Elementary civics

Prescntcb to

^Ijc |Itbrarg

of %

Ptt&crsitg of ®oroaito

THE

SCHOOL OF SOCIAL WORK

I

ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Cr H. BLAKISTON, M,x\.

ASSISTANT MASTER AT ETON COLLEGE *

ADAPTED TO THE SYLLABUS

OF THE BRITISH \SSOCIATION COMMITTEE ON

TRAINING IN CITIZENSHIP

496913

LONDON

EDWARD ARNOLD ^ • 3. 4^

41-43, MADDOX STREET, BOND STREET, W.
lAli rights reservea]

PREFACE

This little sketch does not claim to be more than
a very simple outline of some of the elements of
civics that every British citizen should know.
It is necessarily very incomplete, and the very
nature of the subject makes the statements in it
liable to change from year to year, if not from
day to day. The actual facts of civic life at any
moment can be found in directories ; indeed, no
one can try to teach civics without a copy of
Whitaker's Almanac ready to his hand, but it is
less easy to find a simple statement of some of
the main principles which underlie our national
and local institutions. This little outline may
serve to give an introduction to the study of these
principles.

Amongst the many books to which the author

is indebted for ideas and information he desires

particularly to express his acknowledgments to :

"Outlines of Local Government," by Mr. John

J. Clarke, M.A., F.S.S. ; " The Teaching of Civics

in Public Schools," by Mr. C. H. Spence of Clifton

College ; and " The Government of the British

Empire," by Mr. Edward Jenks, Director of Legal

Studies of the Law Society.

C. H. BLAKISTON.

Eton College,

August, 1920.

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive

in 2007 witii funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

littp://www.arcliive.org/details/elementaryGiviGsOOblakuoft

FOREWORD

By bishop WELLDON

At the meeting of the British Association in
Bournemouth last year the subject of civic duty
was fully discussed. There was a general feeling
in the Educational Section that the responsibility
of good citizenship should be impressed by
teachers upon children of both sexes in all
schools, and not least in elementary schools.
The Public School spirit, as it is called, which
was so signally exemplified in the War, should
be the spirit of all citizens throughout the British
Empire. Citizenship, indeed, is the end of all
true education. But the discipline of boys and
girls, and of young men and women, for citizen-
ship implies both information and exhortation.
It is necessary that they should know what the
Government of their country is ; what oppor-
tunities it affords, both national and local ; how
it can be modified ; what are the reforms that are,
or will probably be, needed in it ; what contribu-
tion it is in the power of every citizen to make to
the common good. This is the main subject of
the handbook which Mr. Blakiston, even before
the meeting of the British Association, had begun

vi FOREWORD

to write as the result of his experience in teaching
pupils at Eton and elsewhere, and which he has
now expanded in the light of the discussion at
Bournemouth. He has not forgotten that the
young will be inspired to become good citizens
in after-life, if they are taught at an early age to
realize that the man or the woman who violates
or disregards civic duty is not a true patriot. If
only the spirit which was exhibited on the battle-
fields and in the trenches during the War could
be carried into the years of peace, the nation and
the Empire would be safe.

I feel great pleasure in introducing Mr.
Blakiston's handbook to the educational world.
It leaves, and it is intended to leave, room for
the personal influence of the teachers who may
use it ; but it will, I think, constitute a sound
basis for such instruction and inspiration as will
enable the living to pay the only adequate
homage to the dead who have sacrificed them-
selves for the safety and honour of the British
Empire, by living lives which will, in the coming
days, tend to elevate and consecrate the Imperial
destiny of Great Britain.

