Centralization, its benefits and disadvantages : a prize essay read in the Theatre, Oxford, June 23, 1852

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ENGLISH ESSAY,

1852.

CENTRALIZATION,

ITS BENEFITS AND DISADVANTAGES,

A PRIZE ESSAY,
READ IN THE THEATRE, OXFORD,

JUNE 23, 1852.

HANS WILLIAM SOTHEBY, B.A.,

FELLOW OF EXETER COLLEGE.

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OXFORD,

JOHN HENRY PARKER:

AND 377, STRAND, LONDON.

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OXFORD :
PRINTED BY I. SIIRIMPTOJf.

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Annex

SYNOPSIS.

INTEODITCTOEY

Definition of Centralization ..... 7
Principle by which it is to be tested .... 8
Division of the subject accordingly ; various species

distinguished 10

Method of enquiry ....... 14

I. Effects of Centralization

A. Administrative ; on a State in its Home Territory,
as to

i. National greatness and security . . . ib.
ii. Peace and order of society . . . .19
iii. Civil liberty and municipal institutions . 21
iv. Wealth and material prosperity . . .24
v. Individual life and character . . .26

1. Of the administrative officers . . .27

2. Of the governed — (a.) Indirect . . .29

(j3.) Direct influences . 33

B. Legislative ; on Colonies and Dependencies . . 35

1. Effect on the general interests of the Empire ib.

2. On the particular interests of the Colonies . 36
Summary of Results, under ' Benefits' and ' Disadvan-
tages 37

II. Supplementary Remarks

Relation of Centralization to Civilization . . .38
Effects on the developement of Society . . ib.
. . . on the developement of the Individual . 39
Connection of Centralization with the power of Public
Opinion — with the principle of the Division of La-
bour— with the law of Social Progress in History . 40
Necessity and difficulty of the question . . .42
Centralization a tendency of the human mind — Con-
clusion ........ 43

CENTRALIZATION,

ITS BENEFITS AND DISADVANTAGES.

CENTRALIZATION, in the most precise signification
which can be assigned to it at the commencement of
an enquiry, is that method of governing under which
the functions of government emanate from the supreme
body alone, in contradistinction to that under which
they are independently exercised by certain subordi-
nate agencies. Such at least is the meaning which
both the analogy of verbal formation and the common
use of language seem to indicate, in preference to any
view which would extend its acceptation beyond the
sphere of Political Philosophy. But so wide is its
etymological sense, and so various are the applications
of which, even within these limits, the word is sus-
ceptible, that the above cannot be offered as anything
more than a provisional definition, subject to those
specifications which farther consideration may sug-
gest. Yet, notwithstanding this vagueness, we may
expect in any word which passes into the currency of
public opinion, amid much alloy, some substantial

8 Principle by which Centralization

truth. And Centralization, with its usual correlatives,
so far from being an exception to this rule, expresses,
plainly if not accurately, the designed or unconscious
tendency of most polities, either to concentrate State
government and management in the hands of a few,
or to leave them as much as possible to the control of
the governed.

In this, as in every instance where the merits of a
system are to be discussed, some standard is required
by which to estimate them. We cannot arbitrarily
select from the consequences of an institution those
which, from their immediate application to ourselves
or to the more obvious features of society, strike us
as beneficial or the reverse, or without much examina-
tion classify them under so simple a division as that of
Good and Evil. We require, in the first place, to ascend
to principles, and justify our praise or our censure by
some test more universal and unimpeachable than that of
individual, or even national experience. And secondly,
care must be taken, in searching for the guidance of
more trustworthy maxims than expediency can afford,
not to lose sight of that expediency which the science
of Politics, practical above every other, is forced to
take into account, nor to apply to the Protean pheno-
mena of human affairs, the Procrustean principles of
an ideal legislation. " I cannot," says Burke *, " stand
forward, and give praise or blame to anything which
relates to human actions and human concerns, on a
simple view of the object, as it stands stripped of every

• Fr. Rev., p. 10.

is to be tested. 9

relation, in all the nakedness and solitude of meta-
physical abstraction. Circumstances give in reality to
every political principle its distinguishing colour and
discriminating effect. The circumstances are what
render every civil or political scheme beneficial or
noxious to mankind/3

As Centralization expresses some relation between
the rulers and the ruled, the two parties who consti-
tute a social community, the application of this rela-
tion to principles and circumstances may best be
judged, by first briefly stating what the idea of a
social community implies as its ends and objects.
For no form of government can be preferred to any
other, except as it furthers the ends of Government
itself ; and it can only be called meritorious or objec-
tionable so far as it promotes or retards that kind of
existence which Reason and Experience have agreed
in determining as the best b. If then, we ask what
is the purpose of a State, and next attempt to shew
how Centralization assists or impedes the attainment
of it, we may afterwards more successfully proceed to
distinguish the benefits and disadvantages which it is
the aim of this Essay to discover.

Society, originated by necessity to ensure the exist-
ence of its members, and continued by choice to pro-
mote their welfare, implies by this distinction, that
some of its objects are indispensable, others only
desirable. Under the first head range the protection

b Ilept TToKiTfias dpiff-njs rov peXXovra noir)<Ta<r()ai. {rjTrjaiv dvd
8iopi'<racr$ai nputrov TIS uiperaiTaTos Bios. Arist. Pol. VII. i. § 1.

10 Division of the subject accordingly.

of life and the protection of property : under the
second, the other elements of the progressive social
condition, in the order of their natural developement ;
the abolition of anarchy, the confirmation of parti-
cular rights and duties, the promotion of material
prosperity, and lastly, the education, in the widest
sense of the term, of the individual man. From this
series seem naturally to result certain elements, found
in a greater or less degree in every long-established
community, and forming the points by its effects on
which any social system may be most justly estimated.
Following out then this principle, there will come
before us the influences which Centralization may be
expected, or is found, to exert, on National security and
greatness, — on the Peace and Order of society, — on
Civil Liberty and municipal institutions, — on Wealth
and material prosperity, — and finally, on Individual
life and character : and we shall then be enabled
most conveniently to gather up into one view the
good or bad results which flow from these modes of
operation, and to consider it under any other lights
which the discussion may suggest.

