UC-NRLF POVEKTY, MR. PLAIT'S PUBLICATIONS. BUSINESS, Crown 8vo., 208 pp., cloth limp, Is. post free. MONEY, Crown 8vo., 208 pp., cloth limp, Is. post free. MORALITY, Crown 8vo., 208 pp., cloth limp, Is. post free. LIFE, Crown 8vo., 208 pp., cloth limp, Is. post free. ECONOMY, Crown 8vo., 208 pp., cloth limp, Is. post free. PROGRESS, Crown 8vo., 208 pp., cloth limp, Is. post free. POVERTY, Crown 8vo., 208 pp., cloth limp, l s . post foe. PLATT'S ESSAYS, Library Edition. VOL. I. (BUSINESS, MONEY, ECONOMY). Royal 8vo., 528 pp., cloth gilt, 6s. post free, with Photograph and Autobiography of the Author. PLATT'S ESSAYS, Library Edition/ VOL. II. (LIFE, MORALITY, PROGRESS). Eoyal 8vo., 528 pp., cloth gilt, Cs. post free, with Photograph and Autograph of the Author. POVERTY BY JAMES PLATT, F.S.S., AUTHOR OF "BUSINESS," "MONEY," "ECONOMY, "PLATT'S ESSAYS," &c. f &c. ONE SHILLING. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MAKSHALL, AND CO., 4, STATIONERS' HALL COURT. 1884. (All Eights Reserved.) (PL Do what thou canst, and then invoke the Gods. God helps the man who toils to help himself." .. o CONTENTS. PAGE INTRODUCTION ........ 7 POVERTY 19 PROGRESS AND POVERTY .... .45 PROGRESS 69 THE DWELLINGS OF THE Poos ..... 91 THE NATIONALIZATION OF THE LAND . . . .111 SOCIALISM 135 EMIGRATION . 161 CO-OPERATION 179 CONCLUDING REMARKS 197 114:10 INTBODUCTION, *' To mortal man great loads allotted be, But of all packs, no pack like poverty." HEBEICK. POVERTY has been one of the most difficult social problems of all ages. How to lessen it has been the aim of every good man in every country ; how to " extirpate it," how to make men equal, has been the dream of those who will not recognize the inevitable and strive after what is practicable. And the last attempt by Mr. George gives us, as the " sole and sovereign remedy," a scheme of confiscation, the taking by the law of property, which society, opinion, law, is bound to preserve for its own sake a cold-blooded, unscrupulous attempt at wholesale robbery, which all honest men must repudiate in sadness and in shame. It is an insult to English- men to ask them to do an act that would put them on a level with bandits and highway robbers. The solution of this problem must be sought in another direction ; and if I fail to prove this to you, study the works of other writers more com- petent. My opinion is that the only possibility for the diminution of poverty is to start every one in the race resolved to improve his condition, and to make them understand that, to achieve this result, they must be more apt and skilful in their respective avocations than their predecessors or rivals, but, above all, to be actuated by a desire to develop their " better self," the higher part of their nature, so that, as they become wiser and more intellectual, they will also become better men and women, more just and true, more tolerant, more sympathetic, more INTRODUCTION. kindly disposed to feel for those less favourably equipped for the battle of life. The Italians have a proverb, " The better is the enemy of the good." It is our duty, while there is a better capable of attain- ment, not to rest satisfied with the good ; and having attained the better, to press forward towards the best, although it may be for the time unattainable. To lessen poverty, to get rid of much of the misery that exists, men must have a more practical training, be better qualified for earning their daily bread, and must recognize the necessity for a higher intelligence, to get a living in an advanced and complicated social system like our own in 1884. It is of the greatest importance for the national pro- gress, that it be impressed upon each one as a duty to strive after improvement, to have an ideal before us which we strive earnestly to overtake ; and to understand that although we may not overtake it, yet our struggle to overtake it is in itself of inestimable advantage to our intellectual and moral character. Poverty ! Are there causes for poverty ? Yes, to a certain extent, it is the natural result of their condition. They enter upon the struggle of life heavily weighted with all that keeps man to the level of the beast. Born in and accustomed to life in a small room, which serves as the living and sleeping room of the family ; the room foul and dirty, their only recreation idling or playing in the street ; uncleanly, familiar with drink, and its attendants, vice, quarelling and crime, it is surprising that the " outcast poor," the "lowest " class of our people, are not worse than they are. The few among them who work on, hoping to get away from such horrible surroundings, are like a rare plant in a bed of weeds, and support the belief that there exists in all great power of higher development, if you will incite the same to action by giving it a " motive." All theories of social reform are valueless unless their object is. to degrade the man in his own sight, so that, from his own intense feeling of disgust at the wreck he has become, he will willingly grasp the rope held out to save him, and work heart and soul with his only true friend, the man who is trying to ' ' make him save INTRODUCTION. 9 himself." Our Poor Law system is a bad one ; it is destructive of the self-respect of the poor ; it takes away the incentive to thrift; it tells the poor, "Here is a refuge;" when unfit for work, the law compels householders to keep you. It perpetuates the disease of pauperism, whereas every effort should be made to check it. Pauperism is a social disease, and we should try and check it, as we do the small-pox or typhoid fever. We must begin with the young, and so gradually improve the breed ; " pauper children " must make a better start in life ; we must stop by every means in our power the " pauper child" from re- cruiting the vagrant class, by training him to be above its influence. How is it possible to solve so difficult a social problem as "Poverty," unless we get at its cause? How can we get at its cause unless we understand that it has been brought about by disobedience to law ? The first thing is to awake to the con- sciousness that all men live their lives under a reign of laws, and that their health, happiness, freedom from poverty, the well- being of themselves and their offspring, depend on their obedience to these laws laws which at present, unfortunately, are not taught, yet, without a knowledge of which, progress for the mass is impossible. Human laws fail as deterrents. Why ? Because we think they are to be evaded. The natural laws are self-acting ; they inflict their own penalties ; there is no evading them. Take any social outcast, get at the history of his life, or that of his predecessors, you will find that the position is due to infringement of the physical, physiological, or moral laws. These laws follow us, surround us, hedge us in on every side ; escape is impossible. As we sow, we reap. I believe that " every effect has its cause," and that poverty is caused by a debased mental or moral condition of brain, that incapacitates the individual from earning his livelihood when subject to the competition of others with higher mental or moral organization. In reply to those who argue that these social outcasts are so debased that there is no hope, I reply, un- hesitatingly, that even if they were more debased than they are, escape is possible. But obedience to law is the only remedy j 10 INTRODUCTION. and to those who will obey, how merciful is the exercise of God's laws ; their recuperative force being far more rapid than their penal force. There is no hope for the self-indulgent ; men may pity, but should have a contempt for the drunkard. Society should regard sobriety in men as it does chastity in women. We all profess a belief in the wisdom of God ; the philosopher, from a knowledge of His laws ; the religious men of all denominations from a faith in His justice and mercy ; yet we are all of us too apt to think that in life there is a lack of justice ; and we feel pained at what we call the " hard lines " of some, and the inequalities in this world ; or, as some say, its injustice, which we are told, will be remedied hereafter. " There is in human affairs one order which is the best. That order is not always the one which exists, but it is the order which should exist for the greatest good of humanity. God knows it, and wills it ; man's duty it is to discover and establish it " (EMILE DE LAVELEYE). It is my belief that when an evil exists, it is man's duty to investigate, and not rest satisfied until he has got at the cause, and removed it. But mankind is too ready to put aside the " cause and effect theory," and instead, we find, that in all ages, and more especially the last few years, this consciousness of misery in the midst of plenty has induced in many enthusiastic but unbalanced minds the desire to set all things right by a proclaimed equality. In their efforts such men have shown, not the desire to ascertain and obey God's laws, but an ignorance of the Creator's method of govern- ment, and their own poweiiessness (however good their motive), in opposing by their fallacies the ordinances of the Creator. They blame in the most violent manner those men who have been more successful than their fellows ; they would have the non- successful think that " those who have, have taken what they have from those that have not." These theorists will not see what the mind of the thinker is driven to admit, that although there may be an apparent injustice, yet this inequality is the work of God. And INTRODUCTION. 11 if social reformers had the power by law to make men all equal to-day, so far as regards land and property of all and every kind, God has so created them that they would be all un- equal to-morrow. In " inequality" we have evidence of that marvellous forethought and justness which is the characteristic of all the Creator's work. It is so arranged that if " inequality be a divine decree," man may, by taking the proper and legitimate means, first limit, and gradually bring about an " equally divine diminution of this inequality." The distance between man and man is of divine origin, but if proper action be taken, the distance may be gradually lessened I boldly and joyfully proclaim, is being gradually lessened and that we are, by God's law of evolution, slowly but surely approaching that human millennium of which the enthusiast in all ages has dreamt. Our aim in life should be to "have the sweet, and leave the bitter untasted." The preachers have told us, this is im- possible. I doubt if they view life correctly, and advise you to trust for your happiness to your work ; do it thoroughly. Even then, the " sugar plums may come too late." But there is no pleasure equal to being sustained by a sense of duty. Be in earnest ; everything yields to regular, persistent labour. " The force of a waterdrop in time will hollow a stone." A small daily task, if it be really done daily, will beat the labours of a spasmodic Hercules. It is the tortoise which always catches the hare ; the hare has no chance in our days. Success is a difficult task, but we find in life that some do succeed; but it is no easy matter. What is the lesson of successful lives ? That excellence is only attained by toil and culture. Improvement must come from within; a desire to understand the science and arts, left you as a legacy by your ancestors ; a resolve that, so far as lies in your power, the efforts of the present shall leave results to assist the efforts of the future. Let each man do his best ; be true to his highest nature, and the individuality of his own character. ' No one should write like another ; yet each should write like the master. How can that be ? Let each one strive to be master himself." 12 INTRODUCTION. If the working man wants to have more comfort, cleaner, purer, more roomy dwelling-houses, to enjoy life ; he must avoid drink, he will be a better man, more healthy and more thoughtful, more like a man, less like a beast. There can be no thrift by a drunkard ; he is a curse to himself, and must be a burden upon others, and most likely will leave children behind him to follow in his steps. We must somehow make these people see that it is their interest to be sober, by showing them plainly and unmistakably, in language they can comprehend, the retribution that follows upon every excess. The only way to extirpate pauperism, to lessen the ranks of the vagrants and the outcasts, is to instil within them a horror of their degraded condition ; show them the greater advantages of leading a sober, industrious, thrifty, manly life. Difficult as it is to live now, we must not forget that there was a time when starvation was a nearly ever-present foe ; free trade, an open port, has stopped this ; a man has but to earn the money, and he can buy anything he wants. That is the point how to earn more money ; and there is another point involved how to get the most for our money. To get rid of poverty, the workers are told they must be better paid ; but raising wages, means " higher prices." Complaints are made of " high rents." Why are rents so much higher than they were twenty years ago ? Part of the advance is due to the competition for the best places ; the area of London, or any large town, is limited ; choice positions are in demand ; the supply is limited ; prices go up. But the principal reason for the "higher rents" is the "increased cost" of building a house, and keeping the house, when built, in tenantable repair. The system of paying the men the " highest rate of wages per hour," and charging a profit on the amount paid, has led to our obtaining from builders the maximum of charge for the minimum of work ; or, if you contract and it is very unwise to have the most trivial repairs done unless the price to be paid for them is settled beforehand then there are generally some " extras," rarely a settlement without some unpleasantness ; or, if the houses are INTRODUCTION. 13 bnilt upon speculation, they are run up anyhow simply made to mortgage or sell. As regards the dwellings of the poor, there is this difficulty : they want better dwellings, more perfect sanitary conditions, and no more, or less rent to pay. Parliament has given the power to the official bodies in London, Liverpool, Manchester, to destroy every court and crowded alley, and put in their places healthy dwellings. But the improvement cannot be effected without a loss ; the officials may buy up the land, but they cannot sell it at the same price they gave for it to any company or builder, to erect dwellings that would pay for the outlay, at the scale of rent the poor could afford to pay. And you may talk and write as much as you like, but unless you can show that the "building of better dwellings for the poor " will pay, the money will not be forthcoming ; so it has been found that the various Acts since 1851 have been a dead letter, practically useless, except to show the people how absurd it is to trust to Acts of Parliament to do for them what they must do for themselves. To pay for a room 7s. 6d. instead of 5s., the working class must earn more money, and use more wisely what they receive ; or the State must, as it has done with education, build the dwellings, and put the loss upon the rates. The latter, I fear, is what will be done ; but it is a mistaken policy ; it is a mischievous interference ; it is another nail in the coffin that has held in bondage so long our working class. It is degrading them to recipients of State bounty ; it is fastening still tighter the bands of pauperism ; it will crush still lower his already too weak feeling of manly independence. This must never be forgotten : the State cannot give one penny to any one of its subjects except by taking it from another ; hence you see the absurdity of trusting for help to the State. It would be very unjust to put the cost of improving the dwellings of the poor, or keeping their dwellings in better sanitary condition, upon the local rates, or on any one class of the community. The Government, for the sake of all, should so arrange that no house in the kingdom be in such a state as is likely to damage 14 INTRODUCTION. the health of others. This the State can do, and should do ; but to say that only a certain rent be paid, or interfere between the buyer and seller, landlord and tenant, the law of supply and demand, and competition, the law has no right, and any interference must be ultimately more injurious than otherwise. The State can do much to improve the condition of the poor ; can forbid to allow unhealthy dwellings to be built ; can condemn and destroy those in existence ; can open play-grounds for the children, and get the children out of the gutters and dirty alleys and by-streets ; can provide libraries and reading- rooms, open the museums and picture galleries on Sundays, and in this way expand the minds of the people, and elevate them above their at present dirty surroundings and unattractive lives. It is the duty of the State to equitably apportion the taxation necessary to pay for maintaining it. The State has no moral right to take of A or B, to pay a share of the rent, the education, the emigration of C and D. It will do it, because men that clamour for democracy forget that real democracy means the " reign of justice," man freed from the tyranny of his fellow-man. Yet the first so-called act our democrats ask for is " confiscation," or spoliation of some kind. Believe me, that any violation of the moral laws will inevitably bring its punishment. " A man might not live long enough for Nemesis to have time to strike him in return for a violation of the laws of justice, but a nation would." This truism was received with applause when uttered by Professor Stewart, at Birmingham, December 11, 1883; and I sincerely hope the healthy moral instinct of the British people will always oppose attempts to better their condition by fraud and robbery. But the times need that their intelligence be made equal to under- stand the danger of listening to that powerful party in the State, that will not get to the cause of the disease, and take steps to remove it, but are fertile in " expedients," and always ready to sacrifice " principles ; " forgetting that such a policy is only putting off the difficulties of the moment, and settling nothing, but only tending to entangle still more hopelessly the INTRODUCTION. 15 cobweb of intricacies in which such subjects as land, rent, poverty are entangled, and out of which all real reformers will try t to extricate it, by doing what is right, and remedying what is wrong. Land must be regarded as any other form of property, and the owner of it as entitled to extract the most he can for the use of it. " State interference is most objection- able, for it destroys at once the enterprise of the landlord and the self-reliance of the tenant. Moreover, it is, in its very essence, incapable of finality, and nothing can be more unsatis- factory than that the basis of property should be constantly, and in accordance with the popular pressure of the moment, arbitrarily shifted." What time and energy is wasted in obtaining for men the " right to vote " ! Would it not be wiser first to make every effort to rouse into activity the great moral qualities of thrift, self-restraint, energy, and self-dependence, latent, more or less, within every human soul ? Talk less to the people about their " rights," and be more frank with them as to their "duties." You may get cheered by telling a mob that " government by the people, means government for the people/' True, no doubt, to a certain extent ; but is it wise to give the power to people before you have trained them to use it ? Their views as to the " rights of the people" may not be such as will permanently benefit either their class or their country. There are many social problems to be solved ; such as the complete establishment of religious equality ; the complete freedom of education from any sectarian influence ; a more prompt, reliable, and less costly system of justice ; a fair and impartial system of taxation, based upon the income of each. The object of government is, to do its best for every class of the community ; and every member of the community should be ready and willing to do his duty and bear his burthen for the benefit of the commonwealth. Poverty is not a crime ; on the contrary, I agree with "Ouida" that "Poverty has the right to be as proud as it chooses so long as it accepts nothing ; when once it has accepted 16 INTRODUCTION. anything it has become mendicity." The poor have to fear being led away by those misguided enthusiasts who, instead of telling them why they are poor, and how to remove the cause, tell them it is because they have been robbed of their rights. Beware of those agitators who try to allure you to your ruin by the phantom of State Socialism, and think seriously of the advice addressed by M. Edmond Scherer to the French Democrats : " Do not imagine that one class is to be enriched by im- poverishing others ; instead of opposing the formation of private fortunes, strive to increase the number of capitalists and pro- prietors ; in like manner, instead of lowering public functions to bring them within the reach of incapacity, aim at drawing from the bosom of society all its inherent capacities, and at pressing them into the service of the State ; in a word, let your establish- ment of social equality consist, not in forbidding natural supe- riorities to assert themselves, or in forcing them down to the level of the general mediocrity ; but, on the contrary, in favouring the manifestation and development of everything in the masses which is strong enough to rise above this level." To improve the condition of the people is the most praise- worthy object of a man's life. To have done something that will keep alive " hope " amongst the toilers, " to recall the stragglers, refresh the outworn, praise and re-inspire the brave," is a grand ideal, based on the resolve " not without action to die fruitless." Once more, as happens in crises of history, rich and poor have met. " Scientific charity," or the system which aims at creating respectability by methods of relief, has come to the judgment and has been found wanting. Societies which helped the poor by gifts, made paupers ; churches which would have saved them by preaching, made hypocrites ; and the crowning work of scientific charity is the working man too thrifty to pet his children and too respectable to be happy. Those who have worked hardest at planning relief and bringing to a focus the forces of charity, those who have sacrificed themselves to stop the demoralizing out- relief and restore to the people the spirit of self-reliance, will be INTRODUCTION. 17 the first to confess dissatisfaction if they are told that the earthly paradise of the majority of the people must be to belong to a club, to pay for a doctor through a provident dispensary, and to keep themselves unspotted from charity or pauperism. There is not enough in this hope to call out efforts of sacrifice, and a steady look into such an earthly paradise discloses that the life of the thrifty is a sad life, limited both by the pressure of con- tinuous toil and by the fear lest this pressure should cease and starvation ensue. " The poor need more than food ; they need the knowledge, the character, the happiness which is the gift of God to this age. The age has received His best gifts, but their blessings have fallen mostly to the side of the rich. ... It is an age of the higher life. Higher conceptions of virtue, a higher ideal of what is possible for man, is the best gift to our day ; but it is received only by those who have time and power to study. ' They who want the necessaries of life want also virtues and an equal mind,' says the Chinese sage ; and so the poor, being without those things necessary to the growth of mind and feeling, lose also salvation, the possession of a life at one with the Good and the True. . . . No theory of progress, no proof that many individuals among the poor have become rich, will satisfy them ; they simply face the fact that in the richest country of the world the great mass of their countrymen live without the knowledge, the character, and the fulness of life which is the best gift to this age, and that some thousands either beg for their daily bread or live in anxious misery about a wretched existence " (T. A. BARNETT). There will be no difference of opinion as to the desirability of a more industrious, thrifty, happy people ; but how is this to be achieved? By a persistent effort on the part of all to " make the best of this world." Explain to men their constitu- tions and capacity, and what they must do to make the best of it and the world in which they live ; explain to them the causes of poverty, illness, early death, miserable, wretched lives ; show them the cause of, and remedy for, most of the ills that hitherto 18 INTRODUCTION. they have been told flesh is heir to ; explain the reasons of shipwrecks, railway accidents, mine explosions, or any catastrophe of the previous week ; not putting it down to the * ' inscrutable workings of the Almighty," but appealing to the intelligence of their manhood to see the cause " some neglect by man of his duty, or disobedience to the laws of God," bringing its inevitable punishment as a warning that worse may be prevented. Oh ! I do so envy the clergy the splendid field that is open to them to ameliorate the condition of mankind, by teaching men how to remove the misery that surrounds them ; to improve and elevate humanity, not so eager to save a man's soul as to make every man feel he has a soul ; holding before man, if they will, an ideal future, but before it, and above it, stimulating him to a something here better than it is ; not an ideal life such as the poet and artist would dream of, but a life different from what it is, an earnest desire to" lift those who as yet cannot soar very high a little above the misery and seemingly helpless condition of their present daily existence. The lowest poor may not feel their degradation, they were born in it, are used to it ; but there is a large class whose pride is as strong as their hunger, who still cling to some faint shadow of respectability, who strive hard to earn their daily bread honestly, under whatever adverse circumstances may be pressing on them decent people trying hard to keep the wolf that is for ever baying from the door. Watch this class, and you will soon see how valuable is the cheering word, the sympathetic help, to those brave fellow-men of jours who are struggling so hard not to descend to the level of the brute. " Do something for each other, Though small the help may bo ; There's comfort oft in little things, Far more than others see. It takes the sorrow from the eye, It makes the heart less bare, If but a friendly hand comes nigh, When friendly hands are rare. " POVERTY. " They gave ine advice and counsel in store, Praised me and honoured me more and more Said that I only should ' wait awhile,' Offered their patronage, too, with a smile. But, with all their honour and approbation, I should, long ago, have died of starvation, Had there not come an excellent man, Who bravely to help me at once began. Good fellow ! He got me the food I ate, His kindness and care I shall never forget ; I cannot embrace him, though other folks can, For I, myself, am this excellent man." HEINE. POVEETY is not au attractive subject, but it is one of the greatest importance ; but, generally speaking, there is too much sentiment and too little common sense used in the discussion of this subject. It is so easy to put before the public horrible details of " how the poor live," and for those in easy circumstances to express their disgust at such a condition of things, and say, " Something must be done." I shall endeavour to show that ''poverty" is no new thing, nor the result of the " wealth " that we possess ; that, bad as things are, they have been worse ; and that the cure must come from the people themselves, and will come as soon as they really wish it. What is wanted is to rouse within them a higher self-respect to feel that it is in their power to rise above their present position, but that to do that, they must believe in the above quotation of Heine's. They must reform themselves ; they will soon reform their surround- ings. I do not object to poverty because it makes men work ; on the contrary, that is one of the blessings of poverty, because it 20 POVERTY, is by honest and thrifty toil men must live ; and if poverty is a clog, it is also a spur. To the right-minded man it is as a goad that is incessantly piercing him, and thus impelling him onward. The struggle may be hard, it is hard, but is intended to develop within us a steady, dogged persistence. The climbing up a steep hill is not easy, but is possible, and the labour is lightened to those who go through it earnestly, doing their daily work from a sense of duty, and having faith in God, humanity, and themselves. Poverty is not a modern disease the product of civilization, caused by its antithesis, wealth as some writers would have us believe. At a meeting of the Society of Biblical Archeology, April 3rd, 1883, Dr. Louis read a very interesting paper on " The Poor Laws of the Ancient Jews," which he elucidated by means of Bible, Mischna, and Talmud. The term "poor," from a legal point of view, was the state of poverty to which a man must have sunk to be entitled to the provision made for paupers. The Poor Laws, referring to the produce of the land, were based upon Leviticus xix. 9 and 10 ; not a field was to be harvested, nor the fruit of a tree to be gathered, without leaving a portion of it for the poor. The minimum quantity to be so left is fixed in the Mischna at the sixtieth part : and the law applies to all kinds of cereals and of pulse to the produce of the vineyard, the olive plantation, and nearly all other fruit trees. Besides the so-called " corners," the poor were entitled to the gleanings, and to any portion inadvertently left behind in the field. The non-Israelite poor were admitted, equally with the Israelites, to participate in these gifts. This law is laid down by Maimonides (" Gifts for the Poor"). " An important provision, too, was the tithe for the poor, which was levied as a second tithe every third year, or, more accurately, in the third and sixth year in each cycle of seven years. It amounted to about 9 per cent, of the whole produce of the land, and in its distribution some liberty of action was conceded to the proprietor. During the seventh or Sabbatica year, when there was to be no sowing or reaping, the spon- POVERTY. 2J taneous productions of earth and trees were free to every one, rich and poor alike. Another boon conferred upon the poor by the Sabbatical year was the cancelling of debts. According to the Mosaic law, money-lending, as a profitable business, was rendered an impossibility. The law enjoins the lending of money to those who are in need as an act of benevolence, and the Eabbi's declare, ' Greater is he who lends than he who gives alms.' It was, however, found in the course of time that the law of cancelling debts exercised a paralyzing influence on commercial transactions, and a remedy was introduced by Hibel. * From very early times regular organizations for the relief of the poor existed in Jewish communities. They appointed well-known and trusty men who were charged with the collection and distribution of charitable gifts. There was a daily collection of eatables, and there was a weekly collection of money. The contributions were not always voluntary, but in many communities the members were assessed, and the payment of poor-rates was then enforced. The obligation of maintaining the needy extended to the non-Israelite poor ' (Gittin, 61, .) " It was one of the most essential conditions insisted on in alms-giving that it should not be done in public. The leading idea in the Eabbinical injunctions is a tender regard for the feelings of the recipient, as it is considered sinful to put a man to shame in public. The most delicate consideration was exhibited in the case of men who had been in good circumstances, but had become reduced. In the Temple at Jerusalem there was a room set apart, called the ' Chamber of the Silent,' where pious persons deposited money for charitable purposes, and where descendants of good families, who had become reduced in circumstances, secretly obtained relief" (Shekalim, v, 6). Jewish World, April 13, 1883. The last-named practice is one worthy of adoption in our day. We hear much of the misery and privation of the poor, the poorest ; but the greatest sufferers are those who have seen better days, and whose pelf-respect makes them hide 22 POVERTY. their poverty almost as if it were a crime. A " chamber of the silent" for the relief of this class would be a great blessing. There is no doubt as to the poverty and misery that has existed for all time, and exists now in this and every land ; what we have to consider is its cause, and if the same be remediable. One thing is certain, that " prevention is better than cure." The laws of God are fixed and immutable ; misery, illness, death, await the nation or the man who breaks them. " The scourge of God may be Attila or another an epidemic that slays its thousands because a nation has not been cleanly ; the lacerating of a mother's heart when, in her carelessness, she has let her child cut its finger with a knife. The penalty has to be paid, sometimes at the moment, sometimes long after ; for the sins of the father are visited not only on his children, but on his children's children, and so on to the end, Nature claiming her inexorable due. And when I go dow r n to the slums I have been talking to you about ? how dare I say that these wretched people, living in squalor and ignorance and misery, are only paying the penalty for their own mistakes and crimes ? You look at their narrow, retreating, monkey-like foreheads, the heavy and hideous jowl, the thick neck, and the furtive eye ; you think of the foul air they have breathed from their infancy, of the bad water and unwhole- some food they have consumed, of the dense ignorance in which they have been allowed to grow up ; and how can you say that this immoral existence is anything but inevitable ? .... Wrong-doing the breaking of the universal laws of existence, the subversion of those conditions which produce a settled, wholesome, orderly social life is not necessarily personal ; it may be national ; it may have been continued through centuries, until the results have been so stamped into the character of the nation or into the condition of a part of a nation that they almost seem ineradicable " (WILLIAM BLACK). Poverty is caused by impoteiicy and defect, prodigality t debauchery, want of thrift. All nations, at all times, seem to have recognized that the poor ought to be maintained. If the POVERTY. 23 Creator has made some men thriftless, He has made others thrifty and benevolent. In England, up to the time of Henry VIII., as also in all the continental countries, the poor subsisted entirely on private benevolence, one of their chief resources being the monasteries. But the charity exercised by these institutions, however considerable in certain respects, had the radical defect of encouraging, rather than repressing, mendicity ; and when the institutions themselves were swept away by the reforming measures of Henry VIII., thousands of these poor, dependent upon them, were thrown upon the country at large for their subsistence. The poor were divided into two classes the sick and infirm, who were unable to work ; and the idle and sturdy, who did not choose to work. Their numbers increasing in and about the metropolis, Edward VI. founded three royal hospitals Christ's an^J St. Thomas's, for the relief of the impotent; and Bridewell, for the punishment and employment of the vigorous and idle. But these were far from sufficient to meet the requirements of the kingdom at large. Other measures were adopted ; and after a number of fruitless ex- periments, 43 Elizabeth, cap. ii. (1601), provided for the appointment in every parish .of overseers of the poor, whose chief duties were first, to raise competent sums for the necessary relief of the poor impotent, old, blind, and others who were poor and not able to work, and them only ; and, secondly, to provide work for such as were able and could not otherwise find employment. For this purpose, they had power to levy rates upon the inhabitants of the parish. The overseers were appointed three or four for each parish from amongst the householders, by the justices, and they had to act in con- junction with the churchwardens. This Act of Elizabeth, which is the basis of the Poor-law system of England, came into operation very slowly. In 1662, a law was passed modifying the statute of 1601, and from this period till 1834 the ad- ministration of relief was entrusted to the churchwardens and inspectors. In 1782, Parliament passed a law known as Gilbert's Act, authorizing the voluntary union of several adjacent parishes 24 POVERTY. to found and support a poor-house for the reception of those poor who required permanent succour ; and their control was entrusted to guardians appointed for that purpose, as well as for the administration of out-door relief. The working of these laws was attended with numerous abuses. The poor-rate pressed so heavily, and the execution of the laws regarding it had caused so much inconvenience, that in some parishes tillage had to be abandoned, and the neighbouring parishes were, in consequence, charged with the maintenance of the poor of these, in addition to their own. This state of matters threatened an alarming increase of pauperism. From March, 1832, to March, 1833, the tax for the relief of the poor had risen to close upon 7,000,000, for a population of 13,894,574 inhabitants. A Commission was appointed to inquire into these abuses, and the result was the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834, which, along with some more recent statutes, particularly those of 1844 and 1857, form the legislation in actual operation at the present day. The relief afforded to the poor since 1834 is of two kinds in-door and out-door; the former given in the workhouse, and the latter in the pauper's own dwelling. Out- door relief is more especially accorded to children, the aged, and invalids ; but in certain cases it is also accorded to the able-bodied. The poor-rate is levied in advance for a part of the year on a scale adapted to the probable exigencies of the parish ; the Act of Elizabeth directs that it should be raised by "taxation of every inhabitant, parson, vicar, and others ; and of every occupier of land, houses, tithes impropriate, propriations of tithes, coal-mines, or saleable underwoods in the parish." As an occupier, a man is rateable for all land which he occupies in the parish, whether he is resident or not ; but the tenant, and not the landlord, is considered as the occupier within this statute. There are said to be about 1,500,000 paupers in the United Kingdom, some say 2,000,000 to 3,000,000 people, more or less dependent upon " help " in some form a frightful total to think of, no matter whether misfortune or folly has produced POVERTY. 25 so deplorable a result. The bulk of this human deficit of poverty is hereditary ; the greater part will be found to be drunken, profligate, or lazy in their habits ; and it has come down to us from past centuries, and goes on little changed or ameliorated by the growing wealth and progress of the country. This is an important point in this question of Poverty. The public sentiment is appealed to by descriptions of " How the Poor Live," "The Dwellings of the Poor;" &c., but such attempts are misleading, unless the cause of such a deplorable condition be given, and it be explained how the evil is to be removed. Our system of " relief to the poor ' must be altered. Investigate in every parish, and you will find that the greater portion of those that get help have had it for generations ; they regard the "Poor Law" and charitable help of the district as a kind of " entailed inheritance. " When living amongst the poor of Bethnal Green, I knew a lot that lived upon what they got from this or that local charity, the existence of which was only known to the initiated. We have our hereditary paupers as well as our hereditary peers. At Wrexham there is a specimen family, who for three generations have claimed its hospitality. When the ratepayers of St. Martin's-in-the-Fields were asked to contribute to the emigration of the paupers, the principal reason assigned was to get rid of a lot that had been recipients of relief for generations. We sent a lot off, but they came back. At Wrexham, one of the boys was got away, but he returned, and is again the "guest" of the ratepayers. The fare may be meagre, but it is certain, and satisfies that large class who have no confidence in their own capacity for earning a living, no ambition to get on in life, and who like to be relieved of all responsibility beyond a certain prescribed routine. In India there are no poor-houses, no poor rates, and the indigent and helpless are a heavy burden on their kindred, who put Europeans to shame in the care and devotion they show to their poor relations, cheerfully supporting their aged and decrepit connexions to the third and fourth generation, But it 26 POVERTY, is a hard task to keep that famished wolf, want, from the door, although they contrive to do so, and they exist on what would be absolute starvation in Europe. What is wanted is the will, supported by a conviction that there is no outside help, no place of refuge that you must get your own bread, or be helped by your own connexions. We want a conviction in the mind of every living being that there is sufficient food to be had for each, if the responsible persons do their duty, and willingly strive not only to earn, but to save for the morrow that must come to all, when to work is impossible. Copy nature. I have read that, " when the morrow is to be hot, Providence waters all the little herbs with dew ; when 'tis to be wet, the dews are laid by for another day." Believe me, Providence is bountiful, but never wasteful. It is only by wise thrift that we can be in- dependent of others, and able to relieve the necessities of the thoughtless and improvident. The management of the poor is a very difficult question, but must be faced. There is much to be done, much that can be done, in improving our poor laws, and the management of our charitable institutions, so as to help the helpless and the aged, without fostering pauperism in the young and able. We do not want more legislation so much as a more earnest desire, and a better system, for carrying out the laws we have ; but the doing this, needs sympathy, tempered by discretion. The wants of the sick, the disabled, the aged, the helpless, should be relieved without reference to character or antecedents ; but it should be distinctly understood that " no one able to work should be entitled, either legally or morally, to relief from others." There should be no possibility of the old dying miserably in filthy rooms, without fire, or food, or a single word of kindness to ease their sad descent into the grave ; but to do this thoroughly and effectually, it should be understood that the lazy, the drunken, and the vicious must suffer the results of their own misdeeds ; and if helped by society, society must demand in return a reformation of their character. If a man can, and will not work, it may seem cruel, but is real kindness, to say to him, " Neither slialt tliou eat/' POVERTY. 27 Poverty and vice both have their causes, direct and indirect ; those who begin their lives the inheritors of wise, moral, thrifty progenitors have much to be thankful for, and should have more pity for their less favoured brethren. I am afraid that " poverty will never cease in the land," but I do most sincerely believe that we have it in our power to lessen it and reduce it to its minimum. The first thing is to develop in every boy and girl whilst young that technical or artistic skill by which, anywhere and everywhere, they can earn their own living. We want more industrial, technical, domestic, cooking schools, and fewer Board schools. We want schools in every parish that will give scope for the practical exercise of the talents and capacities of our people. Instead of being so anxious for a " higher education," for " cramming " their brains with a lot of use- less luggage, let our efforts be devoted to training the workers of every district in its speciality ; so that, by cultivating and perfecting the different kinds of handicraft, the nation shall excel therein, and thus benefit the nation and secure to the working class the means of earning an honest livelihood. We want an organization in every parish for developing the skill and practical intelligence of the working class, we want facilities in every parish to enable our young people to obtain sound instruction, theoretically and practically, that will make the men good workmen, the women good housewives. We want a greater faith in the belief " that there is always an opening for a good workman." We do not want "poor- houses''^ every parish; we want real "workhouses," where the workmen shall be taught " how to work." Poverty might be kept at a distance if we taught our people how to earn their living, and explained to them that it is not by labour alone, bat by the "thrifty" use of the produce of their labour, that the gaunt spectre " poverty " may be avoided; that, by a wise abstinence, they may not only keep themselves from destitu- tion, but gradually and surely they or theirs may advance upward and become successful and prosperous men. To ensure this, the working class must listen to truth, how- 28 POVERTY. ever unpalatable it may be. They have no greater enemy than men like Mr. George, who tries to persuade them that they are poor because others are rich, and who argues, in his reply to the Duke of Argyll, as if all men were born equal in physical, moral, and mental powers : " If the Duke thinks all classes have gained by the advance in civilization, let him go into the huts of the Highlands. There he may find countrymen of his, men and women, the equals in natural ability and in moral character of any peer or peeress in the land, to whom the advance of our wondrous age has brought no gain These human beings are in natural parts and powers just such human beings as may be met at a royal levee, at a gathering of scientific men, or inventors, or captains of industry. That they so live and do work is not because of their stupidity, but because of their poverty the direct and indisputable result of the denial of their natural rights." (Nineteenth Century, July, 1884). Let us hope they are sensible enough to laugh at such nonsense. I much doubt if they be the "Poor man's friend," who are so fond of exaggerating his importance ; and it seems to me that instead of making out the present as worse than heretofore for the labouring masses, it had been a truer kindness to depict the past as it was, with its stripes and serfdom, hunger, thirst, and cold its manifold miseries, of which we could not form a true, a sufficiently deep conception, because of our want of infor- mation. We are too apt to think of the past as a sort of second Eden, to which we allow our thoughts to wander back with vain regrets and hopeless pinings. But no one who has lived half a century can fail to be aware of the altered condition of things between now and then, politically and socially, if not morally. It may be that in the past there were not the com- plaints heard about the lot of the working man that there is now ; but had he the power to complain fifty years ago that he has now; whilst, further back in the days of " merry England," the condition of the labouring class was most lamentable ground down, oppressed to the earth, or used at home or abroad to expiate, in the blood and slaughter of his fellow- slaves^ POVERTY. 