men in the circumstances to ■which they are to be adapted, it fiilfils the function which we on other grounds assigned it — that of protector. To administer justice, — to mount guard over men's rights, — to prevent aggression, — is simply to render society possible, to enable men to Hve together — to keep them in contact with their new conditions. And seeing that the two definitions are thus at root the same, we shall be prepared for the fact that, in whichever way we specify its duty, the state cannot exceed that duty without defeating itself. Por, if regarded as a protector, we find that the moment it does anything more than protect, it becomes an aggressor instead of a protector; and, if regarded as a help to adaptation, we find that when it does anything more than sustain the social state, it retards adaptation instead of hastening it.
Thus much for the positive evidence: let us now enter upon the negative. The expediency-philosophers say that government has other functions to fulfil besides that of upholding men's lights. If so, what are they? To the assertion that the boundary line of state-duty as above drawn is at the wrong place, the obvious rejoinder is— show us where it should be drawn. This appeal the expediency-philosophers have never yet been able to answer. Their alleged definitions are no definitions at all. As was proved at the outset (p. 3), to say that government ought to do that which is "expedient," or to do that which will tend to produce the " greatest happiness," or to do that wliich will subserve the "general good," is to say just nothing; for there is infinite disagreement respecting the natures of these desiderata. A definition of which the terms are indefinite is an absurdity. Whilst the practical interpretation of "expediency" remains a matter of opinion, to say that a government should do that which is " expedient," is to say that it should do, what we tlrink it should do!
StiU then our demand is — a definition. Between the two extremes of its possible power — the everything and the notliing with ■wluch a government may be entrusted, where is the proper limitation? Of the innumerable fields of action lying open to an uncontrolled legislature, which shall it occupy? Shall it extend its interference to the fixing of creeds, as in the old times; or to overlooking modes of manufacture, farming operations, and domestic affairs, as it once did; or to commerce, as of late— to education, as now — to public health, as some wish — to dress, as in China — to literature, as in Austria — to charity, to manners, to amusements? If not to all of them, to which of them?
Should the peiplexed inquirer seek refuge in authority, he will find precedents not only for these lout for many more such interferences. If, like those who disapprove of master tailors having their work done ofi' the premises, or like those who want to prevent the produce of industrial prisons displacing that of free artizans, or like those who would restrain charity-school children from competing with seamstresses, he thinks it desirable to meddle with trade aiTangements, there are plenty of exemplars for him. There is the law of Henry VII., which directed people at what fail's they should sell their goods ■; and that of Edward VI., which enacted a fine of JEIOO for a usmious bargain; and that of James I., which prescribed the quantity of ale to be sold for a penny; and that of Henry VIII., which made it penal to sell any pins but such as are " double headed, and have their head soldered fast to the shank, and well smoothed; the shank well shaven; the point well and round-filed and sharpened." He has the countenance, too, of those enactments which fixed the wages of labour; and of those which dictated to farmers, as in 1533, when the sowing of hemp and flax was made compulsory; and of those which forbad the use of certain materials, as that now largely-consumed article, logwood, was forbidden in 1597. If he approves of so extended a superintendence, perhaps he would adopt M. Louis Blanc's idea that " government should be considered a^ the supreme regulator of production," and having so adopted it, push state control as far as it was once carried in France, when manufacturers were pilloried for defects in the materials they employed, and in the texture of their fabrics; when some were fined for weaving of worsted a kind of cloth which the law said should he made of mohair, and others because their camlets were not of the specified width; and when a man was not at hberty to choose the place for his establishment, nor to work at all seasons, nor to work for everybody. Is this considered too detailed an interference? Then, perhaps, greater favour will be shown to those German regulations by which a shoemaker is prevented from following his craft until an inspecting jury has certified to his competence; which disable a man who has chosen one calling from ever adopting another; and which forbid any foreign tradesman from settling in a German town without a hcence. And if work is to be regulated, is it not proper that work should be provided, and the idle compelled to perform a due amount of it? In which case how shall we deal with our vagrant population? Shall we take a hint from rietcher of Saltoun, who warmly advocated