacture of liquor a crime. They con- 
 fined themselves to harassing the retail trade, as though, so
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. ;J39 
 
 long as the drink was made, it could fail to find its way 
 through some channel to thirsty lips. 
 
 In the Province of Quebec the Scott Act has been adopted 
 by five counties, of which two have repealed it. In the 
 French province this question, like all other public questions, 
 is apt to become one of race. In the Maritime Provinces the 
 Act has been extensively adopted, and only in the cases of 
 two cities or rather large towns and one county has the Act 
 been repealed. But the organised public opposition, indepen- 
 dent of the liquor-interest, which in Ontario arrested the pro- 
 gress of the Act and turned back the tide, has hitherto been 
 wanting in the Maritime Provinces. The people of those Prov- 
 inces, moreover, to judge from their behaviour in the political 
 sphere, are peculiarly submissive to pressure of the sort which 
 the Prohibitionist party and the clergy who support it bring 
 to bear. But the Act, though not generally repealed, is 
 described as practically a dead letter by provincial journals, 
 which call for its repeal on that account. 
 
 The writer was in the jSTorth-West Territories, where the law 
 imposed by the central government, under pressure of the Tem- 
 perance vote, was Prohibition qualified by a power of giving 
 permits vested in the Lieutenant-Governor. He was assured, 
 on what appeared to be the best possible authority, that the 
 law was a disastrous failure, that anybody could get liquor 
 who wanted it, and that the only fruits of the system were 
 smuggling, perjury, secret drinking, and deterioration of the 
 liquor. The liquor is sure to be of the worst quality, because 
 the dealer will thus indemnify himself for the risks of a con- 
 traband trade, while his own character and that of his drink- 
 ing-place will inevitably be low. Attention is once more 
 called to this feature of the question, and to the tendency 
 of the system which makes the trade contraband to the dis- 
 placement of the lighter drinks by ardent spirits which are 
 easily smuggled. 
 
 In the Territories so bad were the effects of the prohibitory 
 law that the Territorial Legislature recently passed a License 
 Law, which went into effect in May, 1892. The evidence given
 
 340 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 before the Canadian Prohibition Commission later in that year 
 was generally favourable to it compared with the prohibitory 
 measure. Amongst the witnesses were the chief o£&cers of the 
 North-West Mounted Police, judges, lawyers, and others, and 
 there was conclusive testimony to the large amount of smug- 
 gling and to the manufacture of deleterious liquors. One wit- 
 ness testified that thousands of shipments of liquor were made 
 into the Territory in kegs or packages concealed in other goods, 
 often in a car of bacon or a bag of rice, sugar, or nails. Often, 
 too, liquor came in bottles of preserves or pickles, or canned 
 goods or temperance drinks. Sometimes four hundred gallons 
 of liquor at once were conveyed by teams hundreds of miles 
 inland, and evaded the vigilance of the officers. The supply 
 of liquor was irregular; a consignment was often on its 
 arrival surrounded by friends of the consignee, and the whole 
 of it was quickly consumed. This led to a great amount of 
 drunkenness, and, in the dearth of liquor which followed, to 
 the consumption of eau de Cologne, pain-killer, Florida water, 
 essences of various kinds, and even red ink. A favourite punch 
 concocted in the Territories was pain-killer, Jamaica ginger, 
 strong tea, sugar, and molasses. These deleterious compounds, 
 witnesses swore, produced a number of deaths. Their effect, 
 as well as that of some whiskeys imported into the Territories 
 or illicitly manufactured there, was stated to be maddening. 
 A judge said that of the only two cases, among forty or fifty 
 criminal cases, due to the abuse of liquor, one, a case of 
 murder, was clearly due to a poisonous compound manufactured 
 by an illicit distiller whose only appliances were some lead pipe 
 and some barley. The compound was the fruit of Prohibition. 
 This failure of Prohibition is notable, for though the country 
 has a long frontier, the risks encountered in carrying liquor 
 far into the interior were very great, the Mounted Police being 
 numerous and vigilant, while the question had not, as in other 
 cases, become involved with politics. 
 
 Besides contempt of the law and perjury the country has 
 been filled with ill blood. Nothing is more odious or poisons 
 the heart of the community more than the employment of
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 341 
 
 spies and informers, to which it has been necessary and will 
 always be necessary for Prohibitionism to resort. Dickens 
 holds up the mirror to nature in his description of the Clay- 
 poles and their trade. Men who have been imprisoned and 
 ruined for plying a trade which they can hardly feel to be 
 criminal, as only the other day they were holding licenses for 
 it from the State, are naturally not grateful for such treat- 
 ment. Their vindictiveness and hatred of the spies has led to 
 several outrages, and once or twice to the use of dynamite. 
 
 To force the sentiment of the people into accordance with 
 the law is the more difficult, since all the time their Church is 
 holding up for their imitation a model of character which is 
 not " temperate " in the Prohibitionist sense of that term. In 
 commenting on the miracle at Cana, Archdeacon Farrar con- 
 trasts the "genial innocence of Christ's system" with the 
 "crushing asceticism of rival systems." By way of reconcil- 
 ing this discrepancy desperate efforts are made to uphold the 
 astonishing theory that the oinos of the Gospel was not fer- 
 mented wine but syrup. The ruler of the feast at Cana, it 
 seems, expressed his surprise that the best syrup had not been 
 produced till the guests had well drunk ; the accusers of Christ 
 in calling Him a winebibber meant only that he was a syrup- 
 drinker : it was on syrup that the Corinthians got drunk at the 
 celebration of the Lord's Supper : Paul advised his friend to 
 take a little syrup for his stomach's sake ; and the same Apostle 
 enjoined the Church in electing deacons not to choose those 
 who were given to excess in syrup ! To such paltering with 
 what every one educated enough to be a clergyman must know 
 to be the truth, we rather prefer the preacher who said boldly 
 that if Christ were again to come on earth and persisted in 
 celebrating the Eucharist with wine. He would have to be 
 excluded from His own Church. To drag the Gospel into this 
 discussion on the Prohibitionist side is hopeless. There is no 
 more of fanaticism than there is of formalism in that volume. 
 When St. Paul bids us not drink wine if thereby our brother 
 is made to stumble, he couples eating meat with drinking wine, 
 showing that in his opinion both in themselves are innocent.
 
 342 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 The Gospel bids us have regard to the weakness of our brother ; 
 but it does not bid our brother be weak or us to countenance 
 his weakness by unjust and unwise legislation. 
 
 The effect even of less violent and hazardous measures of 
 coercion in Canada appears to have been pretty much the 
 same. The supporters of the Scott Act did not venture to 
 put it to the vote in Toronto, but finding themselves powerful 
 in the City Council, they proceeded to wage a war of extermi- 
 nation on the taverns. At one stroke they cut off seventy-five 
 licenses. They were warned that this arbitrary measure, 
 while it might ruin the tavern-keepers, would not diminish the 
 demand for drink ; that while there was a demand there would 
 be a supply, and that the tavern-keepers whose licenses were 
 withdrawn would not starve if they could help it, but would 
 ply an illicit trade. The result was a large increase of the 
 number of cases of drunkenness before the magistrate and an 
 unusually drunken Christmas. Nor could the Prohibitionists 
 find any way of parrying the natural inference better than an 
 insinuation that drinking had been promoted by the powers of 
 darkness for the special purpose of discrediting their policy. 
 
 It may be argued with some force that when the Scott Act 
 was adopted by some counties and not by others the moral 
 perceptions of the people in the counties that did adopt it 
 would be disturbed by the vicinage of a different code. But 
 even if the Prohibitionist code were imposed on a whole 
 nation the difficulty, if diminished, would not be removed. 
 To make an Eleventh Commandment you must obtain the 
 concurrence of the civilised world, intercourse and communi- 
 cation between all the parts of which are now too active for a 
 sectional morality. Put all Canada under Prohibition, and 
 every Canadian who visits a foreign country will be apt to 
 come back a heretic, and to propagate his heresy on his return. 
 Literature, moreover, from Homer to Dickens is full of the 
 other view. 
 
 The results of coercive legislation in the United States, 
 wherever the experiment has been tried, seem to tally with 
 those of coercive legislation in Canada. Maine is the "banner-
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 343 
 
 State " of Prohibition. It has been trying the system for over 
 forty years, more than time enough to kill the liquor-traffic, 
 if the liquor-traffic was to be killed. Yet of Maine, "Gail 
 Hamilton," who must know it well, said in the North Ameri- 
 can Review : " The actual result is that liquor is sold to all 
 who wish to obtain it in nearly every town in the State. En- 
 forcement of the law seems to have little effect. For the past 
 six years the city of Bangor has practically enjoyed free rum. 
 In more than one hundred places liquor is sold and no attempt 
 has been made to enforce the law. In Bath, Lewiston, 
 Augusta, and other cities no real difficulty is experienced in 
 procuring liquor. In Portland, enforcement of the law has 
 been faithfully attempted, yet the liquor-traffic flourishes for 
 all classes from the highest to the lowest. ... In a journey 
 last summer for hundreds of miles through the cities and 
 through the scattered villages and hamlets of Maine, the 
 almost universal testimony was 'you get liquor enough for 
 bad purposes in bad places, but you cannot get it for good 
 purposes in good places.'" "What works against Prohibi- 
 tion," the writer adds, "is that in the opinion of many of 
 the most earnest total-abstinence men, the original Maine-Law 
 State after thirty years of Prohibition is no more a Temper- 
 ance State than it was before Prohibition was introduced." 
 It appears that upwards of 1000 people in the State paid 
 United States retail liquor-tax, though Archdeacon Farrar 
 was informed that the trade had been completely driven out 
 of sight. The Maine Prison Report for 1884 said : " Intoxica- 
 tion is on the increase ; some new legislation must be made 
 if it is to be lessened. In many of our counties Prohibition 
 does not seem to affect or prevent it." In the city of Portland 
 (population 34,000) in 1874 the arrests for drunkenness were 
 2318. But drunkenness was not confined to the cities. Every 
 one of the sixteen counties furnished its quota. The number of 
 committals for drunkenness for one year was 1316 for a popu- 
 lation of 048,000, while in Canada, an area at that time not 
 under the Scott Act, with a population of GG1,000, and a town 
 population as large as that in Maine, showed only 593 com-
 