29 the ferocious passions and outrageous tyrannies of his obdurate taskmasters ? Bad as we are now, there was a lower depth in the past of ignorance, and its consequence crime ; and our treatment of the criminal, the state of our gaols, exhibit signs of progress, of more humanity, and less of the animal in human nature. There is much cruel poverty still, but in the past it was attended more frequently by its stern attendant want. In the earlier period of our history, famines were of frequent occurrence. This was attributable to the wretched manner in which the land was cultivated. Thousands perished of actual hunger, and thousands more preserved life by eating the bark of trees, acorns, and pig- nuts. The condition of the labourer was very bad. The laws forbade him to leave the estate on which he was born. The want of knowledge, the absence of machinery, kept all classes poor. There was a burden of labour, but not the skill to direct, or the capital to employ it. Those who refer us to the past forget that the chief distinction between man in a rude, and man in a civilized state of society, is, that the one wastes his force, whether natural or acquired, the other economises that is, saves it. The man in a rude state has very rude instruments he, therefore, wastes his force ; the man in a civilized state has very perfect ones he, therefore, economises it. Yet there is a growing opinion that the artisan is not what he once was, when he had " An independency of look, And heart ; and, plodding in his lonely path, Disdained the parish dole, content, though poor." But against this theory we have the unanswerable facts of sta- tistics to prove pauperism is on the decrease, and that the accumulated earnings and savings of the working class have been steadily increasing. You will have no doubt as to the improved position of the working class if you imagine for a moment that the ingenious machinery employed in the fabrica- tion of our clothing were destroyed. Clothing is indispensable ; so there would be plenty of occupation for the working class ; 30 POVERTY, but the supply would be so small, that the price would be high. All would suffer, rich and poor, but the poor man would suffer to the greatest extent. He would have to work as hard, but he would find his comforts abridged ; in other words, his wages would be diminished. Labour must always be paid enough to exist, but " progress " enables him to live com- paratively in comfort ; it gives him, in exchange for his labours a larger amount of the necessaries and conveniences of life. There is room for improvement; and with a proper object before him in life one that would cause a more earnest, steady, plodding industry, allied to temperate, frugal, thrifty habits, the requirements for articles of comfort, use, and ornament will proportionately increase ; to obtain these, much, very much, remains with the productive classes them- selves. " Conie, bright improvement, on the car of time, And rule the spacious world from clime to clime.; Thy handmaid arts shall every wild explore, Trace every wave, and culture every shore." CAMPBELL. Poverty is a social disease, of which it is our duty to discover the hidden causes, and not the least of which will be found the inaptitude and incapacity of the unemployed to perform satis- factorily the work that is required to be done. Poverty is accepted as inevitable, as the ague used to be. Burke tells us, and it is generally believed, that " the labouring people are only poor because they are numerous. Numbers in their nature imply poverty. In a fair distribution among a vast multitude, none can have much." It is surprising so great a man should overlook the fact that it all depends upon what the multitude are able to produce, and that the quantity to each labourer will depend, not upon the number of the labourers, but upon the total product there is for distribution. In anticipation of Mr. George and his followers, Burke says : " That class of dependent pensioners called the rich is so extremely small that if all their throats were cut and a distribution made of all they rOVERTY, 31 consume in a year, it would not give a bit of bread and cheese for one night's supper to those who labour, and who in reality feed both the pensioners and themselves. But the throats of the rich ought not to be cut, nor their magazines plundered ; because in their persons they are trustees for those who labour, and their hoards are the banking-houses of these latter. Whether they mean it or not, they do in effect execute their trust some with more, some with less fidelity and judgment. But on the whole the duty is performed, and everything returns, deducting some very trifling commission and discount, to the place from whence it arose. When the poor rise to destroy the rich, they act as wisely for their own purposes as when they burn mills and throw corn into the river to make bread cheap." In condemning the rich, it is too often assumed that the man with 5,000 or 10,000 a-year spends the whole amount upon himself, in the same way as a man with 100 or 200. But nature has placed a limit to the personal indulgences of each, and it is impossible for any one of us to consume more than so much. We may spend the 5,000 or 10,000 yearly, but, as Burke argues, the bulk of it must return to whence it came, in the payment of labour, or profit to the distributor. The 5,000 or 10,000 yearly income is beneficial to many, and not solely to its possessor. In thinking of the richer classes we are too apt to look only at the bright side, and to forget that veiy often the wealthy man is more wretched than the man in rags, who has not the wherewith to obtain his next meal. Wealth will not enable us to eat or drink more, and the wealthy man who cannot eat heartily his daily meals, must envy the poor wretch, looking eagerly in a cook shop window, and to whom a few pence will give an enjoyment the rich man rarely feels. The poor in sleep forget their misery, yesterday is forgotten, to-morrow never troubles them. Too often night is a perfect torture to the rich, but sleepless ; and they are to be pitied in comparison with the outcast fast asleep by the road-side, utterly oblivious of all things. " The rich look forward to the year ; the poor think only of the day." 32 POVERTY. If a man be discontented with his lot, he will be miserable, in spite of his wealth. Take 100 rich and 100 poor, I much doubt if the 100 rich will be found the more contented. " It is not only poverty that scares content : I have been where poverty is alas ! where is she not ? and, in our day, those who wed with her regard it as a forced marriage, wholly joyless ; and we cannot persuade them that there may be graciousness where she dwells, if only cleanliness and content will sit down with her " (OUIDA). In considering this question of " Poverty " the comparison is generally drawn between the social condition of St. James's and St. Giles's. We are too apt to forget that " poverty " is nothing, so long as it is not felt. The truth is rudely brought home to us by contrast and comparison. For years I could not afford more than a " shilling's-worth " at the theatre ; but I derived as much enjoyment out of my shilling's-worth at the Lyceum, seeing Charles Mathews and Madame Vestris ; or at the Haymarket, seeing Leigh Murray and Mrs. Stirling ; as the stalls or boxes have given me to see Fechter and Kate Terry, or Irving and Ellen Terry. A day at Epping Forest or Greenwich was something to anticipate with delight for months beforehand, and think of afterwards ; it is a bore now to know "where to go," and a few weeks at Scarborough, Matlock, Ilfracombe, Tenby, Llandudno, &c., are forgotten as soon as over. If you mix with people better off than yourself, or send your children to a school where the children are of a richer class, they naturally feel the contrast between their patched-up clothes and the newer or better clothing of their companions ; but before they go out into society better off, so long as they have had enough to eat and drink, they have not known what "poverty" is; it is when they are able to compare, that the truth gradually becomes clear to them. In " All in a Garden Fair," Walter Besant describes the effect upon a poor teacher, when he has 1,200 a year left him. Suddenly the cottage he has lived in for so many years seems to have grown very small ; he is dissatisfied with the house. " And the furniture, my POVERTY. 33 daughter, does it not appear to you that it is old and worn ? " It was, but " Claire had never remarked the fact before ; but she now perceived clearly that there was 110 longer any possibility of tracing the pattern of the carpet, that the curtains were dingy, the coverings of the chairs faded, the table rickety. ' The poor old furniture ! ' said Claire, * must that go ? Yet it is frightfully shabby.' ' The poison is eating into our souls,' her father went on, with deeper gloom ; * for twenty years and more, I have thought this little salon a model of good taste. Claire, when we go into a large house, we will keep the old furniture all in a room by itself, whither we can go and remind ourselves of the past. If we are to be rich, we must never forget that we were once poor and happy.' " He is a fine old fellow, and had often thought that if he died, his daughter would be left alone in the world, and poor ; but with riches there was no longer this anxiety. Yet, although he ought to have felt happy, he was sad. The old furniture and the poor little cottage was full of associations, and his thoughts went back to the days when he was poor, and yet really happy, with a wife and a little girl. The news of riches soon flies abroad ; a man thought to be rich is besieged with applications for support from benevolent societies, hospitals, churches, chapels, &c., and circular follows circular, pointing out in the most attractive manner how "the rich may become richer," by investing their money in trams, plans, and shams of all kinds, and, as Hector said, " one under- stands now why the poor think better of mankind, than the rich." There must be causes of Poverty, one of the principal is " drink." 11 For the ten years ending 1829, the yearly expenditure of the United Kingdom upon drink averaged 58,890,000 ; while for the ten years ending 1881, it averaged 136,481,000 yearly. In 1825, the middle of the former decade, the population of the United Kingdom was 22,258,598 ; in 1875 it was 32,749,167 ; and, calculating from these figures, I find that, while the population only increased 47 per cent., the consumption of intoxicating liquors grew 131 per cent. . . . "If we take the ten years prior to 1830, we find that the 34 POVERTY, average expenditure upon intoxicating liquors was 2 13s. per head yearly ; whereas for the last ten years ending 1881 it has averaged 4 8s. per head being an increase per head of 56 per cent. . . . " In 1860, with a population of 28,778,000, the expenditure of the United Kingdom upon intoxicating liquors was 85,276,870. Year by year the expenditure rose, until in 1876 it reached the enormous sum of 147,288,759. Thus, while our population had only grown 15 per cent., our drink bill had grown 72 per cent. Between 1876 and 1880 the drink bill receded from 147,000,000 to 122,000,000. This was largely owing to the great depression in trade, and to some extent it was also due to the vigorous efforts of temperance reformers. In 1881 the drink bill rose again to 127,000,000 ; in 1882 it was 126,251,859 ; and in 1888, 125,477,275." Mr. Holye deserves great credit for keeping before the nation its yearly expenditure upon drink, and its indirect cost in wasted lives, vice, and crime. But we must remember that the hydra of human wickedness and folly has more than one neck. " Shut up the public-houses," Mr. Hoyle says, " and get rid of the cause of all human misery." But experience has proved how futile is the hope of these seem- ingly easy modes of dealing with evil in its manifold shapes. Upon the whole, the world [is wiser than any one in it, and it is also at once more hopeful of general amelioration, and less sanguine of rapid attainment to perfection, than the eager reformers who see but one step from present evil to a new heaven and a new earth. It is right that the magnitude of the drink bill should be kept before us, and every effort made to reduce it ; but you cannot abolish drink altogether. Man has craved for stimulants in one form or another since the Flood, and there is little doubt but that he will go on using them to all coming time. The drink traffic wants better regulation, rather than suppression. The public want to be protected against bad and adulterated liquors. The crimes ascribed to drink are frequently due to the badness of the drink. The fluids retailed to the poor are, in too many cases, concoctions which madden the brain POVEETY. 35 and ruin the digestion, even when taken in quantities which would be perfectly harmless were the liquor genuine. ' ' Owing to the mechanical inventions which the genius of our countrymen have devised, and partly, also, to the fiscal reforms in our legislation, our trade and wealth, during the last forty years, have grown in a manner unparalleled in the world's history ; and yet, as Mr. Potter says, we have a large portion of our population in poverty, degradation, and misery. Whence does this arise ? From lowness of wages ? This cannot he the cause, for others who are getting no better wages are living in comfort. . . . But as wages have risen, and hours of labour have been reduced, the temptations to intemperance have also been multiplied ; workmen with their wages in their pockets have been beguiled into the public-house by the machinery established by law, and the very wealth which should have secured their prosperity and comfort, has been the instrument of their degradation and ruin. " Here lies the explanation of the poverty and misery which exist in the country, and also of most of the crime and demoralization which prevails. There are other causes of poverty ; I do not deny these, but they are most insignificant when compared to this cause, for when a traffic leads to the wasting of over 100,000,000 yearly of the people's income, when it leads also to idleness and neglect of work to such an extent as, on the authority of a Parliamentary Committee, to reduce or retard the nation's wealth equal to one-sixth of the wealth produced ; and when, besides this, there are the burdens of taxation and other evils, inducing costs and losses ; and when it is remembered, further, that all these various influences are constantly in operation, destroying the wealth available for dis- tribution, there will need no further evidence as to what is the cause of the poverty and misery which exist " (WILLIAM HOYLEJ. Mr. George E. Sims, whose papers on " Horrible London " are the outcome of a long experience of work among the poor, states that " more than one-fourth of the daily earnings of the denizen of the slums goes over the bars of the public-houses and gin- 36 POVERTY. palaces ;" and he thinks that " much of the intemperance of these people is due to their wretched surroundings." It seems to me that the " wretched surroundings " are caused by the drink. To pity the drunkard, or excuse him, because his life is a burden, is mistaken philanthropy ; as it is equally absurd to say drink is caused by " public-houses putting temptation in the way of the miserable beings who drown their troubles in drink." If the number of public-houses were quadrupled to-morrow, they would not tempt me to enter ; and if they were all closed to- morrow, those that want drink would get it somehow. It is the individual who must be altered, must be cured of the feverish disease, that makes him or her want to be always tippling. Poor wretches ! it is an awful life they lead, ever trying to satisfy the insatiable cravings of this, the most pitiable and revolting disease that human nature is subject to. Mr. Francis Peek says : '* Punish severely parents who waste in drink, the money which ought to go to provide for the maintenance of their families." What good would this do ? If the study of history teaches us anything, it is that punishment has never stopped the commission of a crime. A man drinks under the influence of a desire within him that is beyond his power to control ; the fear of punishment would never deter him. Drink that plague-spot must be, can only be, got rid of gradually. People must be gradually improved, so as to rise above its influence ; men must be tempted to fit themselves for better wages, from a desire to have more comfortable homes ; they must be taught to think, to excel in their work, to choose the work for which there is a demand, to go where there is plenty of work, to know the value of their labour, to realize that their wages can only be in accordance with what their work will realize, Gradually raise their mental and moral status ; slowly, but surely, let the human supplant the animal within them, and slowly, but surely, intemperance in drink and other things will be conquered by higher and healthier desires within. Without this elevation of the habits and thoughts of the people, no improvement in their homes will be of much avail, Bead the most harrowing POVERTY. 37 descriptions of the worst slums, think over the condition and habits of the occupants of the worst courts, and ask yourseli seriously if the degradation and misery therein is to be remedied by cheap, good houses. Look at the inhabitants of these hovels, watch them in their daily lives, and think what they would make of new habitations if you transferred them thereto to-morrow. The problem is more difficult than the majority imagine. Some think it is a want of means, others that the landlords are too exacting, or that the vestries have been too lax; but the real social problem to be solved, is, "how to raise the desires, hopes, views of life in the very poorest class ; how to help them to become better in themselves." No doubt im- proved houses, with all necessary arrangements for health and decency, would improve the moral and physical energies of the inmates. But drunkards are not limited to those who live in filthy courts. You must rouse their self-respect ; and I doubt if this is to be done by an extension of " legal pauperization." And this, too, is applicable to all kinds of " State aid," destructive to the spirit of healthy thrift and manly self-reliance. The enormous capital now held by co-operative associations is a most striking and satisfactory proof of what can be achieved by the energies of active, intelligent, self-relying, and thrifty men. There is plenty of law as to the dwellings of the poor. If legis- lation could do anything, it would have been done long ago. Very powerful machinery is in existence ; what is required is the steam to set it in motion. There would be no difficulty in getting " better dwellings," once the working class had the desire for such, and the resolution to give up this or that indul- gence, and spend the money on better house accommodation that is now recklessly wasted in other things. As a rule, it may be accepted as an axiom, that " none can tell so well what would suit, and serve, and please a class, as men of that class themselves ; " and each class will and does occupy dwellings fully as good as their means will permit, and the culture they have acquired, Baise their aspirations, encourage temperance, thrift, household Virtues n.nfl PommyniY*, jviul yon. )nl. the prineipal point for my argument is, that the " higher earnings" are not due l,o increase of individual effort, hul. thud, payment being paid by the piece, the larger quantity giving the inereased earnings, they are attributable to improvement in the machinery and in tin- quality of ! ho material, At the " Bright Celebration " at r.irmingham, .June. 18, 1H88, Mr. Bright alluded to tin- report of a Commission, in 1Hl, r >, of the Anti-Corn Laws League, sent to visit Wiltshire, Dorsetshire, and Somersetshire, to ;i::s. (Id. per week in IS-ll, received i>s. (id. in 1881. Now COmes an important point for those to ponder over who contend that "machinery" has not "PROGRESS AND POVERTY.' 53 benefited the working class. The "machinery" since 1841 has been improved, and for this men are more competent ; and where women had 17s. 6d. per week in 1841, men have 35s. 6d. in 1881, for doing similar work. You must also bear in mind that the number of hours has been reduced in factories ; so that if you were to take hour for hour, and time for time, you may safely say that in our cotton factories the wages paid in 1881 are double what they were in 1841. The skilled labourers, such as mechanics, blacksmiths, engineers, and overlookers, are paid about half as much again in 1881 as in 1841. The wages of domestic servants have more than doubled the last forty years. There have been no associations or unions, no strikes; the advance has come naturally and inevitably from the growing wealth and prosperity of the country. Not only does the labour- ing man get a higher scale of wages, but the money he receives will buy him a larger quantity of bread, tea, sugar, clothing, &c., than it would have done forty years ago. In fact, without the material progress caused by inventions, and the capital and skill employed in production and distribution, it would not have been possible to house, feed, and clothe the millions of our steadily increasing population. In 1798 Mai thus published his celebrated " Essay on Population," the leading principle of which is, that as the means of sustenance increase only in the arithmetical ratio of 1, 2, 8, 4, &c., the population increases in the geometrical ratio of 1, 2, 4, 8, &c. ; and that, consequently, society is doomed to a perpetual struggle to find food equal to the number of its mouths. We need not go into his remedies, there is the fact that this book was written because of the seeming impossibility of feeding the then existing population ; yet the population of the United Kingdom in 1801 was only 15,902,322, and solely by the increased productive power of machinery, we are able to maintain, in a more healthy and comfortable manner, a population of 85,289,950, in 1882. From various writers we hear that the " poverty " of our time is mainly due to land monopoly, 54 POVERTY. or scarcity of land. A few figures may alter a view of the matter that is too readily accepted by men who ought to know better. In 1801 the population of England and Wales was 9,060,993 ; in 1882, 26,406,820, or nearly trebled in eighty years; and the condition of the people of every class greatly improved, without any increase in their land, but a marvellous increase in their productive power by the aid of machinery. Scotland, upon the same principle, maintains in a much better manner her population of 3,785,400 in 1882, than she did the 1,625,000 in 1801. With no less land than in 1801, but without the help of the "modern productive power," we find Ireland is not so well able to maintain her population of 5,097,730 in 1882 as she was 5,216,329 in 1801. Can there be a better proof that what we have to do is to think over what Nature has enabled us to " produce best and cheapest," and to exchange the same for the " food and necessaries of life " that other nations can produce cheaper than ourselves ? To lessen poverty, and ensure progress, our policy is to strive for the intelligent co-operation of capital, skill, and labour, to produce a greater quantity and a better quality of work than heretofore, and to have the most economical system of production and distribution that capital, experience, and thought can supply. Mr. George asks : " Why, in spite of increase in productive power, do wages tend to a minimum which will give but a bare living ? " The reply is obvious. The price of labour, like any other commodity, is regulated by supply and demand ; if in any given branch of labour theie be a scarcity of labour in propor- tion to the demand for it, employers will bid against each other to get it; if, on the contrary, there be an excess of labour, although the labourers may by their unions, prevent A from offering to work for less than B, still the fact, known to em- ployers and employed, that there is an excess of this particular kind of labour, must reduce the price paid for its use. Mr. George recognizes this principle when he tells us that the rate of interest for money is high when wages are high, and low when wages are low. High wages in any branch of labour denotes an extra demand for that kind of labour. The manu- facturer (spite of what Mr. George says) finds it to be a fact, that having more men, or paying those he has a higher rate of wages, he requires more capital, and the demand for capital being greater generally when trade is good the capitalist naturally asks for an increased share in the products his capital is necessary to create. Lower wages indicate an ex- cess of labour, a power to produce out of proportion to the de- mand; production is lessened, less capital is required, and, to get this capital into use, the capitalist has to accept less for its loan. Mr. George denies that capital is " that part of wealth which is saved to assist future production," and he thinks such a "de- finition of capital carries its own refutation, "for that labour cannot be employed until the results of labour are secured, be- comes too absurd for discussion." Absurd as it may appear to Mr. George, nevertheless it is the truth, that capital is the ac- cumulated savings of the people ; and although in a primitive state mankind might exist without capital, it is impossible to make progress, to lead a civilized life, to exist at all as we do in 1884, without there was a capital fund for the subsistence of the labourers, whilst they produce the various commodities we require. Let us take his next illustration : " Or if I take a piece of leather and work it up into a pair of shoes, the shoes are my wages the reward of my exertions. Surely they are not drawn from capital either, my capital or any one else's capital but are brought into existence by the labour of which they become the wages ; and in obtaining this pair of shoes as the wages of my labour, capital is not even momentarily lessened one iota. For, if we call in the idea of capital, my capital at the beginning consists of the piece of leather, the thread, &c." Just so, the capital is in the raw material, which you must have saved out of your previous earnings to buy for yourself, or the material, as is usually the case, is supplied to the workmen by his employer. As regards the argument, it is quite immaterial whether you find the materials yourself, or they are lent to you by another ; there must 00 POVEKTY. have been abstinence by someone to have the necessary capital to buy the materials, &c., without which the boots could not be made. Mr. George says it mates no difference whether wages be paid in kind or in money, the money being but the equivalent for the produce of the labour ; and capital is not wanted, because at the moment when the owner takes from his capital money to pay for the labour, he adds to his capital an equivalent in the product of the labour he pays for. And he asks, " Is not the identity of wages in money with wages in kind true of all cases in which wages are paid from productive labour ? Is not the fund created by the labour really the fund from which the wages are paid ? " That the wages paid for labour are generally paid back by what the labour produces, there is no doubt ; the object of the employer in paying wages for work to be done, is to replace the capital he advances, with his profit added thereto. But that is not the question ; it really is, are wages paid for out of the capital in existence before a work is commenced ; or is it, as Mr. George asserts, all paid for out of the result of the work ? Take a manufacturer of woollen cloths : he has to buy or build a mill, he has to buy the necessary machinery and raw material ; he employs a lot of weavers, &c., he pays these weekly their wages as the work progresses ; he has to submit samples or stock to buyers, he has to wait as a rule, from six to twelve months, after buying his raw material, before he gets his money back for the finished product. Is this work done, is the labour paid for, out of a " previously existing capital," or is it paid for weekly by what the weavers produce ? After the first sinking of capital in machinery, plant, raw material, it may be that the finished product, sold day by day, replaces the capital used week by week to pay labour ; but the mill itself, the giving of work to the weavers, could not be started at all without a previous accumulation of capital by some one. Therefore, I deny altogether Mr. George's assertion that "it is from the produce of labour, not from the advance of capital, that wages come." Mr. George then tells us that capital is not wanted to pay labour, o/ but to store up produce or stock to enable a tradesman to do his trade with. Are we to infer that it is not necessary for tradesmen to keep stock ? If stock be essential, surely the capital is necessary to support labour in producing it before it is wanted ! In our trade, manufacturers submit samples in December for the next year's winter trade ; they take orders to deliver from May to August ; they are paid in October. Without this foresight, it would be impossible to have stock enough to supply the wants of the people ; by this foresight, in the anticipation of the people's wants, the mills are kept regularly at work. With- out capital, such arrangements would be impossible ; therefore the labourer is indebted to capital, as he is kept employed through its aid. Without it, stock could not be kept, orders in anticipa- tion could not be given; the supply not being equal to the demand, goods would fluctuate in value, some articles would be at famine prices. The working class would soon find out the advantages of capital, and that, before a work which will not immediately result in wealth available for subsist- ence can be carried on, there must exist such a stock of subsistence as will support the labourer during the process. Mr. George denies this, and refers us to Kobinson Crusoe, and asks if "it was necessary that, before he commenced to make his canoe, he should accumulate a stock of food suf- ficient to maintain him while he felled the tree, hewed out the canoe, and finally launched her into the sea ? " Mr. George says, "Not at all; it was only necessary that he should devote part of his time to the procurement of food, while he was devoting part of his time to the building and launching of the canoe." Mr. George fails to see that part of the time is taken up in getting fool, and that it is better for all parties for capital to supply the means to get the food, and leave the labourer free to give his whole time to the work in hand. Then he gives us another of his peculiar illustrations, how to arrange for the wants of a community like ours, by asking us to " suppose a hundred men to be landed, without any 'stock of provisions, in a new country ; will it be necessary for them to accumulate a season's 58 POVERTY. stock of provisions, before they can begin to cultivate the soil ? Not at all ; it will only be necessary that fish, game, berries, &c., shall be so abundant that the labour of a part of the hundred may suffice to furnish daily enough of these for the main- tenance of all, and that there shall be such a sense of mutual interest, or such a correlation of desires, as shall lead those who in the present get the food to divide (exchange) with these whose efforts arc directed to future recompense. What is true in these cases is true in all." Under the real functions of capital, Mr. George admits that capital increases the power of labour to produce wealth, explaining how it does so ; and it would be impossible for capitalists them- selves to describe more fully the value of capital to labour ; but then, in his own unique manner, he tells us that " capital does not supply the materials which labour works up into wealth, as is erroneously taught ; the materials of wealth are supplied by nature." But he does not tell us how the various materials " supplied by nature " are to be obtained from foreign countries, or our own mines and fields, without the aid of capital to build ships, extract coal, iron, &c., from the mines, or supply seed, and pay labour to plough and till the fields, and wait for the harvest to pay back again the capital that has been advanced. Capital, again, we are told, does not limit industry, the only limit to industry being the access to natural material. But is not capital essential to get access to this natural material ; or are we able to pick up, wherever and whensoever we require it, the necessary natural material ? Mr. George admits that capital may limit the form of industry, and tells us that " without the factory, there could be no factory operatives ; without the sewing machine, no machine-sewing ; without the plough, no ploughing ; and without a great capital engaged in exchange, industry could not take the many special forms which are concerned with exchanges." Yet, spite of this admission, he states that although " capital may limit the form of industry or the productions of industry, ,jt is not true that capital limits industry." He says, " Capital may limit the form of industry 59 and the productions of industry; but this is not to say that there could be no industry without capital, any more than it is to say that without the power-loom there could be no weaving ; without the sewing machine, no sewing ; nor cultivation without the plough ; or that, in a community of one, like that of Kobinson Crusoe, there could be no labour, because there could be 110 exchange." This " community of one " seems to supply the basis of all Mr. George's arguments. To really understand this question, one must take the world as it is, and the value of exchange, the power-looms, sewing machines, railways, &c., without which we could not live, and, without the aid of capital, we could not have. It is simply absurd to depreciate the value of capital by telling us, that " it would be a mis- take to attribute the simple modes of producing and exchange which are resorted to in new communities solely to a want of capital. These modes, which require little capital, are in themselves rude and inefficient, but when the conditions of such communities are considered, they will be found in reality the most efficient. It is only as they became civilized that they would care for such other capital as the civilized state requires, or that it would be of any use to them." We did not want Mr. George to tell us this, but I want you to note the value of the admission from this "anti-capitalist;" there is only one inference to be drawn, that capital is essential to civilization. The force and utility of capital he admits, when he tells us that " a great factory, with all the latest improvements, is the most efficient instrument that has yet been devised for turning wool or cotton into cloth, but only so when large quantities are to be made." Well, in 1884, large quantities are required, and it is hardly wise to deteriorate the value of capital, by the aid of which we are able to build the factory and keep the mills going. It is playing with this great subject to tell us "that for two or three passengers a canoe is a better instrument than a steamboat ; that a few sacks of flour can be transported with less expenditure of labour by a pack-horse than by a railroad train ; or that to put a great stock of goods into a cross-roads store in the backwoods would be 00 POVERTY. but a waste of capital." Such illustrations appear to me quite outside the subject, which is the real function of capital and its value to labour, to civilized countries ; not whether Eobinson Crusoe could do without it, but whether Great Britain, France, the United States, Germany, Eussia, Austria, &c., could continue as they are without the capital they possess, or make progress, unless that capital be wisely used, so as to cause an increase of capital for the supply of future needs. We are then told that " so long as all the increased wealth which modern progress brings, goes but to build up great fortunes, to increase luxury, and make sharper the contrast between the House of Have and the House of Want, progress is not real, and cannot be permanent." A perfectly justifiable conclusion, if the statement was true ; but all statistics prove that the poorer classes, at least those that will or can work, are paid a larger share than formerly for their share in what is produced, and wages generally are more uniform. To any one who has lived half a century, statistics are not necessary ; the position of the working class then and now are so very different. Mr. George asks, "Why, in spite of increase in productive power, do wages tend to a minimum which will gain but a bare living ? " In reply, I should advise Mr. George to study the law of " supply and demand " a law he has chosen to ignore, although it is the foundation-stone upon which political economy is built. It surprises Mr. George that the " labour-saving inventions of our age have not lightened the toil and improved the condition of the labourer." They have done so, fully in proportion to what labour deserves. Mr. George must be aware that many of these " labour-saving machines " had to be introduced because of the difficulty employers had to get their men to work regularly ; and it seems natural and equitable that the skilled brain that invents and directs, and the capital that invests in productive machinery, should get the greater benefit from a " producing power" that makes them to a certain extent independent of labour, As a matter of fact, machinery, if it has not lessened, certainly has not increased 01 the "labourer's" share in the greater result. Instead of explaining this to the " working class," and advising them to try and be a more willing and intelligent helpmate with their employers, Mr. George tells the working class that they are independent of capitalists. He gives us quite a new idea viz. , " that wages, instead of being drawn from capital, are in reality drawn from the product of the labour for which they are paid." How does he explain this? He says : " If I devote my labour to getting bird's eggs or picking wild berries, the eggs or berries I thus get are my wages. Surely 110 one will contend that in such a case wages are drawn from capital. There is no capital in the case." Even if it were possible to get enough bird's eggs or wild berries, or, as Mr. George tells us in another place, " to climb the trees for fruit, or follow the receding tide for shell-fish," does Mr. George imagine that even the working class would be content to live on such a dainty fare ? Is it an illustration worthy of the subject viz., the wages fund of the labouring class ? And whether without capital and skilled directors of labour, not only could civilization and progress be possible, but could society exist as it is in London, New York, Paris, in 1884, with its infinitely subdivided and intricate network of production and exchange ? Analyze the subject in all its bearings, you will find the result of the joint labour is fairly apportioned to the capital, skill, and labour which have produced the result. Incite, by all means, the working man to try for a larger share for his labour, but tell him that he is only entitled to this larger share by producing a larger quantity, or a better quality, of work. Incite him to thrift, not by making capital valueless, but by explaining to him its value ; that money, like labour, seeks for the market that yields the most profit from the loan of it. Advise him to save, let it be ever so little, and to wisely use his savings ; appeal to him as an intelligent man ; do not insult his common sense by telling him " that the capitalist is not needed to pay him his wages." Quite true, if he will be content to live in the woods (if he can find them in 1884) on berries and bird's eggs ; but utterly untrue if we are 62 POVEiiTY. to have warehouses filled with stock, mills and machinery, railways and Suez Canals ; man as a being who has steadily developed from barbarism, and who believes in a higher develop- ment, and not as returning to the condition of savages. Mr. George ought to have lived in an earlier age of the world. On page 11 he tells us : " When wages are paid in kind that is to say, in wealth of the same species as the labourer produces ; as, for instance, if I hire men to cut wood, agreeing to give them as wages a portion of the wood they cut, it is evident that no capital is required for the payment of wages." If the world's work could be done in this manner, there would be some excuse for bringing up "barter" again; but it is utterly impracticable. Mr. George admits that capital is needed if " you do not choose either to sell or borrow," but prefer to go on accumulating stock. But he tells us that, even for a Suez Canal, " if the workmen were paid in tunnel (which, if convenient, might easily be done by paying them in stock of the company), then no capital for the payment of wages would be required." Mr. George only revives, by this suggestion, the exploded fallacy of " labour notes, "introduced by a good-hearted man to better the condition of the labouring class. You may take a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink ; you may pay labour by " tunnel notes," ''labour notes'' call them what you like but you cannot make a man take them for rent, clothing, food, &c. Does any sane man think that the working class would be better off if paid in "labour notes," "tunnel or other stock," which they would have to waste time in bartering away to obtain the necessaries of life, than by the present system, by which they receive from the capitalist their wages in money, that has a recognized value, and will be taken anywhere by every one ? Those who tell us that " all wealth is due to labour, therefore to labour all wealth should go," not only overlook the fact that the result is obtained by the collective efforts of capital, skill, and labour, but that " labour " always gets its share, whilst the capitalist may not get any interest, and often loses the principal. For example, take the failures yearly, or productions like the 63 Great Eastern; the labourer gets his wages, but the capitalist never gets his money back again; of what value would " Great Eastern notes " be, had that costly vessel been built, as Mr. George suggests such vessels might be, without the aid of the useless capitalist? We are told that "there is but one way to remove an evil, and that is to remove its cause." To this I heartily assent, but utterly differ as to the cause of the evil referred to, as I should protest against the remedy suggested, even if it were the cause, the remedy being worse than the disease. But the cause assigned for the wages paid to labourers is not the true one ; the rate of wages must always be regulated by the law of supply and demand the proportion between the number of the buyers and sellers which regulates the price and remuneration of all labour, skill, and capital alike. Mr. George tells us that " poverty deepens as wealth increases, and wages are forced down while productive power grows, because land, which is the source of all wealth and the field of all labour, is monopolized. To extirpate poverty, to make wages what justice commands they should be the full earnings of the labourer we must therefore substitute for the individual ownership of land a common ownership. Nothing else will go to the cause of the evil in nothing else is there the slightest hope. " This, then, is the remedy for the unjust and unequal distribu- tion of wealth apparent in modern civilization, and for all the evils which flow from it. " We must make land common property " " I do not propose either to purchase or to confiscate private property in land. The first would be unjust, the second needless. Let the individuals who now hold it still retain, if they want to, possession of what they are pleased to call their land. Let them continue to call it their land. Let them buy and sell, and bequeath and devise it. We may safely leave them the shell, if we take the kernel. It is not necessary to confiscate land ; it is only necessary to confiscate rent." For the sake of argument, let us admit that the owners of land believe, with Mr. George, that there is no other means to " extirpate poverty," and they Gi possess the moral courage to relinquish their rights ; would such an act of noble self-sacrifice produce the promised result ? No. Think again over Mr. George's statement. Page 63 : he says : " What I therefore propose, as the simple yet sovereign remedy, which will raise wages, increase the earnings of capital, extirpate pauperism, abolish poverty, give remune- rative employment to whoever wishes it, afford free scope to human powers, lessen crime, elevate morals and taste and intelligence, purify government, and carry civilization to yet nobler heights, is to appropriate rent bij taxation, to abolish all taxation save that of land values." Is Mr. George aware that the gross annual rental value of the land is under 70,000,000 ; that the population is over 85,000,000 ? Talk of Utopian schemes ; why, to realize what Mr. George offers to accomplish by his only " true remedy," would require a new world, and men to be re-created. Judging from the past, it will be a very long time before we shall attain to his ideal. Yet he mites as if he really believed that the State, by a violation of the moral law, by appropriating the property of a class it is their duty to protect, by undermining the sacredness of property, and thereby taking away the desire to accumulate, upon which all progress depends, he will make of this world a paradise for the working class. This sovereign remedy, if it abolished taxation, would rid each individual of, say, 40s. to 50s. yearly of taxation. (The working class pay their taxes mostly in the beer and spirits they drink, and the tobacco they smoke.) This relief to the working class we are asked to accept as the " Only true remedy " to get rid of poverty. If it be so, God help the poor ! Mr. George, no doubt, wishes to be a " social reformer," but, as all his reforms depend for their realization upon the complete spoliation of one class to benefit another, it appears to me that, as he wants to alter the whole structure and condition of society, he is not a reformer, but a social revolutionist. If you have not made up your mind upon this subject, I would respectfully ask you to consider if we are indebted to 65 the " working class '' to the extent that Mr. George and others wish us to believe? That progress is due to "labour' we must all admit, but we ought to give honour where it is due, and a little reflection will show that for the national " progress " of the last century we are not indebted to the working class. I might go further, and say they have " checked " our progress by their opposition to " improved methods " to any method that lessened their own influence, however beneficial it might be to the country generally. From the beginning to the end it has been the same. They do not destroy machinery now as they did a few years ago ; but, during the strike at Huddersfield, in 1883, the Weavers' Union wanted to compel the masters to agree not to ' ' introduce any new machinery until the Union had tested it, the object being to tell the men not to work at it if likely to be prejudicial to their interests." Another demand was that " no apprentices '* should be taken except from among their own children. And the origin of the strike was : a manufacturer had discharged some men for being incompetent, and the Union wrote him that, " unless he took them on again, all his men would bo withdrawn." Is this the class that has helped the nation onward ? Is this the class to whom we are to look for our for- ward progress ? No ! For our sake, for their sake, for the world's benefit, working men must be told the truth. Their part in the world's labour has been overrated, and the part taken by scientists, inventors, the skilled brains to direct and manage (putting aside altogether the question of capital), has been under- estimated. For the benefit alike of rich and poor, we must recognize " that nations advance by new knowledge," and that the public welfare is dependent upon the nation's mental and moral advancement, which depends upon new ideas, and the chief source of new ideas is original research. Why has this nation made such rapid progress during the last century ? Principally by the subservience to useful purposes, by means of invention, of the new truths discovered by scientific men, which has enabled us to utilize our abundant stores of coal and iron-ore 5 66 POVEETY, in steam engines, machinery, &c. The nation does not recognize its indebtedness to scientific men. Those who, like Mr. George, are so fond of attributing all wealth to labour, ought to bear in mind that, without the discoveries of scientists, and the labour of inventors and skilled men, there would be little for the so-called labourer to do. For our further progress, it is now essential that we have a more judicious division of labour ; we want men employed to discover new truths, men to put them into the form of practical invention the business man to work them, and the ''labourer" to be wise enough to see that his work, being the least important, is paid for according to its worth. "No art or manufacture is so perfect as to be exempt from the influence of discovery and invention, and no man can produce so perfect an article, but that, by the aid of science, a better may be produced. Science and trade are mutually dependent : without the assistance of science, trade would be unable to supply our daily increasing wants; and without the pecuniary support of trade, science would languish and decay. As long as arts and manufactures are left to be directed and improved by simple experience, their progress is extremely slow ; but directly scientific knowledge is successfully applied to them, they bound forward with astonishing speed. Look at the art of taking portraits : for hundreds of years it remained entirely in the hands of oil and water colour painters, with but little progress in rapidity of production ; but directly science was applied to it in the form of photography, its advance in this respect became amazing. Fifty years ago, photography was almost unknown ; but immediately Messrs. Daguerre and Talbot, in 1844, made known their processes, the new art began to advance, and so rapid has been its progress, that at the present time many thousand persons are employed in its exercise, and millions of portraits have been taken with an accuracy and at a cost quite beyond the reach of the old method. By investigating the chemical action of electricity upon saline bodies, Sir Humphrey Davy isolated sodium and magnesium, which has led to the establishment at Patricroft, near Man- "PROGRESS AND POVERTY." 