the establishment of slavery in Scotland as a boon to " so many thousands of our people who are at this day dying for want of bread "? or shall we adopt the analagous suggestion of IMr. Carlyle, who would remedy the distresses of Ireland by organizing its people into drilled regiments of diggers? The hours of labour too — what must be done about these? Having acceded to the petition of the factory workers, ought we not to entertain that of the journeymen bakers? and if that of the journeymen bakers, why not, as Mr. Cobden asks, consider the cases of the glass-blowers, the nightmen, the iron-founders, the Shefiield knife-grinders, and indeed aU other classes, including the hardworked M.P.s themselves? And when employment has been provided, and the hours of labour fixed, and trade regulations settled, we must decide how far the state ought to look after peoples' minds, and morals, and health. There is this education question: having satisfied the prevalent wish for government schools with tax-paid teachers, and adopted Mr. Ewart's plan for town-libraries and museums, should we not canvass the supplementary proposal to have national lecturers? and if this proposal is assented to, would it not be well to carry out the scheme of Sir David Brewster, who desires to have " men ordained by the State to the undivided functions of science" — "an intellectual priesthood," "to develop the glorious truths which time and space embosom"?^ Then having established " an intellectual priesthood " to keep company with our religious one, a priesthood of physic such as is advocated by certain feeless medical men, and of which we have already the germ in our union doctors, would nicely complete the trio. And when it had been agreed to put the sick under the care of public officials, consistency would of course demand the adoption of Mr. G. A. Walker's system of government funerals, under which " those in authority " are " to take especial care " that " the poorest of our brethren " shall have " an appropriate and solemn transmission " to the grave, and are to grant in certain cases " gratuitous means of interment." Having carried out thus far the communist plan of doing everything for everybody, should we not consider the peoples' amusements, and, taking example from the opera-subsidy in France, estabhsh public baUroomSj and gratis concerts, and cheap theatres, with state-paid actors, musicians and masters of the ceremonies; using care at the same time duly to regulate the popular taste, as indeed in the case of the Art-Union subscribers oui- present Government proposed to do?
Speaking of taste naturally reminds us of dress, in which sundry improvements might be enforced; for instance — the abolition of hats: we should have good precedent either in Edward IV., who fined those wearing " any gown or mantell " not according to specification, and who Umited the superfluity of peoples' boot toes, or in Charles II., who prescribed the material for his subjects' grave-clothes. The matter of health, too, would need attending to; and, in deaUng with this, might we not profitably reconsider those ancient statutes which protected peoples' stomachs by restricting the expenses " See Address to the British Association at Edinburgh, in 1850.
of their tables: or, remembering bow injurious are our fasbionable late bours, migbt we not advantageously take a bint from tbe old Norman practice, and fix tbe time at wbicb people sbould put out their fires and go to bed: or might we not with benefit act upon tbe opinion of M. Beausobre, a statesman, who said it was " proper to watch during the fruit season, lest tbe people eat that wbicb is not ripe "? And, then, by way of mating tbe superintendence quite complete, would it not he "well "to follow tbe example of that Danish king "who gave directions to his subjects how they should scour their floors, and poHsb their furniture?
Multiply these questions into a volume full; add to them the endless subordinate ones to which in practice they must give rise; and some idea may be formed of the maze through wbicti the expediency-philosopher has to find his way. Where now is his clue? Again comes tbe inquiry — how does be propose to determine between what should be attempted and what should not? which is his definition? If he would escape tbe charge of poUtical empiricism, be must show us some scientific test by which he can in each case determine whether or not state-superintendence is desirable. Between the one extreme of entire non-interference, and the other extreme in which every citizen is to be transformed into a grown-up baby, " with bib and pap-spoon,", there he innumerable stopping places; and be who would have tbe state do more than protect is required to say where be means to draw tbe hue, and to give us substantial reasons why it must be just there and nowhere else.
After the difficulty of finding out tbe thing to be done, there comes the other difficulty of finding out the way to do it. Let us excuse the expediency-philosopher one half of bis task — let us for the occasion assume something to be unanimously agreed to as a proper undertaking; and now suppose we enquire of him — How about your means of accomplishing it?
288 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DDTY.