Before, however, proceeding actually to estimate
these effects, it is necessary to notice the ambiguities
of which the word Centralization is susceptible, aris-
ing from its application to the different functions of
government. " Government" being " a contrivance
of human wisdom to provide for human wants c," its
powers are exerted in supplying those wants, as they

c Burke.

Various species distinguished. 11

have been above enumerated, by the Legislative,
Judicial, and Administrative functions which every
community, to whatever extent, discharges. Now
the word Centralization has been applied not only to
a certain state of these powers of government, but
also to the authority or power of the ruling body
itself from which these emanate : so that in this sense
there might be a Centralized government, as well as
Legislative, Judicial, and Administrative Centraliza-
tion. It does not however seem desirable (except as
regards one point4, hereafter to be noticed) to give
the word so wide a meaning, a meaning moreover
which in most of the above instances is capable of
being expressed quite as well by other words. There
is in fact a wide difference between the first three,
and the last of these kinds. Judicial Centralization
can mean nothing more than the use of the same
forms of Judicial procedure throughout a kingdom :
and Legislative, the fact of all the parts of a territory
being governed by the same laws. And as to what
has been termed e " Centralization of government,"
though this is not a case of the same laws or forms
obtaining throughout a kingdom, it is something even
simpler, viz., the unity of the realm itself, whether as
opposed to Feudalism or imperfect Federalism. In
fact every State, to deserve the name, must have a
centre of some sort which gives it unity : there must

d That of Legislation, as applied to Colonies. See p. 35.
e By M. Guizot and others. See his Origines du Gouvernement Re-
presentatif, Leyon III. ad fin. ; also his Civilization, passim.

12 The enquiry chiefly restricted

be a supreme power or at least authority, the right of
which the other parts acknowledge. This then is
simply a necessity of a State, and is not anything of
which the merits can be called in question. It is, in
fact, identical with that which is generally called by
the name of nationality.

Our estimate of the benefits or disadvantages of
Legislative and of Judicial Centralization can only
have place in reference to an empire not geographi-
cally united, and not to one of a compact nature, as
in this latter the expediency of uniform laws and uni-
form procedure does not seem to admit of doubt.
Administrative Centralization, however, stands on a
widely different footing. For the question here is
not whether the whole nation shall act according to
fixed rules of conduct, but whether its members, in
those local matters f of deliberation respecting which
no fixed rule can be given, shall use their own discre-
tion, or rely on the management of their rulers. For
the affairs of the nation may be divided into three

f The objects of municipal administration may perhaps be classified
as follows :

agentes ; f preservation of order = Magistrates

for ( prevention of crime = Police
PeraonB< „„*„„..<• support .... = Poor

Adminis-
tration

.

Lunatics
Criminah

tobemade ' ' ' ' =*"&«»*• {o

Things ' ' ' ' ornament

' I to be used ..... = Public property

Cases of these being managed by the State are cases of Administra-
tive Centralization.

to Administrative Centralization. 13

classes, one of which affects it as a whole, a second its
localities separately, and a third a greater or smaller
number of those localities in common. An example
of the first kind would be war or diplomacy : of the
second, municipal finance and other similar regula-
tions ; of the third, public works of great magnitude,
like canals or principal roads, which form a single
branch of administration, though extending over dif-
ferent parts. Matters of the first class obviously, of
the third probably, require to be managed by a single
power : it is the second and more specially Adminis-
trative which is the truly debateable province of Cen-
tralization.

But the principle on which, if on any, the theory of
Centralization is based, has a wider and deeper ap-
plication than to the above-mentioned branch of the
duties of a government. It is indeed the question
whether, be it in Legislation or in Administration, the
people are to take the initiative, or their rulers : in
other words, whether the function of Governments
towards their subjects is one of suggestion and di-
rection, or one merely of correction and ratification.
If it be true, as Sir James Mackintosh said, that
"Constitutions are not made, but grow," the question,
as regards Legislation, may be said to have received its
final answer in the failure of all systems of law which
have not ultimately sprung from the wants and habits
of the people. But, as regards Administration, the
question is by no means settled, and is probably
capable of meeting with a different reply according

14 Method of enquiry . Effects

to the circumstances and history of every nation by
whom it can be asked.

To disentangle from such circumstances the true
characteristics of Centralization, especially that branch
of it which it is proposed first to consider, and, divested
of party feeling, to follow the ramifications of so vast
a principle into the details of national and social life,
is, from the nature of the case, no easy task. But our
conclusions may perhaps acquire a greater degree of
stability, not merely from a description of the political
and moral phenomena with which Administrative Cen-
tralization has at any time coexisted, but an endeavour,
previously to any such induction, to trace, where prac-
ticable, the effects which a principle of the kind would,
according to the usual laws of human nature, be likely
to produce. It is only by recurring to experience that
we can be preserved from vagueness in our general
theories. It is only by the use of general theory
that we can connect and ratify the suggestions of
experience.

I. We proceed, therefore, to consider first of all
the effects of Administrative Centralization on the
State at home, under the heads above enumerated;
secondly, on its dependencies abroad, where we shall
be occupied chiefly with Legislative Centralization ;
and lastly to subjoin some remarks on its effects on
Civilization in general, including any social or moral
tendencies with which Centralization may under this
point of view appear to be connected.

