In many ways, then, does experience enforce the verdict pronounced by the law of state-duty against state-colonization. It turns out that extension of empire is not sjTionymous with increase of wealth; but that, on the contrary, aggressions bred of the desire for territorial gain, entail loss. The notion that we secure commercial benefits by legislative connection with colonies, is a proved delusion. At best we throw away the whole sum which colonial government costs us; whilst we may, and often do, incur further loss, by establishing an artificial trade. The plea for protection to the settlers must be abandoned; seeing that this so-called protection is in practice oppression; and seeing that the settlers, from whose judgment on the matter there is no appeal, liint very plainly their wish to dispense with it. As for the aborigines, it is manifest that the cruelties inflicted on them have been mainly due to the backing of emigrants by the parent state. And, lastly, we have conclusive proof not only that voluntary colonization is practicable, but that it is free from those many evils attendant upon colonization managed by a government.
B B ic CHAPTER XXVIII.
The current ideas respecting legislative interference in sanitary matters do not seem to have taken the form of a definite theory. The Eastern Medical Association of Scotland does indeed hold " that it is the duty of the state to adopt measures for protecting the health as well as the property of its subjects;" and the Times latelv asserted that "the Privj' Council is chargeable with the health of the Empire;"'' but no considerable political party has adopted either of these dogmas by way of a distinct confession of faith. Nevertheless, the opinions that widely prevail on questions of sewage, watersupply, ventilation, and the like, fully commit their advocates to the behef these dogmas embody.
That it comes within the proper sphere of government to repress nuisances is evident. He who contaminates the atmosphere breathed by his neighbour, is infringing his neighbour's rights. Men having equal claims to the free use of the elements — having faculties which need this free use of the elements for their due exercise — and having that exercise more or less limited by whatever makes the elements more or less unusable, are obviously trespassed against by any one who unnecessarily vitiates the elements, and renders them detrimental to health, or disagreeable to the senses; and in the discharge of its function as protector, a government is obviously called upon to afford redress to those so trespassed against.
Beyond this, however, it cannot lawflilly go. As akeady shown in several kindred cases, for a 'government to take from a citizen more property than is needful for the efficient defence of that citizen's rights, is to infringe his rights — is, consequently, to do the opposite of what it, the government, is commissioned to do for him — or, in other words, is to do wrong. And hence all taxation for sanitary superintendence coming, as it does, within this categorj', must be condemned.
This theory, of which Boards of Health and the like are embodiments, is not only inconsistent with our definition of state-duty, but is further open to strictures, similar to, and equally fatal with, those made in analogous cases. If by saying "that it is the duty of the state to adopt measures for protecting the health of its subjects," it is meant (as it is meant by the majority of the medical profession) that the state should interpose between quacks and those who patronize them, or between the druggist and the artizan who wants a remedy for his cold — if it is meant that to guard people against empirical treatment, the state should forbid all unlicensed persons from prescribing — then the reply is, that to do so is directly ta violate the moral law. Men's rights are infringed by these, as much as by all other trade interferences. The invalid is at Uberty to buy medicine and advice from whomsoever he pleases; the unlicensed practitioner is at Hberty to seU these to whomsoever will buy. On no pretext whatever can a barrier be set up between them, without the law of equal freedom being broken; and least of all may the government, whose office it is to uphold that law, become a transgressor of it.
Moreover this doctrine, that it is the duty of the state to protect the health of its subjects, cannot be established, for the same reason that its kindred doctrines cannot, namely, the impossibility of saying how far the alleged duty shall be car- <'J74 SANITARY SUPERVISION.
ried out. Health depends upon the fulfilment of numerous conditions — can he "protected" only hy ensuring that fulfilment: if, therefore, it is the duty of the state to protect the health of its subjects, it is its duty to see that all the conditions of health are fulfilled by them. Shall this duty be consistently discharged? If so, the legislature must enact a national dietary; prescribe so many meals a day for each individual; fix the quantities and quaJities of food, both for men and women; state the proportion of fluids, when to be taken, and of what kind; specify the amount of exercise, and define its character; describe the clothing to be employed; determine the houre of sleep, allowing for the difference of age and sex: and so on with all other particulars, necessary to complete a perfect synopsis, for the daily guidance of the nation: and to enforce these regulations it must employ a sufliciency of duly-qualified officials, empowered to direct every one's domestic arrangements. If, on the other hand, a universal supervision of private conduct is not meant, then there comes the question — Where, between this and no supervision at all, lies the boundary up to which supervision is a duty? To which question no answer can be given.