Are you quite sure they will answer? Are you quite sure that your apparatus will not break down under its work? quite sure that it wiU produce the result you wish? quite sure that it will not produce some very different result? quite sure that you will not get into one of those imbroglios that so many have lost themselves in? There is no lack of warnings. " Let us put down usury," said to themselves the rulers of the middle ages: they tried; and did just the reverse of what they intended; for it has turned out, that " all regulations interfering with the interest of money render its terms more rigorous and burdensome." " We will exterminate Protestantism," whispered the continental Catholics to each other: they tried; and instead of doing this they planted in England the germs of a manufacturing organization which has to a great extent superseded tlieir own. " It will be well to give the labouring classes fixed settlements " thought the Poor Law legislators; and having acted out this thought there eventually gi-ew up the clearance system, with its overcrowded cottages, and nonresident labour-gangs. "We must suppress these brothels," decided the authorities of Berlin in 1845: they did suppress them; and in 1848, the registrar's books and the hospital returns proved matters to be considerably worse than before*.
" Suppose we compel the London parishes to maintain and educate their pauper cliildren in the country," said statesmen in the time of George III; " ' it would greatly tend to the preservation of the lives of the infant parish poor: ' " so they passed the 7 Geo. III., c. 39; and by-and-by there began the business of child-farming, ending in the Tooting tragedy. Are not such warnings worthy of attention? Or does the expediency-pliilosopher value those facts only which are embodied in Blue-books and Board of Trade tables?
Then as to his administrative mechanisms — can he answer for the satisfactory working of them? The common remark that public business is worse managed than all other business, is not altogether unfounded. To-day he will find it illustrated in • Reports of Dr. Fr. J. Behrend. See Medical Tivies, March 16, 1850.
the doings of a department whicli makes a valuable estate like the New Forest, a loss to the country of £3000 a year; -which allowed Salcey Forest to be wholly cut down and made away with by a dishonest agent; and which, in 1848, had its accounts made up to March, 1839, only. To-morrow he may read of Admiralty bunglings — of ships badly built, pulled to pieces, re-built and patched — of nearly a million spent on iron warsteamers which are now found not to stand cannon shot — and of a sluggishness which puts the national dockyards " about seven years " behind all others. Now the exposure is of an' extravagance which builds gaols at a cost of £1200 per prisoner; and now of a carelessness which permits important legal records to rot amongst rubbish. Here is a sailor of whom the State demanded sixpence a month towards a hospital which was never provided, and whose pension from the Merchant-Seamen's Fund is nothing like what it would have been from an ordinary assurance society; and there, on the other hand, is a Mint moneyer who gets more than £4000 a year for doing what a tithe of the amount would amply pay for. Official delay is seen in the snail-paced progress of the Museum Catalogue; official mismanagement in the building of Houses of Parhament not fit for speaking in; and official perversity in the opposition uniformly made to improvement by the Excise, the Customs, and the Post Office authorities. Does the expediency-philosopher feel no apprehensions on contemplating such evidence? Or, as one specially professing to be guided by experience, does he think that on the whole experience is in his favour?
Perhaps he has not heard that of ten mechanical inventions, usually some nine fail; and that, before the tenth can be made to answer, endless obstacles that had never been dreamed of have to be surmounted. Or, if he has heard this, does he think that the properties of humanity beiug so much easier to understand than those of iron and brass, and an institution constructed of living men being a simple thing as compared with an inanimate mechanism, legislative schemes are not likely thus to miscarry?
u " It is a gross delusion to believe ia tte sovereign power of political machinery," says M. Guizot. True: and it is not only a gross delusion, but a very dangerous one. Give a child exaggerated notions of its parent's power, and it will by-and-by cry for the moon. Let a people believe in government-omnipotence, and they will be pretty certain to get up revolutions to achieve impossibHities. Between their exorbitant ideas of what the state ought to do for them on the one side, and its miserable performances on the other, there will surely be generated feelings extremely inimical to social order — feelings which, by adding to the dissatisfaction otherwise produced, may occasion outbreaks that would not else have occurred.
But this belief in " the sovereign power of political machinery " is not bom with men; they are taught it. And how are they taught it? Evidently by these preachers of universal legislative superintendence — by the pretensions of statesmen themselves — and by having seen, firom their childhood, all kinds of functions undertaken by government officials. The idea which, in his critique upon the late events in France, M.