67 cliester, of the manufacture of these metals. By the abstract researches of Hofmann and others upon coal tar, many new compounds were discovered, and the extremely profitable manu- facture of the splendid coal-tar dyes was originated. " The first step in the invention of the steam engine was the experimental researches and the discoveries of the properties of steam by Hooke, Boyle, and Papin. . . . Had not the steam engine been developed, it is clear that railways, steamships, machinery, and all the other numerous uses to which that instrument is now applied, would have been almost unknown. The introduction of the steam engine enabled abandoned Cornish mines to be relieved of water, and to be worked to much greater depths. The discoveries of nitric acid, hydrochloric acid, oil of vitriol, and washing soda, by the alchemists and early chemists in their researches, led to the erection of the numerous great manufactories of these substances which now exist in England and in other civilized countries. There is probably not an art, manufacture, or process which is not largely due to scientific discovery ; and if we trace these back ,to their source, we nearly always find them originate in scientific research. " Suppose that Guy Lussac, in 1815, had not discovered cyanide of potassium, and that it had never been discovered ; it is highly probable that the manufacturing returns of Birmingham and Sheffield would be much less in amount at the present time than they are, simply because there is no other known substance with which the electro-plating of base metals with silver can be satisfactorily effected. Or, suppose that sal-ammonia, chloride of zinc, or other soldering agents, -had not been discovered; the extensive and so-called galvanizing ' process could not have been effected, because without these substances the iron articles immersed in the melted zinc would not have received an adhesive metallic coating. . . . The pecuniary benefits of calico printing, bleaching, dyeing ; of the great manufactures of cotton, iron, pottery, beer, sugar, glass, spirits, vinegar, gutta-percha, India-rubber, gun cotton, the numerous metals, machinery, electro-plate, washing soda, German silver, brass, phosphorus, 68 POVERTY. manures, the common acids, numerous chemicals, and a multitude of other substances and articles, have been extremely great. More than 1,800,000,000 Ibs. of sulphuric acid alone are manufactured in Europe yearly. The pecuniary advantages of the use of the electric telegraph and railways to merchants, the gains of capitalists by money invested in railways, telegraphs, steamships, cotton mills, gas works, iron ship-building, engineer- ing, and other great applications of science, have been enormous. . . . The amount of capital expended in the construction of railways only in this country has been estimated at more than 700,000,000, and the total receipts upon British railways have reached 43,000,000 per annum. . . . The telegrams of Great Britain number about one-fourth of a million a- week. . . . Even the little phosphorus match is being manufactured and con- sumed at a rate estimated at more than 10,000,000,000 daily/' (GEORGE GOKE). Mr. George Gore's admirable book, " The Scientific Basis of National Progress," is utterly opposed to Mr. George's "Progress and Poverty." It makes no difference to me which is true, but viewed dispassionately, with a desire to get at the truth, by one who was born amongst the working class, who knows their difficulties, and is as anxious as any one to find out " how to improve the condition of the masses," it seems a great error of judgment, a mistaken and cruel kindness, to tell the working class that the wealth and progress of the nation during the last century is due to their labour. Analyze as you will any of the operations that have benefited the nation during the last century, and then say if you think the same is solely due to the working class. No, you will not ; on the contrary, you would find that the working class have had their share in the benefits by being more fully employed and better maintained than at any previous period of the world's history ; and they owe the improvement to the scientific thinker, the skilled manufacturer, the enterprising distributor, and the speculative capitalist. Of each we may truly say, "As they sowed, so they have reaped," PROGRESS. 09 PROGRESS, " Hid in the marble there already lies, What'er the greatest sculptor can design ; He only rescues it from its rude shrine, Whose hand performs what intellect supplies." " Whatsoever the general mass of men contrived to do, or to attain, all things that we see standing accomplished in the world are properly the outer material result, the practical realization and embodiment of thoughts that dwelt in the great men sent into the \vorld." CAELYLE. THE events of to-day affect the events of to-morrow, and the undulations of the influences of the past work for ever onward into the future. The act intended and accomplished generates other purposes, and affects, in multiplex modes, the course and issue of other events. Time, the arch- experimenter, is continually varying the conditions of outward phenomena and inward thought, so that the collective phenomena of what we call history are undergoing ceaseless change. To progress, we must remove the obstacles in our way. Ignorance sees no difficulties ; partial knowledge sees them, and recoils before them ; complete knowledge sees past them, and removes them. Progress is due to thought thought latent, for a time, in some pre-eminent mind, but gradually attaining realization. The think- ing soul is the central motive force, the mainspring of progress. Thought is life, and history is its flower and fruit. In all the great crises of history, we find the affluent inspiration of a new idea pouring invigorative energy into life unseen spiritual thought becoming operant in changing the credence of the world, and determining the outward and actual on-goingsofthe period. We are apt to underrate the influence of thinkers, of the good men who have left us ; yet their influence is great in the for. uiation of our character. The power of example, probably, never ceases during life. Even old age is not Wholly unin- fluenced by society ; and a change of companions acts upon the 70 POVERTY. character long after the character would appear incapable of further development. Man is more "imitative" than is generally believed, and we are all influenced more or less by our associations, and are apt to copy those whom we admire, and in doing so, we imbibe a something that gives a colour to their character, and will affect our own. In reading a book, we like or dislike the characters ; and in admiring the good or condemning the evil, the book unconsciously moulds our opinion, and will affect our judgment. We acquire habits which seem of no consequence, but which are the channels of a thousand new impulses to our soul. The majority of us are dependent on external guidance, and are guided and formed, not indeed by the will, but by the example and sympathy of others. Man needs now for his guidance a clearer knowledge of the divine purpose and human duty ; he must, by our thinkers, be led to recognize life as an heritage on which the feu-rent indicative of our responsibility of intelligent obedience is continually chargeable. To look thus on life will greaten and broaden the character, will ennoble and elevate the soul, and quicken and excite the whole being to spread the rich, varied, and potent influences of dutiful activity throughout the vast theatre of the moral universe. " Upward and onward " is the true motto of human existence : " Still 'tis our being's inborn tone, To strive for ever up and on." GOETHE. Life is a series of acts, each of which should be a well defined and reflective effort to bring about some predetermined purpose. Did man uniformly act from the suggestions of his reason, his thoughts and doings would have the relation of sequence and conduct his conduct would be, in all circumstances, divinable ; history would be science. Instead of being like a pilotless vessel on the tide of affairs, we want his reason to seize the helm and guide him onward safely through the toils and dangers of life ; we want him to go through life's duties with an aggres- sive and unyielding persistency, not so much for progression as ascension, with a belief that the best life is the greatest. PROGRESS. 71 To descend from tlie ideal to the practical, to the solution of that anxious problem, how we are to get our living : it seems to me we have reached that period when, as manufacturers, producers, or distributors, our activity must be more rational, more thoughtful, more logical. We can only hold our own in the world's struggle by a greater perfection in our work, a greater economy in its production. There is no standing still ; we must ever " progress," or else lose the trade of the world, by which alone we get the material and food necessary for our existence. The increased knowledge of the intrinsic value of articles, owing to exhibitions and greater competition from the facilities given by telegraph and railways, has caused quite a revolution in every department of business. The old easy way of doing trade is gone ; those countries that used to buy largely of us now compete with us at home and abroad. The deterioration in the value of money the last ten years has, and must, lessen the purchasing power of that large class whose income depends upon their invested capital. From these and other causes, our commerce has lost its power of expansion, our manufac- turing and distributing trades are not so remunerative. Various reasons are assigned, and remedies suggested. Those who ask for Protection forget that we have always had hostile tariffs, against which we used to successfully contend ; if we fail to do so now, there must be some other cause. If we have lost this or that market, the reason will be found to be that other nations can supply what we used to cheaper or better. There lias been a great development of manufacturing power abroad, and we oppose powerful competition by " paternal " factory legislation. For some years prior to the passing of the Act in 1874, which came into operation in 1875, and reduced the working time of factories to fifty-six hours per week, France and Belgium were making such rapid strides in flax and woollen spinning, that British spinners had hard work, even with sixty hours, to hold their own against the seventy- two hours worked on the Continent. In 1874, the late Mr. John Crossley, M.P., 7-7 POVERTY. stated " that on account of the difference in hours, the Belgians and French could purchase the wool in London, take it abroad, spin it, and send it into the Bradford market as yarn cheaper by 3d. or 4d. per Ib. than the Bradford manufacturers could afford to sell it. They also competed in piece goods. The result was that there were no less than 20,000 looms idle in Bradford and the district. Formerly, in the district from which he came, there existed a large loom trade, which supplied yarn to the manufacturers of fancy goods in Glasgow and other parts of Scotland ; but that trade had now become unprofitable in consequence of Belgium having entered into competition with it, and having succeeded in transferring the whole of the trade in that article to itself." " Paternal legislation " is a cruel kindness, and its results to the persons protected by it are similar to what happens to children spoilt by the indulgence of their parents ; it causes the ruin of the parties they so foolishly try to save. If all the factories in the world agreed to work their mills only fifty-six hours per week, the arrange- ment might be justifiable ; but to grumble at a " falling-off " in the demand for our manufactured articles, that by our policy we have virtually shut ourselves from being able to make as cheap as others, is alike foolish and useless. There is a cause for the demand falling off; if we want to keep up the supply, we must remove the cause that has checked the demand. The law of the "survival of the fittest" applies to manufactures and trades, and our suicidal policy, our stupid attempts to put aside the law of "supply and demand," have lost us the command of the markets of the world. " Thirty-five years ago, Great Britain and Ireland possessed 850,000 flax- spinning spindles, or four and a-half times more than the Continent, which owned 190,000. At present the United Kingdom has 1,292,000 spindles, but continental competitors now possess 1,705,600, or 82 per cent, more than Britain. . . . British spinners are rapidly losing ground in home, as well as in continental markets. . . . The exports of linen yarn for the six years before the Factory Act of 1874 came into operation, PROGRESS. 73 averaged 82,520,287 Ibs. ; but for the six years after the Act, they averaged only 20,286,957 Ibs. In 1874 we exported 27,154,906 Ibs., and imported 1,875,640 Ibs. ; but in 1880 the exports had fallen to 16,437,200 Ibs., and the imports had increased to 5,958,731 Ibs. The shares of the twelve leading Belfast flax-spinning companies quoted in the market, with the exception of two, average 58 per cent, under par ; with equal hours to the Continent, all these would be flourishing concerns " (ARCHIBALD W. FINLAYSON). The above is a good example of the pernicious influence of trying to regulate production by Act of Parliament ; you have the power to limit the hours of labour by law, if you wish to do so; but you cannot go against the "laws of nature " without paying a most fearful penalty. I unhesitatingly assert that unless the modern system of " grandmotherly legislation " this interference between employer and employed, landlord and tenant, debtor and creditor, scientists with their experiments, &c. be stopped, and the Act of 1874 be repealed, we shall lose by degrees our export trade, and the nation will be on its road to ruin. By the operation of this same Act of 1874, w r e find that the exports of woollen manufactures, which for the five years ending 1874 were 129,381,441, had fallen in the next five years to 85,800,289, and the imports had risen from 3,362,656 in 1870, to 7,747,444 in 1880. The exports of woollen and worsted yarn, which for the five years ending 1874 amounted to 188,722,864 Ibs., declined in the next five years to 148,859,096 Ibs. The imports of the year increased from 10,294,415 Ibs. in 1870, to 15,069,831 Ibs. in 1880. People watch the increase of " imports," but, to get a correct opinion of the case, you must watch both exports and imports. We want the " foreign " as well as the home trade to keep our factories going. The increase in "imports" shows that our traders are compelled to buy goods from abroad ; and the decrease in the exports is a proof that our foreign competitors are supplying the continental and other markets that we used to supply. It must be very galling for Bradford and Belfast spinners to be 74 POVERTY. compelled by Act of Parliament to stand by, with factories only partially worked, and let foreign manufacturers take the orders they used to obtain. It must be admitted that our spinners have not made that progress in technical knowledge that foreign spinners have ; but taste and technical knowledge only apply to the "best" portions of an industry. The mere spinning of yarn, in which foreigners are now beating Belfast and Bradford, is entirely a question of cost of production, and it is impossible for the English spinner to compete, whilst his machinery is restricted to fifty-six hours' work, against the foreigner who works his for seventy-two hours. In many trades, no doubt, as stated by the late Mr. Koebuck, as much can be done in a day's work of nine hours as of ten. But bear this in mind, when making up your mind about " factory legislation: " in spinning and in manufacturing, the machinery does the work, the operative merely attends to the machine ; if wise, we should relieve the operative, but the machine should never be idle. The Act of 1874, in reducing the hours of labour in factories from sixty to fifty-four hours per week, struck off " one-fifteenth " part of the entire manufacturing power of the country. No increase of speed by better machinery, &c., could make up for this loss of power. Foreigners, by the same machinery from our best makers, drive as fast, and work seventy-two hours against our fifty- six hours per week ; yet people wonder why our exports are decreasing and our imports increasing. The machinery represents the " sunk capital " of a manufacturer. The difference in the number of hours that his machinery works for him per day, enables the French capitalist to make good profits at prices that would ruin the English capitalist. The loss to the nation in the reduction of the productive power of our machinery by Factory Acts is enormous more ruinous to the nation than the most costly war we ever engaged in. It is most important for us to see as soon as possible that we have made a great mistake in enacting laws that raise our cost of production, so as to prevent our competing with foreign manufacturers whose hands arc not so tied. We have been PROGRESS. 75 losing ground; to regain our position, we must increase the hours of labour in our factories, to enable us, as formerly, to supply the cheaper as well as the better qualities of goods. If we do not, in time there must be stoppage of mills, lower wages, and a general depression, affecting railway and other interests. Unfortunately, manufacturers have not the power to alter the present state of things. But the real friend to the operative should explain to him how this " Factory Act " is eating, like a canker, at the vitals of our industries. And it will be a sad pity if they do not discover their error before it is too late. They have an example for their guidance : " The Union of the Engineers of Scotland resolved that overtime rates must be paid for all hours worked after fifty-one hours per week ; but finding, after a year or two, that trade was going elsewhere, it decided that the engineers should return to the former rule and work fifty-four hours before demanding over time. With our Acts of Parliament, however, there is no such elasticity ; in good times or bad times, textile manufacturers and operatives are tied down " (ARCHIBALD W. FINLAYSON). " Life is combat, life is striving, Such our destiny below ; Like a scythed chariot driving Through an onward pressing foe." SPEBANZA (Lady Wilde}. It is imperative that we recognize, as a fact, that "Life is a continuous combat," and that as the intellect becomes more universally developed, the struggle will be keener, we must " progress," or others will beat us in the race. Science is fast penetrating into all our manufactures and occupa- tions, and "those who are unscientific will have much less employment, and will be left behind in the race of life." Science tends to abbreviate mental and bodily labour. The use of our reason and senses also saves us using our hands. There is not a man in this kingdom who has not derived some advantage, in one way or another, from scientific research. " No man has more occasion to bless the introduction of the steam 76 POVERTY. engine, machinery, tlie galvanic battery, and science in general, than the working mechanic; because it has mitigated his physical toil, by giving him the duty of simply directing the labour, instead of actually performing it ; whilst it has deprived him of one kind of employment, it has provided him with some- thing better. But a few years ago, the operatives in the silver- plating trade had to lay the silver on the articles with their hands, with the aid of a soldering-iron ; now they have simply to set their batteries in action, and watch the electricity doing it for them. In a similar manner, the working engineer at his metal-turning lathe has merely to direct the action of his tool whilst the steam engine performs the heavy labour of turning, That ' knowledge is power,' is an old maxim, but that new knowledge is new power, is a new discovery, which scientific discovery has imposed upon us. . . . Experience in science has already shown us that it is by means of invention based upon new discoveries, that the greatest utilities are obtained, rather than by the exercise of invention based upon knowledge acquired long ago. The information obtained by research in former times has been largely exhausted for the purpose of in- vention by modern inventors, and what we very greatly require now is new knowledge. Experience in science also leads us to believe that the extent of possible discovery is as boundless as nature, and that an immense amount of new knowledge may yet be discovered. . . . Whilst, also, many millions of pounds are annually expended in this country upon religious, philanthropic, and other good objects, there is scarcely a scientific society or institution (with the exception of the Eoyal Society and the British Association) which expends even the small sum of .500 a-year on purely experimental research in physics or chemistry. In the Koyal Institute of Great Britain, the average annual expenses relating to experimental research, including salaries to assistants for research in the laboratory, from the year 1867 to 1871, did not amount to 250. On the other hand, the 1 total net receipts ' of the British and Foreign Bible Society alone amount to about 213,000 a-year, , , , The fact that PROGRESS. 77 verifiable truth is seemingly neglected, whilst millions of pounds are annually devoted in this country to the support of dogmas and doctrines, proves that the English nation is even now in a very imperfectly civilized state " (GEORGE GORE). There are plenty of difficult positions in life in which tin desire to do right is not alone sufficient ; we must intelligently know what is the right course to pursue. " Were half the power that fills the world with terror, Were half the wealth bestowed on camps and courts, Given to redeem the human mind from error, There were no need of arsenals nor forts." LONGFELLOW. We want the people to understand better the "causes of material progress." A single instance should explain my meaning: Titus Salt discovers how to utilize a material, and by his skill enhances the value of that material, develops an immense trade, employs a large army of industrial workers, and Saltairc is the result of his skill and energy. Is this due to the "working class"? Would they, as a body, ever have developed this trade ? No most emphatically, no ! The result is due to Titus Salt and the skilled men under him. And the operatives, instead of envying the riches made by such men, instead of intimating that as they "produce all the wealth," they deserve a larger share, ought to feel that they are under great obligations to men like Salt for opening out for them fields of employment. We have made progress because "new scientific truth has, through invention, taught us how to obtain greater effects with less expenditure of space, of time, of materials and forces." Without the aid of scientific truth, had we depended on the "labour "we hear so much of in certain quarters, our progress would have been impossible. " In the sugar manufactures, for example, by means of the centrifugal machine, the sugar is deprived as perfectly of molasses in three minutes as it was previously in three days, and the necessary manufacturing apparatus has been so much reduced in magnitude as not to require more than one-half the space. The process of bleaching linen, which 78 POVERTY. formerly required weeks, has, by the discovery of chlorine, been reduced to hours Ultramarine, which at one time cost from 10 to 20 an ounce, has, by means of chemical research, Deeii reduced in price to a few pence per pound ; phosphorus, which formerly cost several guineas an ounce, now costs only as many pence. Numerous substances which were formerly thrown away, destroyed, or neglected, are now utilized. Coal- tar and gas-water, which were at one time waste products in the making of gas, and which, when thrown away, were the causes of costly litigation to gas companies by polluting streams and wells, &c., are now sources of very large incomes to those companies. Those substances yield great quantities of salts of ammonia, the beautiful aniline dyes, paraffin, benzine, naphthaline, alizarine, and other valuable products. Glycerine, also, which formerly was a most offensive waste product in soap-making, is now purified and used to the extent of 20,000,000 annually for a great number of purposes as an emollient for the skin, as a source of nitro -glycerine and dynamite, used in blasting rocks, in warfare, &c. The immense beds of native sulphide of iron, also, notably those of Tharsis and Eio Tinto in Spain, and of many other places, are now utilized, literally in millions of tons, for the production of sulphur, copper, oxide of iron, &c. A long list of instances of this class might be adduced if it were necessary, some of them of very great importance" ("Waste Products and Undeveloped Substances," by P. W. SIMMONDS). Instead of telling the masses that all wealth is due to labour (that is, their labour), explain to them the value of the trained skill that directs the labourer what he is to do. Until the labourer thinks, he is but a machine in the hands of the capitalist. As to a " juster distribution of the fruit of labour" to ameliorate the condition of the masses, it is a fallacy. It is the class that must be altered. They must be taught to make better work, to produce more not to do the minimum, but the maximum, their capacities admit of to know the value of their labour, as a manufacturer knows the PEOGEESS. 79 value of his goods ; and to obey the economic law of taking it to the ''best market." To do this, they must be above the daily wants, they must work harder when trade is good, and they must save all they can when in full employment. There are too many in the present day who argue as if capital is only made by the capitalist being unjust to his co-partner, the labourer ; that, for want of justice, poverty is the gaunt shadow that clings to the skirts of progress the Nemesis at the banquet of Dives. It may be so, but it seems to me, instead of setting the ernploy6 against the employer, it would be wiser to train him so that he may be worth a fair day's pay, and trust to the buyer of labour being as willing to compete for that commodity, and pay the market price of that, as he is to pay for the raw material. If you are forced to sell your labour, the capitalist, to live, is equally forced to buy it ; and if properly managed, there is no reason why labour should not, like raw material, fetch what it is worth in the market. No combination can, for any lengthened period, force the price of labour or material beyond what it is worth by nature's law for the regulation of prices, " supply and demand." We want mankind to see that is for their interest for all to work together and in concert to see the waste and prodigality of a system where the general advantage is endangered by the perpetual occurrence of selfish conflicts. But we want this result achieved by a further extension of the rights of the individual, and not by the privilege of individual inheritance and rights being done away with. The real salvation of society would be an increase of the class of small capitalists. No man with any property will join in the cry for a division of goods. By encouraging thrift and industry, we take the surest means of checking the schemes of agitators. Progress requires the intelligent co-operation of scientists, inventors, skilled directors, labour and capital. We want the various parts to work together, each doing its part, and recogniz- ing the value of the other parts. In this union is the national strength. To produce cheaply as possible is for 80 POVERTY. the good of all, to do this we must increase the labour- saving power of all the machinery we use. It is to machinery we owe the great difference in the national wealth the last thirty- five years. Machinery adds enormously to the productive power of human labour ; that increased production increases value in exchange ; that increased value is due not to " labour," but to inventor and capitalist, aided by the other cause, the "brain- worker," who practically applies the inventive skill, who wisely uses the capital in getting the right machinery, who ascertains the articles to make that will yield the best profit, who finds the best market for the goods he makes, who obtains regular work for the workers, and who has the enterprise, energy, industry, and thrift essential to the direction of labour, and the thrift to accumulate capital, so as to be able to add to mills or machinery, or buy the newer and better machines as they are invented. Much is due to the capitalist and the inventor, but these two agencies would be useless without that large class who have the power for the direction or organization of labour ; these men are as valuable for the fighting of a nation's industrial battles as a Napoleon, Wellington, or Nelson to organize and skilfully direct the masses of men entrusted to them to fight her political rivals. These men are rare; hence it is, and justly so, that the increased riches due to machinery have gone to the few and not to the many. The great difference between men and animals is, that the former are said to begin where their fathers left off ; they are pro- gressive ; the greater experience of the father is transmitted to the son ; whereas with animals, there is no progressive develop- ment ; each begins where its parents began. The working class may be compared to the animals ; the majority of the labouring class begin where their fathers lecjan ; the "exceptional few," who begin where their fathers ended, are the directors of labour. " Manual skill, no matter how great, is developed and dies with each generation that possesses it ; it is not transmitted from father to son ; it is not progressive. What is progressive is, not the faculties of the labourer, but the knowledge of the men by PROGRESS. 81 whom labour is directed." Take the ''division of labour;" labour became more productive from being minutely divided, as well as from being assisted by machinery. But how few think, who causes this division of labour, who directs and utilizes it to the utmost advantage ? One would imagine, reading about " all wealth being due to labour," the "capitalist and mill-owner rob- bers," that occupations came spontaneously, in accordance with some natural impulse on the part of the labourer ; that so many thousands instinctively take to this industry, or the other ; and that the connexion between various industries and between the various parts of the same industry was as simple as the con- nexion between killing a sheep and eating it. How few imagine the skill and labour that have been given to all the details of the locomotive before it became as perfect as it is ; or the natural aptitude to use wisely the various products of the earth ; the labour that has been given to open out the remotest routes of commerce, and the difficulty of keeping up our immense export trade. Our foreign trade will not take care of itself ; like the division of labour, the improvmeiits of machinery, nature's law of competition, compel us to "improve our productive power," and the increased product, as the distribution of it, is mainly due to, and can only be realized by, superior guiding powers, in the organization and direction of labour. If you think a moment, you will see not only the necessity for, but the value of this direct- ing power. Napoleon with 1,000 men was more likely to win a battle for France, than 10,000 men without the directing power of Napoleon. The navvies may have done the principal labour in constructing the Suez Canal, but the result is due to the genius of Lesseps, and his indomitable will in carrying his conception to a successful issue. A thousand men might be employed in fifty different groups, each group making some separate part of a watch, and each separate part might in itself be perfect ; but unless these parts fitted each other, for all their perfection, they would be of no more value than pebbles ; the value of the division of labour rests with the directing or guiding power. " All wealth due to labour " yes, but it is to the brain labour that invents, 6 82 POVERTY. or utilizes the inventions of others ; or in tho organization of labour, so as to obtain " increased wealth " by a more skilful direction of the labour of others. It is to this select minority that we owe the great increase in material wealth, getting rich themselves perhaps, but at the same time giving greater wealth to all as every one does who produces at a less cost, by the aid of better machinery or superior organization of labour. It is to the labour of such men that all wealth is due. Once for all, let it be distinctly understood " that the industrial progress of the modern world and the rapid growth of wealth has been the creation, not of the labour of many, but of the intellect, the ingenuity, and the perseverance of the few ; and that, despite numberless cases of cruelty, of oppression, and extortion, it is, broadly speaking, at the present moment in the hands of the very men, or the heirs of the very men, who have created it and are creating it." Let us take the history of the railway system and the history of the alpaca manufacture as examples. There are those who declare against the State for having allowed private individuals to " seize upon " the railways of this country. They argue as if the navvies made the railways, and leave you to infer that the capitalists seized upon the results of the navvies' labour. " Navvies were originally the class of workmen who were employed in the making of navigable canals ; and had not their labour been given some new direction, the same class of workmen would be making navigable canals still. What, then, turned the makers of canals into the makers of railways, and worked, in doing so, a miracle like that of changing land into gold ? The navvies themselves were not the alchemists. They themselves were merely the individual molecules. The workers of the change, the creators of the new wealth, were a set of men whose numbers, when compared with the navvies were infinitesimal, and whose names, whose bio- graphies, the parts they played, the reward they received, could be all set down with exactitude in a pamphlet of fifty pages. Granting, which is not the case, that mere labour, without any direction, would suffice to make canals, all the difference between PROGRESS. 83 a canal and a railway, between a barge and a goods train, is the creation, not of the labourer, but of this narrow and numbered minority. " The case of the alpaca manufacture is simpler still. This manufacture was the creation not even of a minority. It was the creation of one single man. * Little could Pizarro have fancied,' as Dr. Blaikie writes, 'when he found the natives of Peru clothed from the wool of an animal half sheep, half camel, and brought home specimens of it for the museums of the old world, that, three or four centuries later, the vigorous brain of a Yorkshire spinner would fasten upon that material, gaze at it, teaze it, think of it, dream of it, tiil he compelled it to yield its secret ; and then, by means of it, supplied clothing for millions, and employment (that is to say, the means of subsistence) for thousands of his race.' These men are the true benefactors of their race, and it is base ingratitude to say that such men have got their wealth out of the " sweat" of their labourers. The next time any one tells you the manufacturer or the capitalist is a thief, ask him to go to Saltaire, and, after going over it, ask himself where Saltaire would have been but for the creative faculties that were localized in the brain of its founder. These generals of industry are thought too little of. Bombard a defenceless town, carry ruin and destruction with you, and you are rewarded and honoured by the State and the people ; develop an industry that will give employment and material comfort to thousands of the present and future generations, and benefit humanity in every part of the globe, and you are denounced as an oppressor, a robber, and the State interferes with the management of your mill, or passes a Land Act that will rob you of the benefit of your investment ; and for what end ? To satisfy the claims of the many, who argue as if the wealth had been created by them. There is the raw material ; let labour alone, and it builds a pig- stye ; under direction, it builds a cathedral. Yet labour fails to see that by itself, unaided by constructive genius, and in want of the right direction, the former and not the latter would be the result of its share. Had we depended on labour only, there 84 would have been no civilization ; we must have remained in a state of stationary barbarism. Every advance in civilization is due to the creation of wants beyond those that must be satisfied. The ingenuity of the producing class is stimulated to supply these " extras," and to satisfy their desires, men think how to get forward. There is a constant effort to create some new want, and when submitted, people think they cannot do without it. We used to be satisfied with gas, until we saw the electric light ; then the desire became general for better light in our public buildings, shops, streets, and houses. I think sufficient has been said to prove my point, that the " wealth " that has been made has gone to the " creators " of that wealth ; at all events, to indicate that our progress has not been caused by " the working class." If we are not progressing so fast at the present time, it is because we are not directing sufficient attention to the acquisition of " new know- ledge." We want professorships for " original research," to be well paid, and the results published at the expense of the State, that inventors, manufacturers, medical men, and others might apply them to their respective purposes. As to the value, you cannot measure the value of "new knowledge." Who could have foretold with certainty, at the date of (Ersted's discovery of electro-magnetism, that this discovery would result in the expenditure of hundreds of millions of pounds upon telegraphs alone? Such a position is 110 sinecure, as many researches are extremely dangerous. Thilorier was killed by the explosion of a vessel of liquefied carbonic anhydride; Dulong lost an eye and finger ; and Sir Humphrey Davy was wounded by an explosion of chloride of nitrogen ; Faraday was near being blinded by an experiment with oxygen ; Nickles, of Nancy, and Louyet, of Brussels, lost their lives, and two other chemists were seriously injured in health, by exposure to the excessively dangerous fumes of hydrofluoric acid ; Bunsen lost the sight of an eye, and was nearly poisoned, by an explosion whilst analyzing cyanide of cacodyl ; Hennel was killed by an explosion of fulminate of silver, and Chapman by one of nitrate of PROGRESS. 