There is a manifest analogy between committing to government-guardianship the physical health of the people, and committing to it their moral health. The two proceedings are equally reasonable, may be defended by similar ai-guments, and must stand or fall together. If the welfare of men's souls can be fitly dealt with by acts of parliament, why then the welfare of their bodies can be fitly dealt with likewise. He who thinks the state commissioned to administer spiritual remedies, may consistently think that it should administer material ones. The disinfecting society from vice may natui-ally be quoted as a precedent for disinfecting it from pestilence. Purifying the haunts of men fmm noxious vapours may be held quite as legitimate as purifying their moral atmosphere. The fear that false doctrines may be instilled by unauthorized preachers, has its analogue in "the fear that unauthorized practitioners may give deleterious medicines or advice. And the persecutions once committed to prevent the one evil, countenance the penalties used to put down the other. Contrariwise, the arguments employed by the dissenter to show that the moral sanity of the people is not a matter for state superintendence, are applicable, with a slight change of terms, to their physical sanity also.
Let no one think this analogy imaginai^. The two notions are not only theoretically related; we have facts proving that they tend to embody themselves in similar institutions. There is an evident inclination on the part of the medical profession to get itself organized after the fashion of the clericy. Moved as are the projectors of a railway, who, whilst secretly hoping for salaries, persuade themselves and others that the proposed railway will be beneficial to the public — moved as all men are under such circumstances, by nine parts of self-interest gilt over with one part of philanthropy — surgeons and physicians are vigorously striving to erect a medical establishment akin to our religious one. Little do the public at large know how actively professional publications are agitating for state-appointed overseers of the public health. Take up the Lancet, and you shall find articles written to show the necessity of making poor-law medical ofiicers independent of Boards of Guardians by appointing them for Ufe, holding them responsible only to central authority, and giving them handsome salaries from the Consolidated Fund. The Journal of Public Health proposes that " every house on becoming vacant be examined by a competent person as to its being in a condition adapted for the safe dwelUng in of the future tenants; " and to this end would raise by fees, chargeable on the landlords, " a revenue adequate to pay a sufEcient staff of inspectors four or five hundred pounds a year each.'
A non-professional publication, echoing the appeal, says — " No reasonable man can doubt that if a proper system of ventilation were rendered imperative upon landlords, not only would 876 SANITAKV SUPERVISION.
the cholera and other epidemic diseases be checked, but the general standard of health would be raised." Whilst the Medical Times shows its leanings, by announcing, with marked approbation, that " the Ottoman government has recently published a decree for the appointment of physicians to be paid by the state," who " are bound to treat gratuitously all — both rich and poor — who shall demand advice."
More or less distinctly expressed in these passages there is an unmistakable wish to establish an organized, tax-supported class, chai-ged with the health of men's bodies, as the clergy are charged with the health of their souls. And whoever has watched how institutions grow — how by little and little a very innocent-looking infancy unfolds into a formidable maturity, with vested interests, political influence, and a strong instinct of self-preservation, will see that the germs here peeping forth are quite capable, under favourable circumstances, of developing into such an organization. He will see further, that favourable circumstances are not wanting — that the prevalence of unemployed professional men, with whom these proposals for sanitary inspectors and public surgeons mostly originate, is likely to continue; and that continuing, it will tend to multiply the offices it has created, much in the same way that the superabundance of clergy multiplies churches. He will even anticipate that, as the spread of education is certain to render the pressure upon the intellectual labour-market still more intense than it now is, there will by-and-by be a yet greater stimulus to the manufacture of berths — a yet greater tendency on the part of all who want genteel occupations for their sons, to countenance this manufacture— and, therefore, a yet greater danger of the growth of a medical establishment.
The most specious excuse for not extending to medical advice the principles of free- trade, is the same as that given for not leaving education to be diffused under them; namely, that the j udgment of the cousumer is uot a sufficient guarantee for the goodness of the commodity. The intolerance shown by orthodox surgeons and physicians, towards unordained followers of their calling, is to he understood as arising from a desire to defend the pubHc against quackery. Ignorant people say they cannot distinguish good treatment from had, or skilful advisers from unskilful ones: hence it is needful that the choice should be made for them. And then, following in the track of priesthoods, for -whose persecutions a similar defence has always been set up, they agitate for more stringent regulations against unlicensed practitioners, and descant upon the dangers to wliich men are exposed by an unrestricted system.