Guizot calls a " gross delusion," is an idea which he, in common with others, has been practically inculcating. Following in the steps of his predecessors, he has kept in action, and in some cases even extended, that system of official supervision to which this idea owes its birth. Was it not natural that men, living under the regulation of legions of prefects, sub -prefects, inspectors, controllers, intendants, commissaries, and other civil employes to the number of 535,000 — men who were educated by the government, and taught religion by it — who had to ask its consent before they could stir from home — who could not publish a handbill without a permit from the authorities, nor circulate a newspaper after the censor's veto — who daily saw it dictating regulations for railways, inspecting and managing mines, building bridges, making roads, and erecting monuments — who were led to regard it as the patron of science, literature, and the fine arts, and as the dispenser of honours and rewards — who found it undertaking the manufacture of gunpowder, superintending the hreeding of horses and sheep, playing the part of puhHc pawnhroker, and monopoUzing the sale of tohacco and snuff — who saw it attending to everything, from the execution of puhhc works down to the sanitary inspection of prostitutes — was it not natural that men so circumstanced should acquire exalted ideas of state power? And, having acquired such ideas, were they not likely to desire the state to compass for them unattainable benefits; to get angry because it did not do this; and to attempt by violent means the enforcement of their wishes? Evidently the reply must be affirmative. And if so, it is not too much to say that this overstepping of the proper sphere of government, leading as it does to that " gross delusion," a belief in " the sovereign power of political machinery," is the natural foreruimer of such schemes as those of Blanc and Cabet, and of that confusion which the attempt to realize them by state-agency must produce.
There are other modes, too, in which social stability is endangered by this interference system. It is a very expensive system: the farther it is carried, the larger become the revenues required: and we all know that heavy taxation is inseparable from discontent. Moreover it is in its nature essentially despotic. In governing everything it unavoidably cramps men; and, by diminishing their liberty of action, angers them. It galls by its infinity of ordinances and restrictions; it offends by professing to help those whom it wiU not allow to help themselves; and it vexes by its swarms of dictatorial officials, who are for ever stepptag in between men and their pursuits. Those regulations by which the French manufacturers were hampered during the last century, when the state decided on the persons to be employed, the articles to be made, the materials to be used, and the qualities of the products — when inspectors broke the looms and burnt the goods that were not made according to law — and when improvements were illegal and inventors were fined — had no small share in producing the great revolution. Nor, amongst the causes which conspired to overthrow the government of Louis PhiUppe, must we forget the irritation generated by an analogous supervision, under which a mine cannot be opened without the permission of the authorities; under which a bookseller or printer may have his business suspended by the withdrawal of his Ucence; and under which it is penal to take a bucket of water out of the sea.
Thus, if we regard government as a means of upholding the social state, we find that, besides suffering a direct loss of power to perform its duty on attempting anything else, there are several subsidiary ways in which the assumption of additional functions endangers the fulfilment of its original function.
But we have not sufficiently considered the infinite presumption discernible in this attempt at regulating all the doings of men by law. To make up for defects in the original constitution of things — ^this is the meaning of the scheme, nakedly stated. It is said of a certain personage, that he wished he had been consulted when the world was being made, for that he could have given good advice; and not a Uttle historical celebrity has attached to this personage, in virtue of his sothought unparalleled arrogance. Shallow, shallow! Why, the great majority of our statesmen and politicians do as much every day. Advice, indeed! they do not stop at advice. They actively interpose, take into their own hands matters that God seems to be mismanaging, and undertake to set them right! It is clear to them that social wants and relationships have been 60 carelessly provided for, that without their vigilant management all will go wrong. As for any silent influences by which imperfections are in process of being removed, they do not beheve in them. But by a commission, a staff of officers, and a parliamentary grant, every deficiency shall be made good, and the errors of Omniscience be rectified!
In truth it is a sad sight for any one who has been, what Bacon recommends — " a servant and interpreter of nature," to see these political schemers, with their clumsy mechanisms, trying to supersede the great laws of existence. Such an one, no longer regarding the mere outsides of things, has learned to look for the secret forces by wliich they are upheld. After patient study, this chaos of phenomena into the midst of which he was born has begun to generalize itself to him; and where there seemed nothing but confusion, he can now discern the dim outlines of a gigantic plan. No accidents, no chance; but everywhere order and completeness. One by one exceptions vanish, and all becomes systematic. Suddenly what had appeared an anomaly answers to some intenser thought, exhibits polarity, and ranges itself along with kindred facts.