i. While ' Political Centralization' affords the nucleus

on National greatness and security. 15

round which the members of the body politic may
gather, and Legislation and Judicature the bonds
which unite them all in the mould of a common cha-
racter, Administrative Centralization may be expected
to promote National greatness and security, by con-
tributing to maintain undisturbed the advantages thus
acquired. In every matter which may affect its exist-
ence, a government should be able to act with rapidity
and precision, and to use the services of subordinates
who are entirely under its command. And any system
which unites in a single hand all the threads by which
the resources of a kingdom can be controlled, pos-
sesses, over one whose measures require the consent of
its independent parts, the same advantage which a
well-disciplined band has over an irregular army.
Such a government can second its singleness of de-
sign by every means of action which a complicated
administration affords : communication with foreign
nations, the disposal of the revenue and of troops,
the subsidiary efforts of magistrates and police, the
assistance derivable from the appropriation of muni-
cipal property or the means of defence supplied by
the absolute control of public works, all are in its
hand : and it may exert a power enormously dispro-
portioned to its seeming strength by " organizing into
the unity and rapidity of an individual will the natu-
ral and artificial forces of a populous nations." And
if we look to History, — the vast resources of men,
money, and stores, which a system of delegated

8 Coleridge.

16 Effects on National

authority, partially approaching Administrative Cen-
tralization, enabled Asiatic monarchs to accumulate
in masses whose effect was only frustrated by their
heterogeneous composition : the power wielded by the
generalissimo11 of the Roman forces, directing through
his subordinate officers the operations of his most dis-
tant legions — (an office absorbed together with the
rest by the politic Augustus ;) — furnish the most
striking confirmation, if indeed such is needed, of this
view. Turning to later times, the constitution of
Venice1 at the beginning of the fourteenth century,
shews the security which a Centralized Administration
is calculated to afford against internal no less than ex-
ternal dangers. After the complete suppression of the
popular element, its aristocracy increased the firmness
and stability of purpose which naturally characterizes
that form of government, by the establishment of
the Council of Ten, which controlled the Legislature,
strengthened the Executive, absorbed the Judicature,
and finally, by the most secret and most inquisitorial k
system of police ever known, kept in check any germ
of party, whether popular or monarchical, which could
endanger the existing government. And the powerful
effects of Administrative Centralization in France can-
not be better portrayed than in the words of its great
organizer1. "I had established," said Napoleon, "a

h Merivale, Roman Empire, vol. iii. p. 455.
'< See Hallam, Middle Ages, i. 322, &c.

k Except Jesuitism. This too is an example of the vast power which
Centralization may confer.
1 Las. Cas. vii. 97 ; quoted by Alison, French Revolution, VI. 381.

greatness and security. 17

government, the most compact, carrying on its opera-
tions with the utmost rapidity, and capable of the most
nervous efforts, that ever existed on earth. . . . The
organization of the prefectures, their actions, and re-
sults, were alike admirable. The same impulse was
given at the same moment, to more than forty millions
of men : and by the aid of these centres of local
activity the movement was as rapid at the extremities
as at the heart of the empire."

Such is the power which Administrative Centraliza-
tion incontestably confers on a government which can
use it with discretion. But there is another side to
the picture. A government can, by these means, it is
true, concentrate its resources on a given point. But
of what do these resources consist ? They consist, to
a great extent, of human beings, with wills, passions,
and affections, the cooperation and due direction of
which, makes them efficient instruments. But the
will of the members of a community towards the
good of that community is nothing else than Patriot-
ism : and it is on Patriotism, therefore, the only
motive power besides Religion capable of acting on
large bodies of men, that the real energy of a govern-
ment ultimately depends. But this sentiment, though
it cannot dispense with the assistance which Political
unity imparts to it, yet is more surely based on local
and particular interests. Though it must look for
light and warmth to the central orb of national and
collective grandeur, yet it must draw its sustaining
nourishment from the soil on which it grows, and

18 Effects on National greatness and security.

twine its roots round custom and familiar association.
Men feel a stronger attachment to the institutions
which they protect than to the institutions which they
venerate. The latter impulse begets the patriotism
which takes pride in feeling its dependence on a vast
and complicated system. The former encourages that
more rational, if less enthusiastic sentiment which is
engendered by the knowledge of men's own connexion
with the general welfare. Moreover, by the constant
exercise of the apparently trifling functions of local
administration, not only are the greatest possible
number of individuals involved in the common pros-
perity of the country, but Patriotism, " a kind of de-
votion which is strengthened by ritual observance ra,"
runs in no danger of being forgotten among more in-
definite, if larger, interests. The uniformity which
Administrative Centralization produces, so nearly ap-
proaches mere routine management, that when the
exigencies of the State demand more speedy and more
energetic action, there is a difficulty in quitting the
old paths and obtaining help for measures beyond the
horizon of individual or local view. A Centralized
nation may exhibit most perseverance in its under-
takings. Yet transient intensity exhausts enduring
strength ; and the concentration of its efforts impairs
the vitality which is the mainspring of its permanence
and its progression. Thus while the Centralization of
Rome perished in the dissolution of her Empire, her

m De Tocqueville, Democracy in America, vol. i. p. 84. (Eng.
Trans.)

On the Peace and Order of Society. 19

Gallic municipalities'1 survived the general wreck of
her institutions, and transmitted to modern Europe
the inheritance of her spirit and her law. And Hun-
gary0, under the disadvantages of isolation from the
rest of the continent, of a mixture of heterogeneous
races, and of the frequent hostility of the power to
which she is annexed, yet still retains, through a sys-
tem of local self-government, the elements of Patriot-
ism, of energy, and of national well-being.

ii. The influences of Centralization on the Peace
and Order of Society are not less various than those
just considered. On the one hand, a method of
government which affects all the elements of the
social state with the sole exception of the volitions
of its individual members, must to a great degree,
affect those also, by exercising a command over the
instruments which the execution of their purposes
requires, and by holding in its grasp all the means of
which insubordination might avail itself. This fact,
already exemplified from the history of Venice, is ob-
servable in every State which has adopted those watch-
ful regulations of internal police which are the natural
corollary of Administrative Centralization — since it is
plainly necessary that a government should be in-
formed whether its rules of administration are habi-
tually observed or infringed. And these regulations,
however objectionable they may sometimes appear,

" See Sir James Stephen's Lectures on the Hist, of France. Lec-
ture V.