Hear Mr. Wakley. Speaking of a recently-revived law relating to chemists and druggists, he says, " It must have the effect of checking, to a vast extent, that fi'ightful evil called counter practice, exercised by unqualified persons, wliich has so long been a disgrace to the operation of the laws relating to medicine in this country, and which, doubtless, has been attended with a dreadful sacrifice of human life." {Lancet, Sept. 11, 1841.) And again, " There is not a chemist and druggist in the empire who would refuse to prescribe in his own shop in medical cases, or who would hesitate day by day to prescribe simple remedies for the ailments of infants and children." * » * * " We had previously considered the evil to he of enormous magnitude, hut it is quite clear that we had under- estimated the extent of the danger to which the pubhc are exposed." {Lancet, Oct. 16, 1841.)
Any one may discern through these ludicrous exaggerations much more of the partizan tlian of the philanthropist. But let that pass. And without dwelUng upon the fact, that it is strange a " dreadful sacrifice of human Life " should not have drawn the attention of the people themselves to this " frightful evil," — without doing more than glance at the further fact, that nothing is said of those benefits conferred by " counter practice," which would af least form a considerable set-off against this " evil of enormous magnitude," — let it be conceded that very many of the poorer classes are injured by druggists' prescriptions and quack medicines. The allegation having been thus, for argument's sake, admitted in full, let us now consider whether it constitutes a sufficient plea for legal interference.
Inconvenience, suffering, and death, are the penalties attached by nature to ignorance, as well as to incompetence — are also the means of remedying these. And whoso tliinks he can mend matters by dissociating ignorance and its penalties, lays claim to more than Divine wisdom, and more than Divine benevolence. If there seems harslmess in those ordinations of tilings, wliich, with unfaltering firmness, punish every breach of law — if there seems harshness in those ordinations of things which visit a shp of the foot with a broken Hmb — which send lingering agonies to follow the inadvertent swallowing of a noxious herb — which go on quietly, age after age, giving fevers and agues to dwellers in marshes — and which, now and then, sweep away by pestilence tens of thousands of unhealthy livers — if there seems harshness in such ordinations, be sure it is apparent only, and not real. Pai-tly by weeding out those of lowest development, and partly by subjecting those who remain to the never-ceasing discipHne of experience, nature secures the growth of a race who shall both understand the conditions of existence, and be able to act up to them. It is impossible in any degree to suspend this discipline by stepping in between ignorance and its consequences, without, to a corresponding degree, suspending the progress. If to be ignorant were as safe as to be wise, no one would become wise. And all measures wliich tend to put ignorance upon a par with wisdom, inevitably check the growth of wsdom. Acts of parliament to save silly people from the evils which putting faith in empirics may entail upon them, do this, and are therefore bad. Unpitying as it looks, it is best to let the foolish man suffer the appointed penalty of his foolishness. For the pain — he must bear it as well as he can: for the experience — he must treasure it up, and act more rationally in future. To others as weU as to liimself will his case be a warning. And by multiplication of such warnings, there cannot fail to be generated in all men a caution corresponding to the danger to be shunned. Are there any who desire to facilitate the process? Let them dispel eiTor; and, provided they do this in a legitimate -way, the faster they do it the better. But to guard ignorant men against the evils of their ignorance — to divorce a cause and consequence which God has joined together — to render needless the intellect put into us for our guidance — to unhinge what is, in fact, die very mechanism of existence — must necessarily entail nothing but disasters.
Who, indeed, after pulling off the coloured glasses of prejudice, and thrusting out of sight his pet projects, can help seeing the folly of these endeavours to protect men against themselves? A sad population of imbeciles would our schemers fill the world with, could their plans last. A sorry kind of human constitution would they make for us — a constitution lacking the power to uphold itself, and requiring to be kept alive by superintendence from without — a constitution continually going wrong, and needing to be set right again — a constitution even tending to selfdestruction. Why the whole effort of nature is to get rid of such^^— to clear the world of them, and make room for better. Nature demands that every being shall be self-sufficing. All that are not so, nature is perpetually withdrawing by death.