85 methyl ; and nearly every chemical investigator could tell of some narrow escape of life in his own experience. " In the progress of Europe, especially in its mental progress, there is an incessant ebb and flow, a continual give and take. The intellectual lead passes from one to the other, qualified and modified by each great individual genius. In the sixteenth century it was Spain and Italy, in the seventeenth it was Holland and England, in the eighteenth it was France, and now perhaps it is Germany, which sets the tone, or fashion, or thought. For the first generation, perhaps, of the eighteenth century, England had the lead, which Shakspere, Milton, Bacon, Hobbes, Locke, Harvey, Cromwell, and William had given her in the century preceding. The contemporaries of Newton, Locke, Dryden, Pope, Swift, Defoe, and Addison were a force in combination which the worshippers of Louis the Fourteenth did not immediately perceive, but which was above anything then extant in Europe. The revelation of this great intellectual strength in England was made by Montesquieu and Voltaire. Voltaire, if not exactly a thinker, was the greatest interpreter of ideas whom the world has ever seen, and became the greatest literary power in the whole history of letters. When, in 1728, he took back to France his English experience and studies, he carried with him the sacred fire of freedom whereby the supremacy of thought began to pass to France. Within ten years that fire lit up some of the greatest beacons of the modern world. Voltaire wrote his 'Essay on Manners' in 1740; Montesquieu's 'Spirit of the Laws' appeared in 1748, and its influence was greater than that of any single work of Voltaire. The forty years, 1740 1780, were perhaps the most pregnant epoch in the history of human thought. It contained the works of Voltaire, Montesquieu, Diderot, D'Alembert, Vauvenargues, Buffon, Lavoisier, Eousseau, the Encyclopaedists, Condorcet, and Turgot, in France ; and, in England, those of Fielding, Eichardson, Sterne, Gibbon, Eobertson, Hume, Adam Smith, Priestley, Johnson, Goldsmith, and Gray. During the last twenty years of the century France was absorbed in her 86 POVERTY. tremendous Bevolution, and again the supremacy in literature passed away from her, to give to Germany Kant, Hegel, Goethe, Schiller, Beethoven ; to give to England Burke, Bentham, Cowper, Burns, Byron, Coleridge, Wordsworth, Shelley, and Scott. So sways the battle of ideas from age to age, and from shore to shore." We owe a deep debt to the eighteenth century the turning epoch of the modern world the age which gave birth to the movements wherein we live, and to all the tasks that we yet labour to solve. " It was a century which included twenty years of the life of Newton, twenty-three of Wren's, sixteen of Leibnitz, and the whole lives of Hume, Kant, Adam Smith, Gibbon. Priestley, Washington, Johnson and Burns, Watt and Arkwright ; the century which founded the Monarchy of Prussia and the Empire of Britain, which gave birth to the Eepublic in America and then in France. It raised to the rank of sciences chemistry, botany, and zoology ; it created the conception of social science, and laid its foundation ; it produced the historical schools and the economic schools of England and of France, the new metaphysics of Germany, the new music of Germany ; it gave birth to the new romance literature of England and of France, to the true prose literature of Europe ; it transformed material life by manifold inventions and arts ; it transformed social life no less than political life ; it found modern civilization in a military phase, it left it in an industrial phase ; it found modern Europe fatigued, oppressed with worn-out forms, uneasy with the old life, uncertain and hopeless about the new ; it left modern Europe recast without and animated within, burning with life, hope, and energy. " When the eighteenth century opened, the King of England ruled, outside of these islands, over some two or three millions at the most ; when the nineteenth century opened, these two or three had become at least a hundred millions. The colonies and settlements iii America and in Australia, the Mauritius dependency, the Indies (East and West), were mainly added to the Crown during the eighteenth century, and chiefly by the PJROG KKSS. 8 7 imperial policy of Chatham A change, at least as momentous, was effected at home from within. The latter half of the eighteenth century converted our people from a rural to a town population made this essentially a manufacturing, not an agricultural country, and established the factory system. No industrial revolution so sudden and so thorough can be found in the history of our island. If we put this transformation of active life beside the formation of the empire beyond the seas, we shall find England swung round into a new world, as,. in so short a time, has hardly ever befallen a nation. The change which in three generations has trebled our population f and made the old kingdom the mere heart of a huge empire, led to portentous consequences, both moral and material, which were hardly understood till our own day. It is the singular boast of the nineteenth century to have covered this island with vast tracts of continuous cities and works, factories and pits ; but it was the eighteenth century which made this possible. " There is this stamp upon every stroke of eighteenth- century work the habit of regarding things as wholes, bearing on life as a whole. Their thirst for knowledge is a practical, organic, working thing ; their minds grasp a subject all round, to turn it to a useful end. The encyclopedia!! spirit animates all ; with a genius for clearness, comprehension, and arrangement. .... We may take Adam Smith, Hume, Priestley, Franklin they are four of the best types of the century; with its keen hold on moral, social, and physical truth at once ; its genius for scientific and for social observation, its inexhaustible curiosity ; and its continual sense that man stands face to face with nature They all sought to conquer the earth, as the dwelling-place of a reformed society of men. " The age, with all its grossness, laid the seed of those social reforms which it is the boast of our own time to have matured. It was then that the greatest part of the hospitals, as we know them, were founded ; the asylums, reformatories, infirmaries, benefit societies, Sunday- schools, and the like. It was then, amidst a sea of misery and cruelty, that Howard began 88 POVEETY. what Burke called his circumnavigation of charity.' Then, too, began that holy war against slavery and the slave-trade, against barbarous punishment, foul prisons, against the abuses of justice, the war with ignorance, drunkenness, and vice. Captain Coram, and Jonas Hanway, and John Howard, and Thomas Eaikes led the way for those social efforts which have taken such proportions. Jeremy Bentham and Samuel Eomilly struck at the abuses of law ; Clarkson and Wilberforce, and the anti-slavery reformers, at slavery and the trade in men. Methodism, or rather religious earnestness, lies at the heart of the eighteenth century ; and the work of Wesley and Whitefield is as much a part of its life as the work of Johnson, or Hume, or Watt. That great revival of spiritual energy in the midst of a sceptical and jovial society was no accident, nor was it merely the impulse of two great souls. It is the same humanity which breathes through the scepticism of Hume and the humour of Fielding, and it runs like a silver thread through the whole fabric of that epoch. Cowper is its poet, Wilberforce was its orator, Whitefield was its priest, Wesley was its legislator, and Priestley himself the philosopher whom it cast forth. The abolition of slavery, a religious respect for the most miserable of human beings as a human soul, is its great work in the world. This was the central result of the eighteenth century ; nor can any century in history show a nobler. The new gospel of duty to our neighbour was of the very essence of that age. The French Kevolution itself is but the social form of the same spirit. He who misses this will never understand the eighteenth century. It means Howard and Clarkson just as much as it means Fielding and Gibbon ; it means Wesley and Whitefield quite as much as it means Hume or Watt. And they who shall see how to reconcile Berkeley with Fielding, Wesley with Hume, and Watt with Cowper, so that all may be brought home to the fold of humanity at last, will not only interpret aright the eighteenth century, but they will anticipate the task of the twentieth." The Eighteenth Century (FREDERIC HARRISON). From the earliest period man's courage has been daunted by PROGRESS. 89 the perception that, though it might conquer an evil thing, that thing was pretty sure to return. Darkness might vanish before the dawn, but it returned ; the storm-cloud cleared away, but it came again ; the sickly season might pass, but it came back ; the cancer was eradicated only to reappear : the tyrant might be slain, tyranny remained ; the struggle seemed hopeless, the doctrine of despair led up to that of " fate." The greatest obstacle to "progress," in every clime and every age, has been "superstition," kept alive by that deadly poison, "ignorance" the support of " dogma and priestcraft," the cause of" intoler- ance," that plague of the past. Yet mankind marched on, nothing dp ub ting, step after step, without knowing whither ; the spirit of humanity keeping alive hope of a better future within them, until, after a long and terrible battle, "truth" has conquered ; liberty, peace, justice, reason, conscience, science, have taken root ; and the shoots of the upas-tree planted by the hands of dogma and priestcraft in every part of the earth will soon disappear, when mankind learns " that Nature's laws are eternal, and that her small still voice, speaking from the inmost heart of us, shall not, under terrible penalties, be disregarded." Believe, if you like, that divine love came down to take on itself our sins ; in " life " we find there is no Saviour to do the like for us ; we shall individually suffer for our mistakes and weaknesses ; and the nation must suffer that, by its politics, " curbs," rather than fosters, individual efforts onward and upward. If we compare the past condition of civilized nations with their present condition, we shall see how much we owe to this liberty of action by the individual. For many centuries the warlike spirit reigned supreme, and such energies as were not directly devoted to war were devoted to little else than supporting the organizations which carried on war, The working part of each community did not exist for its own sake, but for the sake of the fighting part. From slaves and serfs, through vassals of different grades, up to dukes and kings, there was an enforced subordination by which the individualities 01 all were greatly restricted. The bulk of the people, until 90 POVERTY. recently, were only thought of by the managers of the State as a "taxable and soldier-yielding mass," and by conscription and the odious press-gang the life and liberty of the individual were sacrificed ; they were trained to yield implicit obedience to the " divine right " of " king and priest." We have changed much of this. With the formation of nations covering large areas, the perpetual wars within each area have ceased, and we have now the bulk of the people carrying on the work of produc- tion and distribution for their own benefit ; and, instead of the working part existing solely to support the fighting part, we find the occupation of the fighting part has gone, or only existing to protect in the quiet pursuit of its ends the working part. " Eeason and freedom " have removed, one by one, the restraints over individual actions ; men are no longer tied to certain localities, nor obliged to profess a belief in, or adherence to, certain religious opinions ; the governing body no longer interferes to say this article shall not be made, that dress shall not be worn, or dictates to men how they shall live. These vast changes have been effected by industry and thrift, by whose aid the " middle class" came into existence, and whose power gradually grew until there has been a change from a social order in which the individual existed for the benefit of the State, to a social order in which the State exists for the benefit of individuals. For men's progress, we want an unshaken belief that " We mould our destiny ; the Future lies As clay within our hands, and our own will Fashions the Present to the good or ill Which in the great Hereafter shall arise To damn us, or to lift us to the skies. Ours is the purpose which our deeds fulfil, Slaves, it may be, or dupes, yet masters still Of that which lives most hidden from our eyes. But vainly fearful, or more vainly proud, We first deny the will which God has given, Then robe our kingly maker in the shroud Of the foul sins for which we barter Heaven. Thus, self-rejected from our high estate, We next dethrone our God, and worship Fate." S. W. HUGHES. THE DWELLINGS OF THE POOR. 91 THE DWELLINGS OP THE POOR. " O'er all things labour triumphs in the end ; To urgent need all difficulties bend." " Believe me In your own bosom are your destiny's stars. Confidence in yourself, prompt resolution, This is your Venus ! and the sole malignant, The only one that harmeth you, is Doubt." SCHILLER. As regards the " Dwellings of the Poor," if legislation can help, what more is needed than the power given by the Act of 1851 ? This Act enabled boroughs and local boards of health to " erect any buildings suitable for lodging-houses for the labouring classes, and convert any buildings into lodging-houses for the labouring classes, and from time to time alter, enlarge, repair, and improve the same, and fit up, furnish, and supply with all requisite furniture, fittings, and conveniences." Under this Act, local authorities may purchase existing lodging-houses? and they may borrow, for the purposes of the Act, on the security of the rates. One might think this was a truly "model" Lodging-house Act, yet it has been a total failure. Little having come of this Act the first of its kind Parlia- ment took another step, and permitted the Public Works Commissioners to make advances to various bodies towards the erection of such dwellings. It went further ; it enabled railway or dock companies in fact, any trading or manu- facturing company to borrow money for the building of dwellings for their labourers. In 1868, a measure was passed which permitted the vestries to pull down dwellings occupied by working men which were dangerous to health or unfit for habitation, and to execute necessary improvements at the expense of the owners. Sir Eichard Cross's Acts of 1875 and 1879 took a wider view of this social problem, and 92 POVERTY. recognized that, besides structures individually unfit to subsist, there are large areas too densely inhabited to be compatible with the physical or moral welfare of the dwellers, or to admit the entrance of pure air and abundant light. Accord- ingly, Parliament armed the local authorities with power to purchase areas in which the elements of health were wanting, and to carry out, at the public expense, schemes of reconstruction, subject to the obligation of providing for at least as many persons of the working class as were dis- placed. Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, and other cities have obtained authority to pull down the nests of crime and disease, and to initiate comprehensive schemes of improvement. In many recent railway bills have been inserted clauses requiring companies, before taking fifteen or more houses wholly or partially occupied by the working class, to provide sufficient accommodation elsewhere ; and similar provisions are inserted in the metropolitan improvement measures, and all Acts which cause the displacement of the poor. Last session, another very wise step was taken by granting in effect to railway companies a partial exemption from passenger duty, on condition that proper and sufficient workmen's trains were provided. This is a capital idea, and nothing could be better, socially, mentally, and morally, than improved dwellings for the poorer classes in country districts near London, with an organized system of cheap trains by which the workmen could go to and return daily from their work. The supply of decent accommodation is not sufficient ; the cost of land and building of houses in London and the large towns is too high to get sufficient interest on the outlay from the rents the poorer class can pay. The Peabody Trust purchased nine acres of the Board of Works for 5s. a-foot, because Parliament compelled the Board to sell for this purpose, and this purpose only. But it must not be forgotten that, by this restriction upon the dis- posal of the land, Parliament caused the Metropolitan Board of Works the loss of half a million of money, which is really a contribution by the ratepayers to the erection of THE DWELLINGS OF THE POOK. 93 artisans' dwellings in central situations. Parliament has done its part. We do not want any more Acts of Parliament; we want "public opinion" roused so as to make the local authorities set the machinery in motion. But, above all, we must rouse the poor . to action ; give them the hope of a better future, if they will but adopt the right means ; cease deluding them with false hopes of what the Government can do for them ; make them comprehend they must trust to their own efforts. I am utterly opposed to the Government providing houses for the labouring classes at nominal rents ; there could be no greater calamity than making our Government a great central bureaucracy, which, while doing something on behalf of the physical condition of the working class, would utterly destroy their moral energies, and make ours a "nation of paupers." By the provisions of the Act of 1851, 14 and 15 Viet., chap. 34, permission is given to raise money on the security of the rates for the purpose of building improved dwellings for the working class. Why has this not been generally put into operation ? Be- cause there has not been a motive power at work, the lowest class have not agitated for better dwellings ; the evil has been allowed to lie dormant until 1883, when we get a sudden manifestation of public feeling from all quarters in regard to the domiciliary condition of a large portion of the working class. That improved houses, with all necessary arrangements for health and decency, would improve the moral and physical energies of the inmates is admitted by all ; how to get houses for the people that are calculated to make them more vigorous and more happy, is the question. There are plenty of societies for " improving the condition of the labouring classes." I would suggest lectures and tracts to show the economy of having better accommodation ; there would be fewer doctors 1 bills to pay ; their energies would not be crushed by a pestilential atmosphere ; they would be able to do more work, and to do it better and more cheerfully ; life would have a brighter aspect, transferred from filth and misery to cleanliness and comfort; their better nature would develop, 94 POVERTY. and the money hitherto spent on drink would go to improve the comfort of their home, and the better clothing of their children. But I would rather have things left as they are, unless the remedial attempts be made by private enterprise, the "improved dwellings " rising in response to the demand for them, by the work- ing class, from the desire for more healthy and better houses, and to obtain which they have risen to the spirit of a healthy thrift. If the work be compulsory, unnaturally stimulated and fostered by Government aid, by rates levied on the people a huge attempt at legal pauperization, a further extension of the modern system that tends to debase a large mass of the people to rely upon the State, and do nothing for themselves ; well, the remedy will be worse than the disease, the only permanent cure for which is, the desire for, and resolve to have, improved dwell- ings, by their becoming more industrious and intelligent, more self-reliant, and more thrifty men. But although there are things that it is wiser to let remain as they are, rather than sap at the vitality of the nation, there are things the Govern- ment should do. Sanitary precautions that the Legislature has decreed should be done, it has yet permitted to remain undone ; even although by such neglect, they have endangered the moral and physical health of the people, and allowed to remain in our midst a danger to the welfare of the State it is their duty to protect. There are in every parish courts and houses that are a disgrace not only to the poor who inhabit them, but to the local authorities, who have had the power since 18G6 to alter things. Mr. Sims tells us what he found in some of the houses and courts which he visited : " You have to ascend rotten staircases, which threaten to give way beneath every step, and which in some places have already broken down. You have to grope your way along dark and filthy passages, swarming with vermin. . . . Eight feet square ; that is about the average size of very many of the rooms ; walls and ceilings are black with the accretions of filth which have gathered upon them, through long years of neglect." If THE DWELLINGS OF THE POOR. 95 this bo so, the local authorities are much to blame, and, if allowed to continue, I would punish those local authorities who allow houses to remain in their parish in the state above referred to by Mr. Sims, in face of " section 20 of the Act of 18G6, under which it is the duty of the local authorities, either by itself or its officers, to make in- spection of the district, to ascertain what nuisances exist, and to enforce the provisions to abate." Mr. Sims continues: "In every room in these rotten and reeking tenements is a family often two. In one cellar, a sanitary inspector reports finding a father, mother, three children, and four pigs." Yet we find, in the Act previously referred to, the " duty imposed upon the local authorities to make regulations for fixing the number of persons who may occupy a house, or part of a house, which is let in lodgings, or occupied by members of more than one family, for the inspection and keeping the same in a cleanly and whole- some state ; and these powers may be enforced by summary process." The Nuisances' Eemoval Act of 1855, the Sanitary Acts, including the Public Health Act, 1866, Torrens' Acts, the Artisans' Dwellings Act, and the Street Improvement Acts, have been amended and re-amended. From 1855 to 1882, efforts have been made by law for the three purposes of regula tion, demolition, and reconstruction of the dwellings of the working class ; and there is abundant power by statute for putting in repair, maintaining, and regulating existing dwellings. If, instead of so much talk, the authorities or individuals used the power they possess, we should see what power the law has to alter the present condition of things. I doubt its power, and that is why the Acts have, since 1855, been useless. The power to remedy is clear enough. By law, "if a nuisance is proved to exist, it not only may, but must be removed." By the Nuisances' Removal Act of 1855, 18 and 19 Viet., c. 121, s. 12, " if the local authorities (the Vestry) find a nuisance to exist, or to have existed when notice was given, and although since removed, is likely to recur, they shall cause complaint to be made to a justice, and he shall issue summonses, and, if proved, make 96 POVERTY. order for abatement, or discontinuance and prohibition, and for costs." By section 13 of the same Act, " The justices are to order sufficient privy accommodation, to make the premises safe and habitable, to cleanse, to white-wash, or to do such other works as are necessary ; or, if they think the nuisance likely to recur, may order steps to be taken to prevent its recurrence ; and finally, if the nuisance is such as to render the house unfit for human habitation, may prohibit its being used at all until it is rendered fit, and declared to be so." Plenty of power to get rid of each dilapidated tenement in every parish, since 1855 ; yet there exists amongst us such wretched slums, in which life, by so many, is lived day by day, year after year, as has been so graphically brought before us by the author of " The Bitter Cry of Outcast London." I have said the vestries have failed in their duty, but we are all of us to blame, as by the Act of 1860, 23 and 24 Viet., c. 77, s. 13, "on complaint to a justice by any inhabitant of the parish, or place in the district, of the existence of any nuisance on any private or public premises, the person by whose act, default, permission, or sufferance the nuisance arises, or, if such person cannot be found, the owner or occupier, may be summoned, and the inquiry will then proceed." And, to prevent any possiblity of failure, the same Act, 23 and 24 Viet., c. 77, s. 16, provid esanother way in case the local authority neglects its duty, or the Act is not enforced by individual pressure : " The chief officer of police within a district may, under the direction of the Local Government Board, remove a nuisance when there has been a failure of the local authority ; " and by 37 and 38 Viet., c. 89, s. 19, " in such cases the expenses may be recovered from the defaulting authorities." " Nor is the power of the local authorities limited to cases where the nuisance has arisen through the act or default of the owner or occupier of the premises. Where it is plainly shown that he is not responsible, they may abate the nuisance themselves, at the cost of the rates " (Public Health Act, 1866, 29 and 30 Viet., c. 90, s. 21). Disease, the terrible accompaniment of overcrowding, is made the object of a THE DWELLINGS OF THE POOE. 97 special provision as follows : "If the local authority think, on the certificate of any medical practitioner, that the cleansing and disinfecting of any house, or part of a house, would tend to prevent infectious disease, they shall require the owner to do the work under a penalty of ten shillings a day, or may themselves do it and charge the expense on the owner." In addition to these extensive powers for dealing with many parts of London in an unsanitary condition, there are also special provisions, still more effective, which come into operation in areas specially prescribed by the Local Government Board. This department may, at its discretion, declare any part of the Metropolis to be under the operation of section 35 of the Public Health Act of 1866, the result of which is that the local authority in the district named is at once empowered to make regulations for the following purposes : For fixing the number of lodgers in houses, the whole or part of which is let in lodgings, or occupied by members of more than one family ; for the registration of such houses ; for their inspection and cleanliness ; enforcing the maintenance of proper and sufficient sanitary appliances ; for ventilation and drainage ; for the separation of the sexes. There can be no doubt we have the legal power for securing decency and proper sanitary precautions in dwellings in London. As far back as 1851, an Act was passed " to encourage the establishment of lodging-houses for the labouring classes." The vestries have power to borrow; lands may be appropriated, purchased or rented, and buildings suitable for lodging-houses erected, fitted up, and furnished; after some years' trial, if found too expensive, they may be sold. The initiative may be taken by ten or more ratepayers. Yet, according to Lord Shaftesbury, this useful measure has only been put in force in one instance. The Act of 1851 may be forgotten, but the excuse will not avail against Ton-ens' Act, the object of which is clearly stated in section 14 of the amended statute of 1879, 42 and 43 Viet., c. 64, which declares the object of the Act to be "the providing, by the construction of new buildings, or the repairing of existing buildings, the labouring classes with suitable 7 98 POVERTY. dwellings situate within the jurisdiction of the local authority ; " " the opening out of closed or partially closed alleys or courts inhabited by the labouring classes, and the widening of the same, by pulling down any buildings or otherwise, leaving such open spaces as may be necessary to make such alleys or courts healthful." " The Act gives power to the local authorities to give notice to the owners of any property specified in an order, to repair or demolish, and the owners may within three months require the local authority to purchase such property. Com- pensation, fixed by arbitration, is to be given to the owners." Originally the power of taking property was confined to " premises in a condition or state dangerous to health, so as to be unfit for habitation ; " but now, by the amended Act of 1882, 45 and 46 Viet., c. 54, s. 8, " power is given to remove also what are called * obstructive ' buildings ; that is, buildings which, though not in themselves unfit for human habitation, are so situated that, .by reason of their proximity to, or contact with, any other buildings, they cause one of the following effects : They stop ventilation, or otherwise make, or conduce to make, such other buildings to be in a condition unfit for human habitation ; or they prevent proper means from being carried into effect for remedying the evils complained of in respect of such other buildings." The " Dwellings of the Poor " question needs no more legisla- tion. There can be no doubt that we have ample laws to enable us to have improved dwellings for the labouring class ; we have also the fact that these laws have not been put into force ; therefore, it seems to me, we must think of some other remedy. It is useless to ask for more legislation, if legislation can do any- thing, there is already sufficient law. We want a compact body of vigilant, earnest men in every parish, resolved to put the existing laws into operation ; or, better still, we want, on the part of the working class, the desire for purer dwellings, the resolve to have them even at the sacrifice of other indulgences ; and we xnay trust then to sufficient means being found in every parish to supply the capital to build healthy houses for the THE DWELLINGS OP THE POOH. 99 people, at a price they can afford to pay, and to pay interest on capital, without having to add to our already too heavy local rates a "house tax," or recurring to that dangerous form of State aid, an article at less than that it is worth, the loss having to be made good by the taxpayers. Too many people, in their newly aroused zeal for the social welfare of the less prosperous members of the community, will do more harm than good. They tell the public of their neglected duties towards the poor ; they appeal to our pity and sympathy with the much neglected childhood of our large towns. But would it not be better to denounce the idle, vicious parents, instead of relieving them of their obligations to their offspring ? Is it wise, is it right, to be so sympathetic with the ".outcast poor ? " In relieving this class, are we acting honestly towards the honest poor, who struggle on, and do the best for their homes, but whose children lack, not only the com- forts, but often the necessaries of life ? Be as kind as you like towards the orphans, the sick, the aged ; but compel the parents who are able to work to contribute towards the maintenance of those whom they have recklessly brought into existence. Charity is a cruel kindness ; it enfeebles the self-helping capacities of the poor. I would not help any one whose poverty is the result of his own self-indulgent habits. We are getting to look at the poor as a kind of martyrs, victims driven into misery by wealth. We had much better follow them home, after leaving off their day's work, and see how much of this cursed poverty is caused by their wilfulness and intemperance. The next important consideration in this question of " im- proved dwellings for the poor" is, whether the people themselves are fit to occupy purer and better dwellings, whether they desire to make the change. " For in the long run it will be found, when this burst of excitement is over, that, without training these poorest people, no improvement in their houses will be of much avail. Read the most harrowing descriptions of the worst courts, and notice how many of the sorrows would not bo remedied by cheap, good houses ; watch the people, and think what they would make of these good houses if they had them to- 100 POVERTY. morrow ; and then realize that the problem hefore you is far more difficult than the financial one ; that it is more complicated than that of buildings ; that you will have, before you can raise these very poorest, to help them to become better in. themselves " (OCTAVIA HILL). Periodical visits of lodging-houses by the Inspectors of Nuisances may make things better, but will only palliate the evil, not remove its cause. Facts compel us to sorrow- fully admit that there are thousands of people in London and other large towns who not only will not, but cannot, live decently. They do not know how ; and it will require great care and persistent effort to train them into better habits. Cleaning and purifying their present haunts by Act of Parliament may make the dwellings better fit for human habitation, but how can you keep them so, whilst, as things are, their present human inhabitants are hopelessly unfit to occupy them ? The result would be wholesale evictions, and scores of wretched beings will be forced to exchange a filthy home for none at all, and there will be such an amount of acute misery, that it is horrible to contemplate. We must, therefore, proceed cautiously in clearing out the dark corners of our huge cities. We must prepare the people for a change. The majority are not better than their present surroundings, or they would exercise more energy or self-denial to get out of their present habitations ; and it is as well to remember that they are not fit for, and not disposed to inhabit, houses that will deprive them of their " present dirty way of living; " and it will be only very gradually that they can become so. This is a truth which should be well considered before we spend a lot of money in buying land and building houses for the people. As people become more educated, they will have more exact- ing ideas on the subject of house accommodation ; at present it surprises many that the approval of the new order of dwellings that are springing up in London, and other large towns, is by no means universal. It is a matter of education against old habits ; self- respect desiring privacy against the Bohemianism of overcrowd- ing. The progressive culture of the class, better sanitary know- ledge, a different idea of " comfort," and home will soon conquer THE DWELLINGS OP THE TOOK. 101 the difficulty of a higher rent. They will learn in time that the "highest priced" article is not always the dearest, nor the " lowest priced" the cheapest. Political economists tell us that wages must be sufficient to pay the rent, and keep the labourer and his belongings, and experience proves the assertion to be correct. If land is so valuable in London, Common Sense says, " Go outside London, have a cottage and bit of garden, and trust more to Nature's purer air than to the public-house stimulants." I am much in favour of improved dwellings in the country districts near London, with a system of cheap trains, or rather " workmen's tickets," by which working men could go to and fro' daily to their work. There is no reason why dwellings for the working classes might not be had in and about London or any of the large towns. There are always some places where land is cheap, and the houses could be built loftier even than at present. There is capital to be had for 3 per cent.; there is a lot of idle labour. Many large employers of labour have provided suitable accommodation for their employes, and it is a good suggestion of Lord Salisbury's that the Government might fitly lead the way. They employ a very large number of people, and it would be an excellent example to other large employers of labour for the Government to provide the " very best accommodation " to be had for the " housing of the people " they employ, at the very lowest rate, that will pay 8 per cent, interest for the money invested. Miss Hill and her fellow workers deserve the greatest praise. Undeterred by the price of land, or the cost of building, but personally supervising the minutest details, they have got 4 and 5 per cent, for their money. No need for Government aid ; be in earnest ; find a court where the buildings are out of repair, or inhabited by a dense and neglected population, and buy up the houses as occasion offers ; Improve the tenements, if possible ; if not, rebuild ; collect the rents weekly yourself, and watch the condition of each room ; get the people to work with yon, and to preserve the room for their own sake, as kept in condition they must be, and any mi- 1 02 POVERTY. necessary outlay means a new tenant or a higher rent. The result is, that she is able to keep the same inmates; she reaches " the very lowest class that have any settled habitation," the class of whom it has been said it is impossible, owing to their habits of working, to house decently. But Miss Hill entirely re- pudiates the idea that any class of people are not " improvable," or that there can even be "dens of iniquity" which make it necessary that the population should be removed and scattered. I thoroughly endorse this opinion nay, more, assert it to be the only way to get rid of the evil ; improve the class, act in such a way that your efforts get the ''class to work with you," for their own social advancement. This is the remedy for nearly all the misery and degradation in our midst ; in a thought- ful and kindly manner, work for the lower class, but in such a way that they work with you, and rise in character as well as into improved dwellings. No putting the burden on the rates, no wholesale pampering of the class, will cure poverty ; it will increase it. It is like moving the people out of their crowded houses their wretched hovels ; it is like hunting the coster- monger and the street-walker. You may make their life more difficult, but you harden them ; you make them lower, not higher, by such conduct. As Miss Hill says ; "If you move the people, they carry the seeds of evil away with them ; they must be some- where, and they want improved dwellings which they can in- habit, and where care can be taken of them. . . . You can hunt the poor about from place to place, oust them out of one place and drive them to another ; but you will never reach the poor except through people who care about them, and watch over them." To remove the misery, the disease, the mortality in "rook- eries," the aid of Government was invited. It responded by the Artisans' Dwellings Act ; giving to local authorities power to pull down bad houses, and provide for the building of good ones. " What have been the results? A summary of the operations of the Metropolitan Board of Works, dated December 21, 1883, shows that up to last September it had, at a cost of a million and a quarter to ratepayers, unhoused 21,000 persons, and THE DWELLINGS OF THE POOR. 103 provided houses for 12,000 ; the remaining 9,000 to be here- after provided for being, meanwhile, left houseless. This is not all. Another lieutenant of the Government, the Com- missioners of Sewers for the City, working on the same lines, has, under legislative compulsion, pulled down in Golden Lane and Petticoat Square masses of condemned small houses, which, together, accommodated 1,731 poor people ; and of the spaces thus cleared five years ago, one has, by State authority, been sold for a railway station, and the other is only now being covered with industrial dwellings, which will eventually accommodate one-half the expelled population ; the result up to the present being that, added to those displaced by the Metropolitan Board of Works , these 1,734 displaced five years ago form a total of nearly 11,000 artificially made houseless, who have had to find covering for themselves in miserable places that were already over- flowing ! " (HERBERT SPENCER). The fault of legislative interference is, that it wants to do too much. The work of supervising, cleansing, and repairing the house accommodation of the working class a work really needed is put aside for the more popular task of pulling down and building model houses. Squalid London is too vast to be pulled down and rebuilt in a hurry. Even were this possible, it is doubtful whether it would be desirable. Thousands of little adjustments, by which time and circumstances have provided many gradations of houses to suit corresponding gradations in the means and wants of their inhabitants, would be swept away, and it may well be doubted whether the hard and fast rules of the building philanthropist would form a completely successful substitute. But regular and careful supervision would quickly produce a salutary change in the condition, and even in the appearance, of the Metropolis. In most localities it would supply all that is needed, and where houses are so bad as to be beyond repair, it would, at any rate, act as a palliative until the moment arrived for their demolition. Moreover, the burden of repairing would, as far as the law can accomplish it, be thrown upon the right person namely, the rent-receiving owner. 104 POVERTY. This "pulling down" legislation began in 1868, when Mr. Torrens succeeded in obtaining the first of the series of Acts which bear his name. But the Acts have failed, because until 1879 there was no power to give the owner compensation, and since 1879 the vestries have been deterred from using their power under the Acts from the fear of claims for compensation, and the heavy law costs inseparable therefrom. At the end of 1883, out of the thirty-eight vestries and district boards, twenty-five had not used the Acts at all since 1879, seven had used them very slightly, and six only to a considerable extent. Sir Eichard Cross's Artisans' Dwellings Act of 1875 has been more successful, and has improved the condition of London. Many of the worst " slums " have been cleared away. But there is naturally a great complaint of the large sums of money paid away in compensation under Cross's Acts of 1875, 1879, and 1882. The loss to the ratepayers of London is said to amount already to a million and a quarter sterling. In many cases far too much has been paid in compensation to the owners of unwholesome dwellings. It has been too much overlooked that a house so utterly bad and rotten that repair is impossible is a comparative rarity. The majority of the houses, even in an unhealthy area, are capable of being made habitable, and as they are let and sub-let, sometimes through five or six hands, the compensation is a heavy item in settling with those interests, besides the actual receiver of the rent ; and when a business is carried on, the claim for compensation is heavy and difficult to arrange. And the result seldom satisfies any one. The vendors are not willing parties, and are not satisfied with the 17s. per foot instead of 18s. per foot that Mr. Chamberlain says they have been paid to clear the sites dealt with under Cross's Acts. Miss Octavia Hill understands this subject as well as any one in " Homes of the London Poor." Preface, page 8, she says : " Clearing away old abuses cannot pay, except in the sense in which all reforms pay. Abolition of slavery did not pay ; the nation had to pay for it ; happy if by mere payment in money it could efface so great a wrong ! So it must be with these courts and alleys. THE DWELLINGS OP THE POOF. 105 It cannot be remunerative in s. d. to remove them ; neither can you fairly throw the cost on the individual owner ; the community the dulled conscience of which allowed them to grow up must pay for removing them. But once cleared, the buildings erected ought to be remunerative ; and I earnestly hope no short-sighted benevolence will ever deceive our legislators into losing sight of this." But s. d. has been, and will be, the powerful factor, In round figures, the Metropolitan Board have cleared away forty acres of buildings. Of these, twenty- three acres are still, at the end of 1883, vacant. Some of these sites have been lying use- less for years, and instead of curing the evil, the disease has been aggravated by some 10,000 people having been squeezed into houses already full to overflowing ; rebuilding has not kept pace with pulling down. Artisans' dwellings, built according to the Board's plans, and under its supervision, are not a promising speculation. The Board offers sites for sale at a great sacrifice ; there is no competition; of eight sites put up to auction, June, 1883, only three were sold. It is useless to bring in more Acts, until you remove the cause of this reluctance to build ; builders must see that the investment will pay. Unoccupied areas, such as at present exist, mean a tax upon the ratepayers, and increased suffering and discontent to the poor. How to house the poor without loss, is the problem that needs solution. The fault, I think, so far, has been attempting operations 011 too large a scale. Many persons anxious to benefit the poor would devote the necessary time and money to the erection of a single house, but would object to taking a few shares in a gigantic building society. Miss Octavia Hill has succeeded on a small scale, but the large dwellings companies have failed ; and unless the speculation will return interest for the money, builders will not build. " There has been a remarkable sameness about the fate of all the attempts of Parliament to deal with the different phases of this dwellings question. The Supervision Acts are excellently conceived, but they have failed. Torreus' Acts and Cross's Acts are thoroughly practical and well-arranged measures, 106 POVERTY. but they have failed also. Moreover, the cause of failure is the same in the three cases. The Acts have not broken down in working, but for want of working. Again, to go a step further, this lack of administrative energy, however variously exhibited, proceeds from one source. Why are there not more Inspectors of Nuisances ? Because of the expense. Why are not Torrens' Acts put into operation ? For fear of increasing the rates. Why are not Cross's Acts loyally worked ? On account of their costliness. Why is it almost impossible to get decent dwellings for the poor built in London ? Because it does not pay. In one form or another, the money question is at the bottom of every difficulty which besets the subject. If, therefore, public opinion is in favour of a general improvement in the dwellings of the poor, it must also be in favour of spending public money in order to effect it. Without the support of public opinion, it is unjust to expect local authorities to undertake liabilities which must add seriously to the burden of taxation, and are certain to be distasteful to a large class of the ratepayers. The best advice which can be offered on this question at this time is that which Don Quixote gave to Sancho Panza : " Publish few edicts, but let them be good, and, above all, see that they are well observed, for edicts that are not kept are the same as not made" Quarterly Review, January, 1884 : " Dwellings of the Poor." This "better housing" of the poor is a more difficult subject than those who are disgusted at the saddening sight of the miserable homes of a large mass of the people are apt to imagine ; the wretched dwelling is only one cause of the misery that exists, and if removed, would only temporarily get rid of the disease, we shall only remove the symptoms, without getting rid of the cause. To permanently benefit the working class, we must get them to lead different lives ; we must get into their brains a desire for better surroundings ; they would soon find healthier dwellings if the desire existed within them. " But they cannot afford to pay higher rents," it is said. This I emphatically deny ; they can, but they must use more wisely the result of their industry. Is it not a saddening reflection, that THE DWELLINGS OF THE TOOK. 107 over forty millions a year, half the taxation of the kingdom is derived from the revenue raised from " drink and smoke?" You may eliminate the full garret, you may compel the landlord to improve his dwellings, and take a lesser rent, but unless you conquer the gin- drinking and pipe- smoking, you do not get rid of the hopeless penury, the starvation, and its attendant squalor, filth, and vice, caused by a self-indulgent selfishness. By improving the dwellings of the poor, I admit, you replace a vast influence for evil by an equally potent influence for good. But pardon my reminding you that this is only one of many evil influences the result of a cause you are not removing, but rather fostering, as you are doing for the poor man what he should do for himself; therefore I, for one, do not expect from ''improved dwellings," if brought about by outside influence, so sweeping a reform in the habits of the poor as many anticipate. A "remedy" is necessary. Yes ; but experience has proved, in all ages, all climes, that remedies applied from outside by legislative authority have their limits. No authority has the power to work a "reformation" in the habits of the people. The State may insist that tenement dwellings shall be made habitable by their owners, but no law can reduce the cost of house-room. To pay the higher rent, the present wage must be sufficient, or the manufacture or trade of the locality sufficiently remunerative to pay the labourer a higher wage. If rents are too high, you force the poor man out of a house ; but if there be a legitimate demand for "poor dwellings," and they can be built to pay a conscientious profit, we are justified in saying that such dwellings will be built, if the tenants will take proper care of the property and pay the rent regularly. But the fact must not be overlooked that " improved dwell- ings " mean higher rent, or greater care in the use of the property and less trouble in collecting the rents. There are two remedies : to " improve the people," and trust to their purer instincts refusing to