0 See F. W. Newman, Lectures on Polit. Econ., p. 293.

C

20 On the Peace and Order of Society.

are, it must be remembered, protective as well as
coercive : and their absence as regards minor details
of social life is severely felt in some of the countries
where a Centralized Administration does not prevail p.
There are also instances where the peace and order of
society may depend very materially on the degree to
which government interferes with what are usually
considered purely private matters. In countries whose
physical character opposes barriers to the movement
of large bodies of men, it may be found expedient by
a wise discretion to restrain large manufacturers from
that indiscriminate employ mentq of capital which might
render large bodies of workmen liable to be thrown
out of employ at once, who would thus be kept toge-
ther, idle and indigent, from the want of means to
transport them to a new field of occupation. But
while Centralization is thus beneficial to the good
order of society, there are also certain opposite con-
siderations. Though party spirit may be efficiently
repressed by a system which allows to none save the
collective will of the nation any outward expression,
yet this very discouragement of the usual and overt
means of such manifestations has a tendency to en-
courage those secret and forbidden associations', which,
like certain disorders in the natural body, may em-
broil or undermine society, if they do not find their
appropriate vent in the discussion of local interests

p See De Tocqueville, vol. i. p. 130.

q See Laing's Observations on Europe, 2nd Series, p. 158, &c.

' De Tocqueville, i. 84.

On Civil Liberty and Municipalities. 21

and the excitement of local feeling. And while the
multifarious resources which a Centralized Administra-
tion commands, supply some of the most efficient
means for the detection and suppression of crime, yet
where everything is left to the government, the people
are apt to give less ready assistance, than where every
member of the community is engaged on the side of
justice by the feelings of duty and responsibility which
local self-government implies. And it may be ob-
served (though this was perhaps rather an abuse than
a consequence of Centralization) how greatly the gov-
ernment nomination of municipal officers s in France
contributed to the exasperation of feeling which cost
Louis XVI. his crown and his life.

iii. On the rights enjoyed by men in their private
and municipal capacity, the effects of a Central Ad-
ministration may naturally be expected to be most
distinctly traceable. No one person ever manages
the affairs of another exactly in the way that person
would prefer. Nor do those ends at which a govern-
ment aims for the general interest, always coincide
with those which the individual pursues for his own
advantage. And the murmurs which may arise against
the acts of the supreme power are in some danger of
being disregarded by its functionaries, as resulting
(in their eyes) less from enlightened views than from
ignorance of what is best : so that the course pur-
sued by the State in its collective capacity, if direct

5 See Bechard, De V 'Administration Interieure de la France, (Paris.
1851,) vol. i. p. 66.

C 2

22 On Civil Liberty and

and rapid in its aim, is too often open to the charge
of unfeelingness in its means : while

" the path the human being travels,

That on which blessing comes and goes, doth follow
The river's course, the valley's playful windings,
Curves round the corn-field and the hill of vines,
Honouring the holy bounds of property,
And thus secure, though late, comes to its end'."

The superior intelligence of a government, an argu-
ment sometimes urged in behalf of Centralization,
directs the affairs of each locality better than the in-
habitants can direct them, only in those states of
society when it monopolizes all political capacity.
When civilization has proceeded to that point with
which Administrative Centralization is generally con-
temporary, the ignorance of local bodies does not
seem so justly presumable. And though municipal
bodies suffer by the comparison of their immethodical
proceedings with the precision and perseverance of
a supreme government, yet that amount of energy
which they actually display is in danger of being
weakened, when constant interference makes them
feel no more than a life-interest in local matters. It
would certainly be an unwise line of policy in any
government to give up all control of this nature,
especially over municipal property which the occa-
sional perverseness of municipal officers may alienate
or waste u : but the supineness in pecuniary rnisfor-

I Coleridge's Translation of Schiller's Piccolomini.

II See Bechard, i. 122.

Municipal Institutions. 23

tunes which a constant reliance on state assistance
begets, is a greater evil than even immethodical man-
agement and fickleness of purpose. As there is no
doubt that no government ought to have it in its
power to follow out whatever caprices may suggest
themselves, whether to despotic or democratic tyranny,
the greatest care should be taken to sustain those
barriers which local institutions, by invalidating the
instruments of arbitrary power, oppose to the tide ol
popular excitement. And Administrative Centraliza-
tion by employing a corps of functionaries not ac-
countable to the population whom they govern, in-
volves those dangers to local liberty which, in Ame-
rica *, the responsibility of such officers so happily
avoids. Nor must it be forgotten that the accumula-
tion of the elements of power at a single centre stores
up at that centre a magazine of materials which the
smouldering fires of insurrection, or the stroke of a
single hand, may kindle for the destruction of free-
dom. It is not in ancient States alone that the seizure
of the Acropolis involves the mastery of the Capital.
The throne of despotic Russia has been ere now
transferred from one dynasty to another without a
blow on the part of its subjects : and we have seen
in our own day how, under the sway of a Centralized
Administration, the bravest of our neighbours may be
forced to acquiesce, since powerless to interfere, in the
subtly prepared and swiftly perpetrated measures,

* De Tocqueville, ubi supra.

24 On Wealth and

which have changed the most popular, to the most
despotic constitution of Europe.

iv. The influence of Centralization on Material
Prosperity, including under that term everything re-
sulting from trade, commerce, and the mechanical
arts, is perhaps of more difficult appreciation. The
wealth of a nation may be the wealth either of the
government, or of the people ; either those resources
which the State has at its disposal, or the accumula-
tions and investments of individual enterprise. As
regards the former, there does not seem, prior to ex-
perience, any reason for expecting that a Centralized
Administration will be distinguished for extravagance,
unless through insufficient information regarding the
requirements of particular localities ; requirements
which those localities themselves, from their better
knowledge, might be able more judiciously to supply.
Accordingly we find that in France, where the public
buildings, even for very subordinate purposes, which
meet the traveller's eye, are executed on a scale un-
known to ourselves, the supply, in many cases, in-
finitely exceeds the demand. " Roads, canals, bridges,
quays, and public buildings are consequently con-
structed not in a commensurate proportion in extent
and expense to the want to be provided for, but on a
disproportionate scale, and with an excess of mag-
nificence ridiculously in contrast with the small im-
portance of the object, and the actual or possible
wants of the community or locality. This dispropor-
tion between cost and advantage to the public, is the

Material Prosperity. 25

great characteristic of all public works in all States in
which the people have no voice in the management of
their own affairs7." And in addition to the amount
spent on such objects, the salaries necessary to support
a fully Centralized Administration must form a serious
item in the national expenditure2: a system which
suffers by comparison with that wherein services ei-
ther unbought, or rewarded by inconsiderable emolu-
ments, attract their officers to posts of local honour
and interest.