 344 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 mittals, less than half the number of those in the model State 
 of Prohibition. General ISTeal Dow himself, upbraiding his 
 former party for its slackness in the cause, complained of the 
 number of low drinking-places infesting the cities of Maine. 
 The New York Sun after investigation carried on through 
 its correspondent, said : " The actual state of affairs in Maine 
 is perfectly well understood by every Maine man with eyes 
 in his head, and by every observant visitor to Maine. In 
 no part of the world is the spectacle of drunken men reel- 
 ing along the streets more common than in the cities and 
 larger towns of Maine. Nowhere in the world is the aver- 
 age quality of the liquor sold so bad, and consequently so 
 dangerous to the health of the consumer and the peace of the 
 public. The facilities for obtaining liquor vary in different 
 parts of the State, from the cities where fancy-drinks are 
 openly compounded and sold over rosewood bars, to the places 
 where it is dispensed by the swig from flat bottles carried 
 around in the breeches pockets of perambulating dealers. 
 But liquor, good or bad, can be bought anywhere." Perjury, 
 the Sun correspondent also stated, as usual, was rife. The 
 most recent evidence is to the same effect. In the cities of 
 Maine, though the law has been forty-six times amended to 
 sharpen its teeth, liquor, generally of a bad kind, is freely 
 though clandestinely sold. "Pocket peddling" is rife and 
 presses the temptation on the young. The cit}'' of Bangor has 
 openly taken itself out of the law, and established a liquor 
 system of its own. In Portland the city government sells 
 liquor nominally for medicine, but really also as a beverage, 
 and the agency is a scene of falsehood, jobbery, and corruption. 
 The corruption of city officers is an almost inevitable and a 
 serious consequence of the system. Some of those who have 
 administered the law in Maine are among the strongest advo- 
 cates of repeal and of a return to the license system. They 
 tried to give effect to the law. They fine, they imprison, they 
 perhaps ruin one set of liquor dealers, and the only result is 
 that a worse set succeeds. 
 
 Nor has Maine fulfilled the golden promises held out by
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 345 
 
 Prohibition of immunity from crime and enhanced prosperity. 
 Though the population of the State has been stationary, the 
 statistics of crime have increased. In 1873 the number of com- 
 mittals to gaol was 1548 ; in 1884 it was 3672. The pauper rate 
 of the cities was large compared with that in other States. More 
 recent statistics seem not much to alter the case. All statistics 
 of this kind may require qualification on account of changes in 
 population or trade. But Prohibition at all events cannot be 
 said to have put an end to crime or pauperism in Maine. If 
 that State has advanced socially, or morally, or economically, 
 it has not advanced farther than other States similar to it in 
 general respects but without a prohibitive law. Prohibition has 
 been the platform of one of the political parties ; otherwise it 
 seems not unlikely that there might have been a repeal of the 
 law and a return to the license system. Entanglement of a 
 social and moral question with the tactics and hypocrisy of 
 a political party is an evil attendant of Prohibition. The 
 integrity even of churches is in some peril. "The Methodists," 
 said General Neal Dow, " are a very great body of religionists 
 in this country, and always at their conventions they form very 
 grand resolutions against the liquor traffic. There is hardly 
 any language in the English tongue that they do not use against 
 the liquor traffic. Nice men they are and educated men too, 
 but after that they go directly round and vote for rum. The 
 Presbyterians all do the same thing, and the Congregationalists 
 will do the same. When I have occasion to speak to them I 
 say, ' I would rather you would resolve against temperance and 
 pray against temperance, and then vote against rum, rather 
 than you would pray and resolve against intemperance and 
 then go and vote for rum.' " 
 
 Vermont has also been trying Prohibition for more than forty 
 years. Here the city popiilation is comparatively small, so 
 that the system has the fairest chance ; while the legislature, 
 under the pressure of the " Temperance vote," has piled one 
 repressive enactment upon another, heaped up penalties, and 
 at last given the police power to enter any house without 
 a warrant. The result after thirty years was reported by Mr.
 
 346 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 Edward Johnson in the Pojmlar Science Montlily for May, 
 1884. He states that "for all practical purposes the law is 
 an absolute dead letter." There were at the time of his 
 writing in the State 446 places where liquor was sold, and 
 though the population was well-nigh stationary there was a 
 marked increase in their number. " A large proportion of the 
 dram-shops are on the principal streets, and there is no con- 
 cealment of the illegal traffic. Spasmodic attempts to enforce 
 the law are made in the larger places, but are utterly futile. 
 Of enforcing the law, as the laws against burglary and larceny 
 are enforced, nobody dreams for a moment." "Such," says 
 Mr. Johnson, " is the unsatisfactory result of Vermont's thirty 
 years' experience of the Prohibitory liquor-laws." "One 
 might," he adds, "go still further and speak of the perjury 
 and subornation of perjury for which the law is in a sense 
 responsible, of the disregard and contempt of all law which 
 the operation of this law tends to foster and encourage, and 
 of cognate matters which will occur to the reflective reader; 
 but perhaps enough has been said in showing the failure of the 
 law to accomplish the object for which it was enacted." No 
 attempt, so far as we know, has been made to controvert Mr. 
 Johnson's statements, or to refute the conclusion which he 
 draws from them, and which is that men cannot be dragooned 
 into virtue ; that is, not by State interference with practices 
 not in themselves criminal, but only by State interference 
 with positive crime. 
 
 Massachusetts also for a series of years tried Prohibition. 
 The result is embodied in the Report of a joint committee of 
 both Houses of the Legislature (1867), which ought to be in 
 the hands of all those who wish to be guided by experience 
 in this matter. That Report, founded on the best evidence, 
 states that the law, if by its operation it diminishes the num- 
 ber of open places of drinking, does so only to multiply the 
 secret places, that more liquor and worse liquor was drunk, 
 that drunkenness had increased almost in direct ratio to the 
 closing of public places of sale, and that there was more of it 
 in Boston than there had been at any previous time in the
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 347 
 
 history of the city. " The mere fact," says the Report — in 
 words to which we woukl call special attention — "the mere 
 fact that the law seeks to prevent them from drinking rouses 
 the determination to drink in many. The fact that the place 
 is secret takes away the restraint Avhich, in more public and 
 respectable places, would keep them within temperate bounds. 
 The fact that the business is contraband and liable to inter- 
 ruption, and that its gains are hazardous, tends to drive honest 
 men from it and to leave it under the control of dishonest 
 men, who will not scruple to poison the community with vile 
 adulteration." In conclusion, the Report submits that so long 
 as there is a demand for liquor there will be a supply, licensed 
 or illicit, and recommends regulated freedom as the best 
 policy. 
 
 In Iowa again Prohibition has been on its trial. A corre- 
 spondent of Harper's Weekly, recommended as thoroughly 
 trustworthy by a journal itself very careful of its statements, 
 reported that Prohibition in the cities of Iowa meant free 
 liquor. A correspondent of the New York Nation testi- 
 fied to much the same effect, adding that the local organ of 
 Prohibition itself admitted the failure. Dr. Dio Lewis, the 
 Cato of dietists, said that he had touched at several of the 
 large cities on a tour to the Rocky Mountains, and among 
 other things had inquired into the practical benefits reaped 
 from Prohibition. In places where he had been assured that 
 drink could not be had for love or money he had seen drunk- 
 ards reeling in the streets. In Iowa City, where Prohibition 
 was supposed to be enforced, he saw from seventy-five to a 
 hundred kegs of beer delivered on trucks from a brewery. 
 His practical conclusion was that Prohibition was a wild 
 theory ; " that as a preventative it had not met the claims of 
 its supporters, and as an aid to the cause of Temperance was a 
 failure." Dubuque is a city of about 35,000 inhabitants. Its 
 business Directory comprises two breweries, six bottlers, 
 thirty-five hotels, ten wholesale liquor places, and a hundred 
 and eighty-one saloons. The annual expense to the liquor- 
 seller in the way of " license " is small : he pays the United
 
 348 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 States Government tax of f 25, and twice a year is formally 
 prosecuted and fined $50 by the municipality. Druggist 
 shops are turned into liquor shops with a few drugs in the 
 window. 
 
 In Kansas, the State of Governor St. John, the chosen chief 
 of Prohibitionism, where the most stringent Prohibition had 
 been enacted, the result, according to Dr. Gardner, was that 
 the drug-stores were little more than rum-shops, and that their 
 number was astonishing. In one town of four thousand 
 people, fifteen of them were counted on the main street. 
 Leavenwortli, with a population of 23,000, has a hundred and 
 seventy-five places Avhere liquor is sold. In Kansas City the 
 police collected in 1882 $45,000 in fines for illegal sale of 
 liquor. There is a general tendency to convert Prohibition, 
 where it prevails, practically into license by taking the fees 
 under the guise of fines. In Tongawoxie, a small town in 
 Kansas where there was no saloon before Prohibition, there 
 are three or four now. This is against the theory that Prohibi- 
 tion works Avell in small places though in large cities it works 
 ill. At Topeka in Kansas there are no saloons. But there 
 were none when Prohibition was introduced, popular feeling 
 being against them. A proof that it is popular feeling that is 
 strong, not prohibitive law. The Canadian Commission, how- 
 ever, has been making careful inquiry in Kansas and the 
 results of its investigations will soon appear. 
 
 It seems that experience has always pointed the same way. 
 Under James I. and Charles I. a series of Acts was passed to 
 suppress tippling, the effect of which evidently was only to 
 suppress the respectability of the tavern-keepers, who at last 
 were found to be unable to pay fines, so that Parliament had 
 to resort to flogging as a penalty. The failure is the more 
 significant because the Executive was so strong, and was sure 
 to be backed in this case by the Puritan Parliament. The 
 Gin Act of George II. was found to have made bad worse, and 
 had to be repealed. Even in Puritan Connecticut, where the 
 pressure of ecclesiastical authority was tremendous, the his- 
 torian tells us that " rules against excess in drinking and in
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 349 
 
 apparel were attempted, with the usual want of success." 
 Heaven appears in no place or time to have prospered what 
 we are told is its own cause. 
 
 The difficulty of even enforcing vaccination in places where it 
 is widely resisted, shows how arduous a task is coercive legisla- 
 tion when it is not backed by popular conviction, which, if it 
 is in favour of the principle, will produce the effect without 
 coercive law. 
 
 About ten years ago, a mass meeting of the friends of 
 Temperance, connected with the Church Temperance Society, 
 was held at Chickering Hall, at New York. The hall was 
 full to overflowing ; speeches were made by Mr. Warner Miller, 
 Rev. Dr. Greer, the Bishop of Delaware, Mr. Seth Low, and 
 Father Osborne. The sense of the meeting was evidently 
 in favour of high license, as practically the best safeguard 
 against intemperance. Dr. Greer dwelt on the failure of 
 Prohibition in Rhode Island, declaring that "the State was 
 not less wicked as a Prohibition State than as a low-license 
 State ; that the tactics to which reputable citizens resorted to 
 evade the law created a spirit of lawlessness ; and that, with 
 regard to the city of Providence, numerous clubs had sprung 
 up there, where the citizens could drink their fill and be shel- 
 tered from publicity or arrest." 
 