Intelligence sufficient to avoid danger, power enough to fulfil every condition, ability to cope with the necessities of existence — these are qualifications invariably insisted on. Mark how the diseased are dealt with. Consumptive patients, with lungs incompetent to perform the duties of lungs, people ^Yith assimilative organs that will not take up enough nutriment, people with defective hearts that break down under excitement of the circulation, people with any constitutional flaw preventing the due fulfilment of the conditions of life, are continually dying out, and leaving behind those fit for the cUmate, food, and habits to which they are born. Even the less-imperfectly organized, who, under ordinary circumstances, can manage to live with comfortj ai-e still the first to be carried off by epidemics; and only such as are robust euougli to resist these — that is, only such as are tolerably well adapted to both the usual and incidental necessities of existence, remain. And thus is the race kept free from vitiation. Of course this statement is in substance a truism; for no other arrangement of things is conceivable. But it is a truism to which most men pay little regard. And if they commonly overlook its application to body, still less do they note its bearing upon mind. Yet it is equally true here. Nature just as much insists on fitness between mental character and circumstances, as between physical character and circumstances; and radical defects are as much causes of death in the one case as in the other. He on whom his own stupidity, or vice, or idleness, entails loss of Hfe, must, in the generalizations of philosophy, be classed ■with the victims of weak viscera or malformed limbs. In his case, as in the others, there exists a fatal non-adaptation; and it matters not in the abstract whether it be a moral, an intellectual, or a corporeal one. Beings thus imperfect are nature's failures, and are recalled by her laws when foiind to be such. Along with the rest they are put upon trial. If they are sufficiently complete to Hve, they do Hve, and it is well they should live. If they ard not sufficiently complete to Hve, they die, and it is best they should die. Whether the incompleteness be in strength, or agUity, or perception, or foresight, or self-control, is not heeded in the rigorous proof they ai'e put to. But if any faculty is unusually deficient, the probabilities are that, in the long run, some disastrous, or, in the worst cases — fatal result will follow. And, however irregular the action of this law may appear — however it may seem that much chaff is left behind wliich should be winnowed out, and that much grain is taken away which should be left behind, yet due consideration must satisfy every one that the average effect is to purify society from those who are, in some respect or other, essentially faulty.
Of course, in so far as the severity of this process is mitigated by the spontaneous s}'mpathy of men for each other, it is proper tliat it should be mitigated: albeit there is unquestionably harm SANITARY SUPERVISION". 381 done when sympathy is shown, without any regard to ultimate results. But the drawhacks hence arising are nothing like commensurate with the benefits othenvise conferred. Only when this sympathy prompts to a breach of equity — only when it originates an interference forbidden by the law of equal freedom — only when, by so doing, it suspends in some particular department of life the relationship between constitution and conditions, does it work pure evil. Then, however, it defeats its own end. Instead of diminishing suffering, it eventually increases it. It favours the multiplication of those worst fitted for existence, and, by consequence, hinders the multiplication of those best fitted for existence — leaving, as it does, less room for them. It tends to fill the world with those to whom Ufe will bring most pain, and tends to keep out of it those to whom life will bring most pleasure. It inflicts positive misery, and prevents positive happiness.
Turning now to consider these impatiently-agitated schemes for improving' our sanitary condition by act of parliament, the first criticism to be passed upon them is that they are altogether needless, inasmuch as there are already efficient influences at work gradually accomplishing every desideratum.
Seeing, as do the philanthropic of our day, like the congenitally blind to whom sight has just been given — looking at things through the newly-opened eyes of sympathy — they form very crude and very exaggerated notions of the evils to be dealt with. Some, anxious for the enlightenment of their fellows, collect statistics exhibiting a lamentable amount of ignorance; publish these; and the lovers of their kind are startled. Others dive into the dens where poverty hides itself, and shock the world with descriptions of what they see. Others, again, gather together information respecting crime, and make the benevolent look grave by their disclosures. Whereupon, in their horror at these revelations, men keep thoughtlessly assuming that the evils have lately become greater, when in reality it is they who have become more observant of them. If few comphiints have hitherto been heard about crime, and ignorance, and misery, it is not that in times past these were less widely spread; for the contrary is the fact; but it is, that our forefathers were comparatively indifferent to them— thought Little about them, and said little about them. Overlooking which circumstance, and forgetting that social evils have been undergoing a gradual amelioration — an amelioration likely to progress \\-ith increasing rapidity — manv entertain a needless alarm lest fearful consequences should ensue, if these evils are not immediately remedied, and a visionary hope that immediate remedy of them is possible.