With regard to its effects on the prosperity of the
governed, it is manifest that in a rude age, when the
government alone has the command of the few me-
chanical or scientific appliances which exist, Centrali-
zation may be highly useful in prosecuting enterprises
which would otherwise be totally neglected. But the
case is different in a period of advanced civilization,
which always places sufficient resources for most pur-
poses at the disposal of any moderately large number
of men. If we could think that a system of govern-
ment supervision would have been likely to prevent a
catastrophe like that which lately filled with ruin and
desolation one of the busiest of our manufacturing
valleys, much might be sacrificed for so inestimable an
advantage. But there is too much reason to believe
that amid the multiplicity of official occupations, and
the numerous directions in which the overtasked ac-
tivity of government functionaries has to be exerted,

y Laing, ii. 166.

7 Bechard, i. p. 12, 13. (Sixty-three millions of francs, in France.)

26 On Individual

matters of this description, as is actually the case in
France", may fall into irretrievable neglect, no less
than under the superintendence of local administra-
tion. Indeed municipal bodies, it has been said,
'do fewer things well, but do more things/ and if
left to themselves they are especially useful in being
able to attempt those improvements in the condi-
tion of the poor, or other experiments which circum-
stances may suggest, the demand for which is in
general so tardily responded to by the supreme
government. The absorption, too, of all public
undertakings by the government, tends, as was the
case under Napoleon's administration15, to diminish
the vigour of private enterprise, and to enrich the
capital at the expense of the departments : while the
contrary system, by giving wealthy individuals an in-
terest in distant centres of action, improves the social
and industrial condition of the provinces, and may
encourage the latent merit which would be lost among
the crowds of an overgrown metropolis.

v. But it is on individual life and character and on
the general tone of moral and social feeling by which
these are improved or impaired, that Administrative
Centralization has the most real, if not the most ob-
vious, influence. The system to be efficiently worked

• M. Bechard says (i. 15) "Nos landes abandonnees, nos cours cCeau
transformes sur plusieurs points du territoire en torrents destructeurs . . .
offrent une affligeant contraste avec 1'etat de culture avancee qu'on
trouve dans la plupart des autres etats de 1' Europe."

b See Alison, VI. 401.

Life and Character. 27

implies, as we have seen, a large number of function-
aries" necessarily under the control of the central
government : and we may therefore consider its effects
1. on its instruments, i. e. the officers whom it
employs : 2. on the people who are thus governed. —
1. The two conditions d which ought to be united in
every officer who is not either to be made a mere
machine, or on the other hand to be guided alone
by individual caprice, are those of independence and
responsibility : the same conditions, in fact, which
Providence has appointed for the formation of moral
character in mankind in general. Now the perfection
of a Centralized Administration must consist, in one
respect, in its complete command over the officers
whom it employs : and this end is best attained by
making them dependent for the tenure of the office,
and responsible for their conduct in the exercise of it,
to the supreme Government alone. But the checks
on misgovernment, supplied in some cases by public
opinion, in others by independence in the official, are
under such a state of things completely neutralized.
The functionaries who presided over German affairs
from 1807 to 1814, not accountable to those whose
affairs they managed, and holding office only at the
pleasure of the foreign invader, " became the willing

c The number of these under Louis Philippe amounted to 807,030
(Laing, ii. 185). When M. De Tocqueville wrote, the number depend-
ing on the king was 138,000 : while in America only 12,000 are re-
quired, who however do not depend on the president.

d i. e. not conditions necessary for the performance of his work : only
those requisite to prevent its having an unfavourable effect on himself.

28 On Individual

instruments in the hands of the French of the most
grievous exactions, contributions, and oppressions,
which without their assistance and organization could
not have been carried into effect by the French com-
missaries6." Evils such as these Norway avoids, by
giving to each official a tenure of his post for life, and
thus making him independent of the government :
Great Britain (in the case of her Indian Empire), by
giving the East India Company, the party most in-
terested, the power of recalling a governor-general and
other officials : and America, by the responsibility to
public opinion, and resistance to the growth of an
oligarchy, which is effected by the removal of all
officials at intervals of four years f. Nor in the latter
country does it appear that the ignorance of the forms
of official procedure has that detrimental influence on
the management of affairs which some suppose it
likely to induce. The frequent change of function-
aries may indeed cause mismanagement under a
Centralized Administration ; but the stronger interest
in the result which the system of local self-government
naturally produces, may reasonably be expected to
compensate for the want of special official training.
It is found moreover, in addition to the want of moral
dignity and hold on popular feeling by which bureau-
cratic government is characterized, that the inde-
pendence and social well-being of a great portion
of society is destroyed by the deferred expectations

' Laing, ii. 191. q. v. as to the following statements.
1 Ib: 196, and De Tocqueville, ubi supra.

Life and Character. 29

and compulsory leisure of those who are educated, as
is so much the case in Germany and France8, with a
view to this as their ultimate profession. Thus the
energy of character elicited by the feeling that con-
tinued exertions are the sole guarantee for future sub-
sistence, is supplanted by a habit of mind which
diffuses indeed, from the education demanded in
all who aspire to such posts, a humanizing influence
throughout society, but tending, by a contracted routine
of business and a limited though secure maintenance,
eventually to extinguish many capacities which might
otherwise have been exercised in more various and
useful directions.