 By voluntary associations, such as Teetotal societies and the 
 Bands of Hope, and still more by the general advance of 
 morality, of intelligence, and above all of medical science, 
 great improvement has been made in Canada as it has else- 
 where. Old inhabitants tell you that forty or fifty years ago 
 drunkenness was very common among our farmers, and that 
 many of them regularly went home from market the worse 
 for liquor. Now the Canadian farmers are a very sober race. 
 There is a certain amount of drunkenness, as well as of other 
 vices, in our cities, but a large proportion of the cases are 
 those of recent immigrants. The writer would be inclined to 
 say, judging from outward appearances, that Toronto, com- 
 pared with other cities in which he has lived, is sober as well 
 as orderly. It has indeed been proclaimed from the Prohibi-
 
 350 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 tion platform that there are seven, or even ten, thousand 
 deaths from drinking in the Dominion every year. This would 
 be from a third to one-half of the total number of male adult 
 deaths. About the time when this announcement was made, 
 the Mortuary Statistics gave the total number of deaths from 
 alcoholic causes in eight principal cities and towns in one 
 month as two. In England likewise, the evil habit of drink- 
 ing has been greatly reduced, without any restrictive laws 
 or restraint of any kind, mainly by the increasing influ- 
 ence of medical science, and in connection with the general 
 progress of hygienic reform. It should be observed that 
 voluntary effort will be weakened by coercive legislation. 
 Prohibition, if universally enforced, would break up Teetotal 
 fraternities and Bands of Hope ; and unless it was itself 
 successful in extirpating the desire for drink, that desire 
 might any day break out again on a large scale, and find no 
 organisation on foot to resist its sway. 
 
 Before the British Parliament consents to extreme legisla- 
 tion, let it at all events appoint a Commission of Inquiry to 
 report to it on the results of prohibitory legislation in Canada 
 and the United States. The Commissioners, will probably 
 find that impartial opinion on the continent pronounces Pro- 
 hibition a failure, and inclines decidedly in favour of the 
 plan of high licenses with stringent regulation. That strin- 
 gent and exceptional legislation is required for the liquor- 
 traffic nobody doubts. Nor do the respectable members of 
 the trade deprecate it; for nothing can be less conducive 
 to their interest than drunkenness and disorder on their 
 premises. It is quite possible that a stricter code may be 
 necessary in England than is necessary in the United States 
 or Canada. There is nothing, thank Heaven, on the American 
 continent like the gin-palaces of London. 
 
 A license fee as high as a thousand dollars (200Z.) has been 
 proposed, and the prospect of revenue is tempting to the 
 municipalities. But if the system is overstrained its effect 
 will practically be the same as Prohibition ; it will call into 
 existence in towns and cities an illicit trade, which of all
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 351 
 
 results is the worst. To diminish the demand for liquors by 
 moral agencies has been shown to be practicable, both in 
 Canada and among the upper classes in England ; to diminish 
 the supply without diminishing the demand seems to be im- 
 practicable, resort to what expedients you will. 
 
 It is as needless to dilate on the evils of intemperance as it 
 is to dilate on the evils of small-pox. The only question is 
 whether prohibitive legislation cures or rather aggravates and 
 propagates the disease. But the advocates of coercion have 
 surely overstated the connection between drinking and crime. 
 From their language it might be supposed that if we could 
 only stamp out drinking, crimes of all kinds would cease, our 
 gaols would stand empty, and we should be at liberty to dis- 
 band the police. If it were so, no measures, provided they 
 were effective, could be too strong. But can we believe that 
 cruelty, lust, covetousness, vindictiveness, malice, and the 
 other evil tendencies of human nature in which crime has its 
 source, are all the offspring of drink, and that with drink they 
 would depart ? Do they not manifest themselves, in germ at 
 least, in children whose lips have never touched the glass ? 
 Among the poorer classes seasons of distress are seasons of 
 crime, though the power of buying liquor is diminished. Is 
 there no crime in Mahomedan countries, which keep the 
 Prophet's law ? Is there none in Spain, the people of which 
 are remarkable for their temperance ? It is natural that the 
 criminal classes should also be given to drink, as they are to 
 gross sensuality of other kinds; but it does not follow that 
 their addiction to drink is the sole, or even the principal, 
 source of their crime. Prisoners, too, are apt to plead drink 
 in extenuation of their offences, especially since they know 
 that philanthropy will hail their plea. A remarkable arti- 
 cle on diet appeared in 1885 from the pen of Sir Henry 
 Thompson, in which he avowed his belief that not only the 
 bodily but the moral evil arising from intemperance in eating 
 was as great as that arising from intemperance in drink. 
 Certainly, we should not look for more malevolence in a 
 drinker of any but the worst whiskey or rum than in one who,
 
 352 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 like too many people in America, over-eats himself daily with 
 fat and ill-boiled pork, or beefsteak cooked in the deadly frying- 
 pan, as well as with half-baked bread and greasy pie, washing 
 down the whole with copious draughts of the most abominable 
 green tea. The Maine Prison Report for 1884 says : " Intem- 
 perance is not a cause of crime ; it is a crime more against 
 society and against the family than against the State." The 
 words are a little ambiguous, but they certainly do not mean 
 that intemperance is the sole source of crime. The warden of 
 the Maine State prison, reviewing the declarations made of 
 each convict between the years 1880 and 1887, found that 
 of 375 convicts 194 declared that they used no liquor, 163 
 that they used some liquor, and 88 that they were intemperate. 
 Whether we or any of us ought entirely to renounce alcohol 
 it is for science to determine. If science pronounces that we 
 ought, there can be little doubt that the growing intelligence 
 of humanity will gradually conform to the decision, as it is 
 already conforming to the decision of science by other changes 
 of habit. But one can hardly help thinking that even with 
 regard to the physical effects of alcohol there has, at all 
 events, been a good deal of exaggeration on the '' Temperance " 
 platform. The sort of spirits to which Prohibition drives 
 people, as we have seen, is poison indeed. But surely it is 
 only in a metaphorical sense that the name can be applied to 
 liquors which a man has drunk through a life of eighty, 
 ninety, even a hundred years. In Manitoba there are two 
 bodies of Mennonites, of Avhich one drinks spirits or fermented 
 liquors, while the other abstains ; and a person who has a 
 great deal to do with the Mennonites, and whose evidence is 
 to be trusted, told the writer that the section which drinks 
 is rather superior in progressive energy to the section of 
 abstainers. No part of our Canadian population is more 
 industrious or Avorthier than the Germans of Waterloo County, 
 Ontario, who, like all G-ermans, drink beer. That alcohol does 
 not nourish, supposing it to be true, is not much to the pur- 
 pose. If alcohol does not nourish, it exhilarates. Tea, which 
 some Prohibitionists drink in floods, and on which they spend
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 353 
 
 as much money as others do in beer, does not nourish, but it 
 soothes. Possibly the exhilaration produced by wine may 
 sometimes have been a necessary antidote to melancholy, which 
 would otherwise prey fatally on the mind. The Psalmist, who 
 praised wine as making glad the heart of man, though he lived 
 before science, may have spoken with the voice of Nature. 
 But let medical science decide ; to her, not to the religious 
 or political platform, the question belongs. 
 
 The Temperance platform has also beyond doubt grossly 
 exaggerated the effect of moderate drinking in tempting on- 
 ward to excess. To maintain that a man who is in the habit 
 of taking daily a glass of wine or beer must inevitably contract 
 a craving which will lead to his becoming a drunkard, is ne- 
 cessary, no doubt, for the justification of those who advocate 
 indiscriminate repression ; but nothing can be more flagrantly 
 at variance with obvious facts. An ordinary English gentle- 
 man takes a glass of wine daily at dinner without feeling any 
 more tempted to swallow the whole contents of the decanter 
 than he is to swallow the whole contents of the mustard-j)ot 
 from which he takes a spoonful with his beef. A man may 
 play a game of cribbage with his wife without becoming a 
 gambler. If Johnson found abstinence easier than temper- 
 ance, it was because he had once been intemperate. He knew 
 that his own case was peculiar. To most men, as they require 
 physical enjoyment of some kind, temperance is easier than 
 abstinence. The Spaniards regularly drink wine, yet Croker, 
 in his " Travels in Spain," says, " The habitual temperance of 
 these people is really astonishing ; I never saw a Spaniard 
 drink a second glass of wine." Another English tourist says, 
 " In all our wanderings through town and country, along the 
 highways and byways of the land from Bayonne to Gibraltar, 
 we never saw more than four men who were the least intoxi- 
 cated." Mr. Bryant, the American author, has confirmed this 
 account. A clerical advocate of our Scott Act once said 
 that he would no more think of putting liquor within reach of 
 the people, than of putting a knife within reach of a baby. 
 Supposing a glass of ale to be a knife, the reverend gentleman's 
 
 2a
 
 354 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 fellow-citizens are not babies. Among the extreme advocates 
 of coercion are, it is believed, men who have themselves been 
 given to drink, and who cannot understand the existence of 
 self-control. 
 
 From communities vexed by arbitrary legislation those who 
 rebel against arbitrary legislation, or do not wish to have their 
 tastes and habits regulated by a tyrannical majority, will 
 depart. It seems that the Germans, excellent settlers, but 
 unwilling to give up their lager beer, have been driven from 
 Maine. Against lager beer as well as cider and other light 
 drinks Prohibition, as has already been said, discriminates ; 
 their bulk in proportion to the alcohol making them unsuitable 
 for contraband sale. 
 
 The taste for fermented liquors, if not congenital, seems to 
 be immemorial and almost universal. Its traces appear in all 
 the mythologies, Hindu, Hellenic, Eoman, and Scandinavian. 
 Probably the use of such liquors is coeval with cookery, which 
 also has been the source of much evil as well as of much 
 pleasure to mankind. It is very likely that a great change in 
 human diet, as well as in human beliefs and institutions, is 
 coming ; but it is not likely that this change will come sud- 
 denly, or that diet, being complex, will undergo a revolution 
 in one of its elements without a corresponding revolution in 
 the rest. Vegetarianism has many advocates, and there are 
 symptoms of gradual progress in that direction since the days 
 in which a Homeric hero devoured a whols joint of meat and 
 the bard sang of the work of the shambles with as much gusto 
 as he sang of the harvest and the vintage. It is certain that 
 most people eat too much meat and are the worse for it, though 
 it has not yet been proposed on that account to shut up the 
 butchers' shops and send the butchers to gaol. Fermented 
 drinks may be discarded and cookery with them; a refined 
 and intellectual world may be content to sustain its grosser 
 part with bread and water from the spring ; and our Christmas 
 cheer may be remembered only as the habit of primeval sav- 
 ages with wonder and disgust. But in questions of diet, as 
 has already been said, it is for medical science, not for the
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 355 
 
 sentiment of the platform or for religious enthusiasm, to 
 decide. 
 