allow them to live in their present manner make them " fitter for better dwellings," and be sure they will soon find the way to pay for them ; or, 108 ro-VEUTY. " improve the dwellings, without altering their habits or code of decency." People are too apt to forget that generations of overcrowding have affected not only the conduct, but the instincts of the poorest class. Those brought up in a different manner are shocked that a man and his wife, their grown-up sons and daughters, and divers collateral relations, should all sleep in the same room ; but ask them, and many of them would turn on you full of wrath if you suggested it was an " immoral life " they were leading. Our poorer classes are too much like John Bunyan's man with the "muck rake," who "could look no way but down- wards," and, when offered something better, "did neither look nor regard;" the taste for the " muck-rake " is deep-seated. The most disheartening feature in this question of " Poverty " is the dull, callous, indifference to misery of those on whose behalf so much effort is being made. Any man who could inspire the lower class with a distaste for squalor in the hearts of that large number who now prefer dirt to cleanliness, would be the greatest benefactor of his race ; the homes of the poor would mend themselves without any aid from without. The task will be difficult ; the disease will not be overcome easily ; but it may safely be predicted that the remedy, when found, will be moral rather than legal. Things are improving, and although the natural development may be slow, it cannot be accelerated by the coercion of law. We want the poor better housed. The houses they inhabit should be clean and habitable. We want the poor to be willing to inhabit a purer atmosphere from their self-respect to reject the herding together any longer like a lot of pigs. This must come from the man himself he must qualify himself for the necessary wage to obtain the better house ; he must be more thrifty, and take a pleasure in his home. An Act of Parliament can no more secure for the poor man a comfortable home than it can give him 80s. instead of 20s. a week wages ; keep him sober, or mate him with one who will be what a poor man's wife should be a cheerful, willing helpmate a thoughtful, thrifty housewife, tempting the man THE DWELLINGS OP THE TOOK. 109 onward and upward by the attractions of her home aiid her cheerful companionship . " Village Communities " versus " Town Eookeries." A con- ference was held in the rooms of the Social Science Association, London, July 16, 1884, for the purpose of considering the best means of promoting the formation of village communities, where manufactories and " home industries " could be combined with the cultivation of cottage or co-operative farms, as a remedy for overcrowding in great cities, and want of employment in agri- cultural districts. A " consummation devoutly to be wished" the finding of employment for the unemployed, and carrying on industries in comparatively deserted rural districts, and diverting the rush from the large towns. But is it possible ? No ; like other attempts in the same direction to elevate the condition of the mass of the people, the attempt is not practicable. A phil- anthropist is too apt to imagine that factories and workshops and remunerative occupations for persons of both sexes require only a society to be formed and public meetings to be held ; whereas, in reality, there are few things more difficult than to establish an industry, or divert it from the locality where it has been carried on. To be successful, it must be situated in the locality where it can be most economically produced and distributed. The time has passed for " home industries " or " village commu- nities," and it is wiser to tell the people how best to help them- selves by a proper understanding of the conditions of the age they live in, than to attempt to establish a scheme only adapted for the middle ages. On July 17, 1884, the " Hampden House Eesidential Club " was opened, and we have here a common-sense attempt to better the condition of a large class. The object of the club is to provide a comfortable home and club for young men engaged as students, or in professional or commercial pursuits. In the house young men get, in addition to the bedroom of the ordinary lodging-house, a dining-room and coffee-room, and the advantage of reading-room, smoking-room, bath-room ; and it supplies a great want in protecting young men who come to London from 110 POVERTY. the provinces, and, having nowhere to go, wander about the streets of an evening and drift into evil habits, solely through the want of a proper home at the critical age, when the habits which make or mar the character are to a considerable extent acquired. No class of persons deserve help more than the young of both sexes in our large towns, and living in lodgings probably one room, a place to sleep in, but not calculated to attract them from the time their occupation is over until they go to bed, and certainly very different to the comforts of home, or a " home " such as Hampden House offers to them. " Clerks' Chambers " is another attempt to protect young men engaged in London from the dangers of large cities, by providing suitable lodgings for young men and women, especially those from the country without friends or relations. A great deal too much is said about the misery of the poor, and too little about the sufferings of the immense number of young people of both sexes who are suddenly deprived of the comforts of a home and sent amongst strangers, and have for consolation after their day's labour the attractions of a bedroom in a lodging-house ; yet we wonder and condemn those who, out of pure loneliness, are attracted to music halls, yield to the temptations of tLe streets, form evil acquaintances, and " go to the bad." " The Alexandra Home " at South Kensington is being erected to supply a home for 100 of the female students attending classes at the Eoyal College of Music, the South Kensington Museum, and other art and science schools in the neighbourhood. Let us hope that other wealthy men will follow the example of Mr. Francis Cook, who presented 40,000 for the erection of this institution ; and it is much to the credit of Messrs. Lucas Brothers that they offered to erect the buildings for the bare cost of materials and labour. Such homes are much wanted to protect the young girls who attend the numerous classes in connexion with the various branches of art and science at South Kensington, and who are in consequence exposed to temp-' tations and trials which it is not only our duty, but a wise policy, for the good of the State, if possible, to remove from their path. THE NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND. Ill THE NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND. "How small of all that human hearts endure, That part which laws or kings can cure ! " WHAT a boon it would be to humanity if it were possible to stamp the above couplet upon every human brain, and open men's eyes to the truth it contains ! In any difficulty, instead of relying upon their own efforts, men trust to extraneous aid, and have appealed to priest, king, nobles, and now Parliament. We ridicule fetish- worship, yet, spite of experience, the civilized man bows down and worships the Legislature, and invokes its aid as blindly as the savage does that of his favourite idol spite of the experience we have had not only of its inability to do good, but evil instead of good. What are the thousands of Acts of Parliament which repeal preceding Acts but so many admissions of its fallibility ? What evidence of failure can be more convincing than the confession in the Eeport of the Poor Law Commission : " We find, on the one hand, that there is scarcely one statute connected with the administration of public relief which has produced the effect designed by the Legislature, and that the majority of them have created new evils, and aggravated those evils which they were intended to prevent." In a minute of the Board of Trade (November, 1883;, it is said that since " the Shipwreck Committee of 1836, scarcely a session has passed without some Act being passed, or some steps being taken by the Legislature or the Government, with this object " (preventing shipwrecks) ; and that " the multiplicity of statutes, which were all consolidated into one Act in 1854, has again become a scandal and a reproach ; " each measure being passed because previous ones had failed. And there comes presently the confession that " the loss of life and of ships has been greater since 1876 than it ever was before." And note this meanwhile the cost of administration has been raised from 17,000 a year to 73,000 a year. 112 POVERTY. Iii life there is nothing more surprising or disheartening than the indifference to, and indisposition to learn from, the ex- perience of those that have preceded us. The wisdom in the poet's couplet is fully confirmed by history's chequered scroll. Parliament is a necessary evil, but the mischief done by law- making, unguided by adequate knowledge in experimental legislation, upon the body social has been of so serious a nature that it is astonishing men should still appeal to Parlia- ment to help them in any difficulty, when the experience of centuries has conclusively proved the remedy to be worse than the disease. In a paper read to the Statistical Society in May, 1873, Mr. Janson, Vice-President of the Law Society, states that " from the Statute of Merton (20 Henry III.) to the end oi 1872, there had been passed 18,110 public Acts, of which he estimated that four-fifths has been wholly or partially repealed. He also stated that the number of public Acts repealed wholly or partially, or amended, during the years 1870-71-72, had been 3,532, of which 2,759 had been totally repealed." " I have re- ferred to the annually issued volume of ' The Public General Statutes ' for the last three sessions. Saying nothing of the numerous amended Acts, the result is that in the last three sessions have been totally repealed, separately or in groups, 650 Acts, belonging to the present reign, besides many of pre- ceding reigns. . . . But unquestionably, in multitudinous cases, repeal came because the Acts have proved injurious. We talk glibly of such changes ; we think of cancelled legislation with indifference ; we forget that before laws are abolished they have generally been inflicting evils more or less serious, some for a few years, some for tens of years, some for centuries. Change your vague ideas of a bad law into a definite idea of it as an agency operating on people's lives, and you will see that it means so much of pain, so much of illness, so much of mortality. A vicious foim of legal procedure, for example, either enacted or tolerated, entails on suitors costs, or delays, or defeats. What do these imply ? Loss of money, often ill spared ; great and prolonged anxiety ; frequently consequent illness ; unhappiness THE NATIONALISATION OP THE LAND. 113 of family and dependents ; children stinted in food and clothing all of these miseries which bring after them multitudinous remoter issues. . . . Even to say that a law has been simply a hindrance, is to say that it has caused needless loss of time, extra trouble, and additional worry ; and among over-burdened people, extra trouble and worry imply, here and there, break- downs in health, with their entailed direct and indirect sufferings. Seeing, then, that bad legislation means injury to men's lives, judge what must be the total amount of mental distress, physical pain, and raised mortality which these thousands of repealed Acts of Parliament represent!" (HERBERT SPENCER: Contem- porary Review, May, 1884.) I have gone fully into this matter, as a caution is necessary to the public against their blind faith in Acts of Parliament. The last idea is for the nationalisation of the land, for the State to confiscate or buy up the land, and the substitution of " one landlord," the State, for the many, as at present. The attempt is not likely to succeed yet, but should be opposed and crushed in its infancy. The Legislature already has too much power, interferes too much with our freedom of action ; let it attend to its legitimate functions the protection of the lives and property of its subjects ; the compel- ling by law men to observe the contracts they have entered into ; the repealing of all obsolete and injurious Acts still on the Statute-book ; the careful management of the affairs of the nation, like honest stewards ; doing all things necessary for the public good, and at the least possible cost. Meantime it has seemed to me advisable to warn the public against their faith in the power of Parliament ; and I quite agree with Herbert Spencer, that " the function of Liberalism in the past was that of putting a limit to the powers of kings ; the function of true Liberalism in the future will be that of putting a limit to the powers of Parliaments." In England "The Nationalisation of the Land " is quite a new idea, and very few men indeed understand what is meant by those that use it. The expression is a symbol of extreme Socialistic theorists; and it must be readily admitted that the 8 114 POVERTY. idea has made great progress, and it is unwise to treat it as a visionary project ; on the contrary, its progress should be checked by rational argument. There are two schemes ; both assume that the entire land of the country, being the legitimate property of the whole community, ought to be owned by the State, and never ought to have been alienated to private owners ; the one party is content to acquire by compulsory sale, the other by confiscation. Mr. George advocates the latter method, not only to agricultural land, but to building land in towns ; and he argues that even a freehold on which the owner has built a house is as much a robbery of the public domain as the largest estate of a Highland laird. In his opinion, the possession of any portion of the earth's surface by a private owner is theft, and the stolen goods ought to be restored to the public that has been de- frauded. " Though his titles have been acquiesced in by genera- tion after generation, to the landed estates of the Duke of Westminster, the poorest child that is born in London to-day has as much right as his eldest son. Though the sovereign people of the State of New York consent to the landed posses- sions of the Astors, the puniest infant that comes wailing into the world, in the squalidest room of the most miserable tenement house, becomes at that moment seized of an equal right with the millionaire. And it is robbed if the right is denied." There can be no mistaking such language ; it says plainly enough that all the owners of land and houses have no right thereto ; although the State may have given or sold them the land, the State had no right to sell ; therefore the trans- action is void, and the property, like other property proved to have been stolen, or sold without a legal title, must be restored to its rightful owner the State whose duty it is to hold it for the benefit of the people. There are very few who will endorse this extreme view ; the conscience repudiates such wholesale robbery ; if it be agreed that the land should revert to the State, the majority are willing that a fair compensation be given to the present owners. These speculative theorists overlook one important condition, THE NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND. 115 that the value of the land depends upon what is done with it. Let us assume that the State had the land back to-morrow ; the State cannot cultivate it ; the Government would be compelled to do what has been done before tempt people to take it upon such conditions as will seem worth their while to do. That this would be the case is proved by the fact that the Metropolitan Board of Works has recently cleared away forty acres of buildings, but twenty- three acres are still lying waste, useless, because the condi- tions are not sufficiently remunerative to tempt capitalists to invest. What they have sold has been sold at a loss ; to buy up all the land at its market value would cause a very heavy loss. We are told that before the earth was peopled, land was not appropri- ated. Why ? Because while population was very sparse it was not worth the while of individuals to claim special plots, when they could get what they wanted by taking it. Briefly, it was then of no value, and was parted with then as land is parted with now in new, undeveloped countries, to tempt the people to settle thereon. There would have been no progress, no civil- ization, without private ownership. Who would toil to raise crops which he could not enjoy ? The State was compelled to recognize private ownership, and to respect individual occupancy, to induce people to settle down. Who would cultivate and improve the soil, who would be thrifty, and acquire for the use of future generations, unless the State secured to its citizens the fruit of their labour ? Try to take back what has been paid for in meal or in malt, you destroy the sacredness of property, you take away the incentive for self-denial and thrift, you check progress, you kill the goose that has been laying you the golden eggs. Mr. George wants us to believe that all our poverty and degradation arc the result of private land ownership ; and he tells us that the nationalisation of the land would rid us of the poverty and misery that exist. There was a time when land communism did exist ; why does not Mr. George prove to us that at that time poverty was unknown ? There are parts of the world where land is still unappropriated ; do we find in any of these places a trace of such social well-being as is worthy of 116 POVERTY. comparison with the worst governed country in Europe ? Take the North American Continent : the aborigines lived by the chase ; they had no. settled habitation ; they lived in a state of nature, appropriated land, and what was on it ; but the land that now, under the system of " private ownership," will support a million of people in plenty, could scarcely sustain a thousand under* the old system. ''India is a country in which, theoretically at least, the State is the only and the universal landowner, and over a large part of it the State does actually take to itself a share of the gross produce which fully represents ordinary rent. Yet this is the very country in which the poverty of the masses is so abject that millions live only from hand to mouth, and when there is any even a partial failure of the crops, thousands and hundreds of thousands are in danger of actual starvation. . . . Moreover, I could not fail to observe, when I was connected with the Government of India, that the portions of that country which have grown in wealth are precisely that part of it in which the Government has parted with its power of absorbing rent, by having agreed to a Permanent Settlement. . . . There are two questions the first is whether we are quite sure that the wealth of Lower Bengal would ever have arisen if its sources had not been thus protected ; and the second is whether, even now, it is quite certain that any Govern- ment, even the best, spends wealth better for the public interests than those to whom it belongs by the natural processes of acquisi- tion" (ARGYLL). ''Wherever we find the land unappropriated, whether amongst Zulus, or Red Indians, or Maories, or roving Tartars in Central Asia, we find a savage and degraded state of mankind, and we find, almost invariably, that the first step in civilization is coin- cident with the private appropriation and careful cultivation of the soil. So far from the sweeping generalizations of Mr. George being true, that human misery and degradation have sprung from private ownership of land, we find, from actual survey of the earth at the present time, that precisely the opposite is true that human misery is deepest where the land is not appropriated, and THE NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND. 117 human happiness and civilization most advanced where the land is held by private owners. . . . Why have those communities that have acted on Mr. George's principles for thousands of years remained in primitive barbarism, while all advance has been made by nations that discarded them ? The reason is plain. Because they are not suited for mankind in a civilized state. Wherever progress is made to a certain stage, the land becomes appropriated, while at the same time arts and" litera- ture arise, cities are built, and laws are framed. At that stage of human progress where slavery and polygamy prevail, where private rights are at the mercy of the chief or despot, where agriculture is unknown, and population is kept down by incessant wars and famines, we find the land unappropriated. Wherever these abuses disappear, and the garments of civilization are put on, there private ownership of land appears. The pastoral or nomadic state is exchanged for the agricultural, and dense populations take the place of thinly scattered tribes " (Mr. SAMUEL SMITH, M.P.). We hear too much of " the vast amount of wealth accumulated in individual hands, and the poverty and the starvation lying at the very doors of the rich." And to remedy this, we are told that the land must revert to the State, because it is impossible for a man to subsist comfortably unless he has the necessary land for him to live upon. Natural justice, we are told, " can recognize no right in one man to the possession and enjoyment of land that is not equally the right of all his fellows." The people have a right to the land ; landlords are " marauders." The owner may have bought and paid for the land, but he has bought a something that these theorists say could not in justice be sold. Land-owning is the same to them as slave-owning ; no matter how acquired, it is as unfair and 'unjust to have land as to have slaves. I do not think the comparison a fair one, and fail to see that natural justice denies to any man the right to own all the land he can pay for ; the argument that by the few owning the land, the many are excluded therefrom, is absurd ; people do not 118 POVERTY. buy land to expel other people therefrom, but to let it to others at a price that will pay them for the capital they have invested ; and there is not a day in the year but that land can be bought by those who want it, and have the money to pay for it. Mr. George wants us to believe " that private property in land can only be justified on the theory that some men have a better right to existence than others." What has the right to existence to do with it ? Why is land to be singled out ? If the argument is worth anything, it means that those who have not, have, by the law of natural justice, a right to what others have. This I deny most emphatically ; they have no right, except to acquire in the same manner, not by industry alone, but by self-denying thrift. If you admit that private ownership in land is unjust, you must follow the argument to its legitimate conclusion viz., " that all private property is wrong." Having, as the result of my exertions, got a certain amount of wealth, which I invest in land, I contend that I have as perfect a right to that land, which represents my wealth, as I had to the wealth in another form ; having bought the land, it follows that it is perfectly just to demand a rent from those I have let it to ; they are only paying me interest for having advanced the money to buy the land for them to use. It is simply ridiculous to ask, in "Socialism made Plain," "Do any say we attack property? We deny it. We attack only the private property of a few loiterers and slave-drivers, which renders all property in the fruits of their own labour impossible for millions." It is beyond my comprehension how such fallacies can be listened to, or be believed in, by any rational or thoughtful man ; they do not seem to have the remotest idea of what constitutes justice or principle. The "right to live" and "land to live on" is said to be God's law ; yet land is limited, populations without limit. How can every infant that comes into the world have a moral right to his bit of land ? How is it possible for him to get it, when land is a.//.mZ quantity, and population not only not stationary, but constantly increasing ? To carry out Mr. George's theory, there would THE NATIONALISATION OP THE LAND. ] 19 have to be a division of the land amongst the inhabitants of a town or nation every twelve months. Divide it all to-day, in any and every progressive society, a time must arrive when a certain portion of the people must lose this right to land, which, we are asked to believe, is the " inalienable birthright of every citizen." You divide the land to-morrow amongst 1,000 people; do you think it possible every fifty years, as the population increases one-half, to take away one-third of the land from the original 1,000, so as to give equal portions to the 1,500 ? The thing is utterly impracticable, and the discontent with such a system of " perpetual sub-division " of the land as the population increased would be infinitely worse than under the present system. Perhaps Mr. George will tell us how he will carry out his theory. We are told that every man has a right to live in his own country ; but what right, under this view, has an Irish- man to live in Liverpool, or a Scotchman to live in London ? If poverty is to be extirpated by every child having his bit of land, you compel him to stop where his land is ; as you say " rent is a robbery," you limit every one to the boundaries of the parish or city he is born in. If every man has an inalienable right to live in a certain city or county, it may be contended with equal justice that he has an inalienable obligation to live in it, " Natural rights/' I think, would soon be found to be a curse rather than a blessing. It will be said the above is imaginary, that, in reality, things will go on as heretofore, the only difference being that the nation has got back its land, and the rent is paid to the State for the benefit of the people ; it is " England for all " instead of for the privileged few. But, it is said, grant that private ownership of land is the law of progress ; the methods by which it was brought about having been unjust, might took the place of right, and the descendants of these " land robbers " deserve no mercy at our hands. There can be no doubt that in the olden times everywhere " might was right." History is a record of cruel conquests, of weaker races subdued by stronger, and the taking of the soil by the conquerors. " The feudal system of modern Europe arose 120 out of these conquests, and the land was conveyed by the chiefs to their vassals upon military tenure. In this way the soil of England changed hands, first upon the Saxon, then upon the Danish, and lastly upon the Norman conquest, and that of Ireland, some centuries later, upon the English conquest. Very much the same process is going on at this day in all our colonies ; the white race is gradually dispersing the coloured races of the land in South Africa, in New Zealand, in Polynesia ; while our American kinsmen have pretty nearly completed the spoliation of the Eed Indians of North America. " These processes have usually been cruel and unjust, but it is the work of an archaeologist, rather than a statesman, to investigate the original titles by which most of the earth's surface passed to our ancestors. None but a dreamer could seriously think that modern titles should be impugned because Alaric, or Attila, or William the Conqueror acted unjustly. Modern civilization is the web woven of the warp and woof of conqueror and conquered, and it is well for humanity that time, which wears away all things, covers with the mantle of oblivion the rough processes by which they were knit together. Nations that are wise seek to bury the hatchet ; it is only worthy of children to be ever seeking to keep alive race injuries that are irreparable and hoary with antiquity. "Indeed, these very processes by which the land of most countries has been transferred, have been, in truth, the prelude to a higher civilization. No educated man can doubt that the Norman conquest has made England a greater nation than it would otherwise have been ; and every historian admits that the warlike tribes which overran the rotten and effete Koman . Empire paved the way for the far higher civilization of modern Europe. I dismiss, as the dream of Utopia, the idea that modern land tenure can be upset because, ages ago, they origi- nated in conquest " (" The Nationalisation of the Land," by SAMUEL SMITH, M.P.). Common sense approves of the law that in all countries bars inquiry into wrongs after a lapse of years. In England, forty THE NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND. 121 years of undisputed possession is adequate to give a valid title. There must be a " statute of -limitation," or there would be no security. If you reflect for a moment, you must perceive there could be no grosser act of injustice than for the State to confiscate the property of a modern purchaser of land because of some doubt as to the right of the original gift or sale of that land in the middle ages. Buy up the land if you think it wise to do so, but at any cost uphold the legal right of possession ; as, once there is a doubt as to the security of title, no settlement could be regarded as final ; there would be endless litigation ; the desire to acquire would be taken away ; as where is the use of getting if the possession be not secure ? The first conditions of all national progress are security for life and property. Who would take the trouble to produce wealth, or practise self-denial and abstain from using it, if the law helped to take it away, instead of helping the owner to keep it ? No industry or commerce can develop or flourish when the title to the soil is open to attack. We are told that it is justifiable, because land differs from all other forms of wealth; it is limited in quantity, and is not the product of human labour ; that it was never intended by the Creator to be the monopoly of the few, but the property of all, age after age. But I reply, that the land, as it is now, is the result of human labour ; 'the present productions of the soil are the result of careful cultivation. In ancient times most of this country, as in America and other lands, was covered with dense forests, reclaimed by human toil, transformed by untold expenditure of labour and capital into the smiling garden it now appears. It was bought at the price it was then worth, or perhaps given or appropriated, because in its then condition it was valueless ; but the inheritors of those who redeemed it, or those who bought it from their successors, have the right to hold it, or get for its use its present value. " I can conceive no equitable reason why this form of wealth should not have the protection of the law, like all other kinds. All wealth may be called stored up labour, and none is more valuable to the community than that which makes two blades of 122 POVERTY. grass grow where one grew before. What was it that induced the hardy emigrant to settle in the wilds of North America, to hew down the primeval forest, and, with intense labour and priva- tion, to turn the wilderness into a fruitful field ? What but the hope that he or his family after him would own a comfortable homestead ? Could we conceive that no private property in land had ever been permitted, how would the continent of North America have been settled ? How would the Anglo-Saxon race have been spread over the globe ? What would have drawn the emigrant ship to the desolate shores of Australia and New Zealand ? No magnet would have charmed the hardy pioneer of civilization but the hope of bequeathing a freehold to his posterity. And now, after vast regions have been settled on the faith of the solemn sanction of the State, it is coolly proposed to rob the people or their descendants of the land on which they have spent their life's blood, on the ground that it should never have been granted to them. Could human folly go further? Well, the process by which the wilds of North America were reclaimed within the past two centuries is just the process by which our own and other countries were settled at a still earlier period. You will always reach a point in which human labour gave its first value to land, and without that labour it would have been as worthless as the soil of Kamskatgha is to-day" (SAMUEL SMITH, M.P.). It is not by "nationalisation of the land," but by reforming the people, that poverty and misery are to be abolished. In 1882-3 the revenue derived from the drink duties was 30,866,000, and for smoke, 8,800,000 a total revenue yearly from drink and smoke of 39,666,000. Mr. George would do good if he told the people the " only remedy" to extirpate poverty is 11 self-denial." They must drink and smoke less. With their present habits, by robbing the rich to help the poor, you will simply give them the power to get more alcohol and tobacco ; or, what is more likely, they would produce so much less than they do at present; for, with the majority of the lowest class of the poor, it is only " stern necessity," the being compelled to "work" THE NATIONALISATION OP THE LAND. 123 or starve, that causes them to do any work at all. It has been too readily accepted as a fact that as population increases, land- lords may exact more and more rent from a starving people. No doubt in the " busy centres " it is true, but the tenant gets an equivalent for the increased charge. It is as easy, or easier, to pay 500 a year in Cheapside as 50 in the suburbs. Kent everywhere is regulated by supply and demand, and land or houses will fetch what they are worth while for some to pay for the use of them. Without free trade, it would be impossible for our 35,000,000 to live. Without free trade, no doubt the landlord would have got higher rents from the farmers ; but the price of wheat here is regulated by the price in Chicago. The British landlord has no longer a monopoly of the means of subsistence ; we import about two -thirds of the wheat we consume, and rents, instead of increasing with our increased population, have in agricultural districts decreased of late years ; and as the means of transport improve in India and elsewhere, we shall get more food from abroad, and the rent for the use of agricultural land must fall lower and lower, and the only chance of getting a living out of the land will be, not, as is suggested, by dividing the land into smaller portions, but, on the contrary, to keep to large farms only, big enough to want a skilled intellect to manage it, and capital enough to employ thereon all the latest machinery, so as to produce the maximum of result with the minimum of expenditure. With the land, as everything else, the question finally resolves itself into, will it pay ? You may protect the farmer or any other industry, but it is giving to A at the cost of B. You may reclaim waste land, you may grow more wheat in England ; but what is the use of spending 100,000,000 of money to get 80,000,000 worth of wheat? So long as wheat can be imported at 40s. a quarter, it is madness to waste our capital and labour in trying to grow more here, where it will cost 50s. With every article, the " cost of production " settles the question as surely as the law of gravitation settles how water will flow. Eents must come down, simply because if nominally 100, and the land will not yield more than 50, after the farmer's expenses have been paid, the 124 POVERTY. landlord must accept the 50, or have the land on his hands. The Government should remove any burdens that press on agriculture, and make it as easy as they can for the farmers to compete with foreign competitors ; but to ask the State to help to develop or extend that portion of the nation's industry which does not yield any profit, is a great error. Land will be cultivated if it pays. It would be a great economic blunder for the State to enter 011 the task of cultivating several millions of acres of waste land ; such a work must be left to private enterprise. Instead of extending, we should resolutely restrict the State to those functions which properly belong to it. " Experience always proves that Government cannot conduct ordinary business so well as private individuals, and all sound and cool thinkers have for long urged the exclusion of the State from the sphere of private industry. The nationalisation of the land would over- turn every sound principle that nations have painfully learned by experience ; and it is truly humiliating to all lovers of progress to see old fallacies of the crudest kind again raising their heads, as if mankind must for ever revolve in a vicious circle of error. . . . "It seems perfectly clear to me that the position of farmers would be far worse under a national system than under one of private ownership. There could be no abatement of rent in bad seasons, nor permission of arrears to stand over, but a hard and rigid system of merciless precision must prevail. . . . Think of over a million farmers in Great Britain and Ireland holding direct from the State, and at the mercy of a Government depart- ment. Would no pressure be put upon them at election times ? Would no permission to abate rents be given as the price of their support ? Would not this huge State department become what all similar departments have become in the United States a hotbed of bribery ? We know that, with every change of Govern- ment in America, more than 100,000 officials are turned out, from the President of the United States down to the humblest letter-carrier. Would it be safe, as our Government becomes increasingly democratic, to place at its mercy so vast an interest as the agriculture of the United Kingdom ? THE NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND. 125 " I think I have now said sufficient to show that the scheme of nationalising the land is about as absurd as the South Sea Bubble, or as any other delusion that history records. If it be carried out by confiscation, it would be the most gigantic piece of wickedness perpetrated in modem times ; if effected by purchase, it would be the worst investment which the State ever made. Under no circumstances that I can conceive would it work suc- cessfully, and it may be dismissed to the regions of Utopia'' ('" The Nationalisation of the Land," by SAMUEL SMITH, M.P.). How is it possible to do what we are told must be done to get rid of our social difficulties. In Tract No. 3, Mr. A. E. Wallace, says: "Now, an essential part of our scheme of land nationalization is, that every man can claim as a right (and in his life) to have such a piece of land allotted him (an acre or two, so that he may build a workshop or a cottage upon it if he likes, and be free from all interference by landlord, agent, or lawyer) at its fair agricultural value ; and further, that he shall not be obliged to take any piece of land, however unsuitable it may be to him, but shall be able to choose a piece wherever most convenient to himself, the only limit being that it must adjoin some public road, and shall not be in such a position as unnecessarily to annoy or inconvenience the farmer or other present occupier. The principle we main- tain is, that the primary and the highest use of a nation's land is to provide healthy and happy homes for the greatest number of its public, and that it should be the birthright of every British subject to have the use and enjoyment of a portion of his native land, u'itJi no unnecessary restriction on that enjoyment other than that implied by the equal rights of others." In the same tract we are told that " the prospect of having such a plot of land, from which no landlord can turn him out, and in the possession of which he will be as secure and independent as any squire or farmer in the country, will certainly tend to make men sober and saving Such a labourer would be much more in- dependent than he can possibly be now, and would not be found to accept any wages, however low, in order to keep himself and 126 POVERTY. his family from the workhouse ; and as the great body of labourers all over the country would be equally independent, wages must certainly rise considerably, for they are only kept down to the present starvation point by the fact that men are forbidden the means of working for themselves, and must work for others or starve." There would be no stronger supporter of nationalization than myself if there were the slightest possibility of the benefits put forth by Mr. Wallace, simply, as he tells us, by abolishing the " monopoly of the land." But the scheme is that of a dreamer ; it is utterly impracticable : " every man the right to choose his acre or two of land where he likes ; " you must see at once the absurdity of the proposal. Does experience prove that having the acre or the house makes a man more sober and thrifty ? That it would make the labourer more independent, is quite true, but would it be for the national advantage that the State, by a scheme of nationalization, should make its labouring population above the necessity to labour for their daily bread ? It is another fallacy to suppose that the wages a man receives will depend upon his being able to obtain the higher, if his necessities do not compel him to accept the lower. This may be true of an individual, but is not applicable to the wages that employers can pay for any large industry. Increased wages mean higher prices ; the higher prices mean a lessened demand, perhaps the loss of an industry, as the higher rate of wages here will enable America, or some other rival, to undersell us, and divert the trade from our shores. The price of an article depends upon the supply in relation to the demand for it ; the wages of production must be regulated by the price an article realizes. But in the many schemes for raising the rate of wages it must be remembered that the "cheapest article " will command the market. Buyers will not let sentiment into then- bargains. A may tell them that the price does not pay, that a higher price will enable the labourer to have a higher rate of wage ; but if B offers for Is. 6d. what A asks 2s. for, the buyer does not trouble himself as to whether Is. 6d. will pay; he buys where he is offered the best value for his money. It is the natural law, as THE NATIONALISATION OY THE LAND. 127 it is the wisest law, of doing good to the greatest number, for all articles to reach the consumer at the lowest possible price. Mr. George tells us that " the equal right of all men to the use of land is as clear as their equal right to breathe the air ; it is a right proclaimed by the fact of their existence. . . . The recognition of individual proprietorship of land is the denial of the natural rights of other individuals ; it is a wrong which must show itself in the equitable division of wealth. For, as labour cannot produce without the use of land, the denial of the equal right to the use of land is necessarily the denial of the right of labour to its own produce. If one man can command the land upon which others must labour, he can appropriate the produce of their labour as the price of his permission to labour. The fundamental law of nature, that her enjoyment by man shall be consequent upon his exertion is thus violated; the one receives without producing, the other produces without receiving. The one is unjustly enriched, the other one robbed. .... It is the continuous increase of rent the price that labour is compelled to pay for the use of land which strips the many of the wealth they justly earn, to pile it up in the hands of the few who do nothing to earn it." This " equal right of all men to the use of land" is one of those apparent truths that require great caution in adopting. Assume the State confiscated the land and all the houses therein the State must let the land and houses to get the rent that is to defray the expenses of governing the country. I fail to see in any of the speeches and books upon this subject how the " plot of land every one born in the world has a right to " is to be kept until his appearance to claim it. Of course, whilst the State remains the freeholder, each individual will benefit by the rent or land-tax paid for its use ; but we are told that the nationalization of the land is the only way to satisfy this " land-hunger " the only way for each individual to get the bit of land to work upon, and obtain for himself the produce of his own labour. Mr. Wallace (President of the Land Nationaliza- tion Society), in Tract No. 3, tells us that "the immediate 128 POVERTY. effect of nationalization will be that every man will be able to escape the present organized system of plunder and annoyance, by becoming the owner of his house and premises on the easiest terms. Suppose him to be a tradesman, shopkeeper, or other householder in a large town, occupying a house on a yearly tenancy, or having a short lease. The ground rent now payable to the ground landlord will henceforth be paid to the State by the occupier, just as he now pays his income tax. The house and premises will be fairly valued, and if the occupier cannot raise money to purchase them at once, arrangements will be made by which the municipality will become the owner, and will either let it to him with the option of purchase, or will allow him to pay for it by means of a terminable annuity, as is now done by building societies, but extending over a longer period, so that the total rent he will pay ii'ill hardly exceed the rent he has hitherto paid to his landlord. Every year's rent thus paid will give him a property in the house, which property will be trans- ferable Dr saleable at any time ; and he will, after the first year or two, be virtually the owner, and able to make any additions or improvements with as much confidence as if it was his own freehold. When the value of the house is fully paid, he will be in the position of a perpetual leaseholder from the State, at a ground rent, subject to revision, along with all other rents (but never separately), about three times in a century." Experience alone can prove whether this would be a better system for the tenant than the present, but it is only the substitute of " one " landlord for the many. It does not leave land free for genera- ations unborn, as Mr. George says should be the case ; on the contrary, it perpetuates the present system viz., " that those who get first possession of the land keep it." It must be so, however hard it may seem to the last comer ; if all the seats are taken at the banquet-table, upon his arrival, he must stand aside. Hard ? Yes, it seems so ; but how can you alter it ? We hear a great deal about the " increased value " of land. It is pleasant to be the owner of anything that increases in value ; but the peoples advisers, however good their intentions, do not THE NATIONAL1SALION OF THE LAND. 129 make the best use of their talents ; or, instead of condemning this "increased value " as something unnatural and iniquitous, they would explain to the people that