2 a. The effects which this system produces (in-
directly perhaps, but most surely) on the people in
general, as distinct from that section which undertakes
their management, seem, in the first place, to be, a
diminution of energetic action, even in matters not
included in the sphere of administration, through
the encroachments of government on this debateable
ground. In a state of society imperfectly civilized,
and possessed of little information, Centralization, as
it is more urgently required to satisfy wants in-
adequately met by the deficient state of knowledge, —
so it has its ill effects counteracted by the undisci-

* For the proof of this as regards France, see the Report on the
Budget of 1850, quoted by Bechard, i. 13 ; as regards Germany, see
Laing, ii. 198. The hopes of an official life are a prominent fea-
ture in many German novels. See J. P. Richter's Quintus Fixlein.
De Tocquevillo has some good remarks, vol. iv. part 1, on the "venal
humour" produced by place-hunting.

30 On Individual

plined energies and untrained habits of the people :
but in an advanced state of civilized existence, where
habit and custom are far more powerful, it depresses
and impairs both public spirit and private enterprise.
Thus it was the policy of Trajan h, admirable as
was his administration in many respects, to diminish,
through a fear of encouraging faction, that attention to
public affairs which the local governments of the pro-
vinces were sometimes disposed to shew : a method of
government which, by teaching the people to look to
the imperial power on every occasion, whether for pe-
cuniary assistance for public works, or for advice con-
cerning municipal regulations, left them no principle
of activity in themselves, and promoted a habit of
helplessness which under less humane and enlightened
superiors led to much evil and neglect*. And Self-
respect, which has been thought capable of being
derived from the actual share which a democratic
constitution may give every citizen in the supreme
government, is more surely grounded on the constant
and responsible discharge of functions by which the
interests of neighbours and friends are affected and
involved. Thus in those countries where Liberty is
rather as it were brought within the reach of the
people to enjoy than held up at a distance for them
to venerate, public spirit is promoted, and the forma-

h See Dr. Arnold's Life of Trajan, Encyclopaedia Metropolitana,
X. 656.

1 So De Tocqueville notices that in the southern states of America
there is more centralization and less public spirit.

Life and Character. 31

tion of character assisted by the management of local
interests. And the stir and commotion which these
occasion, dangerous as they may appear to foreign
observers, yet seem to a fairer judgment to quicken
the pulses and invigorate the blood of society. When
Liberty comes down among the children of men, the
waters are indeed troubled ; but it is by the visit of
an angel.

Nor is the effect of the local self-government which
Centralization excludes, less apparent on public mo-
rality. In matters of this nature which it is possible
for Law and Police to reach, it may be more reason-
ably expected that the concern of the chief inhabitants
for the good order and credit of their locality will
operate efficiently, than the less interested though
more numerous functionaries of the State administra-
tion15; while the tendency of Centralization to go
more into detail than the nature of things allows,
may secretly encourage ', though it outwardly prohibits
those practices, to check which local opinion and ad-
ministration have always been found so powerful01.
And the companies for the promotion of moral objects
not within the province of government, so remarkable
a feature in modern civilization, seem liable to dis-
couragement from the same cause which, under the
suspicious rulers of the later Roman empire, re-

k See Bcchard, i. 192.

1 M. Bechard farther charges the functionaries in France with cor-
ruption, (ubi supra.)

m See F. W. Newman, p. 290.

32 On Individual Life and

pressed associations for purposes as innocent and
more material.

Administrative Centralization may also indirectly
affect social character and sentiments through Art
and Literature : but only, it is true, in a secondary
and mediate manner. We have already seen how
the education necessary to qualify individuals for
office may spread some intellectual light through a
country. But Centralization by implying a central
seat of government implies also a metropolis ; and it
is to a metropolis that all who seek fame or emolu-
ment by the above pursuits are induced to resort.
If art is fostered by the cooperative criticism which
any assemblage of persons in towns can furnish, much
more must it be improved by the distinguished mem-
bers of all professions whom a metropolis attracts
into its circle. Taste may be cultivated by national
collections. Industry may find its material in national
libraries. Genius may be stimulated by the rewards
or gratified by the fame which collected wealth and
appreciation have power to bestow n. But it must be
remembered that while one spot is thus enriched by
the talent of a country, the rest are proportion ably
impoverished. Metropolitan excellence can only be
attained at the cost of provincial exhaustion °. The
question, in fact, is, whether a nation shall shine with

n See De la Centralisation, par Timon (M. de Connenin), passim.
His contemptuous comparisons of provincial towns with Paris are a
strong argument against the principle he eulogizes.

0 See Lord Cockburn's Life of Jeffrey.

Character; — Literature; Education. 33

concentrated brilliancy in science, letters, and art, or
spread a diffused and equable mediocrity over a
more extended circle. While the former tendency
(since no Homers wander now) seems more likely to
elicit those mighty spirits, " full-welling fountain-
heads of change," who have ever formed some of the
chiefest sources of a nation's pride, the latter seems
calculated to humanize a greater number, and afford
those benefits to the many, which the cares of an
anxious subsistence too frequently exclude. And the
same observation may be made as regards the influ-
ences of Journalism p. The greater number of centres
of political information and activity which local self-
government implies, require more numerous news-
papers, not all however capable of commanding the
talent lavished on those which represent the opinions
of a great legislative and administrative focus.

Unfavourable as is the conclusion to which these
considerations may seem to point as regards Centrali-
zation, oui' estimate must be considerably modified by
remembering that the improved state of civilization
with which it generally coexists, presents such facili-
ties of locomotion and transport as may neutralize
almost all the injurious consequences (if we think
them injurious) which the sacrifice of the many to the
few might in a ruder age produce.

/3. But in addition to the above indirect effects,
Centralization may also more immediately influence

v See on this point De Tocqueville, iii. 130, &c.