 We have seen how in Vermont, Prohibitionism, exasperated 
 by its inevitable failure, heaped up penal enactments, and 
 at last invaded the most sacred liberties of the citizen and the 
 sanctuary of his home. It is the tendency of all tyranny, 
 whether it be that of a sultan, a crowd, a sect, or a party of 
 zealots, when it finds itself baffled, to pile on fresh severities 
 instead of reconsidering the wisdom of its own policy. Pro- 
 hibitive legislation in Canada has not failed to betray the same 
 arbitrary spirit. There is a clause in the Scott Act (sec. 12) 
 setting aside the common legal safeguards of innocence. It 
 provides "that it shall not be necessary for the informer to 
 depose to the fact of the sale as within his own personal or 
 certain knowledge, but the magistrate, so soon as it appears 
 to him that the circumstances in evidence sufficiently establish 
 the infraction of the law, shall put the defendant on his de- 
 fence, and in default of his rebuttal of such evidence shall 
 convict him accordingly," — convict him, in short, and send 
 him to prison on hearsay, if in the opinion of the magistrate, 
 who may be a strong partisan, he fails to prove his innocence. 
 There is a clause (122) requiring a man Avhen interrogated 
 respecting previous convictions to criminate himself, which 
 seems intended for the very purpose of breeding mendacity. 
 There is a clause (123) compelling husband and wife to give 
 evidence against each other. AVhen the wife has sent the 
 husband to jirison, what will the wedlock of that pair thence- 
 forth be ? Which of the two is the greater sin, to refuse to 
 give evidence under the Scott Act, or to break the marriage 
 vow, which bids husband and wife to cherish and protect each 
 other ? There is no appeal on the merits from the arbitrary 
 decision of the magistrate, and zealots have not been ashamed 
 to demand in the plainest terms the appointment of partisans 
 to the bench. It never occurs to them to consider whether 
 intemperance itself is a worse vice than injustice. 
 
 The treatment of the hotel and tavern keepers has also been 
 utterly iniquitous. These men have been earning their bread
 
 356 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 by a trade whicli, when they entered it, was not only licensed 
 by the State, but deemed by everybody perfectly reputable ; 
 and therefore when their trade is suddenly suppressed they 
 are apparently entitled to the same compensation which any 
 other trade in the same circumstances would receive. But 
 compensation is inconvenient and might fatally weight the 
 measure. It is necessary, therefore, to put the tavern-keeper 
 out of the pale of justice ; and to do this pulpit and platform 
 vie with each other in kindling popular passion against him. 
 He is represented not only as the agent of a traffic to which it 
 is desirable to put an end, but as a criminal and the worst of 
 criminals, as a poisoner and a murderer, "steeped to the elbow 
 in the blood of civilisation." Yet money made by the poison 
 which he sells is accepted even by the most scrupulous of the 
 Churches for its religious objects, while one Church, at least, 
 which has synodically declared for total Prohibition, counts 
 many dealers in liquor among its members. 
 
 We do not want a selfish and isolated liberty. Milton him- 
 self did not want a selfish and isolated liberty ; at least, he 
 deliberately sacrificed his eyesight rather than decline to serve 
 the State. But after all this struggling against the paternal 
 despotism of kings and popes, we do want a reasonable meas- 
 ure of freedom and of self-development. We do want it to be 
 understood, as the general rule, that 
 
 ' ' All restraint, 
 Except what wisdom lays on evil men. 
 Is evil." 
 
 In case of extremity, such as war or plague, we are of 
 course ready for strong measures, provided they are effectual. 
 Not only war or plague, but any peril of such a kind that the 
 State alone can deal with it, warrants the intervention of the 
 State. Nobody would desire to set arbitrary and pedantic 
 bounds to the common action of the community for the preser- 
 vation of the whole. It might be necessary, and therefore 
 lawful, to close the taverns of the nation, were the nation 
 becoming the hopeless slave of drunkenness, as it might be
 
 PROHIBITION IN CANADA AND THE UNITED STATES. 357 
 
 necessary, and therefore lawful, to close the race-courses if 
 the nation were becoming the hopeless slave of turf-gambling. 
 But in an ordinary way we submit that, whether in the hands 
 of kings or majorities, political power is a trust held for 
 definite purposes, which do not include interference with your 
 neighbour's diet, or asiy of his personal habits, any more than 
 they include the limitation of his industry or the confiscation 
 of his property. The Prohibitionist thinks that by doing a 
 little injustice he can do a great deal of good, and so probably 
 have thought all tyrants who were not absolutely insane. 
 
 If fanaticism in pursuit of the one cherished object tramples 
 on justice and natural affection, how can it show any more 
 regard for the claims of political duty ? A citizen is mani- 
 festly bound in the exercise of his suffrage to consider all the 
 qualifications of the candidate and all the interests of the 
 State. But Temperance organisations in Canada have formally 
 resolved to exclude, so far as they can, from all public offices, 
 even from that of a school-trustee, any one who will not 
 pledge himself to the support of their policy. There may be 
 other issues before the country of the most vital importance, 
 but they are all to be sacrificed to the one end of the sect. 
 The man may be qualified in every respect to be a legislator : 
 he may even be a total abstainer ; but if he does not believe in 
 prohibitory legislation, and refuses to submit his conscience to 
 that in which he does not believe, he is to be excluded from 
 public life, and the State is to be deprived of his services. 
 On the other hand, the most transparently dishonest submis- 
 sion is accepted as a title to support. A fierce electoral con- 
 test is going on with forces evenly balanced, and everybody is 
 in doubt about the result. Suddenly it is announced that one 
 of the candidates has consented to take the Prohibition pledge. 
 There is no concealment as to his motive; but he gets the 
 Prohibitionist vote, and by its help ridos in over the head 
 of his more scrupulous rival, while eminent Christians and 
 religious journals applaud a triumph gained over public 
 morality by fraud and lying. It 'is needless to say that 
 Prohibitionism becomes a marketable commodity among poli-
 
 358 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 ticians, and furnishes the ladder by which knavery climbs to 
 the mark of its ambition. It is now, perhaps, after Irish clan- 
 ship, the most noxious of the sectional organisations, the 
 number of which is always on the increase, and which are 
 destroying the character of the citizen, and rendering elective 
 government impossible by treating the State as an oyster 
 to be opened with the knife of their vote for their own par- 
 ticular end. 
 
 Once more then, and with increased emphasis, let us sug- 
 gest that before the British Parliament commits itself to 
 prohibitive legislation it should send a Commission of Inquiry 
 to the United States and Canada, or at least wait for the report 
 of the Canadian Commission which is now investigating the 
 subject, and which embraces in the scope of its inquiry not 
 only Canada but the United States.
 
 APPEJ^DIX : 
 COMMUNISM IN THE UNITED STATES.
 
 THE ONEIDA COMMUNITY AND AMERICAN 
 
 SOCIALISM. 
 
 This paper appeared in the Canadian Monthly of November, 1874. It was sug- 
 gested by a visit of two days paid by the writer to the Oneida Coimuuuity, 
 then under the Presidency of Mr. Noyes. Mr. Noyes has since died, and 
 his death proved irreparable to his Community. 
 
 In "History of American Socialisms," by J. Humphrey 
 Noyes, founder and father of the Oneida Community, we 
 are presented with an instructive enumeration of the various 
 socialistic experiments made in America, chiefly within the 
 last fifty years. ^ This enumeration furnishes the basis for an 
 induction. That religious communities succeed, while the 
 non-religious invariably fail, is the inference drawn by Mr. 
 Noyes, whose own community is religious. "The one fea- 
 ture," he says, "which distinguishes these (the prosperous) 
 communities from the transitory sort, is their religion; which 
 in every case is of the earnest kind, which comes by recognised 
 afflatus, and controls all external arrangements." "It seems 
 then," he adds, "to be a fair induction from the facts before 
 us that earnest religion does in some way modify human 
 depravity, so as to make continuous association possible, and 
 insure to it great material success." 
 
 To the writer the facts suggested a different conclusion; 
 but before embracing it lie wished to see the Oneida Com- 
 munity. The Oneida Community is, at all events, not afraid 
 
 1 Mr. Noyes liad embodied in his work the researches of Macdonald, an 
 ex-socialist, who devoted himself to the preparation of materials for a 
 history of the movement. 
 
 361
 
 362 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 of being seen. The writer was one of some five hundred visi- 
 tors in the month of September alone. Upon applying for 
 the requisite permission he was received with the most courte- 
 ous hospitality, and allowed freely to satisfy his curiosity, so 
 far as the shortness of his visit would permit. He came away 
 confirmed in his previous opinion. 
 
 Communities of steady, sober, and industrious workers, held 
 together by a religious bond, or by the influence of a venerated 
 chief, will make money; if they have no separate families 
 there will be no family interests to draw them apart; if they 
 are childless, or have few children, their money will accumu- 
 late; their wealth will become a new bond, but will at the 
 same time put a stop to proselytism, so that the extension of 
 the community will be limited by the number of its children, 
 and if it has no children, it will become extinct. A practical 
 assurance of this fact, which might have been taken for 
 granted without any experiment, the writer believes to be the 
 net upshot of the eighty experiments which have been made, 
 many of them on a very costly scale. In other words, he 
 believes that the law of success or failure is not a religious 
 law, but an economical law, and one of the most commonplace 
 kind. The utmost that religion or sentiment of any sort has 
 done is to form the original bond of union, and invest the 
 prophet-chief with the necessary power. 
 