it all follows by the natural laws, and the price now for the land is, as it was when half the price, the price it is worth to the buyer or hirer at the time of hiring or purchase. Mr. George is very indignant about the immense fortunes made by the pretentious owners of land in New York, London, &c., but I fail to see the use of envying or con- demning those men who own immense fortunes, because their forefathers bought land at desert prices, that by the chapter of accidents or circumstances has developed into a great city, and made their fortunes without any effort of their own. The reasoning, if sound, would apply to all " inheritances." If it be unfair for one man to succeed to the wealth of his father, is it not unjust that some inherit from their parents special proclivities toward genius, whilst others have strong tendencies to crime. Inheritance, with the impartial law of natural things, deals out its blessings or its curse, apparently unheeding all human interests. Diseases are transmitted often with increasing force and virulence as generations are born into the world. There is no more forcible means which nature possesses of consigning a race to the oblivion of extinction than that of perpetuating its ailments, and of fostering its physical degeneracy. Year by year the ailment grows in intensity. The phases of disease advance and evolve with rapid strides. The legacy bequeathed to one generation is received with accumulated interest by the next, and thus the old idea of the sins of the father and their consequences finds its justification in the perpetuation, by natural laws, of the products of unwise living or mistaken existence. And with disease, so with poverty ; unless the real cause be searched out and removed, there is no possibility of getting rid of it. Many good and intelligent men tell me it is in the race, and poverty is a curse that cannot be eradicated. " The child reaps the whirlwind, whereof its parent had but sown the wind." But every human being is a store-house of latent facts and tendencies. In every child born into this world there are hidden, but 9 130 POVEIiTY. inherited, ways and means of life that await the call to activity, or that are left to slumber unheeded in the life of the man or woman. It is a great mistake, in our attempts to elevate the race, to think that the child is like a slate whereon the world may write, whatever and however it pleases. There are lines of development along which human nature, like the form of the animal or plant, has to pass, which by careful training we may alter, but which cannot be wholly expunged or erased. Humanity, like every other living item, has a basis which is made for it by inheritance, and not by itself. When it keeps towards such basis, it repeats the history of its forefathers, and " like begets like " in the record of its race. To get rid of poverty, we must take such steps as will improve the race. It cannot be too soon recognized and acknow- ledged that the causes of poverty are primarily causes of physical kind, and that the cures for pauperism, crime, and degradation are similarly to be drawn from the resources of sanitary or social science. To recover the socially lost and the moral pariah of the race, we must study the law of evolution, and we shall find that, although we are all subject to the law of inheritance, there are in each of us, more or less, materials for change and variation, new features and traits, that may be developed, or old ones to undergo modifications ; so that we may speed onward and upward towards a higher level of life. " But there is a wider thought still, which underlies the law of inheritance. To rest content with the phrase that ' like begets like,' is to compre- hend only half a truth. Inheritance is only a name for a tendency that works out a larger law of nature. It is true that the features of parents are transmitted to offspring. It is un- deniable that the traits of character seen in one generation are found reproduced, with greater or less exactitude, in the next. But this is only part of the truth about inheritance, after all. We light upon an equally important truth in the statement that there is an evolution to be accounted for as well as a mere repetition ; there is variation, as well as transmission change, as well as sameness, in the ways and works of life. Sow THE NATIONALISATION OF THE LAND. 131 half a dozen seeds obtained from the one plant, and you will find no two of the six plants that spring up to be exactly alike. Look at the diverse phases you witness in animal life. There are no two animals born of one stock that are precisely the same. There is a process of mysterious leavening always at work among the children of life, modifying them for better or worse ; some- times turning an advantage to good account in their history ; often bringing a disadvantage to the front in their development, and sending them downward and backward, instead of favouring their advance. There exists two tendencies which we must re- cognize as permeating life of all kinds, and operating in every phase of existence : one tendency which seeks to tie the offspring to the inheritance to which it has fallen heir, which makes the child resemble its parent, and perpetuate the old stock in the new generation ; the other, a tendency which seeks to pass away from this inheritance and its lines, which evolves new depar- tures, alters the growth, advances or retards the race, and favours change in one direction or another. The individual is born into the world having his destiny outlined by inheritance, but subject, likewise, to those circumstances which may fill in the picture of his being, in hues and tones different from those of his parent's life. If it be true that the sour grapes eaten of old by the parents set the children's teeth 011 edge, it is no less true that alterations and change might modify the sourness, and bring sweeter things into the lot of the new race. But for this tendency to modify the fruits of inheritance, progress would be an impossibility. You can have no advance where each suc- cessive age slavishly repeats the ways of its predecessors. Human character is not stereotyped beyond possibility of alter- ation. Inheritance is, after all, the servant, not the master, of evolution. That is the true criterion of human advance which takes what is good from our heritage, and uses it as the means to further progress. That is the equally certain condition for retrogression and decay where evolution finds the tendencies of evil and sorrow more ready to its hand than those of hope ; and when the perpetuation of what is bad becomes intensified over 132 I'OVEBTY. that which is good in the inevitable struggle which each genera- tion sees " (Dn. ANDREW WILSON). Chronic pauperism, unhealthy dwellings, men and women living together like pigs, a ruinous competition in every branch of production and distribution, wages not only down to starvation point, but a difficulty to get work at a wage that will not keep body and soul together, we are told that all this is remediable by nationalisation of the land. And Mr. Wallace tells us that if his idea of giving to every man the acre or two of land he has a right to, were carried out, " the free selection of land for dwellings will induce thousands of -persons to reside in the country who are now compelled to live in towns. Every village will at once begin a process of natural growth, and this increased population of the country will afford outlets for thousands of shopkeepers, mechanics, and others who now crowd our towns in ruinous competition. This outflow of the congested populations of the towns will help those that remain in many ways. It will at once lower the rent of houses, raise wages, and also raise profits in all trades by the diminution of competition ; while all will benefit by the diminution and final abolition of direct taxes, and of customs and excise duties ; by the saving of the cost of millions of paupers, who will become self-supporting and the creators of wealth ; by the great increase of the general wealth, owing to several millions of hands being employed in producing food during hours and days now wasted ; by the enormous saving owing to the dimi- nution of drunkenness and crime that will inevitably follow (as it always has followed) the free use of land by the people ; and, lastly, by the great economy and the benefit to health of the production of food for consumption in the immediate neighbour- hood of the producer, instead of first carrying it some hundreds of miles into a great town, and there re-distributing it to the country, which the present system of exclusively large farms neces- sitates ; a series of savings which, combined, will constitute an enormous gain, affecting, not a few individuals only, but every householder throughout the land. These great benefits will directly follow nationalisation as proposed by our society, airl THE NATIONALISATION OF HIE LAND. 1 ;J:j they serve to indicate the enormous magnitude of the evils produced by the monopoly of the land." That the benefits are desirable, we shall all agree, but whether the absence of all the benefits enumerated be due to our present land system is quite another matter. To obtain the advantages so attractively put before us, would require not only an alteration in the land laws, but a new people, with brains, instincts, and predisposing ten- dencies very different to what the present race possess. It is very well for Mr. George to condemn what Governments have done in the past, but the question "of the best method of disposing of unoccupied territory has been before every one of our great colonies, and before the United States for several generations ; and the universal instinct of them all has been that the individual ownership of land is the one great attraction which they can hold out to the settlers, whom it is their highest interest to invite and to establish. They know that the land of a country is never so well * nationalised ' as when it is com- mitted to the ownership of men whose interest it is to make the most of it. They know that under no other inducement could men be found to clear the soil from stifling forests, or to water it from arid wastes, or to drain it from pestilential swamps, or to enclose it from the access of wild animals, or to defend it from the assault of savage tribes. Accordingly their verdict has been unanimous ; and it has been given under conditions in which they were free from all traditions except those which they carried with them as part of their own nature, in harmony and correspondence with the nature and things around them " (ARGYLL). Mr. George and others who argue for the " national- isation of the land," seem to make the great error of comparing the exclusive occupation of the land to the exclusive occupation of the atmosphere. Are the members of Government so far superior to their fellow-men that we can confide to them the rights of absolute ownership in the soil, and constitute them the sole and universal landlord ? Every year we are becoming more democratic. What does Mr. George say of the Democrats 134 POVERTY. of New York? " It behoves us to look facts in the face. The ex- periment of popular government in the United States is clearly a failure. Not that it is a failure everywhere and in every- thing. An experiment of this kind does not have to be fully worked out to be proved a failure. But, speaking generally of the whole country, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and from the Lakes to the Gulf, our government by the people has, in largo degree become, is in larger degree becoming, govern- ment by the strong and unscrupulous " (" Social Problems "). In Mr. George's later book " he has had the courage of his opinions, and the logic of false premises has steeped his moral sense against the iniquity of even the most dishonourable conclusions. All National Debts are as unjust as property in land ; all such debts are to be treated with the sponge. As no faith is due to landowners, or to any who depend on their sources of income, so neither is any faith to be kept with bondholders, or with any who depend on the revenues which have been pledged to them. The Jew who may have lent a million, and the small tradesman who may have lent his little savings to the State, the trust funds of children and of widows which have been similarly lent, are all equally to be the victims of repudiation Everything in America is on a gigantic scale, even in its form of villainy ; and the villainy advocated by Mr. George is an illustration of this as striking as the Mammoth Caves of Kentucky, or the frauds of the celebrated f Tammany Eing ' in New York. The world has never seen such a preacher of unrighteousness as Mr. Henry George There has seldom been such a curious example as the immoral teachings of Mr. Henry George. Here we have a man who probably sincerely thinks he is a Christian, and who sets up as a philosopher, but who is not the least shocked by consequences which abolish the Decalogue, and deny the primary obligations both of public and of private honour " (Nine- teenth Century, April, 1884 : ARGYLL.) SOCIALISM. ] 35 SOCIALISM. " Our remedies oft in ourselves do lie, Which we ascribe to heaven : the fated sky Gives us free scope, only doth backward pull Our slow designs when we ourselves are dull. Impossible be strange attempts to those That weigh their pains in sense, and do suppose What hath been cannot be. " MODERN Socialism tlie new economic gospel is the most specious, and the crudest tissue of fallacies, that has ever threatened society, or disgraced any man who wishes to rank as a thinker. Property is theoretically robbery, and under the present system society, we are told, is becoming every year more intolerable. If it be true what is asserted that the rich are constantly getting richer, and the poor poorer we must be fast hastening to the inevitable social catastrophe described by Goldsmith : " 111 fares the land to hastening ills a prey, Where wealth accumulates, but men decay." But it is a serious responsibility to address the . populace as to their rights and excite their passions in telling them how they have been wronged, unless you can support your theory by un- impeachable evidence. The party of progress is too apt to undervalue statistics and pervert facts in trying to prove that the gulf between classes is widening, and that the rich are getting richer, and the poor poorer. Mr. Hyndman, speaking of society as at present organized, says : " We have, as a result, on the one side, a class working far too hard for health, and living in miserable social conditions ; on the other side, a class which works not at all with its hands, and enjoys luxury in excess of what is reasonable ; and," he adds this is a most important part of the statement " the gradation between the 136 POVERTY. two are being gradually crushed out." " The working classes," he goes on to say, " subsist, with very few exceptions, on 1 starvation wages ; ' and out of every 5s. which their work is worth, from 3s. 4d. to 3s. 9d. is pocketed by their employers, and from Is. 3d. to Is. 8d. is left for themselves." If such a state- ment could be proved, Socialism, or any other " ism " that could alter the relative positions of employer and employed, rich and poor, would be justifiable ; but the statement upon which this argument is based is false, and so this reasoning, being upon a false premise, is unsound. The social history of the last century gives us as its most prominent feature the rise of the middle class, and a steady amelioration in the condition, payment, and the rights of citizens in the lower class the diminishing in every way, of the gradation between the rich and the poor. Yet Mr. Chamberlain, in the Fortnightly Revieir, December, 1883, writes : " Never before in our history was the misery of the very poor more intense, or the condition of their daily life more hopeless and more degraded. . . . The vast wealth which modern progress has made has run into ' pockets ; ' individuals and classes have grown rich beyond the dream of avarice . . . but the great majority of the 'toilers and spinners' have derived no proportionate advantage from the prosperity which they have helped to create." Mr. Chamberlain, from his position and the statistics at his command, ought to know better. You must use your own common sense, and study the history of the last century, and make up your own mind which is correct. It should not be difficult to know whether riches are getting more or less diffused, the rich stronger or less strong, the poor be- coming better fed or worse fed ; whether they are sinking to the level of misery, and the tendency of things as they are is to turn England into a clique of millionaires and a nation of beggars, or into a nation of well-to-do workmen and well-to-do capitalists. Is it true, as stated by Karl Marx, that " the misery, the oppression, the slavery, the degradation of the working class grow in proportion to the diminution in numbers SOCIALISM. 137 of those capitalist lords who usurp and monopolize all the ad- vantages of this period of social evolution" ? The question is answerable, it is not a matter of sentiment, but fact. The gross annual income of the kingdom is a sum ascertainable ; we can tell from year to year the total amount that is assessed to income-tax, and the source from which each income is derived. By this means we can tell how much of the gross annual income is, and has been, distributed amongst the few who possess the annual tens of thousands, down to the many who possess from a hundred to a hundred and fifty ; we can tell the exact proportion of the population amongst which these incomes are divided. If we deduct the amount assessed to income-tax from the gross national income, and the number of those who have to pay income-tax from the total national population, we get at the income and number of the poorer or working classes. It is true we can only get an average, but we get data of sufficient value to answer the question negatively or affirmatively, as to whether, in the distribution of the national income, the working classes are receiving less or more as the nation progresses in its material prosperity. "To actual figures, then, let us now turn; and looking back over the last fifty years, let us see what facts are definitely known and recorded ; first, as to the increase in the gross income of the country ; and secondly, as to the manner in which this increase has been distributed. Let us begin by taking the four following periods, as to which it so happens that we can speak with exceptional certainty 1843, 1851, 1864, and from 1880 to 1883 and let us note what at each period was the gross income* of the nation. In 1843 it was, in round numbers, 515,090,000, in 1851 it was 616,000,000, in 1864 it was 814,000,000, and since 1880 it has reached, or perhaps somewhat exceeded, 1,200,000,000. These figures, directly or indirectly, are all of them guaranteed by those very authorities (Mr. Giifen, Mr. Mul- hall, Mr. Dudley Baxter, and Professor Leone Levi) to whom Mr. Hyndman refers as final. Let us now take, in each of the above-mentioned years, the amount that was assessed to income- 138 POVERTY. tax. In 1843 this was about 280,000,000 ; strangely enough, in 1851 we find it still to have been about the same figure ; in 1864 it was about 370,000,000 ; and in 1880 it was about 577,000,000. " Let us now subtract these amounts, assessed to income-tax, from the gross national income of the years that correspond to them, and see what light the result throws on the condition of the poorer classes. The figures our sum will yield us are as follows: For 1843, 235,000,000 ; for 1851, 336,000,000; for 1864, 444,000,000 ; and for the period subsequent to 1880, an amount certainly not less than 620,000,000. Now here we have the gross income, at the different times specified, of all the persons or families in this country with annual incomes of less than 150 ; and we have only to set against each amount the corresponding number of the population to arrive at once 'at certain very definite conclusions. In the case of the first two periods this operation is perfectly simple, for the population in 1851 was, practically, precisely the same as it was in 1843. It had not increased by so much as 140,000 persons, and may in each case be stated, in round numbers, as 27,000,000. In 1864 it was verging on 30,000,000, and at the present moment it is approaching 36,000,000. We know, however, that of ^his increase in number the larger part, proportionately, is to be attributed to the richer classes. They have increased by more than 200 per cent., or from 1,500,000 to 4,700,000 ; whilst the poorer classes, on the contrary, have increased by but 20 per cent., or from 26,000,000 in 1843 and 1851 to something over 30,000,000 now. Hence the same number of those that in 1843 had 235,000,000 annually, had in 1851 336,000,000 ; and a number that is barely greater by one-fifth has annually, by this time, some 620,000,000. Now, if we state this increase in terms of the average income per family, we find that each family amongst the poorer classes in England had in 1843 about 40 a year, that in 1851 it had 58, and that at the present time it has between 95 and 100. That is to say, the incomes of those who had less than 150 a-year have increased during the SOCIALISM, 139 last forty years by 130 per cent. In proportion to the increase of the population, as a whole, the class with incomes between 150 and 800 have increased during the past thirty years by 148 per cent., the class with incomes between 300 and 600 by 130 per cent., the class with incomes between 600 and 1,000 by 77 per cent., and the class with incomes above 1,000 by 76 per cent. But this is not all. We find further, if we except the handful of men not more than 987 in all whose incomes are above 10,000, and who have grown richer individually as well as more numerous, that, whilst the middle class have been growing richer individually likewise, the bulk of the rich have been growing individually poorer. Thus the average income in the lowest grade of the middle class was 164 in 1851, and is 171 now ; whilst the average income amongst all the rich, except the very rich, was in 1851 2,193, and it is now not more than 2,069 " (The Quarterly Ilevieiv, January, 1884.) Unless Mr. George, Mr. Hyndmaii, Mr. Cham- berlain, and others, who are agitating for a social revolution because the " rich are getting richer and the poor poorer," can disprove the above statement, we are justified in stating their argument is based upon a false premise, and that the conditions of the various grades of society are the opposite of what they assert. As regards their condemnation of the " land grabbers," that rapacious class who appropriate the savings of the poor, and the benefit of machinery, &c., what reply have they to the fact that the gross income of the United Kingdom, assessed under Schedule A, for laud in 1851 was 47,800,000? The gross income of the owners, in England and Scotland, of under fifty acres is at the present moment more than 51,000,000. The gross rental of the country has been continually increasing ; but this increase is the increase of the urban rental of the kingdom ; the agricultural rental has for a considerable period been falling ; and we are justified in assuming that, with many unimportant deductions, the increased rental is an increase of the incomes of the middle class, and not of the aristocracy, as Socialist agitators assert. 1-10 PJVERTY. Karl Marx was tlie first to assert, in his work on " Capital," published in 1869, " that the rich are growing richer and fewer, the middle class poorer and fewer, and the poor class more poorer and more numerous.'' A more crushing rebuke than the facts above mentioned it is impossible to conceive ; they incon- testably prove, and history is in favour of the view, that the rich are growing poorer and more numerous, that the middle class are growing richer and much more numerous, and that the poor, in proportion to the other two classes, are growing at once less numerous and very much richer. To the Socialist, all the ills that flesh is heir to would vanish if we could only distribute amongst the many the heaped-up riches of the few. But let such men, and all who are inclined to listen to them, merely consult the simplest records of history, and they will find that this "strange, new, wonderful " piece of justice has actually accomplished itself during the past thirty years. If we look back to the income of the country in 1851, and make every allowance for the subsequent growth of the population, we shall find that the entire wealth at that time belonging to the rich has since that time been virtually divided amongst the poor. We shall find that the total income of the poorer classes to-day is equal to the total income of all classes in 1851, and exceeding by a hundred millions the total income of all classes in 1843. In other words, the poorer classes to-day are, as a body, in precisely the same situation as they would have been in if, at the time of the first Exhibition, the income of every rich man then in the country had been made over to them in perpetuity ? I have gone thus fully into this subject because Mr. George and his followers have declared so persistently that every in- crease in the income of the country goes of necessity into the pockets of the wealthy, and also because it is just as positively stated that the wealth of the landed aristocracy bears so large a proportion to the gross wealth of the nation. It is also too readily believed that the aristocracy own nearly all the land. The landed aristocracy only number about 5,000 ; then next we SOCIALISM. 141 have 4,800 owners, with estates that average 700 acres ; then come 32,000, with estates that average 200 acres ; then 25,000 with estates that average 20 acres ; the total number of the smaller rural proprietors being thus not less than 133,000. Then there come the urban and suburban proprietors the latter with their four acres, the former with their fourth of an acre and the number of these is 820,000. So that, in dealing with the land question, we have to remember the 950,000 owners of land, as well as the 5,000 of the aristocracy. I think you will admit that Mr. Walter Wren and others, who assert that " whilst the working men of England were the creators of national wealth, the hereditary aristocracy were the squanderers and wasters of it," go too far, and have allowed their prejudices to blind or warp their judgment. Mr. George writes as if the increase in the national income from 515,000,000 in 1843 to 1,200,000,000 in 1880, had all gone to the landlords, and to the large landlords. But the figures prove that the aristocracy do not take more than fifty millions annually, and the other hundred millions goes to the smaller landlords ; and it can be proved that it is this class, and not the aristocracy, who have gained the greatest benefit from the increased value of land in or near to the large towns as the commerce of the country has developed. I blame Mr. Chamberlain and his school more than any enthusiast like Mr. George. Mr. Chamberlain insinuates that the incomes of the landlords in the course of our recent pro- gress have increased, proportionately, far faster than the incomes of business men and of shareholders, and that the latter, as time goes on, are becoming more and more dwarfed by the former. Now to all this, as Professor Leone Levi has shown, there is an exceedingly simple answer, and that answer is a reference to certain exceedingly simple statistics. Seventy years ago, of the incomes of the richer classes, the landlords took considerably more than half. Thirty-six years later, they took little more than a third ; and at the present moment they take something less than a quarter. In 1864, for every pound that was taken 1 42 POVEKTY. by the landlord, the rest of the richer classes took only thirteen shillings. Now, for every thirteen shillings that is taken hy the landlord, the rest of the richer classes take actually two guineas. If, therefore, the wealth of the nation tends, as Mr. Chamheiiain says it does, " to run into pockets," it is sufficiently evident into whose pockets it runs. It is one of the greatest delusions of Mr. George and others to say that "poverty" is owing to the exactions of landlords. Our increased wealth has gone to those that produced it. The successful manufacturer and merchant the most skilful and earnest in production and distribution. Let us compare a few of the incomes derived from land and commerce. There are G6 incomes derived from land of over 50,000 a-year ; in com- merce there are 77. There are 800 incomes derived from land between 10,000 and 50,000 ; from commerce there are 910. There are 1,634 incomes derived from land between 3,000 and 10,000 ; from commerce there are 4,065. Yet Mr. George says that as " the increase of wealth has increased rent," there can be other logical conclusion than that " as labour machinery is ever improving, and man's power over nature ever increasing, the tendency is towards this state of things that is, to the greater wealth and greater power of the landowners, to the more complete dependence or the more abject poverty of the rest of the community." No doubt landowners have benefited by the development of commerce and the growth of our large towns, as the owner of Consols has benefited who bought from 1801-10 at an average of 63, if he had sold during the last two years, when the average has been 100 ; or the holder of any of the original shares in the New Eiver Water Company. It is most unfair to single out one class, and hold them up to public odium, as having benefited, and being likely to benefit beyond any other class, from the increased product of labour, owing to our superior machinery, &c. The Chart, as in the National Review for February, 1884, shows that there are 1,100,000 landowners in Great Britain ; that the gross rental of the large properties is 37,426,618, SOCIALISM. 143 the gross rental of small rural properties is 38,273,166, and the gross rental of small urban and suburban freeholds is 42,899,141. The total rental of Ireland is 13,000,000 ; in- come derived from dividend on capital is 115,000,000 ; in- come derived from agriculture, after the payment of rent, by farmers and labourers, and all classes engaged in agricultural pursuits, is 249,000,000 ; income derived from manufactures, by masters, managing partners, and all persons in their employ- ment, 368,000,000 ; income derived from trades, by mer- chants, shopkeepers, and all persons in their employment, 140,000,000 ; income derived from minerals, by lessees, &c., of mines, and all persons in their employment, 73,000,000 - income derived from railways, by the railway companies, and all persons in their employment, 63,000,000 : ancome derived from shipping, by construction of ships, and all persons in their employment, 60,000,000. The summary of facts which this Chart illustrates is : Gross annual income of the United Kingdom over 1,200,000,000 Income of the large landowners, according to Messrs. George, Wallace, Davitt, &c 1,000,000,000 Income of ditto, as it actually is (including Ireland) 45,000,000 Income of the small landowners, according to most Radical public speakers, nothing because there are none Income of ditto (1,000,000 in number) , as it actually is 80,000,000 Amount available for distribution, were these taken of the landed aristocracy, inclusive of all improvements, confiscated : Three Farthings a day to each Person. " Of all the astounding and grotesque superstitions that have ever gained currency in any age or in any society, one of the most astounding and grotesque is the superstition that is so prevalent now, with respect to the economic position of the land- lords of this kingdom. This superstition was first, in a vague form, popularized by politicians such as Mr. Bright ; but it has 14 i POVERTY. lately assumed a more definite form, and is at this moment being spread through the country, as a demonstrable and scientific fact, by such writers and speakers as Messrs. George, Wallace, and Davitt. " Mr. George declares, and thousands at this moment believe him, that some enormous and increasing proportion of the national income is swallowed up by the owners of the land in rent ; and he is conveying the impression, by every art in the power of the agitator, that if we could only get at this rent, and use it for public purposes, we should have at our disposal a fund which, compared with our wants, would be practically inexhaustible " (W. H. MALLOCH). Socialism is described by its admirers as a ''scientific organiza- tion " for the benefit of all, instead of " competitive anarchy," that only benefits the few. Practically, it is the sinking of ono's individuality in the attempt to rehabilitate society. Socialists repudiate the idea that it is the visionary dream of an unattainable Utopia, and they maintain that it is the inevitable outgrowth of the ages, and the necessary result of the historical development which is producing it. I am utterly opposed to Socialism as the only panacea to put right what may be wrong in our social system, and fail to see how, by its aid, the present intense social struggle is to be lessened. Our legislators have been for some time past impregnated with this Socialistic wave, and our factories and shops are watched like some illicit concern, wherein something is carried on that dare hardly see the light of day, and the capitalists and managers are viewed as parasites instead of benefactors to their fellovv-rnen. Social subjects will have more attention ; the middle and upper classes should grapple with the subject. Changes go on more rapidly than they did ; it is unwise to think that things as they are will " last our time." There are powerful forces in our midst that are in open and declared antagonism to the present arrangements ; the wants of the poor have been put before them as though the same were caused by the abundance of others. There is a small but com- pact force of writers and speakers, men of strong opinions, whose. SOCIALISM. 145 efforts are directed to make the people to consider their surround- ings, and arouse them to the necessity of class combinations or class warfare, in the hope of bettering their social position. " Nationalisation of the land," the " land for the people," has developed into a demand which is making itself heard. But this is only the thin edge of the wedge ; once you put aside the " vested interest " in land, you have taken the first step towards the nationalisation of all other private ownerships in anything. "Capitalist robbery" will follow "landlord robbery," and Communism is the inevitable result, once the people believe that rent by the landlord and profit by the capitalist is a robbery from them of their natural rights. " In five years we reach the date of 1889. Two hundred years before saw the middle-class monarchical revolution of 1G89 in England ; a century later came the first outbreak of the great French Eevolution of 1789. That year, 1889, will be celebrated by the workers in every industrial city throughout the civilized world as the time for a new and strenuous effort ; not in the interest of the c gamesters who play with one another for the labour of the poor,' not to continue power and luxury and ease to the meanest class that has ever held control in the history of human civilization, but to conquer for the mass of mankind complete control over steam, electricity, and the other forces of nature which the progress of science is placing at the command of the race. The development of these forces, and the influence which they exert on the peoples of the world, constitute the real revolution of to-day. It is for us to take full account of their action, to educate our countrymen around us to a knowledge of their growth, and to organize, without rest and without haste, that certain victory of the people which shall be the real revolu- tion of to-morrow " (H. M. HYNDMAN : " To-day" January, 1884.) To properly estimate the danger of such appeals as the above, we must remember that nothing is so conducive to recklessness as poverty. The poor have little to conserve, and little to hope for. It wants brains to recognize the fact that the majority of 10 146 POVERTY. men arc placed where their courage, their ability, and their character have determined. The competition between indi- viduals may have its drawbacks, but imagine the State having exclusive control over all ; the State to own all wealth, direct all labour, compel the equal distribution of all produce. If Socialism means anything, it means a state of society in which every thing would be held in common, in which the labour of every individual would be directed and controlled by the State, to which State would belong all results of labour ; the State trustee, as it were, of the collective produce of the commonwealth, and responsible for the equal distribution of the same, regardless of how or by whom the same was produced. Such a state of society is utterly im- possible ; it means the extinction of the individual ; it means a more crushing dictatorship, under the guise "of a protector, than the world has ever witnessed; it means slavery and bondage, life without hope or object. Let us, for the sake of argument, however, assume the idea to be possible ; the " State " one " united family ;" each producing, to the best of the abilities God has given him, for the benefit of all ; the more gifted content to receive the same reward as their less gifted brethren. Would such a state of society permanently improve the condition of the English, or any people ? No ! Why not ? Because it would be fatal to all progress, by neutralizing and paralyzing individual effort. The idea may appeal to our higher nature, and it would succeed, if done voluntarily, all men being like Eobert Owen. But such men are the rare exceptions, and history teaches us that civilization has only been in proportion to the energy and enterprise of the individual ; and for our further progress, we must rely on the efforts of the indi- vidual, and these efforts will depend on what he is likely to get by them for himself, and not acting under the compulsory orders of the State, for the good of all. Millions of working men have property. There are 1,057,896 persons in this country holding small plots of land, half of them, perhaps, members of building societies, and perhaps the land not SOCIALISM. ]47 all paid for ; still it is a sign of tliriffc, and they have a stake in the country. In the ordinary savings banks, in 1888, there were 1,900,000 depositors ; in the post office savings banks, 2,706,612 depositors ; there are 500,000 members of co-opera- tive societies ; there are 2,300,000 members of friendly societies. Everywhere there is evidence of progress under the present system ; it offers every incentive to industry, temperance, forethought, and thrift. Whereas in a Socialistic State there would be no inducement to labour, no inducement to thrift, no individual savings, no accumulation, no check upon waste, no incentive to effort or industry ; but a paralysis and neutralization of endeavours ; in fact, you would simply go back to barbarism ; you could not go forward. Men would do enough to enable them " to live no more. Individual effort is spurred to action by the hope of private gain ; it may be gain of money, it may be gain of other kinds ; only the few would labour as earnestly for society as for themselves. You must have individual motive ; it is that which prompts and spurs the individual to action ; and it is the competition between individuals for gain, power, or praise, that keeps a nation in the front rank. The idea of "property being held collectively " by the State for all, is absurd. When the State interferes to direct, it but crushes that individual effort, which, actuated by the desire of gain and by the fear of com- petition, will do the work best for all. We want progress, not destruction. It is perfectly true that everything which benefits the human race by saving labour, injures some, temporarily, at the time this benefit first comes ; but those who judge worthily and broadly, judge by the general benefit of the human race ; and there are no worse advisers of the working class than those who try to excite a feeling of discontent amongst those who may be driven out of employ by machinery. Such men may be agitators, but their hearts are not in the wel- fare of the people ; their mental vision is too narrow for such deep social problems. We must try and cure gradually. We have to deal with ills caused by generations of bad habits, and these cannot be swept away by the stroke of a magic wand. The 148 POVERTY. social disease is too complicated to be cured by anyone nostrum, whether it be nationalisation of the land, Socialism, or any other " ism." We want the people to be content to follow their fore- fathers, who, through toil and pain, gradually climbed towards liberty, and who will try gradually to modify existing ills, and slowly get rid of them ; co-operating together, but each acting for his own interests ; combining and co-operating, because it is for the better interest of each other to utilize every advantage in the struggle of life, but each determined to hold his own, and opposed to the annihilation of private property, and the substitution of a " common fund," or collective State Socialism instead. What is Socialism ? Mr. Hyndman says it " is an endeavour to substitute for the anarchical struggle, a fight for existence, an organized co-operation for existence." He wants to stop " the brutal competition of one against the other," and have every- thing in production, distribution, the departments of the State, worked for the benefit of the workers, for the benefit of all. He tells the people that " three or four hours' work a day is more than sufficient to cover luxury and comfort for every man ; " but this " can only be done by the collective ownership of land, capital, machinery, and credit, by the complete ownership of the people in this great country of ours." In plain English, Mr. Hyndman wants the State to appropriate all property for the benefit of all instead of the few. He forgets or ignores the fact that the property has been acquired by the extra labour, superior skill, and thrift of the few, and that once you take away the motive power to acquire, the desire to possess by the indi- vidual, society would collapse. There are many evils in society that may be remedied for the good of all ; the sooner all abuses that exist are abolished the better ; reformation is always beneficial, revolution the contrary. The social evils that exist in our midst cannot be removed by the State ; it is the individual effort that is necessary. No Socialistic experiment has ever been permanently successful, nor ever will so long as it takes for its basis the denial of the right of the individual to private property. SOCIALISM. 149 It may be accepted as an axiom that all human action that tends to progress and civilization is primarily motived by one desire the desire to acquire property; and, conversely, that without this desire, and without the means of gratifying it, no progress of any kind is possible. Poverty and riches, obscurity and dignity, are, in other words, the positive and negative poles of all social energy, and from one to the other of these the currents of action flow. There is one great example that will show us the truth of this : I mean commerce. In the case of commerce, the truth of what has just been said is self-evident, and commerce is in this respect the image of all progressive, all civilizing activities. It is the image of invention, and invention is the essence of economy and of manufacture, and the practical application of science. Progress in all these branches would have been impossible if we only saw the matter completely, would have been unthinkable without the desire in individuals to acquire property, and without the certain prospect before them of being able to so. The amelioration of the social condi- tion of the people can only be obtained by teaching them how to help themselves, by giving them correct principles to guide their lives by, and demonstrating to their common sense the value of labour, steadiness, thought, and thrift. Any scheme that tends to equalize property must tend to paralyze civiliza- tion in the very act of diffusing it, and to debase the coin in the very act of distributing it. Let the ideal state it aims at have ever so many things to recommend it, it contains in itself the elements of its own dissolution ; for not only is the constant struggle and ambition of the individual needed to advance civilization, it is needed also if we would keep civilization from retrograding. " To preserve our material civilization even in its present state, there is a vast amount of skill and knowledge requisite, which men will only take the trouble to master for the sake of some adequate reward, and which, in the absence of any incentive to master it, might readily become lost to mankind altogether. But this is not all. If it is thus evident that there 150 POVERTY. must be a minority to direct labour, it is still more evident that there must be labour to direct. There must be the delicate labour of the skilled operative ; there must be the brute labour of the born and bred toiler. It is only through such agencies that railways, telegraphs, steamers, the diffusion of knowledge through printing, and the acquirement of knowledge through travel, can be still preserved among us ; and all these agencies are extinguished by equality. Equality, then, can mean nothing more than ruin. It can mean no process of levelling up no levelling up to the higher conditions, no levelling up even to the middle ones, but a general levelling down to a level below the lowest. Presently, too, it would be seen to mean something beyond this. It is conceivable that, through the appliances of civilization, the people might unite so as to destroy civilization ; but they would be parting with their strength in the very act of using it. The appliances through which they could unite, either physically or in sentiment, are appliances that would go to ruin if they ceased to labour to maintain them ; and with the falling to pieces of this vast material tissue, the proletariat would be once more disunited, once more broken into fragments, torn asunder by local ignorance and by local interests, and would consequently once more fall under the dominion of the stronger few. Inequality would be seen to be a phomix, which not only, if it died, would die amidst flames and ashes, but which out of those very ashes would be sure to redevelop itself" (W. H. MALLOCK). It is too often assumed that " wealth is the cause of poverty ; " it is not so ; nor would the distribution of existing wealth produce, even for a single week, a diffusion of competence. Wealth, capital, are the results of " thrift," and can only be had by self-denial. In every great and in every progressive society, wealth has always been present. It is by the accumu- lations of the "thrifty, self-denying class "that we have risen, step by step, out of barbarism by which we have risen to know- ledge, to a higher standard of life, and to a conception of rational freedom. Acquisition is God's law, by which is secured progressive SOCIALISM. 