34 Education.

social character and sentiments, by means of Edu-
cation. Education (or rather Instruction) is either
general, professional, or Religious. Whether the di-
rection of these by government is beneficial or the
reverse, depends on the degree of culture prevailing
in a country, and on the disposition of persons to
make use of opportunities. But, since some education
or other is the only means of raising man much above
the animals, at least the rudimentary elements should
be required of all. But this is a different question
from the one, whether the State should have a mono-
poly of education : a question which may be answered
at once in the negative : though the monopoly of
education is what Centralization naturally leads to.
" Give me Education for a hundred years," said Leib-
nitz, " and I will change the world ;" and to a ruler
who by thus directing the opinions of his subjects,
moulds them freely to his will, the expression " shep-
herd of the people," would be not metaphorically, but
literally applicable. As regards the professional edu-
cation, towards the adoption of which some European
governments seem tending, it may be the exercise of
a wise discretion, so to regulate the number of those
instructed for particular employments, as to diminish
the misery which the competition in over-crowded
trades and professions so fatally engenders among
ourselves. And Religious Education, which may
suffer the same fate as Secular under a central-
ized regime, can only be fitly bestowed under the
policy of tolerance to all, and encouragement to one,

Effects of Centralized Legislation on Colonies. 35

of the modes of teaching, which even then must inde-
pendently fulfil its function of spiritual culture.

B. In proceeding to speak of the effects of Cen-
tralization on a Colonial Empireq, Legislation must
chiefly be taken into account. This, though it seems
to do so, does not in reality stand on the ground of
unity of legislation at home. There is a great dif-
ference between abolishing the anomalous laws of
local communities, and disallowing the right of a
delegated legislative power to distant colonies. For
these, a Central Administration, where it is possible,
which is not often the case, is of course most in-
jurious : and not less hurtful is that phase of it
which is generally possible, the nomination of local
officers by the government at home.

1. To the interests of the empire at large, more
dangers seem likely to arise from the disaffection
caused by the hindrances inseparable from Centralized
Legislation, than from the supposed democratic ten-
dencies of a fully delegated power. And though,
doubtless, the inexperience of youthful communities
may in many cases abuse this trust, yet the reserva-
tion of a right to annul proceedings of the colonial
rulers found generally detrimental, would answer every
purpose at which a Centralizing Legislation aims. The
Romans solved the problem of fusing conquered States
into one body by leaving, where compatible with alle-
giance, institutions and laws to the conquered : nor

4 On this point much information has been derived from Wakefield,
Art of Colonization, xxxvith and following Letter.

D

36 Effects on Colonies, fyc.

was it but by an infringement of this necessary prin-
ciple that America was finally lost to England.

2. The interests of colonies in particular, as distinct
from the empire in general, may be affected, a. by
the nature of the functionaries who administer them
— and these functionaries may be either at home or
abroad. The former will be liable to the charges of
ignorance certainly, of neglect probably, as well as of
becoming incapacitated for legislation, though it is
their business, by routine habits. The defect of those
abroad will be, that they are attached to an external
centre, and therefore detached from a common interest
with those whom they govern ; just as the English
clergy before the Reformation, belonging to tlieir
centralized system, formed radii intersecting the re-
gality and nationality of England, b. Distance, and
therefore slow communication with the home govern-
ment, increases to an almost incredible1 extent the
correspondence necessitated by administration ; nul-
lifies permissions when at length received ; and some-
times produces fatal results to trade and navigation by
the hindrance of useful public works8.

Such are some of the effects of Legislative and even
partial Administrative Centralization, on colonies. If
a State's duty is, not to devour its own children, but
rather, Deucalion-like, to turn the bare stones of the

r In the single year 1846, the Colonial Office of Paris received from
Algeria no less than 28,000 despatches. Wakefield, p. 251.

" Borrer, quoted by Wakefield, who mentions the loss of ships for
want of a light-house which was to have been built in New Zealand.

Summary of Results. 37

wilderness into centres of vitality and action, a system
must be modified, which produces opportunities for
oppression in the governing, disaffection in the gov-
erned, and seriously affects the economical welfare of
distant dependencies.

It remains now, previous to the supplementary re-
marks, to sum up, under the two heads required by
the Essay, the conclusions at which we have arrived.

The Benefits then, of Centralization are, that it
assists the greatness and security of a country through
the close coherence of its parts, and the defensive or
offensive efficiency of its organization ; that it is fa-
vourable to the order of society by keeping in check
dangerous elements or introducing economical regula-
tions in circumstances where dangerous elements may
be developed : that it may help municipal liberty by
assistance and consolidation during the times when
society most requires them ; that it may increase
material prosperity, by occasionally performing works
beyond the means of local bodies ; that it may benefit
individual character and manners by those humanizing
influences which the results of collective arts, sciences,
and branches of literature in a metropolis will gene-
rally be found to produce.

The Disadvantages of Centralization are, that it
dries up the springs of Patriotism in particular lo-
calities, and while rendering a nation capable of great
efforts, impairs the powers which may renew them :
that it fosters conspiracy while repressing faction, and
loses the assistance of society in the coercion of crime :

38 Supplementary Remarks— Civilization —

that it encroaches on individual and social freedom
while it stifles the energy of individual and social
enterprise ; that it injures wealth by extravagance as
regards public, and neglect as regards private pro-
perty : and finally, that it encourages in its function-
aries a spirit of servile dependence, and an unsympa-
thising temper towards the governed, while in the
governed it produces that moral attenuation, which,
like its physical counterpart in other natures, in man
too marks the commencement of degeneracy and
decay ; —

" Sponte sua quae se tollunt in luminis eras,
Infecunda quidem, sed laeta et fortia surgunt ;

Nunc altse frondes et rami Matris opacant,
Crescentique adiinunt fetus, uruntque ferentem."