 If religion could sustain a communistic association, success 
 would have been assured to Hopedale, founded at Milford, 
 Massachusetts, in 1841, by about thirty persons from different 
 parts of that State, under Eev. Adin Ballou. This Commu- 
 nity was, to use Mr. Noyes's own expression, intensely religious 
 in its ideal. In the words of its founder, it was " a church 
 of Christ, based on a simple declaration of faith in the religion 
 of Jesus Christ, as He taught and exemplified it, according to 
 the Scriptures of the New Testament, and of acknowledged 
 subjection to all the moral obligations of that religion." No 
 person could be a member of it who did not cordially assent to 
 that declaration. It was " to afford a beginning, a specimen 
 and a presage of a new and glorious social Christendom — a
 
 APPENDIX. 36?, 
 
 grand confederation of similar communities — a world ulti- 
 mately regenerated and Edenised. " Nor was a leader wanting, 
 for Mr. Ballou, besides being an ardent enthusiast, was evi- 
 dently in point of ability no ordinary man. He strove hard for 
 success. He set the example of labour by working, and work- 
 ing vigorously, with his own hands. We are told that he would 
 sometimes be found exhausted with labour, asleep on the 
 sunny side of a haycock, and that the only recreation he had 
 was occasionally to go out into the neighbourhood and preach 
 a funeral sermon. The result, however, was a total failure, 
 which Mr. Ballou ascribes to the lack or the decline of reli- 
 gious enthusiasm, but which, at all events, assumed a decidedly 
 economical form. Mr. Ballou was superseded as President by 
 Mr. Draper, who, being a keen business man, and in partner- 
 ship with a brother outside, sacrificed the interests of the 
 Community to those of his firm, got three-fourths of the stock 
 into his own hands, and ultimately compelled Mr. Ballou to 
 wind up. 
 
 It was enough to ruin Hopedale that it accepted, among 
 other Christian principles, that of "connubiality," which must 
 have created separate interests and have prevented the accu- 
 mulation of money, while industry was probably slackened by 
 want of the full stimulus of competition and by reliance on 
 the community. Mr. Draper would not have found it so easy 
 to operate on the stock of the Oneida Community or the 
 Rappites. 
 
 There are two great groups of experiments, all failures, 
 which Mr. Noyes characterises respectively as Owenite and 
 Fourierist, the Owenite utoi)ias being founded on the princi- 
 ple of Communism, the Fourierist on that of Joint-Stock 
 Association, though the two principles are apt to run into each 
 other, and it is difficult to say exactly to which class any par- 
 ticular experiment belongs. The two fits of national enthu- 
 siasm, however, seem clearly marked. The first commenced 
 with the visit of Robert Owen to the United States, in 1824, 
 the second was brought on twenty years later through the 
 dissemination of Fourierism by Brisbane in Horace Greeley's 
 paper, the Neio York Tribune.
 
 364 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 " Robert Owen is a remarkable character. In years nearly 
 seventy-five; in knowledge and experience superabundant; in 
 benevolence of heart transcendental ; in honesty without 
 disguise; in philanthropy unlimited; in religion a sceptic; in 
 theology a Pantheist; in metaphysics a necessarian circum- 
 stantialist; in morals a universal excusionist; in general 
 conduct a philosophic non-resistant; in socialism a Commu- 
 nist; in hope a terrestrial elysianist; in practical business a 
 methodist; in deportment an unequivocal gentleman." Such 
 is the portrait, drawn by the sympathising hand of a fellow 
 visionary, of the great Social Reformer who was to deliver 
 the world from the monstrous trinity of man's oppressors — 
 Private or Individual Property, Irrational Religion, and their 
 concomitant, Marriage. Owen had tried organised philan- 
 thropy in Scotland; but for Communism he sought a more 
 fitting cradle amidst the wild lands and crude ideas of the 
 new world. He was received with enthusiasm; the Hall of 
 the Representatives at Washington was assigned him as a 
 lecture room, and the President, the President elect, all the 
 Judges of the Supreme Court and a number of the Members 
 of Congress were among his hearers, while the large private 
 fortune which, while he included private property in the tri- 
 nity of evil, he had not scrupled to retain, furnished him with 
 the means of trying his experiment on the largest and most 
 costly scale. He purchased a fine property of 30,000 acres at 
 Harmony, in Indiana, just vacated by the Rappites, who left 
 behind them good buildings and well cultivated fields, so that 
 " terrestrial elysianism " here escaped the hardships which 
 have proved fatal at once to utopias founded in the wilder- 
 ness. Some 800 people were drawn together by the prospect 
 of unbounded happiness. In the course of eighteen months 
 New Harmony had seven successive constitutions. About a 
 year after the foundation, " in consequence of a variety of 
 troubles and disagreements, chiefly relating to the disposal of 
 the property, a great meeting of the whole population was 
 held, and it was decided to form four separate societies, each 
 signing its own contract for such part of the property as it
 
 APPENDIX. 365 
 
 shall purchase, and each managing its own affairs; but to 
 trade with each other by paper money." Mr. Owen had not 
 shown sufficient confidence in his own theory to give up his 
 hold either on the land or on the power. We are told that 
 he was now beginning to make sharp bargains with the inde- 
 pendent Communists. " He had lost money, and no doubt he 
 tried to regain some of it, and used such means as he thought 
 would prevent further loss." Yet he chose this time for a 
 solemn re-promulgation of his communistic creed under the 
 title of the Declaration of Mental Independence. 
 
 "Disagreements and jealousies." "Many persons leaving. 
 The Gazette shows how impossible it is for a community of 
 common property to exist, unless the members comprising it 
 have acquired the genuine community character." " Although 
 there was an appearance of increased order and happiness, 
 yet matters were drawing to a close. Owen was selling pro- 
 perty to individuals; the greater part of the town was now 
 resolved into individual lots; a grocery was established 
 opposite the tavern; painted sign-boards began to be stuck 
 up on the buildings, pointing out places of manufacture and 
 trade; a sort of wax-figure and puppet-show was opened at 
 one end of the boarding-house; and everything was getting 
 into the old style." It is useless, as Mr. Noyes says, to follow 
 this wreck further. The destructive forces of roguery and 
 whisky seem to have mingled with the fundamental impracti- 
 cability of the scheme in bringing on the final catastrophe. 
 Owen complained that he got the wrong sort of people, the 
 dishonest, the intemperate, the idle, the apathetic, the selfish, 
 instead of the honest, the temperate, the industrious, the 
 active-minded and the self-sacrificing. But we should say he 
 got the right sort of people for the purpose of a social reformer 
 who undertakes by the application of his regimen to purge 
 human nature of its vices and transform society. The inventor 
 of a patent medicine might as well complain that he got the 
 sick and not the healthy to operate on. One of the quali- 
 fications prescribed by Owen for the members of his Com- 
 munity was a conviction of the fact that the character of man
 
 366 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 is formed for, and not by, himself. The people of New Har- 
 mony showed practically that they were fully possessed of tliis 
 qualification. 
 
 Mr. Owen afterwards became a Spiritualist and a believer 
 in Special Providence. If he had been so before, Mr. ISToyes 
 seems to think, the result of the experiment at New Harmony 
 would have been different. We will touch on this point here- 
 after. Here it is important to notice that, whatever may 
 have been his theory, Owen did not attempt any practical 
 innovation on the subject of marriage; at least he did not 
 attempt to annihilate the separate family or to check the propa- 
 gation of children. 
 
 Another great experiment on Mr. Owen's principles was 
 made at Yellow Springs, in Ohio, the present site of Antioch 
 College, the coeducational university, so that there seems to 
 be something Radical in the soil. This Community consisted 
 of about a hundred families, and included professional men, 
 teachers, merchants, mechanics, farmers, and a few common 
 labourers. " In the first few weeks all entered into the new 
 system with a will. Service was the order of the day. Men 
 who seldom or never before laboured with their hands, 
 devoted themselves to agriculture and the mechanic arts 
 with a zeal which was always commendable, though not 
 always according to knowledge. Ministers of the Gospel 
 guided the plough; called the swine to their corn instead 
 of sinners to repentance; and let patience have her perfect 
 work over an unruly yoke of oxen. Merchants exchanged 
 the yard-stick for the rake or pitchfork. All appeared 
 to labour cheerfully and for the common weal. Among the 
 women there was even more apparent self-sacrifice. Ladies 
 who had seldom seen the inside of their own kitchens went 
 into that of the common eating-house (formerly hotel) and 
 made themselves useful among pots and kettles ; and refined 
 young ladies, who had all their lives been waited upon, took 
 their turn in waiting upon others at the table. And several 
 times a week all parties who chose, mingled in the social 
 dance in the great dining-hall." This continued for three
 
 APPENDIX. 367 
 
 months. Then — "the industrious, the skilful, and the strong 
 saw the products of their labour enjoyed by the ignorant, the 
 unskilled, and the improvident; and self-love rose against 
 benevolence. A band of musicians insisted that their brassy 
 harmony was as necessary to the common happiness as bread 
 and meat; and declined to enter the harvest-field or the work- 
 shop. A lecturer upon natural science insisted upon talking 
 only while others worked. Mechanics, whose day's labour 
 brought two dollars into the common stock, insisted that they 
 should in justice work only half as long as the agriculturist, 
 whose day's work brought but one." It is strange that these 
 words should have been written by one who is himself a 
 Communist. 
 
 With New Harmony and Yellow Springs, went to "that 
 limbo near the moon " the ghosts of a number of other abor- 
 tive attempts of the Owenite epoch. The history of the fail- 
 ure in some cases is traced, and it is clear that the result was 
 due to the irresistible action of the economic laws which the 
 projectors had undertaken to supersede ; in other cases the end 
 is shrouded in pathetic silence, but we may be sure that the 
 course of events was essentially the same. It is sad to think 
 of the waste of earnest, perhaps heroic effort, and of the dis- 
 appointment of generous hopes. Owen had his qualities, but 
 to call him a genius of the first order is preposterous. Genius 
 in art produces high works of imagination; but genius in 
 action does not indulge in impracticable reveries, and cover the 
 world with the wrecks of schemes the failure of which common 
 sense might have foreseen. 
 
 That any one in his senses should have followed Fourier, 
 has always seemed to us one of the most curious facts in the 
 history of opinion. This visionary believed that the grand 
 mistake, and the source of all disorder and misery, was the 
 habit of attempting to restrain our passions, and that by let- 
 ting them all loose, and giving free play to every kind of 
 propensity and idiosyncrasy, we should produce complete equi- 
 librium and perfect harmony in society. His plan of material 
 felicity is hallucination verging upon lunacy. To match this
 
 368 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 he had a philosophy of history than which wilder nonsense 
 never was penned, even on that seductive theme. Never- 
 theless, he possessed some sort of electricity which called 
 into activity the Utopian tendencies of other men. About 
 twenty years after the appearance of Owen, the conditions 
 of soil and atmosphere in the United States being then 
 favourable to fungoid growths, a crop of Fourierist Phalanxes 
 sprung up like mushrooms, and, like mushrooms, died. The 
 economical reasons of their death are such as common sense 
 would at once suggest, and are disclosed with almost ludicrous 
 distinctness. "The transition," says Mr. Noyes, always clear- 
 sighted, except with regard to his own peculiar phase of the 
 illusion, "from the compulsory industry of civilisation to the 
 voluntary, but not yet attractive industry of association, is 
 not favourable to the highest industrial effects. Men who 
 have been accustomed to shirk labour under the feeling that 
 they had poor pay for hard work will not be transformed sud- 
 denly into kings of industry by the atmosphere of a Phalanx. 
 There will be more or less loafing, a good deal of exertion 
 unwisely applied, a certain waste of strength in random and 
 unsystematic efforts, and a want of the business-like precision 
 and force which makes every blow tell, and tell in the right 
 place. Under these circumstances many will grow uneasy, 
 at length become discouraged, and, perhaps, prove false to 
 their early love." Mr. Noyes proceeds to say that these are 
 temporary evils and will pass away. They may be suspended 
 by the strong hand of a chief like Mr. Noyes, but they will 
 pass away only with human nature. 
 