Throughout he finds the same vital principles, ever in action, ever successfal, and embracing the minutest details. Growth is unceasing; and though slow, all powerful: showing itself here in some rapidly-developing outline; and there, where the necessity is less, exhibiting only the fibrils of incipient organization. Irresistible as it is subtle, he sees in the worker of these changes, a power that bears onwards peoples and governments regardless of their theories, and schemes, and prejudices — a power which sucks the life out of their lauded institutions, shrivels up their state-parchments with a breath, paralyzes longvenerated authorities, obliterates the most deeply-graven laws, makes statesmen recant and puts prophets to the blush, buries cherished customs, shelves precedents, and which, before men are yet conscious of the fact, has wrought a revolution in aU things, and filled the world with a higher life. Always towards perfection is the mighty movement — towards a complete deve-J lopment and a more unmixed good; subordinating in its universality all petty irregularities and falUngs back, as the curvature of the earth subordinates mountains and valleys. Even in evils, the student learns to recognise only a straggling beneficence. But, above all, he is struck -with the inherent sufficingness of things," and -with the complex simplicity of those principles by which every defect is being remedied — principles that show themselves ahke in the self-adjustment of planetary perturbations, and in the heaHng of a scratched finger — in the balancing of social systems, and in the increased sensitiveness of a bhnd man's ear — in the adaptation of prices to produce, and in the acclimatization of a plant. Day by day he sees a fiirther beauty. Each new fact illustrates more clearly some recognised law, or discloses some inconceived completeness: contemplation thus perpetually discovering to him a higher harmony, and cherishing in him a deeper faith.
And now, in the midst of his admiration and his awe, the student shall suddenly see some flippant red-tapist get upon his legs and tell the world how he is going to put a patch upon nature! Here is a man who, in the presence of all the wonders that encompass him, dares to announce that he and certain of his colleagues have laid their heads together and found out a way to improve upon the Divine arrangements! Scarcely an idea have these meddlers got of what underlies the facts with which they propose to deal; as you shall soon find on sounding their philosophy: and yet, could they carry out their pretensions, we should see them self-appointed nurses to the universe! They have so little faith iu the laws of things, and so much faith in themselves, that, were it possible, they would chain earth and sun together, lest centripetal force should fail! Nothing but a parliament-made agency can be depended upon; and only when this infinitely-complex humanity of ours has been put under their ingenious regulations, and provided for by their supreme intelligence, will the world become what it ought to be! Such, in essence, is the astounding creed of these creation-menders.
Consider it then in what light we may — morally or scientifically, with reference to its practicableness, or as a question of political prudence, or even in its bearings upon religious faith — we find this theory, that a government ought to undertake other ofi&ces besides that of protector, to be an untenable theory. It has been shown that if the maintaining of rights be regarded as the special function of the state, the state cannot fulfil any other function without a partial loss of power to fulfil its special one. When, from another point of view, the state is looked upon as an aid to adaptation, we still find that it cannot exceed its duty of guarding men's Uberties, without becoming a hindrance to adaptation, instead of an aid. It turns out that to abolish the limit of legislative interposition now contended for, is in fact to abolish all hmits whatever — is to give the civil power a field of action to which no bounds can be fixed, save in some arbitrary and ntterly unphilosophical way. Moreover, even could certain supplementary affairs, considered fit for government supervision, be duly distinguished irom the rest, there would still he the fact that all experience shows government to be an incompetent manager of such supplementary affairs. It is further urged, that the system of extended oflicial control is bad, because unfavourable to social stability. And, finally, that system is repudiated, as involving an absurd and even impious presumption.
Such, then, are the general arguments brought forward to prove that whilst the state ought to protect, it ought to do nothing more than protect. By the abstract thinker they may perhaps be deemed conclusive. There are others, however, with whom they will weigh comparatively little; and, for the conviction of these, it wOl be needful to examine in detail each of the several cases in which legislative superintendence is coiomonly advocated. Let us now proceed to do this.
CHAPTER XXIII.
Arrangements whicli alter the natural course of trade are of two kinds; they may he classed as either artificial stimuli or artificial restraints — hounties or restrictions.
Of bounties must here be said specially what was said in the last chapter of factitious advantages generally; namely, that a government cannot give them without indirectly reversing its function. Not being requisite for the due maintenance of the citizen s rights, the taking away of his property for the purpose of encouraging certain branches of production, would he wrong even were collateral benefits given in exchange; and as, instead of affording him collateral benefits, the commercial derangements consequent upon it put additional hmits to the exercise of his faculties, such a measure is doubly wrong. Now that the faith in mercantile bribes is nearly extinct, it is needless to enforce this abstract inference by any supplementary reasoning.