151 civilization. Capital has been an essential part of the process ; we should not have reached the point we have but for its agency. Destroy the motive, take away the incentive to save, to accumu- late, and we at once begin to slide back. " When thrift increases, crime decreases ; " it will be found as a truism that " the deposits in savings banks, &c., are greatest when crime and drunkenness are least." All men that wish well for their country and for mankind will honour thrift, will encourage thrift. To check the tendency to thriftlessness and extravagance, let us unite and work together for practical, systematic national thrift. You will do this if you teach from the pulpit that it is possible " to serve God and Mammon ; " you will do this by giving a different construction to those passages that condemn the rich ; you will make men better and happier if you tell them that that wealth which is envied by so many, and which is looked on doubtfully by so many more, so far from being the cause of want amongst thousands, is the " cause of the non-starvation of millions," and, as though by a viewless magnetism, is holding together the whole body of civilization. It is like an enormous electric battery, generating the vital current. " Wealth produces civilization, because it diffuses gradually new wants through the community ; and each new want produced, each new luxury needed, is a new magnet a new power added to the productive engine. The presence of wealth in a community is like a developing solution poured over a photograph. It develops human nature ; it develops all the sleeping talents, energies, ambitions, ingenuities by which man is distinguished from the animals, and by the degrees of which men are distinguished from each other. It seems to be producing inequalities, but it is really only revealing them. " Wealth, then, begins civilization by creating and by satisfying a want. It springs from labour, which is not only motived by the want of food for all labour is motived by that, primarily but it springs from labour which is motived by the want of food in such a way and under such conditions, that it does more than satisfy the want by u-hich it is motived. The majority of mankind, 1 52 POVERTY. in the absence of wealth, desire nothing but the bare necessaries of life ; and desiring these only, they can produce these only. The desire of wealth, in starting, is the exclusive gift of a few exceptional characters ; and, as I have said before, they can realize this desire only by making it to the advantage of others to labour for them" (W. H. MALLOCK). The world worships wealth, but not in the right way ; it fails to see in wealth the one motive-power that produces all civilizing industry. The wealth that is in existence is the great electro-magnet that moves the whole intricate machinery. Cease to employ the national wealth in profitable labour viz., in work that leaves a surplus after paying its cost of production and human life would be reduced io simply sustaining itself. It is the desire for luxuries by the few that really causes the necessaries for the many. It is the desire for superfluities that excites men's imagination, and causes them to exercise their skill, invention, and strength, that, without this motive-power, would remain undeveloped. Implant within all men " the desire " to be better than they are, and no matter how poor they begin the race of life, they will leave it richer and better than they began it. The pleasant country house of the employer and the squalid home of the employed should not be used to make the employ^ discontented ; it should bo explained to him that without the skill and thrift that built up the employer's house, things would be worse, not better, for the labouring man. Distribute the wealth of the middle class, make their life as employers impossible, the employed would not be benefited, but be in a worse condition, if you dissipate the fund that has kept the labourers in work. The "motive" that causes wealth and poverty must be studied more, and explained, so as to cause working men to view the capitalist class as their " friends." They see, as it were, the wheels of the machine revolving, but they have never studied the invisible force that drives them, and to the constant action of which every visible motion is due. To elevate the working class, to enable every class to rise upward, needs a " desire " for a definite object, a " motive-power within them" urging them to rise as much SOCIALISM. 153 superior to what they are, mentally, bodily, wealthily, as is attainable. We want those who desire equality to alter their aim, and to see that their object should be " to raise the poor," to alleviate misery, by implanting in the minds of all the desire for a bright and happy home. We must show the people how this is to be done, work with them to remove all abuses, but prove to them the value of " inequality " that it is essential to civilization, to progress. It has its injustices, which must be pruned, but the tree itself must be guarded and cherished by every man desirous of benefiting mankind. Let our social reformers teach that it will not benefit the poor to impoverish the rich ; cease to measure the distance of the majority of the people from the splendour of the few very wealthy, and put before them the practical aim of rising above want and squalor, the anxiety of to-morrow, by steady industry and thrift. The misery of the poor is the disease of the body politic, but inequality is the life of the body politic. Its lesson is, that there is room for the exertions of all, room for hope to all. In " Socialism made Plain" we have set forth in as brief a compass as possible, not the opinions of a Socialist, but the foundations of all Socialism. " But private ownership of land in our present society is only one and not the worst form of monopoly. . . . Out of the thousand millions of pounds taken by the classes who live without labour, out of the total yearly production of thirteen hundred millions, the landlords who have seized our soil, and shut us out from its enjoyment, absorb little more than sixty millions as their share. The few thousand persons who own the National Debt . . . exact twenty- eight millions yearly from the labour of their countrymen for nothing ; the shareholders who have been allowed to lay hands on our great railway communications take a still larger sum. Above all, the active capitalist class, the loan-mongers, the farmers, the mine-exploiters, the contractors, the middle-men, the factory lords, these, the modern slave-drivers, these are they who, through their money, machinery, capital, and credit, turn every advance in human knowledge, every further improvement in 154 POVERTY. human dexterity, into an engine for accumulating wealth out of other men's labour, and for exacting more and more surplus value out of the wage-slaves whom they employ. So long as the means of production, either of raw materials or manufactured goods, are the monopoly of a class, so long must the labourers on the farm, in the mine, or in the factory, sell themselves for a bare subsistence wage. As land must in future be a national possession, so must the other means of producing and distributing wealth. By these means a healthly, independent, and thoroughly educated people will steadily grow up around us, . . . ready to organize the labour of each for the benefit of all, and deter- mined, too, to take finally the control of the entire social and political machinery of a State in which class distinctions and class privileges shall cease to be." We are told by Socialists that capitalists are robbers. What is a capitalist ? We shall get at it if we think how we can become one. Two men are paid for their labour in money; one spends it at once, the other denies himself the present indulgence, and uses his money as seed to fertilize and increase. In time, the man who spends as he gets it, dies no better off, but the other leaves behind him wealth in houses, stock, &c. The children of the man who spends as he gets begin the race of life in the same condition as their father did, but the children of the man who saves begin the battle under very different circumstances. Some, not knowing how hard the money has been earned, spend it recklessly and die, leaving children to begin the world as badly off, or worse than their grandfather. But others continue the work so well begun, and by following the same policy of self- denial, of living within their income, of wisely and judiciously investing their capital, keep on adding thereto, and in time belong to the ranks of the wealthy. The Socialist says nothing against the man who squanders what his father has left behind, but stigmatises as a robber the man who abstains from spen- ding, as a slave-driver the man who uses .his capital in giving employment to labour. The man who eats his cake has a right thereto, but the man who saves it is a thief. SOCIALISM. 155 We will assume that the wealth of the nation is equally divided amongst men ; some men would live in idleness whilst they had enough to live upon, others would employ their share in works of reproduction, and at the end of the year we should find, as now, a certain quantity without a sou, others with their original store not only intact, but added to. Which is the better type of man : the one who has got rid of his capital by idle- ness and indulgence, or the other who has invested it judiciously, lived thoughtfully and frugally, and reserved seed for the next year's harvest ? There cannot be a doubt to which class society is the most indebted ; yet we are asked to believe that " capitalists are robbers." I reply, that the "robbers" are those who have lived up to, or beyond, their income, without giving a thought to the time that will come to all men when they will not be able to earn their daily bread. The "sufferings of the poor" give scope for the pity that delights to parade itself in vulgar ora- torical finery ; so few can detect that it is mere rant, not from the heart or head, but the only object to court the applause of the moment by contrasting Lazarus with Dives, and the rights of the people. The men we want to guide this social reforma- tion are those with brain power enough to understand the laws of national progress ; men who realize the truth that, for the good of the State, the welfare of all classes must be sought in concert that the prosperity of the poor does not mean the poverty of the rich, or the wealth of the rich the poverty of the poor ; all these appeals to prejudice and class opposition multiply instead of getting rid of obstacles. Statesmen and politicians in their speeches say " this or that ought to be done" by the State to remedy the poverty that exists; men like Mr. Chamberlain say, " that the condition of the agri- cultural labourer must be bettered." In the same spirit he said "that the system of taxation must be altered, so as to apportion the burden to the backs that had to bear it." Both statements mere clap-trap ; but, unfortunately, the wish being father to the thought, the working class audience applaud to the echo a speech that indirectly intimates that " taxation 156 POVERTY. must bo borne by the rich" and tlic "poor be relieved from its pressure." There is not a word said to the poor about their own shortcomings, the necessity for thrift ; but land laws are passed trying to " limit" rent ; Education Acts are passed, com- pelling the people to pay for those who, it is said, cannot afford to pay ; aid is given by the State to improve the land, or go else- where, giving houses at a fixed rent, the loss being made good by taxation. What are all these deviations from sound principles of government and taxation but " Socialism," as much so as the State Socialism of Germany or the giving work to the unemployed in France. I condemn all such efforts as calculated to bring down the " better " men to the level of the lower. The real friends of the working man, of humanity, are those who tell the people plainly that the only way to ameliorate permanently the condition of any people is by inculcating a more general desire to raise the status of the masses to a higher standard to elevate the lower, not to degrade the higher. " Competition " I assert to be God's remedy to compel men to be equal to the age they live in ; it means in every trade and occupation an inexor- able law ever going on, that weeds out by bankruptcy or other- wise the "incompetent;" it works so accurately that in time, in every occupation, only those equal to the demands of their age survive ; in everything Nature's law of the " survival of the fittest " may be traced. If you " cannot show a profit, or earn a wage that others can, you must retire before those better adapted. You may say it is hard and inhuman; I can only say it is natural. There is no evading the law ; you must observe it, or sink before it. It may sacrifice the few, but it is for the benefit of the many. " Necessity " is the Creator's great motive-power for rousing the energy of mankind. Necessity is said to be " the mother of invention ; " it is so ; in every age, at every epoch of man's history at any crisis in his destiny the difficulties that surrounded him have forced man to use his brain and discover a way out of the struggle. Competition now is very keen, and the " productive and distributive " agencies must be prepared for harder times. No power on earth can force nations to buy our SOCIALISM. 157 goods, if they prefer to buy goods of their own manufacture ; no power 011 earth can get us one shilling for an article that another can supply for elevenpence. Whether it pay capitalist, employer, or employed, nations take no notice of. If a man uses the brains God has given him, he will buy in the cheapest market ; and the principle is right. The keenness of competition compels in every branch of industry that production and dis- tribution be regulated upon the most improved principles ; competition forces manufacturers to buy the lest machinery to be had cancels the distributing class to keep their ex- penses at a minimum ; and its operation is beneficial, in giving to the world all articles at the lowest possible price. The operations of associations to protect this or that class always have, and always must produce the contrary effect. Protection, subsidies, Land Acts, are all Socialistic in their tendencies ; the object is to "protect" the individual, to enable him to get his living in one branch of industry he has not the power naturally to obtain ; they are the efforts of well-meaning, but misguided men to protect the " weaker members " of every branch of production and distribution against the "competition " of others better qualified to do the work. But man's efforts have always been, always will be, futile when acting in opposition to God's law of the " survival of the fittest." We may sym- pathize with the weaker brethren, but nothing can save them ; if not equal to the requirements of their age in any branch of industry, they should seek another adapted to their capacities, and not attempt to "levy a tax" upon the community by making the people pay a higher price for an article, from their " incompetency." The law applies to employer and employed; competition shuts up old, worn-out, or badly-managed mills and warehouses. Whether as master or man, if you cannot earn your living in a trade, there is 110 alternative but to try something else. By this law the Creator compels men in- dividually and collectively to do for the common weal the " best that is in them." It may seem a cruel, hard law, this inexorable doctrine of the " survival of the fittest ; " it is so different to the 158 POVEETY. old teaching that " God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb ; " but I must tell you what seems to me the truth ; I will not be a party to " gilding the pill." If I go out in a bleak north or east wind, " forgetting to put on my coat," or too poor to have one, the wind is not tempered to me ; therefore, I doubt if it be tempered to the lamb. The Creator studies what is best for all men, not how to protect the few for their own or their predecessors' errors. The great objection to Socialism is, that it wants to equalize social conditions, and wants to do this by the aid of the law or the State. The aim is " equality, "- not to enable men to rise by their own exertions, not to let the better take the higher place, but to give to those who have not from those who have. The Socialist paints the worst side of social conditions, shows us the strong oppressing the weak, the rich crushing the poor ; tells us that as we progress, the inequality becomes harder and more abominable. The economist thinks that by natural laws it is so arranged that if we get each indi- vidual to pursue his own personal interest, it is the best means for the general interest ; and that social order must be the result of free action being allowed to individual selfishness. Instead of relying on the State, he thinks the wiser policy is to do away with all obstacles, and to reduce to a minimum the interference of the State. Like poverty, Socialistic aspirations, in the form of protests again existing evils, or of Utopian schemes for the remodelling of the social order, have existed since the time of Plato, whose republic was the most perfect of these Utopias. Christ was a Socialist. " I came," says the Saviour, " to preach the gospel to the poor." " The rich are the thieves," says St. Basil. " The rich are brigands," says St. John Chrysostom ; " some sort of equality must be established by their distributing to the poor of their abundance ; but it would be preferable if everything were in common." " Opulence is always the result of a theft ; if not committed by the actual person, it has been the work of his ancestors," says St. Jerome ; and, according to St. Clement, if justice were enforced, there SOCIALISM. 159 would be a general division of property, private possessions being an iniquitous thing. The dream of all enthusiastic religious sects has always been to transform society into a com- munity of brothers and equals. What has been the result of such ideas with the suffering population ? Simply to provoke dissatisfaction, outbreaks, and massacres, such as the Jacqueries in France, the insurrection of Wat Tyler in England, and that of John Leyden in Germany. From Plato's republic to the present day, what has been the practical result of these dreamers to banish the distinction between " mine and thine "? What have the poor realized or benefited by the Communistic ideas preached by the Millenarians and the Cenobites, the Gnostics, Waldo's disciples, by the begging Friars, by the Taborites in Bohemia, by the Anabaptists in Germany, and by the Levellers in England ? How much nearer are we to the perfect society, painted as by an inspired dreamer in De Fioue's " Eternal Gospel," Here's " Utopia," Campaiiella's " Civitas Solis," Harrington's " Oceana," and Fenelon's " Salent " ? No nearer, because they are but dreams. They are impracticable ; they are not founded upon nature. They are pictures of society as certain men think it should be, not an attempt, in accordance with nature's laws, to make society what it might be. Human society is governed by natural laws, which must be respected and obeyed. Like it or not, we must abide by it, that inexorable law of the "survival of the fittest," the law of "inequality." By this law, nations progress ; equality means stagnation a living death. Nature's means for making progress is effectual amongst living things because those best adapted to the circum- stances in which they are placed get the upper hand in the struggle for life. The strongest, the bravest, the best armed, triumph, and gradually stamp out the weak and feeble ; and thus the races become more perfect. In human society, the great end to be attained is the general welfare, and this is best effected by allowing the laws of nature to pursue their course, and not by endeavouring to introduce plans of reforms invented by men in opposition thereto. Ascertain the laws, and obey 160 POVERTY. them ; do not envy those more skilfully adapted for the struggle ; do the best with what weapons are at your disposal, and recognize the wisdom of nature's law, that says, "Leave the course free and open, so that in the race, the strongest, the cleverest, the most dexterous, will gain the first place." Mr. Herbert Spencer correctly describes Socialism as " the coming slavery." Where is the difference between being bound to a master, and bound to society ? Socialism is but the substitution of the community for the slave-owner. If we are compelled to labour for other benefit than our own, what does it matter whether it be to a single person or a society ? "If, without option, he has to labour for the society, and receive from the general stock such portion as the society award him, he becomes a slave to the society. Socialistic arrangements necessitate an enslavement of this kind ; and towards such an enslavement many recent measures, and still more the measures advocated, are carrying us." Very soon we shall be subject to " the tyranny of organizations." Well may Prince Bismarck display leanings towards State Socialism. " There seems no getting people to accept the truth, which, nevertheless is con- spicuous enough, that the welfare of a society and the justice of its arrangements are at bottom dependent on the character of its members ; and the improvement in neither can take place with- out that improvement in character which results from carrying on peaceful industry under the restraints imposed by an orderly social life. The belief, not only of the Socialists, but also of those so-called Liberals who are diligently preparing the way for them, is that by due skill an ill-working humanity may be framed into well-working institutions. It is a delusion. The defective natures of citizens will show themselves in the bad actions of whatever social structure they are arranged into. There is 110 political ' alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of leaden instincts" (HEKBERT SPENCER). EMIGRATION. 161 EMIGRATION. " There must be refuge. Men Perished in winter winds till one smote fire From flint stones coldly hiding what they held, The red spark treasured from the kindling sun ; They gorged on flesh like wolves, till one sowed corn, Which grew a weed, yet makes the life of man ; They mowed and babbled till some tongue struck speech, And patient fingers framed the lettered sound. What good gift have my brothers, but it came From search and strife and loving sacrifice ? " EDWIN ARNOLD. " WHAT shall I do with my son ? " has become one of the most anxious questions for parents. The first thing is not to give them such an education as must engender a distaste of the life they have to lead. Teach them the dignity of labour, and leave off training them to be ''gentle folks." Do not unfit your son for work by habits and surroundings that unfit him for the work ; but prepare him, and adapt him to the duties he will have to perform. Appeal to his love of approbation, and stimulate his efforts by praising what he does ; interest his mind in the details of the work he will have to do ; elevate the occupation of his life in his eyes, and tell him to trust to his skill and good general business habits for success, and not to try to become rich rapidly, without labour. Parents now, as a last resource, send their sons abroad. Under what conditions or chances of success is the unfortunate lad sent ? Has he been educated or trained in any way for the struggle for life which he has to make against nature, or with men armed with long colonial experience, and whose antecedents have made them strong for the battle, and well fitted to run in the race for wealth ? Poor boy ! he often returns a failure, and is blamed for want of pluck, perseverance, or patience, when the fault should be laid to the charge of those who so recklessly launched 3 62 POVERTY. him into a life for which, mentally, morally, and physically, he was utterly unfitted. Life is no child's play in the colonies. It is useless to send people there who have no knowledge of any useful trade, nor the physical strength and energy to cope with the new conditions of existence. What is to be lamented is, that we have no places where the education of lads or men can be commenced and completed, so as to prepare them for the trials of this change of life. An institution of this kind will shortly be established in the South of England, the object being to supply a thorough system of education, embracing everything necessary to prepare youths for colonial life. Let us hope it will be a success, and lead to many others with a similar object the qualifying our young people to lead a healthy and successful life elsewhere, and thereby lessen the struggle for those who elect to remain here. Immigration to London and the large towns from the country must always cause a congestive state of the labour market. It is proposed to meet this evil of " excessive population" at the leading centres of the kingdom by an extension of State-aided emigration and it is said in favour of the proposal that, instead of a stagnant labour market and low wages or no wages, a state of utter misery, the State would be removing the population to our colonies, where there is plenty of land, high wages, ample work a demand, in fact, for that labour of which we have too great a supply. If the result promised was certain of being accomplished, it would require good reasons for objecting to the means for so worthy an end ; but would an extension of State-aided emigration be as beneficial as some imagine? The cause is the influx of labour ; do you remove this cause by adding to the temptation ? Or, is it not rather calculated to increase the evil if it be known that, failing work here, the State will aid you to get work elsewhere ? Voluntary effort, we are told, is unequal to the effort of getting rid of our surplus popula- tion. But is it that we have too much population, or that we do not properly train our people to earn living with us? EMIGRATION. 163 Wo are losing our foreign trade ; foreigners are competing for the home trade. Why ? Because we do not produce so cheaply as we used, and they are producing cheaper. Yet wo ask the State to interfere and get rid of surplus population, so as to send up the price of labour, and thereby enhance the price of our commodities. Is it not a cruel kindness sending men abroad, unless they are qualified for the life they will have to live there? Is it true that a man has only to go abroad and find employment that will enable him to get rid of poverty and the misery that accompanies it ? In the colonies, as here, there is a struggle for the means of existence ; there, as here, the law holds good of the " survival of the fittest ;" there, as here , the men adapted for the work required get on ; there, as here, those unfitted by their training to do the work that has to be done fail. The law gave power to Boards of Guardians to raise money in aid of emigration since the reign of William IV. In the present reign that power has been largely increased, and large numbers have been sent out. But the influx continues, and more persons come into our large towns than are taken away. From Scotland, Ireland, and the provinces, there is a continuous influx into London, the population of which is nearly as large as that of Scotland, and keeps increasing ; and there is no doubt something must be done to check the increase, or arrange in a different manner for the multitude so closely packed together. The subject is one of great importance, and will require thought- ful management, so long as the Metropolis continues to develop, and it is as well that Boards of Guardians should have the power to help at their discretion fit and capable persons able and willing to emigrate, but without the funds to do so. Since the reign of Elizabeth it has been held a duty for the State " to feed a man if he cannot support himself," and no man would object to help in such cases of need. It is said that the Factory Act, Employers' Liability Bill, the Education Act, State aid to emigration, are all based upon the same principle of < ' help- 164 POVERTY. ing those who cannot help themselves." But I must respect- fully differ. It is a very different thing " to feed a man who cannot support himself" and using the power of the State to limit the hours of labour, to stop his freedom to make his own bargain with his employers, to compel those who pay for their own children's education to contribute towards the support of those who do not, to retard A in his endeavours to save his money and emigrate by his own industry and thrift, by subtracting so much for him to pay the passage of the indolent and thriftless B. You may argue that it is wise " to transfer labour from one place where it is not wanted to another where it is." But the power of the State is Limited, and it is a doubtful policy this getting rid of your labour class, unless you confine your aid exclusively to those who are a burden here. No doubt, if this could be done, it would be a great relief to get rid of the " helpless " and pauper- breeding classes ; but would it be fair to the colonies to saddle them with our social failures ? How long do you think would they consent to become refuges for our destitute ? Calmly viewed, free from sentiment, they would like to get such men as we have not too many of ourselves industrious, skilful mechanics men that can be of service, men that are use- ful, and can earn their living anywhere, everywhere. Emi- gration needs no artificial help. In 1883, 320,000 persons of British and Irish origin left our shores (about 1 per cent, of the population), and this rate is greater than it has been at any previous period. The population of Ireland is steadily decreasing ; why not use this part of the United Kingdom as an absorbent for our " surplus " population ? The law of supply and demand applies to emigration as to everything else. The State may send out labour, but it is wiser to trust to the " demand for labour" in our colonies attract- ing the ''necessary supply" as it is needed. Education is becoming general ; the population of our agricultural districts is becoming better informed ; the temptation to this class is great to save more and go where their particular labour is better EMIGRATION. 165 paid for, and there is a more certain prospect of advancement in life. We are told that elsewhere land is cheap, but those who tell us this forget to tell us that the low price is because of the difficulty of getting to it, and the hardships inseparable from a life in outlying districts. As the facilities of communica- tion increase, as the inconveniences of the emigrant's life diminish, so will the competition there, as here, become more intense. It is not enough that because in our large towns there are men who want work which we cannot give them, we should be justified in sending them to the colonies ; quite the contrary ; we are justified in assuming that our own "failures" are not equal to those of our people who " succeed," and there is nothing to justify us in assuming that those who fail here will succeed better elsewhere. Men emigrate and succeed yes, but they are the higher type of men those who want to make pro- gress, and who, thinking the prospect in the new world better than in the old, work and save, and get away as soon as possible. I fail to see that the combination of qualities neces- sary for men to succeed in the colonies are very different to what are required here. With emigration, as with many other schemes suggested [for the solution of the social problem, " poverty," it seems to me the State had better not interfere. The man who is anxious to go, will by his industry and thrift, get away. If the colonies want a certain kind of labour, they will bid high for it, and the labourer will be attracted to that employer who pays the most for his services. State-aided emigration is supported by one ; reclaim the waste lands by another. But who is the State to aid, the improvident, the thriftless, and the useless ; or the industrious and the able? What right have we to send to other lands our "failures?" Is it policy to send away those who can earn for us what they con- sume ? As regards the waste lands, those who argue for their reclamation forget that at the present time a living is not to be made out of well- cultivated land, land in good condition; what chance has inferior land in the struggle ? Land, we are told, is 166 POVERTY. limited in England, but unlimited in England's colonies. If true, what does it prove? In the olden times, in all uncivilized countries, or in all countries where the population depends for its subsistence upon what the soil provides, when the population has grown beyond that point, a part of the inhabitants must emigrate or starve. But in England the people do not depend upon the soil for their subsistence, but upon their powers of pro- duction and distribution, upon manufactures and commerce. By producing the best or the cheapest, the manufacturing system is capable of indefinite extension ; by its aid we can export goods to other countries, and import in exchange agricultural and other produce for the support of our manufacturing and commer- cial population. The " remedy," then, seems to be the scientific cultivation of manufactures, the developing this inexhaustable source of wealth, using our ingenuity and industry in making articles that other people require; thereby solving the problem, how to supply large towns where a great number of people are crowded, and where nothing for sustenance is produced, and yet everything is to be had ; division of labour carried out by nations, each producing what it is best adapted for, the wants of the one supplied by the superfluities of another. Superabundant popu- lations would then be an absurdity, emigration not resorted to to escape from starvation, but to find a soil more cultivated to give scope to man's energies, and enable him to do with his talents the best for himself and his fellow-men. Instead of telling our agriculturists there is no remedy for them but emigration, tell them to copy their rivals in the United States. "The enormous increase of late years in the production of wheat in the West affected the farmers on the eastern seaboard even more injuriously than it did those of Great Britain, because they had no protection in the shape of freight and insurance, and thousands of them were placed in the greatest perplexity and trouble. But they, unlike their brethren here, arc fertile in resource, and have no idea of giving up iii despair, or seeking help elsewhere than from themselves. With a celerity of action and a vigour of will which did them EMIGRATION. 167 infinite credit, they gave up growing wheat altogether ; and now the traveller will find whole districts of immense extent, and in various parts of the country, converted into dairy farms, vegetable gardens, poultry yards, and fruit orchards. So wonder- ful has been the augmentation and development of the last named, that, in addition to vast quantities consumed in America itself, a great and ever- increasing trade has sprung up, in exporting preserved fruits of different kinds to Europe. The manufactur- ing towns of England now use very large supplies of this new product of the Western Eepublic ; and the winter before last, during a tour in India, I was surprised to find that cans of American preserves formed one of the principal articles of sale in all the grocers' shops. I think it nothing short of a national scandal that land should be letting close to London at thirty shillings an acre, that entire properties in the midland counties should be without a tenant, and that no serious attempt should be made, on the part of the great bulk of proprietors and farmers to start new industries ; while the importation from the Conti- nent of poultry, butter, eggs, cheese, and of every description of vegetables, continues enormously to increase ; because our agri- cultural classes fold their hands and do nothing, while our friends in Normandy, Belgium, and Holland try every new process and do everything in their power to increase the quantity and im- prove the quality of products of the earth which should be raised at our own doors " (W. E. BAXTEE, M.P.). The above quotation ought to be distributed broadcast through- out the kingdom ; it supplies the keynote so much wanted. We had it our own way for so long, that, now we have competition, we seem aggrieved, surprised, and discontented, as though other nations had not the right to compete with us. Instead of meet- ing this frankly and manfully, glad of foemen worthy of our steel, we whine and grumble, blame everybody and everything, but ourselves. To regain our position aye, to hold our present position we must understand that the age requires of us, in every branch of production and distribution, " increased quantity and improved quality." 1 08 POVERTY. In India agriculture is receiving great attention ; experiments are constantly being made to discover what are the most suit- able crops to be raised, and the support of Government is never refused to any project offering the possibility of a satis- factory result. The formation of model farms has led to the discovery that the great want of Indian agriculture is nitrogen, and that this can be best supplied by the practice of earlier ploughing, and by the use of a superior kind of plough, which is now being gradually placed within the reach of every Indian farmer. The greatest obstacle to progress arises from the indolence and aversion to change of the people themselves ; but in many parts of India a feeling is springing up among the higher classs of native agriculturists, that the only way to avert famine and insure plenty is to adopt the improvements advo- cated by their English rulers and tested by experience. The increased export of tea and wheac are the two most important facts in connexion with the external trade of India, and it seems safe to predict a steady annual increase for both these products under normal circumstances. Lord Brabazon, in a letter to the Times, April 11, 1884, reminds Lord Derby that if the rate of emigration in 1883 was 320,000 persons of British and Irish origin, the annual increase of population during the last ten years was 340,000, and he contends that voluntary emigration will be unable to cope with the annual addition to the population of the country. As Chairman of the "National Association for Promoting State- directed Emigration and Colonization," he informs us, the object of this society "is to urge the British Government to confer with the authorities of the different colonies with a view to the establishment of some mutual arrangement by which the colonies and the mother country can divide the expense of sending out selected men and women desirous of emigrating, but incapable of finding the necessary funds. In all cases, the agent of the colony interested should have the right of veto, and the less the Poor Law authorities are per- mitted to have to say to the matter the better. Several of the EMIGRATION. 169 colonies have already made the non-payment of money advanced to emigrants for their passage a felony, and in the case of colonization it would be easy enough for the Government to insure itself against loss hy a mortgage on the land granted to the colonist. All that is wanted is that the principle of State aid and direction should be accepted hy Parliament, and the details in the case of each colony could be arranged after- wards by professional experts. Lord Derby doubted whether State-directed emigration would be popular among the work- ing classes in the colonies. Possibly not. As, however, no attempt would be made to force emigration on a colony, the only effect of this would be that the stream of State-assisted emigration would for the time cease to flow in the direction of the colony which did not desire it. Amid our numerous colonies there would always be some which would desire it, and in time the demand for labour would again arise in the colony which considered itself for the time overstocked, and the stream would once more be permitted to flow in that direction. " If the Government do not see their way to adopting at once a system of adult male emigration, might they not commence by assisting the emigration of women and children? The colonial working man could not possibly object to the emigra- tion of women. Many of our present social difficulties arise from the preponderance of the female over the male sex in this country. Eespectable women are always welcomed in the colonies, and by withdrawing female competition wages would rise in this country. Child emigration, too, would prove a great saving to the ratepayer of this country ; as proved by Mr. S. Smith, M.P., in a recent article in the Nineteenth Century, where he shows that whereas each child in an industrial or workhouse school in this country costs 25 a-year, one such payment is sufficient to train and place a child in a capital situation on a farm in Canada, where he would be brought up in a healthy, homelike atmosphere, with a prospect of be- coming himself a landowner when he grows up. " Whether the Government like it or not, they will have to 1 70 POVERTY. take into their serious consideration how best to relieve this deplorable congestion of population in our large towns ; and the adoption of some well-considered scheme of State-directed emigration appears to me the only remedy which would effectually deal with a social malady which, if allowed to con- tinue unchecked, must inevitably end in some fatal national calamity." In a letter to the Times, April llth, 1884, General P. L. MacDougall gives his experience derived from an acquaintance with Canada of over forty years. His father acquired there a tract of wild land, the population of which, when he first knew it, consisted of squatters, very few and far between. " The possession of this land first turned my attention to emigration, both as a means of colonizing and for relieving the plethora of our home population. I was thus enabled to try an experiment in connexion with emigration in which I was fairly successful, and the place which, when I first knew it, was simply a wilderness of forest, is now a flourishing settlement, having for its nucleus a small town that has grown up round the station of the railway since constructed, and passing through the property. My first building was a house for my agent, an old brother officer who had fallen on evil times owing to unfortunate speculation. My second building was a church. , In these commercial days the first question asked of any scheme for promoting the welfare of the poor, whether in providing improved dwellings at home or a more comfortable existence abroad, is, Will it pay ? And quite apart from its moral influences, my church proved commercially an excellent investment, in attracting settlers who would not have been attracted without it, and in retaining others who would not otherwise have remained. Believing then, as now, that emigration may be attracted, but that any attempt to force it must result in disappointment, I was careful not to raise undue expectations by highly-coloured accounts of the advantages of the property, and I should never have thought of adopting the plan favoured by Lord Carnarvon, of bringing out poor families at my own expense in the expectation that the outlay would be EMIGRATION. 171 returned. My word to all applicants was, " Go and judge for yourselves;" and in this manner I settled the property with people who have remained on it, including more than a few families of my old soldiers, who have all done well. The land being covered with timber, I built two saw mills, enabling me to provide work for my settlers, and promoted the first manufacture of the * extract of hemlock bark,' which gave employment to a number of hands, and has since become a considerable article of commerce in America and on the Continent of Europe. The proposed plan of removing poor families to the North-west of Canada from Ireland or East London, at the cost of 100 per family, which sum should provide passage to then: destination as well as the provision of a dwelling-house and a few acres of land under crop, in anticipation of their arrival, is, I fear, foredoomed to failure, and from causes inherent in human nature. The location for each family must be arbitrarily chosen for them, but men like to choose for themselves ; and Mr. B. Brallaghan would soon discover, or imagine, that Mr. P. O'Eafferty's lot was more eligible than his own in respect of wood, water, or other particulars, and he might ask himself, " Why should I remain here, with a debt of 100 on my shoulders, when by removing near an imaginary line I may cancel my debt and obtain as good land under the homestead laws of the United States ?" In any case, the unthrifty and the idle would throw the blame of their failure on those who had induced them to emigrate. The only possible manner in which a large emigration to Canada can be successfully promoted is by making the advantages of a settler's life in that colony sufficient to attract him, in the first place, and also great enough to counteract the formidable competition of the United States." Mr. G. J. Holyoake (" A Stranger in America," Nineteenth Century, July, 1880) writes : " I learned in America two things never before apparent to me, and to which I never heard a reference at home. First, that the dispersion of unrequited workmen in Europe should be a primary principle of popular amelioration, which would compel greater changes in the quality 1 72 POVERTY. of freedom and industrial equity than all the speculations of philosophers, or the measures of contending politicians. Secondly, that the child of every poor man should be educated for an emigrant, and trained and imbued with a knowledge of unknown countries, and inspired with the spirit of adventure therein ; and that all education is half worthless, is mere mockery of the poor child's future, which does not train him in physical strength, in the art of ' fighting the wilderness,' and such mechanical knowledge as shall conduce to success therein. I am for workmen being given whatever education gentlemen have, but including in it such instruction as shall make a youth so much of a carpenter and a farmer that he shall know how to clear ground, put up a log-house, and understand land, crops, and the management of live stock. Without this knowledge, a mechanic, or clerk, or even an M.A. of Oxford, is more helpless than a common farm labourer who cannot spell the name of the poor-house which sent him out. We have in Europe surplus population ; elsewhere lie rich and surplus acres. The new need of progress is to transfer overcrowding workmen to the unoccupied prairies. Parents shrink from the idea of their sons having to leave their own country ; but they have to do this when they become soldiers the hateful agents of empires lately carrying desolation and death among people as honest as themselves, but more unfortunate. Half the courage which led young men to perish at Isandula, or on the rocks of Afghanistan, would turn into a paradise the wildest wilderness in the world, of which they would become the proprietors. While honest men are doomed to linger anywhere in poverty and precariousness, this world is not fit for a gentleman to live in. Dives may have his purple and fine linen, and fare sumptuously every day. 1, for one, pray that the race of Dives may increase ; but what I wish also is, that never more shall a Lazarus be found at his gate." An attractive picture, but it must be remembered that the Americans are a very keen, shrewd, enterprising people, and it is useless to go there unless you are equal to them in intelligence EMIGRATION. 