 The passionate expressions of enthusiasm, the confident 
 belief that under Fourier, "the Columbus of social discovery," 
 the caravels of enterprise were again touching the shore of a 
 new world, the first chilling contact with the inexorable real- 
 ity, the struggle, sometimes a gallant one, against overmas- 
 tering fate, the inevitable break-up, the voice of faith trying 
 to rise triumphant over the wreck of hope, are enough to touch 
 any heart less stern than that of an economical Rhadamanthus. 
 But comedy is mingled with the tragedy. A scene at the
 
 APPENDIX. 369 
 
 opening of the Clermont Phalanx reminds us of one in "Martin 
 Chuzzlewit. " " There were about one hundred and thirty of us. 
 The weather was beautiful, but cold, and the scenery on the 
 river was splendid in its spring dress. The various parties 
 brought their provisions with them, and toward noon the whole 
 of it was collected and spread upon the table by the waiters, 
 for all to have an equal chance. But alas for equality! On 
 the meal being ready, a rush was made into the cabin, and in 
 a few minutes all the seats were filled. In a feAV minutes 
 more the provisions had all disappeared, and many persons 
 who were not in the first rush had to go hungry. I lost my 
 dinner that day, but improved the opportunity to observe 
 and criticise the ferocity of the Pourierist appetite." At 
 Prairie Home there was an Englishman named John Wood 
 who was imperfectly Fourierised. John, having blacked his 
 boots, put away the brushes and blacking. " Out came a 
 Dutchman and looked out for the same utensils. Not seeing 
 them, he asked the Englishman for the 'prushes.' So Jolm 
 brings them out and hands them to him, whereupon the Dutch- 
 man marches to the front of the porch, and in wrathful style, 
 with the brushes uplifted in his hand, he addresses the assem- 
 bled crowd: 'He-ar! lookee he-ar! Do you call dis commu- 
 nity? Is dis common property? See he-ar! I ask him for 
 de prushes to placken mine poots, and he give me de prushes 
 and not give me de placking ! ' " Occasionally we catch a 
 glimpse of the form of a speculating Yankee floating like a 
 shark among the flat fisli, with no visionary intentions. The 
 members of the communities generally appear to have been 
 honest and loyal to the common cause, but at the end of the 
 Sodus Bay experiment we are told that " each individual helped 
 himself to tlie movable property, and some decamped in the 
 night, leaving the remains of the Phalanx to be disposed of 
 in any way Avhich the last men might choose." 
 
 Fourierism finally staked its existence on the success of 
 the North American Phalanx, which was planted not in the 
 wilderness but near New York City. This Community, con- 
 sisting of only a hundred members of both sexes, starting 
 2b
 
 370 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 with a capital of $28,000, and supported by the dead-lift 
 efforts of the leaders of the school, dragged on its existence 
 for twelve years. But the inevitable did not fail to arrive. 
 "Most of them," says an observer, "are decent sort of people, 
 have few bad qualities and not many good ones, but they are 
 evidently not working for an idea. They make no effort to 
 extend their principles, and do not build, as a general thing, 
 unless a person wanting to join builds for himself. Under 
 such circumstances the progress of the movement must neces- 
 sarily be slow, if ever it progress at all. Latterly the num- 
 ber of members and probationers has decreased. They find it 
 necessary to employ hired labourers to develop the resources 
 of the land." The powers of talking, directing others, and 
 grumbling, were found to be possessed in a high degree by 
 those who had little power of work. At meals the best of the 
 food was taken by those who had stayed at home, while " the 
 swinked hedger," coming late from the field and then having 
 to wash, got the worst. Eighteen hundred was Fourier's pet 
 number of members for a Phalanx. The people were asked 
 what would have happened if the North American Phalanx 
 had consisted of that number : they answered that it would have 
 broken up in two years. 
 
 Brook Parm stands by itself, and Hawthorne's "Blithedale 
 Romance " has made it sufficiently familiar to the general 
 reader. It would be an injustice to call it "a pic-nic," or to 
 say that "half the members worked while the other half 
 sketched them from the windows." It was a little Boston 
 Utopia, in which a number of men, afterwards notable in the 
 intellectual world, sowed their philosophic wild oats, and 
 gratified the literary man's fancy for manual labour, sharpen- 
 ing their wits no doubt at the same time by intercovirse with 
 each other. If they seriously believed that men trained to 
 work with the brain could, with advantage to themselves or 
 to society, take to working with their hands, they were the 
 victims of a strange illusion. The effective combination of 
 manual with mental labour, as a system, is impracticable. 
 Both draw on the same fund of nervous energy, which, when 
 drained by one sort of labour, is unable to supply the other.
 
 APPENDIX. 371 
 
 Mr. Noyes is of opinion that among the causes of failure in 
 all these eases, was the universal propensity to invest in land 
 and engage in the business of farming. Factories, he thinks, 
 are more suitable for communistic experiments. But surely, 
 if the afflatus is the decisive thing, the investment ought not 
 to be of so much consequence. 
 
 With the principles of common property or associated 
 labour, there mingled in these Utopias all the other chimeras 
 and fanaticisms of the day : — Individual Sovereignty — 
 Labour Exchange — Paper Currency — Transcendentalism — 
 Swedenborgianism — Vegetarianism — Blumerism — Woman's 
 Rights — Anti-domestic-servantism — Spiritualism. Every- 
 thing impracticable, in short, came to find a place for putting 
 itself in practice outside the conditions of existence. Mr. 
 Noyes traces the connection of Socialism with religious revi- 
 vals, and shows that people who were preparing their Ascension 
 robes were the unconscious harbingers of the Fourierist move- 
 ment. The Skeneateles Community had, as one of the articles 
 of its programme, " a disbelief in the rightful existence of all 
 governments built upon physical force," and proclaimed "that 
 they were organised bands of banditti, whose authority was 
 to be disregarded " ; that it would not vote under such govern- 
 ments, or petition to them, but " demanded that they should 
 disband"; that it would do no military duty, pay no taxes, 
 sit on no juries, give no testimony in "courts of so-called 
 justice " ; that " it would never appeal to the law for a redress 
 of grievances, but use all peaceful and moral means to secure 
 their complete destruction." The relation between the sexes 
 was of course one of the fields for innovation. Robert Dale 
 Owen carried not only the law separating the property of 
 married women from that of their husbands, but the divorce 
 law of Indiana. As a general rule, the mother of all these 
 "notions" was New England, who will have to take care that 
 she does not become as great a source of mischief to this 
 continent as South Carolina, though in a different way. 
 
 The failures we have seen. Now what were the successes, 
 and what was the reason of their success. Was it afflatus,
 
 372 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 or sometliing more commonplace? The list drawn up by Mr. 
 Noyes in 1870 is as follows : 
 
 BeizeVs Community. — Has lasted one hundred and fifty-six 
 years 5 was at one time very rich; has money at interest yet; 
 some of its grand old buildings are still standing. 
 
 The Shaker Community. — Has lasted ninety-five years. 
 Consists of eighteen large societies, many of them very 
 wealthy. 
 
 The Zoar Community. — Fifty -three years old and wealthy. 
 
 The Snoivberger Community. — Forty -nine years old and 
 "well off." 
 
 The Ehenezer Community. — Twenty-three years old, and 
 said to be the largest and richest Community in the United 
 States. 
 
 The Jansoyi Community. — Twenty -three years old and 
 wealthy. 
 
 The Oneida Community, which is also a commercial success, 
 we omit for the present, undertaking hereafter to show that its 
 case is covered by our induction. 
 
 All the communities envimerated are religious. But they 
 are not the only religious communities. Hopedale, as we 
 have said, was religious in the highest degree, and its re- 
 ligion was a better one than that of these ignorant and 
 fanatical little sects. Even the spirit-rapping communities 
 might claim to be placed on a level, in the spiritual scale, 
 with the saltatory religion of Shakers. But Hopedale, as 
 we have seen, was strongly Conservative with regard to 
 marriage. That which is at once common to all the suc- 
 cessful communities, and peculiar to them, is the rejection of 
 marriage, whereby in the first place they are exempted from 
 the disuniting influence of tlie separate family; and in the 
 second place, they are enabled to accumulate wealth in a way 
 which would be impossible if they had children to maintain. 
 
 The members of Beizel's Community are strict celibates; 
 so are the Shakers ; so are the Rappites ; so are the Snowber- 
 gers. The Ebenezers permit marriage "when their guiding 
 spirit consents to it " ; but the parties have to undergo some
 
 appended:. 373 
 
 public mortification; and the Community at its foundation, 
 to meet the difficulties of the struggle, resolved that for a 
 given number of years there should be no increase of their 
 population by births, which resolution was carried into effect. 
 Among the Zoarites, marriage is now permitted. But we 
 are told that at their first organisation it was strictly forbid- 
 den, not from religious scruple, but as an indispensable mat- 
 ter of economy; that for years no child was seen within their 
 village; and that, though the regulation has been removed, 
 the settlement retains much of its old character in this re- 
 spect. The Jansonists, though they do not forbid marriage, 
 hold that a " life of celibacy is more adapted to develop the 
 life of the inner man." In fact these associations are not 
 so much communistic as monastic, and belong to a class of 
 phenomena already familiar enough to economical history. 
 
 The Rappites, a set of enthusiasts who expected the speedy 
 advent of the Millennium, called their first two settlements 
 Harmony. Their third, by a significant change of name, they 
 called Economy. They are not only wealthy, but millionnaires 
 of the first order. We are not surprised to learn that they 
 do not proselytise, though converts enough might undoubtedly 
 be found to a doctrine even more extravagant than ilappism, 
 if it were endowed with twenty millions. The Silver Islet 
 Company would be about as likely to desire proselytes.* 
 Those who have visited the Community report that all its 
 members are advanced in years. The end of Eapp's Millen- 
 nium is in fact a tontine, which will terminate in a Rappite 
 Astor. 
 