II. Wider and less definite results, not so suscep-
tible of particular proof, yet not the less certainly
connected with the subject, may here perhaps most
fitly be suggested. Civilization, above all — or the co-
ordinate developement of Society and the Individual,
— will not be uninfluenced by so potent a tendency as
that which we have been considering. If, as seems
true, part of the developement of Society results from
the worthy occupation of the governing part of it,
any system will be unfavourable to it which wastes
time, better bestowed on large questions, in the petty
details of local administration. And, though the con-
centration of intellect may promote social progress,
yet moral sympathies require local unions, incapable

Power of Public Opinion over the Individual. 39

as they are of adequate growth among the closely
packed masses which the concentration of intellect,
as of wealth, implies. And it is by cooperation of
the higher and middle classes for the benefit of the
lower in heal institutions of Education or Charity,
that moral sympathies between all three are most
likely, if at all, to be developed, and the barrier
broken down which separates the Two Nations, as
Plato calls them, of the Rich and the Poor.

To the developement of the Individual any system
is injurious which diminishes the number of oppor-
tunities for the conscientious exercise of his single
judgment ; just as in Religion an externally imposed
system of rules to meet all contingencies hinders
the growth of Conscience by the minute details of
Casuistry. Local business, even if not successfully
conducted, enlarges the circle of ideas, and in some
degree counteracts the narrowing tendencies of merely
industrial pursuits. Civilization, too, viewed in its
modern aspect, seems to repeat one of its ancient
characteristics, — the predominance of the State over
its members, — now represented by the hold which
Public Opinion has over the Individual. For though
now, destined for Eternity, he is not, as once he was,
held of inferior dignity to Collective Man : yet he may
have to bow to a more arbitrary power — the opinions,
feelings, and tastes which a majority will always im-
pose, if possible with the stringency of law, on the
minority of society. Eor this is the form which the
composite monster of which Plato speaks, assumes

40 The State versus the Individual.

at the present clay. It might well be, among those
to whom the Future was a prospect on which
" shadows, clouds, and darkness " were resting, that
the indefeasible personality of the citizen might be
required to yield to the united majesty of the com-
munity, and that men should conceive then, as they
have done since, of a power transcending in its final
cause and formal beauty the petty interests of its
material constituents, and combining the variety and
force of the multitude with the unity and coherence
of the individual. There may be indeed something
wonderfully attractive to the philosophic Statesman
in all that such a centralized system involves ; the
descending hierarchy of officers, the multiplicity of
functions, and the graduated subordination of parts
under the single ruler, that sits at the helm of affairs
and ramifies into the minutest details of administra-
tion his secret and imperial influence ;

" totamque, infusa per artus
Mens agitat molem, et magno se corpore miscet."

And to the fascinations of such a Political Pantheism
we might be right to yield, were human forms of po-
lity not liable to human accidents, and were the prac-
tical execution of a system always commensurate with
its ideal perfection. To minds enamoured of system
for system's sake, to whom simplicity of design and
symmetry of adaptation are recommendations which
the actual vices of the machine in action do not always
outweigh, Centralization may appear — as it has ap-

Centralization in History. 41

peared to modern France, strikingly characterized as
she is by these logical predilections — the very con-
summation of political harmony and grandeur. But
when we consider how the system may work ; and
when we see, how the ever-progressing principle of
the Division of Labour, while it views government as
a mere profession, thus supplying Centralization with
its theory, — tends to carry it into practice by develop-
ing each man's powers in some one limited channel, —
we recognise the necessity of surrounding individual
completeness and independence of character with the
firmest bulwarks ; and, slow to admit a system of an
opposite tendency, we shall agree with Aristotle, that
Xtav evovv tflreiv rrjv 7ro\iT€iai>) OVK ecrnv OL^LVOV.
Centralization, in the still wider sense in which it
is brought before us by History, appears as the alter-
nate reconstruction of previously disrupted societies.
The human race, projected from the formative will of
its Creator, is first the one family, is then dispersed
into communities; each of which viewed in its pri-
mary and ideal character, presents in its subordinate
yet independent parts, an analogon of man's physical
constitution, where the functional activity of diversely
harmonious organs ensures under the superintendence
of the central nervous energy, the continuance of Life.
Declining from this their original state, societies are
disintegrated into anarchy, and recombined into still
more numerous unities, by the amalgamations of Con-
quest, of Colonization, of Federation, of Monarchy;
or present, finally, that narrower and intenser applica-

42 Necessity and difficulty of the question.

tion of the principle which is the bane of Administra-
tive Centralization. It is at this stage that the Poli-
tician must encounter it : it is at this stage that it
becomes most formidable. As the Philosopher tries
to grasp his ' fundamental antitheses,' so the States-
man must reconcile his; and they are, especially in
this instance, problems of a more pressing character.
For while Philosophical doubt, though it may vex the
heart and weary the brain, seldom conducts to the
Euripus, — the problems of Politics are always pro-
pounded by a Sphinx, and the prosperity, if not the
fate of a nation, is in the hand of the (Edipus who
can answer them.

To attempt the framing of such solutions : to com-
bine new wants and old arrangements : to make poli-
tical unity compatible with local independence: to
steer between the rebellious prejudices which shatter
all improvement, and the whirlpool which draws all
improvement to itself: in a word, to reconcile the
centripetal and centrifugal forces of society, and imi-
tate in states the harmony of the universe, this is the
task of the Statesman and the Legislator, nor does it
seem that it can be efficiently performed without a
due sense of the evils of Centralization.

But if from a sight of these evils we should be led
unreservedly to condemn it, — we must remember
that its principle, though precluded by the inevitable
weaknesses of our nature from innocuous developement,
may yet be one of those tendencies of the human
mind which Philosophy no less than History acknow-

Centralization a tendency of the human mind. 43

ledges, and which point to some state of unseen per-
fectibility, where the individual will shall be inde-
pendent of, yet harmonious with, the Supreme, and
neither absorption on the one hand, nor discordance
on the other, shall mar the symmetry of their co-
operation. And if the complexities and shortcomings
around us seem to remove from mortal ken so glori-
ous a consummation, yet we, too, may say with Plato S
'AAA' eV Ovpavw ia-co? TrapaSetyfjia avaKCLrai rw
(3ov\ofjL€i>q) bpav KOL op&vri eavrov

* Republic, b. ix. ad fin.

OXFORD :

FEINTED BY I. SHKIMPTON.

A 000 097 800 7