173 and enterprise. A friend of mine has just returned from Chicago, where he had been to look about, and writes very favourably to me of the Americans. " The place is too big," he says, "for the petty jealousies that exist here," and he has resolved to pack up and go. The facilities of transit are great ; the boundless and fruitful fields of Australia, America, and Canada are very tempting ; and it seems a policy of self-protec- tion to withdraw from a country where there is difficulty in getting a living, to those other places where it seems alike more profitable and more pleasant to pass one's life. Still, caution is necessary ; it is a step that will make or mar your life. Think well before you decide on " quitting the ills you have, to fly to others you know not of." You must, to do better, find a market where your aptitude for a special occupation will command a better rate of remuneration. A few years ago we heard so much about the Cape Colony ; if they could only get out there, people thought their fortunes were made. I had a letter from a customer at King William's Town, in November 2nd, 1883, in which he says : " It is cruel to betray men out here, for when they come they find everything ready made. In fact, the large stores are glutted with all kinds of American goods, such as ready-made doors of every description, mouldings, and window sashes, saddlery, and ready-made clothing. Even carriages come from America, all descriptions, ready made. Instead of there being a dozen or so of journeymen tailors and saddlers, there ought to be fifty ; the same with the carpenters, carriage-makers, &c. Good tradesmen come here, and the steady men all leave as soon as they have saved enough money. I hear from Cape Town things are in a much worse state there than here. They have even opened soup kitchens, there are so many out of work, a thing I never heard of before, since I have been in the colony." I mention this, that caution may .be exercised, as too many think they have only to leave the old country, and there will be plenty of profitable work to be had. In the colonies, as here, it will all depend upon whether you are capable to do the work required to be done. When a physician has a patient whose 174 POVERTY. symptoms puzzle him, he takes refuge behind the advice, " Take a change of air ; go abroad ; forget your worries," &c. Our social physicians are too ready to adopt a similar method. Society is ill, poor, miserable ; emigration is said to be the remedy. Why? "Because the labour market is overstocked, we are told." Is it so ? Every season we find trade checked ; plenty of orders, but not sufficient tailors, shirtrnakers, domestic servants, to meet the demand. In the spring of 1884, a customer came to London, to engage about thirty tailors ; he told me the country was going to ruin, owing to free trade, and dis- sented entirely from my opinion, that it is because of the restric- tions put by the Legislature upon the hours of labour in our factories, and the incompetency of our workmen. After he had engaged his men, I asked him how he had got on ; he said, " Very satisfactorily ; but they are ' all Germans ; ' they seem to be more painstaking, to take a greater pride in their work, and they are sober and thrifty." You will find it is so. We are not only losing our foreign trade, because other nations are taking the trade away from us, but " foreign labour" is taking away the work from our people here at home, because they are more dependable. With- out the help of the Jews, I do not know what our tailors would do ; they are equal to any emergency, can get any quantity done ; the more there is to do the better they like it. It seems to me that instead of being so eager to get rid of our people, it would be much wiser to train them to be equal to make in a proper manner clothes, boots, &c. ; adopt means to cultivate and perfect our people in making better and cheaper the different articles the nation excels in, and by this means, secure for our working class the means of earning an honest livelihood at home. We want the industrial and technical schools to take the place of the old " ap- prentice " system. We want an organization in every parish for developing the skill and practical intelligence of the working class ; we want facilities in every parish to enable our young people to obtain sound instruction, theoretically and practically, that will make the men good workmen, the women good house- wives. We wan a greater faith in the belief " that there is EMIGRATION. 1 75 always au opening for a good workman." We do not want l{ poor-houses " in every parish; we want real " workhouses " where the workmen shall be taught " how to work." Poverty might be kept at a distance if we taught our people how to earn their living, and explained to them that it is not by labour alone, but by the " thrifty " use of the produce of their labour, that the gaunt spectre " poverty " may be avoided ; that, by a wise absti- nence, they may not only keep themselves from destitution, but gradually and surely they or theirs may advance upward and become successful and prosperous men. Emigration I do not object to ; 011 the contrary, if I had to live my life over again, before deciding upon what steps to take for the getting of the means of subsistence, I should carefully weigh the respective merits of stopping in the old or migrating to the new world. But what I do object to, is the interference by the State the artificial forcing or tempting of labour to quit our shores, instead of the natural exodus therefrom of the men who have thought it best to go, and have qualified themselves by economy and self-denial here, in saving up the means to defray the passage out. It is impossible for the State to make a proper selection out of the mixed multitude of good, bad, and indifferent people that would want to go ; the majority not in earnest, but thinking the change may be better for them ; but why they are to succeed in the new, after having failed in the old world, they cannot tell us. They will say, "This market is over- stocked ; the colonies want the labour of which here we have too much." But I deny that we have an excess of "good" workmen, and the colonies do not want our " bad " ones. Emi- gration is an excellent thing, left to itself. It is an outlet for those who see no prospect of achieving their ambition here, and who think they will start hi life on better conditions abroad than they could obtain at home; and it seems nature's remedy to give more elbow-room and a better chance for those left behind. It does for modern life what war did for the earlier ages, and it is steadily developing from this natural 176 IOVERTY. cause, without State help. And it must not be forgotten that there are limits to the demand for labour in all, from the oldest to the youngest of our colonies. They want labour yes, of a certain kind ; but even of this they do not want too much or, if they get it, the effect on the labour market there wil be the same as here ; nature's laws are universal. " Supply and demand " regulate the price of labour in the new as in the old world. If emigration is left to itself, the supply will be adequate, and not more than adequate to the demand ; the higher rate of remuneration is the incentive, the magnet that is sure to attract. State-aided emigration must interfere with, if it did not ultimately supersede, voluntary effort. At present 100 men have made up their minds to go, and they work hard and save, or get help from friends or relations, and go. But if the State are going to help, say, twenty out of every hundred, naturally the other eighty will be tempted to wait their turn, and not practise self-denial or borrow from friends, if the State is to help them. To get rid of a certain number, and thereby discourage others, seems a measure of very doubtful benefit. We have tried the experiment before, and it was not successful. In 1869 and 1870 there were the same complaints as now of competition in the labour market. London is a refuge for the destitute ; we want to limit the supply, not to encourage it, by giving an impression that the State is to aid in sending elsewhere, at the cost of the rate- payers, those who cannot find employment here. To ship off some would serve chiefly to draw fresh successors as needy and as helpless as their predecessors. It may be said that it would be cheaper to send our surplus labourers abroad at the expense of the State, than to maintain them in idleness at home ; but it has been tried, and the result of sending away what this country can best spare, but what the receiving country has no occupation for, is simply to have them back upon our hands, more utterly helpless and hopeless than before. It would be impossible by State aid to send out sufficient, beyond the present numbers that leave by voluntary EMIGRATION. 177 effort, to relievo the labour market ; oil the contrary, such a measure would, by getting rid of 10,000, discourage at least ten times the number ; so that the objections, not only of principle but of practice, lead to the conclusion that in emigration, as in. all other things, State aid is a measure of very doubtful benefit. Instead of putting everything so attractively before people as to a life in the colonies, would it not be wiser and kinder to tell them that in its commencement the life of a poor settler in North- west Canada is at the best a hard one ? The winters are long, the cold intense ; in spring the surface of the country is a vast sea of liquid mud, that sticks like glue ; in summer he becomes a prey to flies and insects graphically described by the Americans in " Martin Chuzzlewit " as " catawampous chawers in a small way, as graze on a human being pretty strong." These are, how- ever, just the conditions on which he enjoys possession of about the richest soil in the world for the growth of wheat and other products ; and if he is industrious and persevering, he will in a few years certainly see himself surrounded with an amount of comfort and prosperity he never could hope for in the old country. " A Year in Manitoba " should be carefully read by intending emigrants. What a contrast it is to a life in England ! When they get there they find the ''dwelling-house" a dilapidated shed, not fit for cattle ; the cattle sheds, a collection of ruined buildings that might have been stables in happier days, but at present were simply roofless piles of manure and rubbish. " Had the circumstances been any less serious, one would have regarded the matter as a ridiculous hoax, and entered somewhat into the joke. But to have been brought, with a family, some five thousand miles to be made the victims of such humour, was indeed a jest too grim for anything but the deepest indignation." The father had been a soldier, the mother a soldier's wife. They were not novices in the mode of life they had elected to pursue. But the author admits that " under some circumstances it might well have proved heart-breaking drudgery ; but our business has been to settle our sons, cruel pecuniary losses 12 1 78 POVEETY. having prevented this being suitably done at home. To minister to their comfort, and give them a fair start on a life into which we are thankful they enter with every promise of success, has been therefore, arduous, though it has proved a labour of love to their mother and sister. Each of us has endeavoured bravely to put a shoulder to the wheel, and surmount obstacles ; and if our experience may afford some incentive to effort and persever- ance in others especially in young men coming out here to begin life these notes may not have been penned in vain." The result is satisfactory, but it is quite an exceptional family, full of capacity and determination, acting up to the belief that " Perseverance is a Eoman virtue, That wins each God-like act, and plucks success E'en from the spear-proof crest of rugged danger." HAWAED. I would have every one desirous of emigrating told what Goethe said to a youth who proposed going to seek his fortune in America, "Your America is here or nowhere." There is always scope for earnest workers ; before thoughtful enterprise, and persistent plod- ding every barrier must in time yield. But for this we want self- reliant men, men who believe in self-help, and not in State help. Emigration, in its proper sense to America commenced with the departure of the Puritans, who colonized New England. They were followed by the Germans, who settled principally in Pennsylvania. The Dutch colonized New York ; the Swedes, Delaware ; the French, Canada and Louisiana. The advantages soon became apparent, and our statesmen recognized that every fresh colony extended the national, political, and social influence ; that they opened new markets for the productions of the mother country, giving, at the same time, fresh impetus to maritime trade ; and that they formed safe outlets for an impoverished or overcrowded population. But emigration, to be successful, must be resorted to from the right motive the desire on the part of the individual to get on and not the sending away at the expense of the State, influenced by the dread of that bugbear, " over-population." CO-OPERATION. 179 CO-OPERATION. "Then come the wild weather come sleet, or come snow We will stand by each other, however it blow ; Oppression and sickness, and sorrow and pain, Shall be to our true love as links to the chain." LONGFELLOW. CO-OPERATION has been of great benefit to the working class. By co-operation working men can acquire capital can save without depriving themselves of any comfort ; grow rich by the ac- cumulation of savings that have grown, not by their own thrift, but through diverting the profits of the distributing class to the benefit of their own class. But what I like in co-operation is the possibility it opens out to secure a com- petency for the labourer the possibility it oilers of self- employ- ment by associative gains the willing, hearty co-operation of large bodies of men united for the common good of their class not by strikes, not by threats against their fellow-men who exercise their free will to accept a price for their labour the others refuse, but, by using their brains, to become their own employers. It is estimated that there is an accumulation at present of some 8,000,000 of surplus capital in the hands of co-operative societies. What to do with this surplus capital, was the prominent question at the last Co-operative Congress, and a committee has been appointed to report how it had best be dealt with. The Wholesale Co-operative Society at Manchester has been established twenty-one years, and has done well ; last year its sales exceeded 4,500,000 ; but as there are 1,800 retail stores, with a turn-over of nearly 27,000,000, an increase of wholesale stores, to supply the retail, seems the best channel for the employ- ment of surplus capital. This will be the policy, no doubt, judging by the following paragraph at the end of a little tract entitled "The Co-operative Wholesale Society: What is it?": 1 80 " We have shown that the retail and wholesale stores together save about 11^ per cent, for consumers. There are 5,000,000 of families of working people in Great Britain and Ireland receiving among them some 400,000,000 sterling per annum. Now, if all except what is necessary for payment of rent and taxes was spent at the store, and by the store at the Co-operative Wholesale, 10 per cent, saving thereon would amount in twenty years to over 600,000,000 sterling, which sum would be sufficient to make them all their own employers." Co-operation is the best check to democracy. Co-operation has for its object the getting a maximum of skill, a maximum of remuneration, and a minimum of waste. To attain the first, you must tolerate superiority ; to attain the second, you must have competition ; to attain the third, you must have discipline. Will democracy allow superior intelligence, superior experience, to assert themselves? Will it allow full play to individual exertion ? Will it listen to the voice of science, and not to the voice of passion ? We have had a struggle between the aristocracy of birth and the aristocracy of intellect. We are witnessing in many countries a struggle between the democracy of thought and the democracy of pure and simple aversion to what exists. Co-operation is one of the highest forms of intellectual democracy. " I believe in association as the sole means we possess of realizing progress, not merely because it multiplies the action of the productive forces, but because it tends to unite all the various manifestations of the human mind, and to bring the life of the individual into com- munion with the collective life of the whole. I believe that man should be able to eat and live without having every hour of his existence absorbed by material labour, so that he may be able to cultivate the superior faculties of his nature. .... I listen with dread to those who invented the formula of ' each man for himself,' for they knew that it would increase egotism, and that there is but one step between the egotist and the slave " (MAZZINI). Co-operation is one oi the attempts to remove poverty and CO-OPERATION. 181 its accompanying evils to put an end to strikes and divisions between the rival interests of capital and labour, and reconcile them ; but it goes further it is an attempt at Communism, with the recognition of nature's law of "inequality;" it is an appeal to man's moral nature to create a universal brother- hood, and " Let each man find his own in all men's good, And all men work in noble brotherhood." " For others, not yourselves, ye birds ! your nests repair ; For others, not yourselves, ye flocks ! your fleeces bear ; For others, not yourselves, ye oxen ! plough the field ; . For others, not yourselves, ye bees ! your honey yield." I approve of co- operation because it is an effort by men r,o "help themselves." The elementary phase of co-operation was keeping a shop or store, where a number of persons joined their custom and diminished the expense of management by making advantageous purchases through an agency of trained buyers, whose interests were identical with those for whom they bought. Equity and economy were the fundamental principles of co- operation. The goods were bought and sold for ready money ; no credit was given, and no bad debts were made. Co-operative Stores were not introduced to undersell the tradesmen, but the object was for a number of men to buy wholesale, charge the ordinary retail prices, and divide the profits equitably amongst the purchasers in proportion to their expenditure. The Civil Service and similar Stores have gone on the opposite plan of trying to undersell the shopkeepers ; for a time the effort was successful, because allowance was not made for deterioration of stock, increased expenses ; but at the present time, ready money buyers can purchase what they require as advantageously, or more so, of the tradesmen than at the Stores ; whilst, in pro- portion to the number started, the failures have been much greater than among shopkeepers. The co-operation I am advocating is what was originally intended viz., a movement for improving the condition of the working class. I value it as an intelligent means of " self- ] 82 POVERTY. help ; " a number of persons combining in the purchase and distribution of their food, and the creating a "capital fund" by putting by the profits thus saved. I know of no better system, and it is one capable of vast extension ; it is praise- worthy in every way ; men joining together for their mutual benefit, devoting their leisure time, not to the public-houses, or lazily loitering about the streets, but to thinking over and arranging how to spend their earnings in the most advantageous manner for the good of each other. The effort must give a spirit of independence to the men, must give a hope of im- proving the condition of the lowest, not by State aid, not by help from the benevolent, but the elevation of their class by means that were honourable to themselves, without mendicancy and without revolution. The progress of co-operation has been similar to that of our large mercantile houses hard, up-hill struggle at first, with a resolution to overcome every obstacle, an inward belief that " it is success that colours all in life." It took from 1836 to 186G a period of thirty years to raise the first million of capital ; it took five years more to raise the second million ; and it took only a year and a half (1870 to 1872) to raise the third million ; in 1881 the capital was six millions. The total sales in 1882 of the 782 retail societies in England were 13,863,498, and the sales of the wholesale were 3,574,695; in Scotland, the retail sales 3,280,644, the wholesale 986,446. In the ten years, 1862 to 1871, a net profit of 3,739,093 was realized upon a total trade of 53,822,762 ; in the ten years, 1872 to 1881, the profit was 13,712,176, upon a trade of 169,433,328 ; so that the business of working men's co- operative societies has increased during the last decade more than three times, and the profits more than three and a half times. Daring the twenty years the co-operative societies had made a profit of very nearly seventeen and a half millions sterling, and that profit has been at the rate of no less than 29 per cent, on the share capital. The returns for Scotland show a still more marvellous result. During the CO-OPERATION. 183 ten years, 1872 to 1881, the societies in this enlightened part of the world have done a business amounting to 24,503,662, and made a profit of 2,107,401. "On April 4th, 1881, the population of Scotland was 3,734,441, and the number of families 805,883 ; while at the end of 1881 there were over 90,000 members connected with the co-operative societies in Scotland. Now, taking each member as representing a family of five, it would appear that in 1881, one person in eight throughout Scotland was a co-operator. At the sarno dates the population of England and Wales was 25,968,286, the number of families 5,643,353, and the probable number of co-operative members was about 560,000. Again assuming each member represents a family of five, it would seem that one person in nine in England and Wales, were thus co-opera- tors ; while, in Ireland, there were only 737 members for a population of 5,159,839, representing 994,579 families. The oldest co-operative society in Scotland 'dates from 1777, the oldest in England from 1795, and in Ireland from 1854 ; so that it has taken Scotland 104 years to convert one-eighth of its people to co-operation, England 86 years to convert one-ninth, and Ireland 30 years to convert 1 in 1,400. This rate of growth should certainly satisfy those who believe that 'true progress is slow,' but I should consider it very dis- couraging if recent years had not shown more rapid growth than earlier ones. Between 1872 and 1881, the number of members in Scotland increased from 38,829 to 90,778 ; the capital, from 208,815 to 793,705 ; the sales, from 1,595,120 to 3,664,253; and the profits, from 126,314 to 323,953; each item being far more than doubled in the' nine years. Turning to England and Wales for the same years, I find the number of members increased from 801,157 to 560,000; the capital, from 3,131,474 to 8,000,000; the sales, from 11,397,225 to 22,000,000; and the profits, from 809,237 to 1,700,000 progress about equal to Scotland. I think this progress of the past nine or ten years may be called ' fair,' and that it is mainly due to the work done by the Central Board, and 1 84 POVERTY. to the incalculable benefits arising from the two wholesale societies. The number of societies remained almost stationary, there having been nearly as many dissolutions as registrations. But on the other hand, existing societies have established very many branches which have grown rapidly, and which are generally preferable to small competing societies. Still, while nine out of ten of the population of the United Kingdom are non-co-operators, there is a wide field for more branches and many new societies, and, therefore, for propagation work of all kinds, by willing and able workers " (Mr. NUTTALL). This movement has not been confined to Great Britain. In Austria the associations are spreading all over the country. In Germany there are nearly half a million members of the People's Co-operative Banks, and about 800 similar institu- tions now exist in Italy. The balance sheet for 1881 of the People's Bank at Milan shows a turn-over of close upon sixty millions sterling, and its last dividend was at the rate of 11 per cent. The general result is sufficient to prove what the working class could do for themselves if trained to trust to rely upon their own exertions, instead of the benevolence of individuals and the charitable institutions of the country. It is surprising that working men do not realize and apply the mighty power of this lever of co-operation for their own benefit. " Estimating that there are about four million heads of families amongst the industrial classes, if they earned on an average 25s. a week, spent it at the Co-operative Stores, received an average dividend of Is. 6d. in the , capitalized their profits, and invested these in co-operative production, they would in five years be able to buy all the railways in England, and, in seven years, pay off the National Debt, and, in thirteen years, purchase all the land in England at its present price" (Mr. E. J. MILBURNE). This calculation is that of an enthusiast ; but, admitting it goes too far, the principle is sound. It indi- cates a satisfactory solution of that social problem, " Poverty;" it gives a thought to animate with hope the busy hands and heads of toiling industry ; it points out how to save, by a CO-OFERATIOX. 185 change that is -not destructive of, but would be instrumental to, the progress of society and civilization. It would make the working class really "capable," and worthy of having the right to perform the duties of a citizen, and vote for their representatives. Co-operation lias always had an earnest advocate in Mr. E. V. Neale, and it is to be hoped that his plain speaking in the preface to the Eeport of the Fifteenth Annual Co- operative Congress, will secure the attention it deserves. As a social reformer, he cautions the members of the co-operative societies " that the permanent ameliorations of the social state of the population can never be brought about, only by improvements in the machinery of exchange. No doubt, in tho world of competition, exchange has contributed in a very great degree to produce that enormous inequality in the distribution of the proceeds of human labour whence flow T s the ever-fresh stream of social evil. The struggle for existence, that stern but beneficent instrument of natural progress, is continued by the maxims of the exchange mart into the higher world of reasonable life, realisable on our planet by man alone ; where the natural principle of struggle should be superseded by the supernatural principle of harmony ; that fitting of every activity into its true place which Plato, in his immortal work on the Eepublic, has shown to constitute the essence of justice. In this higher order, when the gain made from other men's labours Avill cease to be the prevalent motive of human action, exchange must fall from the high position assumed by it in the present embryo stage of co- operative effort. Its place will be filled by the more mature form of association, where men are thought of more than things. The collective workshop, assuring to the worker the equitable apportionment of the proceeds of his work ; the collective ownership of the land, preserving the common heritage of mankind the earth from -private appropriation, and, as the natural consequence and complement of their joint ownership, the associated house will gradually supplant in 186 POVERTY. the conception of co-operators the all- engrossing store, with its wearisome iteration of " cliv," as the be-all and end-all of association; or, if not, co-operation will sink into one of the endless forms of competitive struggle, and its con- gresses and conferences will come to be classed with the* sentiments ascribed to the fly who sat on the coach-wheel and boasted of the noise he was making." Mr. Neale's view of co-operation is to " keep true to the off-repeated deter- mination to lift trade on a new plane, in which workers shall be follow-workers, and not rivals, and the principle of justice, not selfishness, shall regulate exchanges." A grand aim, but one that is at present, I fear, beyond our power to achieve. It is material progress which the workman first needs, and those who can give the simplest illustration of how to obtain it are his best friends, and will do the greatest service to co-operation. The principal point is to make these co-operative societies succeed, and to take such steps as will lead to this result, and bring before the minds of the masses the value to their class of such societies. As to the future, we may safely trust co- operators who have full bellies, covered backs, and well- furnished houses, to cultivate higher aims, and, with their more ample means, they will be much better able to attain them. Mr. Neale, like the late F. D. Maurice, is anxious to reconstitute societies on the basis of co-operation as a great Christian and true social principle, and to banish out of these societies anything which opposes itself to these principles. Judging by the experience of all ages and classes, " selfishness" is the basis of society, and the law of the universe. But as we try to lessen pain, so ought we to try and diminish misery ; and there can be no harm, but the contrary, in accepting " co- operation," and using it as a practical protest against the assump- tion that " selfishness " is the law. In his tracts, in his many lectures, in all that he ever uttered on the question of co-opera- tion, the late F. D. Maurice maintained "that all the great work that has been done by society in its existing form has been achieved by the mutual co-operation of 'men, and that it has CO-OPERATION. 187 been when selfishness has intruded itself that rottenness and mischief have followed in its train." Mr. Neale holds similar opinions, and he tells co-operators : " Let us not cradle ourselves in illusions. The * small house and little garden of their own,' so fascinating to the imagination of our present working population, who, educated in the vitiated atmosphere of competition, appear as yet unable to appreciate the purer air and beautiful surroundings of associated life, is a rock whereon the good ship ' co-operation ' will be wrecked, and disappear as a means of carrying the population safely across the stormy waters of competitive poverty to the fair shores of associated wealth, if the co-operative body are not sharp-sighted enough to see and good statesmen enough to avoid it. The motto of Lord Strafford is the true motto, * We must be thorough,' or we are nothing. God does not tolerate the double-minded man, who is ' unstable in all his ways ; ' or, rather, He does tolerate, but He never blesses him. ' Unstable as water, he shall not excel.' You may despise my warning, if you please, but I do warn you nevertheless the associated house is the key-stone of the social arch the indispensable condition of rational enjoyment and general well-being. In it lies the permanent guarantee against the dreary isolation and moral depravity attending what appears to be the inevitable accompaniment of a dense population, the growth of large cities. It will be the economical distribution, for the benefit of the whole population, of the advantages of the wealth accumulated, and the continual accumulation for the common good of the wealth ever accumu- lating. In it, and only by its means, will the interval between rich and poor be bridged over in fact and not only in talk ; and the aspirations of that great poet whom a congress in Scotland brings naturally to our thought, become a living reality till not only when we read Burns, we shall feel ' A man's a man for a' that.' " Although we may hope that the loftier aim may be realized, there can be no doubt as to the value of co-operation for the bettering the condition of the working class. We get more 188 POVERTY. hearty work from men full of hope than if they be discontented. " United labour, even though the labourers perform just the same operations is more effectual than the separated labour of each individual. . . . Organization and combination, even if they be of the simplest character, have a great economical significance. . . . " These two elements (capital and labour), reciprocally necessary to each other's existence, are not at variance, except by error or mismanagement. It is true that the remuneration which the labourer takes under the name of wages is naturally determined by the competition of labourers ; the profit which the capitalist appropriates is equally determined by the competition of capital. But there is one cause which gives the possessor of capital a great advantage over the labourer the comparative ease with which his capital may be transferred from one object to another, from one centre of industry to another, from one country to another, when compared with the facilities with which labour can seek a better market. In order to sustain or succour this weakness of labour, combinations have, as we know, been entered into among labourers, which seek to fix the price and regulate the process of labour. These practices are an interference with economical laws, and it may be doubted whether labour has been really benefited by the expedient. The true processes by which the problem of the remuneration of labour can be inter- preted are the development of those means by which labour can seek its own market, and the union of capital and labour in the same persons, under the system of co-operation." (Professor THOROLD KOGEKS). Co-operation is " self-help," whereas Socialism is only another attempt to get help from others. In To-day, March, 1884, that true friend of the working classes, Leclaire, is called ' the shrewd philanthropist,' the co-operator's ' great man,' who got his capitalist reward. We are told that on entering one of the co-operative establishments, the first thing that meets the eye is a list of * regulations,' if anything, more stringent than those of an ordinary workshop, indicating longer hours and harder work. CO-OrEBATlON. 189 The principle underlying these institutions would seem to be that the supreme end of life is the maximization of labour and the minimization of the enjoyment of its product. . . . Now all this may be very nice, but so far from being Socalism, it is the very antithesis of Socialism. Trade co-operation is simply a form of industrial partnership, in which the society of co-operators is in the relation of capitalist to the outer world. The units of the society may be equal amongst themselves (always excepting the broken-down capitalist who is the presiding genius, the Leclaire or Godin), but their very existence in this form presup- poses exploitation going on above, below, and around them in other words, the prevailing industrial anarchy. " As I have said, co-operative experiments reflect what are, from a Socialistic point of view, the worst aspects of the ancient orders. The trade co-operator canonizes the bourgeois virtues, but Socialist vices, ' over- work ' and ' thrift.' To the Socialist, labour is an evil to be minimised to the utmost. The man who works at his trade or vocation more than necessity compels him, or who accumulates more than he can enjoy, is not a hero, but a fool, from the Socialist's standpoint. It is this necessary work which it is the aim of Socialism to reduce to the minimum. Again, ' thrift,' the hoa,rding up of the product of labour, it is obvious, must be without rhyme or reason, except on a capitalist basis. For the only two purposes which commodities serve are consumption and exchange. Now, except under peculiar circumstances (Arctic expeditions and the like), it is certain they would not be * saved r to any considerable extent merely for the sake of future consumption. Hence the object of * thrift,' or hoarding, must lie in exchange. And, in short, it is the increment obtainable by commodities or realized labour power, when represented by exchange, value or money that furnishes the only raison d'etre of 'thrift.' The aim of the Socialist, therefore, which is the enjoyment of the products of labour, as opposed to that of the bourgeois, which is their mere accumulation with a view to ' surplus value,' is radically at .variance with thrift " (E. BELFORT BAX). 190 POVERTY. Mr. Bax clearly points out the value of Co-operation, and the weakness of Socialism. In the one, society gets the maximum, in the other, the minimum of result from each of its members. There can be no doubt that more and better work will be done on the co-operative plan than under the arrangement of master and servant. It is, unfortunately, too true that in certain industries workmen would be treated as marked men if they exhibited more than usual activity and diligence in the pro- motion of their master's interests ; but what is a fault under the present arrangement would be a virtue under the co-operative system, as they would not object to more or better work if it increased their own share of profit. Employers have in a variety of ways tried to encourage good and zealous employes, and it is wise to get quit of, or, at all events, to modify the antagonism of interest between master and servant, and to raise the condi- tion of the latter from that of a mere hireling, paid so much per week in good times and bad alike ; and give a something beyond, let it be ever so little, that he may go about his labour in a more cheerful and hopeful spirit, induced to put forth his best energies in order to make the business profitable. "State-help" versus ''self-help" is the principle of the last idea, that of the Federation des Travailleurs Socialistes de France, called the " Workman's Party." They maintain or insist that the Socialist idea, can only be realized step by step, and that the mere gift of money to the suffering cannot cure the social malady. They demand money from the State, not as charity to the poor, but as a legislative act, which will enable the working class to help themselves, and tend to free the State from the middle- men, who, while consuming largely themselves, do not by their work add to the national wealth. These Socialists, therefore, ask for 1,000,000, not for the relief of the workmen out of employ such a sum would be con- sumed by the needy in a few weeks, and no permanent good result but to augment the power of the various Syndical Chambers, or Workmen's Trades' Unions. Thus strengthened, the Trades' Unions could accept contracts which are now CO -OPERATION. 191 withheld from them, as they do not possess the means to guarantee their due execution, or to face any considerable preliminary outlay. The object is to carry on trade without the middle-man or employer ; and they claim that Government contracts, at least, should be given to trade corporations, and not to private speculators. It is the Paviors' Corporation who pave the streets of Paris, and not a private firm ; while the Official Journal is entirely in the hands of those who compose and print it, the profits being divided between the workmen. The Socialists now urge that the extension of this principle would bo an important step towards the solution of the social problem " Poverty." No doubt ; but is it fair to the ratepayers, is it wise towards the thrifty, is it politic for the State to step in, and lend or give the money of one portion of the taxpayers, to help another portion whose avowed object is to open shops and accept contracts at lower prices than the present employers, with interest to pay on capital, could offer to take them at ? It is also proposed that the Municipality should build and let at cost price workmen's lodgings. State competition, it is argued, would check the " exorbitant profits " of private enterprise, and be a preliminary step towards the socialization of capital, and would bring about a social revolution gradually and without any violent shock or conflict. Nothing short of these or similar measures, it is said, will be accepted by the Socialists as giving any promise of permanent improvement. If practicable, no doubt the scheme would stop the present system of " anarchical free competition," but whether it would rid the highly civilized community, such as exists in London, Paris, or New York, of the misery that now exists, is quite a different matter. I have no doubt but that Socialists, like other reformers, believe that what they ask for on behalf of the people is founded upon right ; but they fail to see that what they ask the State to do for then- class can only be done by inflicting a great wrong upon others. They argue that if the State appropriates the land, it is only giving back to the people what has been taken from the people ; but one wrong does not justify another, and no healthy con- 192 rovERiY. science can approve of taking property from A to give to B. Eeason goes with the conscience in condemning as unwise this unsettling of the minds of the working class, by telling them it is the duty of the Government to remedy the ills they suffer from by lending them other people's money, or taking posses- sion of other people's property. All such statements only incite in the minds of the masses hopes that, if realized, would not prove a remedy, and to realize would lead to a national crime. If the land were handed to the State to-morrow, if the rents from the land were enough to pay the taxes, and give a trifle to each member of the community even if the accumulated wealth of the nation were divided amongst the labouring classes, that gaunt spectre, poverty, would still be with us, accompanied with the remorse that always follows a great wrong, and punishment must inevitably follow. " The man that for the passing hour doth wrong, And thinks the gods have failed to see the deed, Thinks evil, and is taken in his thought. When Justice finds a space of quiet time, He pays full vengeance for the wrongs he did." Use your own reason, keep active your conscience, do not rely on Government aid. Think of the various Acts for the im- provement of workmen's dwellings. The time and money spent 011 this question since 1851 has been immense, and all useless. Why? Because personal individual service must go hand in hand with legislation, in order to make legislation truly operative. It is not enough to rebuild, you must reclaim ; it is not enough to destroy, you must educate. The habits of the people require improving as well as their homes. Quite as important a question as improved dwellings for the working class is that of how to feed them and clothe them as cheaply as possible. Instead of appealing to the State for help, the working class should co-operate together and buy in large quantities what they require. We want in England in fact, everywhere men like Mr. Smith, of Stockholm, who for some years past has been labouring to establish in Sweden a system CO-OPERATION. 193 of co-operative working institutions, such as register offices, economic kitchens, penny banks, stores, and cheap lodging- houses. There are now in Stockholm twenty-four of these associations, each with their 1,000 members, all prompted by that great motive power, " self-interest," the bond simply economic, the object being to do without the middle- men, and purchase all articles wholesale in the cheapest markets. Mr. Smith's first care was to establish labour bureaus, the peculiar condition of the country and climate making it essential for the employer and workman to be equally well informed as to when and where work and labour were available. Such estab- lishments would be useful here in fact, must be of benefit alike to employer and employed in every country where great manu- factories are carried on ; it being important, on the one hand, that employers should know what men are to be had, and that the workman should know where he might be able to follow his trade under the most satisfactory conditions. A great boon to the working class are Mr. Smith's " cheap kitchens." This is not a new idea, but as a rule, hitherto, they have been failures, owing to the uncertainty of the number of daily dinners. Mr. Smith has guarded against this by making it a proviso that the customers take weekly tickets in advance ; by this means the kitchens are made to pay, and the diners get a much better menu daily than could be provided if provision had to be made for an unknown number. Arrangements are also made for the meals to be sent to any factory, workshop, or private house. There are separate rooms for females. Now comes in the " co-operative system." At the end of the year the profits are divided between the subscribers pro rata according to their consumption. The amount is not paid in money, but becomes a working man's fund, available in sickness or want of work, as also for superannuation, or for dealing at the stores or kitchens. Beer is allowed ; and by supplying good meals at a low price, and in comfortable houses, and by not allowing brandy to bo had on the premises (and bad brandy has been the curse of the Swedish workman), Mr. Smith has dealt a heavier blow 13 194 POVERTY. to the drink question in Sweden than any amount of pro. hibitory laws ever have done or can do. Such efforts as Mr. Smith's are what we want in England ; efforts that appeal to men to use their intelligence, to be thoughtful and thrifty, to be self, helpful, self-reliant men, able to act for themselves, and above the interference of the State. By co-operation for mutual benefit, we aim the surest blow at " poverty," and, at the same time, are acting in accordance with the soundest economic principles for the progress of the nation. State aid of any kind, direct or indirect, tends to discourage