 We are far from saying that in these cases the religion had 
 nothing to do with the result. It collected and united a body 
 of enthusiasts, whose very fanaticism, being of the coarsest 
 kind, was a guarantee for their belonging to a class accus- 
 tomed to manual labour and to submission ; it helped to hold 
 them together through the first struggle for subsistence; and, 
 what was perhaps tlie most important point of all, it led them 
 
 1 When this was written the Silver Islet on Lake Superior was yielding 
 immense riches.
 
 374 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 to render implicit obedience to a prophet-chief, who, whether 
 fanatic or impostor, was pretty sure to be an able man. The 
 ascendancy of the prophet-chief is evidently the mainspring 
 of Mormonism, which is also a great material success. But 
 we very mucli doubt whether even the strong hand of Brig- 
 ham Young could hold together for a year a Utah combining 
 the separate family and free propagation of children with 
 community of goods. 
 
 The Oneida Community,^ a visit to which suggested the 
 subject of this paper, was founded in 1847, by the Rev. John 
 Humphrey Noyes, a man whose ability is written on his brow, 
 on the pages of his vigorously-written books, and on the work 
 of his organising hands. He was, by his own confession, a 
 religious enthusiast of the wildest and most erratic kind. 
 Libertinism he has not confessed, though by loose and sensa- 
 tional versions of his words, it has been made to appear that 
 he has done so.^ The form of religious enthusiasm in which 
 he ultimately landed was Perfectionism. The gist of the Per- 
 fectionists' creed, if we rightly comprehend it, is that the 
 second coming of Christ took place in the lifetime of St. John; 
 that the reign of Law in every sense then finally gave place to 
 that of the Spirit ; that now, the believer united with Christ, 
 and "confessing holiness," is above all ordinances, including 
 the ordinance of marriage, and perfectly free from sin. This 
 sounds like Antinomianism, but we are told that it is only 
 "anti-legality." At all events it is not the professed belief of 
 the Perfectionists that one of their number cannot do wrong. 
 There is a series of subordinate articles, some of them highly 
 mystical, while others, introducing Spiritualism, have proba- 
 bly been grafted on the religion since its first promulgation. 
 
 1 Since this was written Mr. Noyes, then at the head of the Community, 
 has died. 
 
 2 An incident, however, which is related by Mr. Noyes himself in the 
 Oneida Circular, and which occurred in 1846, indicates plainly enough 
 that a case of elective affinities was the immediate source of his theory 
 about the relations between the sexes, and of his practical application 
 of that theory in the Oneida Community.
 
 APPENDIX. 375 
 
 The Bible is implicitly received, though with Perfectionist 
 interpretations. Scepticism is denounced. Much is made of 
 special interpositions of Providence, and of Providential 
 ''signals." Form of worship the Perfectionists have none. 
 They only confess Christ before each other, and communicate 
 religious thought in their family gathering. The Sabbath is 
 not distinguished from the week except by cessation from 
 work. This religion is proclaimed to be still the bond of 
 union among the members of the Community. They will tell 
 you that they are held together by Father Noyes' love of 
 Christ, and by their love of Father Noyes. 
 
 The Community at Oneida numbers two hundred. At Wil- 
 low Place, on a detached portion of the same domain, are nine- 
 teen more; and there are forty-five in a branch at Walling- 
 ford, Connecticut. All these are supposed to constitute one 
 family, with the founder as father. The property is held in 
 common; there are no separate interests, incomes, or allow- 
 ances whatever. The several members of the family are pre- 
 sented with such money as they may require from time to 
 time, just as children are furnished with pocket money by their 
 parents, the only restriction being family duty. The other 
 characteristic feature of the system is one which it is difficult 
 to describe in language at once measured and adequately 
 expressive of the feelings of repugnance with which it must 
 be regarded by every one who acknowledges the Christian rule 
 of morals. The marriage tie is totally discarded. The male 
 and female members of the Community pair with each other 
 for a time, and for a time only; not promiscuously, but under 
 the authority of the Community, which appears to be guided 
 in regulating these matters partly by the policy of restraining 
 the increase of its numbers, partly by physical rules connected 
 with what is styled the scientific propagation of children. 
 The initiative is assigned to the woman, wlio makes it known 
 to the authorities when she is willing to become a motlier. 
 She is not permanently wedded to one partner, but may have 
 two or three in succession. So that the "permanence" predi- 
 cated of Oneida unions, in the Circular, must have reference
 
 376 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 not to the individual parties, but to the family aggregate. 
 The parental relation is not ignored, but it is merged in the 
 Community, the children being brought up together as brothers 
 and sisters in common nurseries. There are certain supple- 
 mentary portions of the system which its inventor is in the 
 habit of bringing without reserve before the public, but over 
 which ordinary sentiment enjoins us to draw a veil. 
 
 During the early years of the Community few children were 
 born to it, though of late, and apparently in connection with 
 the growth of its wealth, the number of births has been 
 allowed to increase. And thus we have again the two fami- 
 liar and simple conditions of success, exemption from the 
 disuniting influence of the separate family, and the facility 
 for the accumulation of wealth attendant on the absence or 
 paucity of children. Communism, in fine, can be rendered 
 practicable only by a standing defiance of morality and nature. 
 
 In the case of the Oneida Community the measure of com- 
 mercial success has been large. A strong business head has 
 controlled its financial operations as well as its internal 
 economy. The principle that afflatus eschews land and 
 delights in factories has been carried into effect with the 
 most gratifying result. The Community owns a farm of 650 
 acres, highly cultivated, round its mansion; but its chief 
 investments, and the source of its opulence, are three factories, 
 — one of traps, one of silk goods, and one of canned fruit. 
 The trap factory, which seems a singular line of business 
 to be chosen by Perfectionism, is a monument of one of 
 the original members of the Community, who was a trapper 
 and a maker of traps. The canned fruit of Oneida enjoys the 
 highest reputation, and we do not doubt the truth of the 
 assertion that the business might be greatly extended if the 
 Community chose to borrow capital. INIanual labour, though 
 not repudiated by members of the Community, as the writer 
 can testify, is now chiefly performed by hired hands, of whom 
 there are about 150 in the factories, besides some negroes em- 
 ployed in the coarser housework. The members of the Com- 
 munity, as a general rule, are now, like other capitalists, the
 
 APPENDIX. 377 
 
 employers and directors of labour. They are apparently good 
 employers, and, in case of any attempt to disturb them on the 
 ground of their defiance of established morality, they feel 
 secure in the attachment of the people around them, many of 
 whom, we are told, are English immigrants. It is a remark- 
 able proof of the confidence of the Community, both in its 
 own cohesiveness and in its ability to face scrutiny, that it has 
 ventured to send several of its young men to the Scientific 
 Department of Yale College, in order to supply itself with the 
 scientific element requisite for its manufacturing purposes. 
 
 The mansion is a spacious and handsome range of buildings, 
 fitted up simply, but with every comfort. Its public rooms 
 are a double dining-hall, a large parlour, with a stage for the 
 gatherings and amusements of the whole family, and other 
 parlours for the meeting of smaller circles. Round it are 
 well-kept grounds, to which the Community admits neigh- 
 bours and visitors with liberality which must somewhat inter- 
 fere with the purposes of its own enjoyment. With tlie 
 charms of green lawns, shady walks, and gay flower-beds, are 
 combined views of a valley, which, in its rich cultivation and 
 the soft outlines of the hills surrounding it, reminds the 
 traveller of England. There are croquet grounds, which 
 appear to be in constant use. A few miles off, by the side of 
 a lake, the Community has a hunting-box, called Joppa, to 
 which excursions are frequently made. Pleasure evidently 
 has its due place among the objects of existence, and is 
 organised with care and on a liberal scale. Teams in suffi- 
 cient number appeared to be at the service of the brethren. 
 Music is much cultivated, and, by a refinement of humanity, 
 the practising room is a separate building, at some distance 
 from the mansion. In winter, intellectual pursuits and self- 
 culture are the order of the day. The writer was told that 
 an old lady had taken up Greek and acquired the power of 
 reading the New Testament in the original tongue. 
 
 The library is furnished with books of all kinds, and New 
 York papers are on the table. The Comnuinity, however, 
 is politically (piietist, and its members never vote. Politi-
 
 378 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 cal divisions might disturb the family, though the writer was 
 told that the members were all in spirit New Englanders, and 
 would vote with the Republican party. They escaped the 
 military draft through the error of two officials, each of 
 whom supposed the Community to be in the jurisdiction of the 
 other. 
 
 "This reform means trousers," said a female advocate of 
 Woman's Rights the other day in the United States. The 
 ladies of the Oneida Community have adopted the Blumer 
 costume, though in a mitigated form. Mr. Hepworth Dixon 
 has recorded his opinion that this dress is becoming. He 
 could hardly extend his commendation to the practice of cut- 
 ting the hair short in male fashion, which is also universal 
 among the Oneida ladies; at least, if he did, we should be 
 unable to agree with him. 
 
 Cookery is not delegated, to inferior hands, but done by 
 those of the Perfectionists themselves. The fare is simple 
 but most excellent. There appear to be no rigorous ordi- 
 nances aboiit diet. As a matter of habit and taste, meat is 
 sparingly eaten, but vegetarianism is not enjoined. Stimu- 
 lants are banished from the board, but the use of them is not 
 morally proscribed; at least they are offered to a guest. 
 Tobacco is denounced by Father Noyes. One of the brethren 
 was living entirely on brown bread and baked apples, at an 
 expense to the Community, as he reckoned, of twelve cents a 
 day. But this was voluntary, and the motive was dietetic. 
 While there is no appearance of luxury, asceticism is equally 
 unknown. 
 
 Among the members of the Community are persons of 
 various social grades and degrees of education — ex-clergymen 
 and ex-lawyers, as well as mechanics; though there must 
 obviously be a limit intellectually to the class disposed to 
 believe in Perfectionism and Father Noyes. If you ask how 
 order and harmony are preserved in so large and so heteroge- 
 neous a family, the all-sufficing answer is, through the institu- 
 tion of mutual criticism. Every member of the Community, 
 in turn, is compelled thus to submit himself to the organised
 
 APPENDIX. 379 
 
 influence of social opinion, in order that he may be warned of 
 his social faults and constrained to address himself to their 
 cure. The author of "New America" had the good fortune to 
 witness one of these singular operations, which at that time 
 were performed in the great parlour by the Community at 
 large. But the duty has since been delegated to a Committee 
 of Criticism, which summons before it the person to be criti- 
 cised, together with those who are most intimate with him 
 and best qualified to point out his defects. It is asserted that 
 the system perfectly answers its purpose, and that at the same 
 time it has the effect of banishing from the Community irregu- 
 lar backbiting and malevolent love of scandal. It may be 
 doubted, perhaps, whether this or any other gentle instrument 
 of government would work so well if within the velvet glove 
 were not felt the iron hand of Father Noyes, though the 
 members of the Community speak with confidence of the 
 self-sustaining power of the system, and profess to look 
 forward without fear to a demise of the paternal crown. 
 