Such are the now prevalent feehngs relative to sanitary reform. We have had a multitude of blue-books. Board of Health reports, leading articles, pamphlets, and lectures, descriptive of bad drainage, ovei-flowing cesspools, festeiing graveyards, impure water, and the filthiness and humidity of low lodging houses. The facts thus published are thought to warrant, or rather to demand, legislative interference. It seems never to be asked, whether any corrective process is going on. Although evei7 one knows that the rate of mortaUty has been gradually decreasing, and that the value of Life is higher in England than elsewhere — although every one knows that the cleanliness of our towns is greater now than ever before, and that our spontaneously-grown sanitary arrangements are far better than those existing on the Continent, where the stinks of Cologne, the uncovered drains of Paris, the water-tubs of Berhn^, and the miserable footways of the German towns, show what statemanagement effects — although every one knows these things, yet is it perversely assumed that by state-management only can the remaining impediments to public health be removed. Surely the causes which have brought the sewage, the paving and Ughting, and the water-supply of our towns, to their present state, have not suddenly ceased. Surely that amelioration, " For putiing out fires in Berlin they depend on open tubs of water that stand about the city at certain points, ready to be dragged where they are wanted.
Avhich has been taking place in tbe condition of London for these two or three centuries, may be expected to continue. Surely the public spirit, which has carried out so many urban improvements since the Municipal Corporations Act gave greater facilities, can carry out other improvements. "Surely, if all that has been done towEirds making cities healthy, has been done, not only without government aid, but in spite of government obstructions — in spite, that is, of the heavy expense of local acts of parliament — we may reasonably suppose, that what remains to be done can be done in the same way, especially if the obstructions are removed. One would have thought that less excuse for meddKng existed now than ever. Now that so much has been effected; now that spontaneous advance is being made at an unparalleled rate; now that the laws of health are beginning to be generally studied; now that people are reforming their habits of living; now that the use of baths is spreading; now that temperance, and ventilation, and due exercise are getting thought about — to interfere now, of all times, is surely as rash and uncalled-for a step as was ever taken.
And then to think that, in their hot haste to obtain by law healthier homes for the masses, men should not see that the natural process already commenced is the only process which can eventually succeed. The Metropolitan Association for Improving the Dwellings of the Labouring Classes is doing all that is possible in the matter. It is endeavouring to show that, under judicious management, the building of salubrious habitations for the poor becomes a profitable employment of capital. If it shows this, it wUl do all that needs to be done; for capital will quickly flow into investments offering good returns. If it does not show this — if, after due trial, it finds that these Model Lodging Houses do not pay, £tnd that better accommodation than the working people now have can be obtained for them only by diminishing the interest on money sunk in building, then not all tlie acts of parHament that can be passed between now and doomsday will improve matters one jot. These plans for making good ventilation imperative; insisting upon watersupply, and fixing the price for it, as Lord Morpeth's Bill would have done; having empty houses cleansed before re-occupation, and charging the owners of them for inspection — these plans for coercing landlords into giving additional advantages for the same money are nothing but repetitions of the old proposal, that "the three-hooped pot shall have ten hoops," and are just as incapable of reahzation. The first result of an attempt to carry them out would be a diminution of the profits of houseowners. The interest on capital invested in houses no longer being so high, capital would seek other investments. The building of houses would cease to keep pace with the growth of population. Hence would arise a gradual increase in the number of occupants to each house. And this change in the ratio of houses to people would continue until the demand for houses had raised the profits of the landlord to what they were, and undJ, by overcrowding, new sanitary evils had been produced to parallel the old ones". If, by building in larger ^ Such results have actually heen brought about by the Metropolitan Buildings Act. Whilst this Act has introduced some reform in the better class of houses (although to nothing like the expected extent, for the surveyors are bribed, and moreover the fees claimed by them for inspecting every trifling alteration operate as penalties on improvement), it has entailed far more evil, just where it was intended to confer benefit. An architect and surveyor describes it as having worked after the following manner. In those districts of London consisting of inferior houses, built in that insubstantial fashion which the New Building Act was to mend, there obtains an average rent, sufficiently remunerative to landlords whose houses were run up economically before the New Building Act passed. This existing average rent fixes the rent that must be charged in these districts for new houses of the same accommodation — that is, the same number of rooms, for the people they are built for do not appreciate the extra safety of living within walls strengthened with hoop-iron bond. Now it turns out upon trial, that houses built in accordance with the present regulations, and let at this established rate, bring in nothing like a reasonable return. Builders have consequently confined themselves to erecting houses in better districts (where the possibility of a profitable competition with pre-existing houses shows that those pre-existing houses were tolerably substantial), and have ceased to erect