 To preserve the unity of the family, all the members are 
 assembled for an hour every evening in the great parlour. 
 Matters of interest to the whole Community are then brought 
 forward and discussed, correspondence is read, sympathy is 
 expressed with the sick, professions of religious sentiment are 
 exchanged. To give the assembly a domestic air, three or 
 four tables were disposed over the room with groups of women 
 at work around them. But it would not do. The assembly 
 was not a family circle : it was a meeting, though a meeting 
 of people agreed in conviction, and well acquainted with each 
 other. In the very unanimity of opinion and sentiment there 
 was an undomestic ring. In the same manner the repasts in the 
 common hall lack the character of a family meal. Dinner is 
 a table d'hote, at which those who partake of it do not even sit 
 down together, but separately, each when he pleases, between 
 certain hours, just as they do in a hotel. And this was the 
 general impression made on the writer by what he saw of 
 Oneida. He felt that all the time he was in a great hotel, an 
 hotel where people boarded all the year round, and were on
 
 380 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 friendly terms with each other, but still an hotel and not a 
 home. Mention has been already made of the departure from 
 the original institution of family criticism, and the delegation 
 to a committee of the function, once performed by the Commu- 
 nity at large. This is obviously a symptom of disintegra- 
 tion, while the necessity under which the committee finds 
 itself of summoning special witnesses proves that within the 
 great circle of the Community inner social circles are formed. 
 In fact, without some miraculous enlargement of the range of 
 human affections, it is absurd to talk of forming a family of 
 two hundred people. They may be under the same paternal 
 despotism, but they can be a family in no other sense of the 
 term. To preserve the domestic unity of the three establish- 
 ments, Oneida, Willow Place, and Wallingford, will be still 
 more beyond human power. 
 
 The children, as has been already said, are regarded as 
 children of the Community, and are brought up together on 
 that footing. The mother is allowed to take part in nursing 
 them as much as she pleases, but she is not required to do 
 more. Undeniably they are a fine, healthy-looking, merry 
 set of infants. But we need not jump from this fact to a 
 conclusion in favour of Scientific Propagation, and all its 
 repulsive incidents. The Oneida children are reared under 
 conditions of exceptional advantage, which could not fail to 
 secure health to the offspring of any but positively diseased 
 parents, whose union no coarse intervention of anthropological 
 science is needed to forbid. The nurseries, with everything 
 about them, are beautiful. Large play-rooms are provided 
 for exercise in winter. The nurses are not hirelings, but 
 members of the Community who voluntarily undertake the 
 office. Every precaution is taken against the danger of infec- 
 tion. A simple and wholesome dietary is enforced, and no 
 mother or grandmother is permitted to ruin digestion and 
 temper by administering first a poison from the confectioner's 
 and then another poison from the druggist's. Lessons may 
 perhaps be learned from the nurseries of the Oneida Com- 
 munity, but not the lesson for which the Community cites
 
 APPENDIX. 381 
 
 a long roll of the hierophants of science, that it is good in 
 human unions to disregard, or treat as secondary, the selec- 
 tive instinct of affection, and to breed human beings as we 
 breed horses or swine. 
 
 It is by no means surprising that the Perfectionists should 
 not be anxious to make proselytes to the possession of the 
 Oneida estate, and the three flourishing factories upon it, 
 any more than the Rappites are anxious to make proselytes to 
 their millions. We read in the Circular, under the head of 
 Admissions : 
 
 " These Communities are constantly receiving applications for admission 
 whicli they have to reject. It is difficult to state in any brief way all their 
 reasons for thus limiting their numbers ; but some of them are these : 
 1. The parent Community at Oneida is full. Its buildings are adapted 
 to a certain number, and it wants no more. 2. The Branch-Communi- 
 ties, though they have not attained the normal size, have as many mem- 
 bers as they can well accommodate, and must grow in numbers only as 
 they grow in capital and buildings, o. The kind of men and women who 
 are likely to make the Communities grow, spiritually and financially, are 
 scarce, and have to be sifted out slowly and cautiously. It should be dis- 
 tinctly understood that these Communities are not asylums for pleasure- 
 seekers or persons who merely want a home and a living. They will 
 receive only those who are very much in earnest in religion. They have 
 already done their full share of labor in criticising and working over raw 
 recruits, and intend hereafter to devote themselves to other jobs (a plenty 
 of which they have on hand), receiving pnly such members as seem 
 likely to help and not hinder their work. As candidates for Communism 
 multiply, it is obvious that they cannot all settle at Oneida and Walling- 
 ford. Other Communities must be formed : and the best way for earnest 
 disciples generally is to work and wait, till the Spirit of Pentecost shall 
 come on their neighbors, and give them communities right where they 
 are." 
 
 It appears that from a pretty early period regard was had 
 to "financial" as well as to "spiritual" qualifications; for the 
 amount of property brought in by members of the Community 
 and its branches up to 1857 was, according to the Handbook, 
 $107,000. This, and cheapness of living in common, must of 
 course be taken into account in estimating the commercial 
 success of the Community, and tracing it to its real source.
 
 382 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 That the Oneida Community, or any one of the group to 
 which it belongs, has solved any great problem for humanity, 
 or even tried any experiment of general interest, the writer 
 sees not the slightest ground for believing. Of course noth- 
 ing which involves celibacy can be extended beyond a few 
 circles of fanatics, such as the monks in former days, or the 
 Shakers in ours; and the abolition of the family is, except 
 within the same narrow limit, equally impracticable as well 
 as utterly revolting. In addition to which, such a mode of 
 living as that adopted by the Oneida Community, and essential 
 to the application of their principles, is wholly at variance 
 with the general conditions of industrial life. Close to the 
 mansion of the Community runs a railroad on which they ship 
 their goods, and which is necessary to .their subsistence. 
 Can they imagine it possible to organise the life of the people 
 employed upon that railroad after the model of their own? 
 They send some of their goods across the ocean. Do they 
 think that the sailors who carry these goods can be gathered 
 with their families into a communistic home? 
 
 There is at Brooklin, on the Southern shore of Lake Erie, 
 another community which has attracted notice from number- 
 ing among its members an Englishman of some distinction, 
 Mr. Laurence Oliphant. About this association little is 
 known, ^ even among the people at Oneida, whose curiosity it 
 naturally excites. But It appears to be not a counterpart of 
 Oneida, but a small group of householders living under the 
 presidency of Mr. Harris, the prophet of a religion akin to 
 Swedenborgianism, and entrusting their property to his hands. 
 So long as that property holds out, the Community may of 
 course continue to exist without impugning any of the received 
 laws of political economy, or introducing any new principle 
 into the world. 
 
 It is true that there may be points worthy the attention of 
 the social pathologist in connection with the tendencies which 
 
 1 This, it will be borne in mind, was written in 1874. The mystery of 
 the Lake Erie Community has been since revealed. The revelation con- 
 firms what is said in the text.
 
 APPENDIX. 383 
 
 have called these strange structures into existence, though the 
 subject is too extensive to be discussed at the close of this 
 paper. Among the impelling motives have evidently been the 
 discomfort and the waste attendant on the domestic economy 
 of our separate households, which advancing civilisation will 
 surely teach us in some degree to mitigate. Another motive 
 is the desire of escaping from the gloom and dulness of exces- 
 sive family isolation into more mixed and more cheerful 
 society. The family is the centre of happiness; but at the 
 same time a man and woman can rarely be so gifted as, after 
 the honeymoon, to be absolutely sufificient for each other. 
 The writer of this paper was once the guest of a friend resid- 
 ing in the neighbourhood of London, and in the middle of a 
 district of suburban villas. On his noticing the number of 
 houses bespeaking opulence which was visible on every side, 
 his friend replied, " Yes, and you would suppose there was a 
 great deal of good society here. There is absolutely none. 
 It is impossible to bring these families together for any social 
 purpose whatever. The man goes up to his place of business 
 in London every morning; stays there till he returns home 
 for dinner, then reads the newspaper the rest of the evening. 
 For two months in each summer the family goes to a water- 
 ing-place where it lives in a private lodging by itself. That 
 is the whole existence of these people." A dreary and a trun- 
 cated sort of existence it is. Unfortunately it is not con- 
 fined to the suburbs of London. We need in Canada, as much 
 as anywhere, to learn the art of preserving the happiness 
 of the family by supplementing it with the enjoyments of 
 more general society in a cheap and reasonable way. 
 
 Communism, in a certain sense, was no doubt tlie original 
 condition of mankind; at least tribal not private ownership 
 of, land is the rule of primeval history: and probably this 
 union of interest served an important purpose in the founda- 
 tion of primitive States. A temporary communism has also 
 played a memorable part in the commencement of great reli- 
 gious or social enterprises. The first preachers of Christianity 
 for a time had all things in common, and so had the founders
 
 384 QUESTIONS OF THE DAY. 
 
 of New England. Monachism was also communistic, and 
 partly in virtue of its detachment from the ties and cares of 
 property, it was able to perform a mighty work in the conver- 
 sion of the Barbarians, and the foundation of Christian civi- 
 lisation. Besides these limited instances, extensive though 
 vague manifestations of the communistic sentiment have gen- 
 erally attended the great crises of history, such as the Re- 
 formation, and the English and Erench Revolutions. It is 
 difficult to believe that such yearnings of humanity, though 
 premature and abortive, are without any significance. " Pro- 
 perty has its duties as well as its rights," is a sentiment the 
 distinct expression of which is comparatively of recent date. 
 It may perhaps gain force and ascendancy till, in the course 
 of ages, the right of property is by a spontaneous process 
 virtually merged in social duty. The saying of the Greek 
 dramatist, as to the Omnipotence of time, has acquired new 
 meaning from the late revelations of science and historical 
 philosophy. But the attempts of American Socialists and Com- 
 munists at once to transmute humanity by founding Utopias, 
 have all come to nothing. For the present, the only seat of 
 communism, and the proper sphere of the communistic sen- 
 timent, is the family, if the Woman's Right party will only 
 have the wisdom to let it alone.
 
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