J. E. C. WELLDON.
J^une, 192a

CONTENTS

PART I

CHAPTER PAGE

I. THE MEANING OF CIVICS - - - - I

H. THE PRINCIPLES OF CIVILIZATION - - "5

III. THE KING AND THE STATE - - - lO

IV. THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT - - "19
V. LOCAL GOVERNMENT - - - -25

VI. THE HOUSEHOLDER : RATES AND TAXES - "37

VII. LAW AND JUSTICE - - - - - 46

VIII. THE MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC PEACE - - 55

IX. NATIONAL DEFENCE - - - -58

X. PUBLIC HEALTH - - - - - 63

XI. PENSIONS AND INSURANCE - - - "70

XII. EDUCATION - - - - - - 77

XIII. HIGHWAYS, ROADS, AND BRIDGES - - " ^5

PART II

XIV. INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE - - - - 89
XV. PATRIOTIC FEELING AND PUBLIC SERVICE - 95

XVI. NATIONAL UNITY - - - - "99

XVII. THE BRITISH EMPIRE - - - - 103

XVIII. INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS ... 108

XIX. SOME CIVIC PROBLEMS - - - "US

XX. THE PRESS - - - - - - I18

ELEMENTARY CIVICS

PART I
CHAPTER I

THE MEANING OF CIVICS

Civics may be defined as the rights and duties
of a citizen. So the first thing to be done is to
explain what we mean by a citizen : and clearly
the word does not only mean those who live in
cities or large towns, because those who live in
smaller towns, in villages, and in the country,
must not be left out. Actually, in the eyes of
the law, every grown man and woman is a citizen,
though their rights and duties differ in some
degree ; and children are future citizens, remain-
ing, whilst they are still young, under the care
of their family and their teachers.

England is a free country, and we are proud to
sing that " Britons never shall be slaves." But
the next word we shall have to look at carefully
is the word " free," for we must know what that
means before we can talk of freedom.

Freedom means that one may follow one's
own will, and carry out one's wishes, without
hindrance. But if each one did exactly what he

I

2 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

liked and never stopped to think of anyone else,
his wishes would soon come into conflict with
those of others. For instance, most people want
to be first, or to stand in the front row,' or to have
the best seats, but this is not always possible. In
a family, if a father or mother gave absolute
freedom to the children, they would often do
foolish things and possibly cause harm to them-
selves or to others — most likely the latter. So
a wise parent tells the children what they may or
may not do, and the children grow up from the
earliest stages of infancy knowing that it is best
to obey. And the best way of securing obedience
is through affection and not through punishment,
though that is sometimes necessary ; so that a
well-trained child knows that his parents wish
him to do some things and to avoid others, and
tries to follow out their wishes, and understands
that when they punish him it is for his good.
So the State in which we live is really a great
family, and tells us to do certain things and to
avoid others, that we may be good members of
this great family ; and if we are good citizens,
we shall keep the wishes of the State which are
expressed in laws, and avoid the wrong actions
which are called crimes.

But you may say this is not absolute freedom.
Of course it is not ; but the experience of hundreds
of years has shown men that they live most
peaceably and comfortably when they agree to
fit in with and work in harmony with others,
respecting the reasonable wishes of others and

A

I

THE MEANING OF CIVICS 3

avoiding what may hurt or offend them. So that
freedom in a well-ordered country means the
right to do what we like so long as it does not
clash with the just and reasonable wishes of
others, and so far as it helps to make the life of
the country work smoothly.

Education. — But how are we to know what
are the reasonable wishes of others, and what we
ourselves should choose and avoid ? To go back
to our first illustration, the wise parent trains the
children from the very first, showing them how
to feed themselves and to wash and dress them-
selves, and giving them words to express them-
selves by ; and as the children grow older they go
to school, and learn to read and write and to
count, and gradually by imitating others teach
themselves to think more or less correctly, till
they are fit to judge for themselves. All this
time they are surrounded with all sorts of
opportunities of learning, not only from their
parents and teachers, but from all the daily
objects of life around them, and as they learn to
read from books and newspapers. No doubt
much of what they pick up is confused and in-
correct, and often wrong judgments are formed ;
but the influence of education on a child both
direct and indirect helps to form its mind.

Character. — But beside forming a child's mind,
a wise parent goes a step further and tries to
mould its character ; and this is of the greatest
importance for citizenship. Just as a good

4 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

mother teaches her children to love the truth
for truth's sake and not for any gain, so in a good
State the citizens ought to be taught to love
justice, fairness, and honesty, and not merely to
follow them for the hope of advantage. Some-
times proverbs mislead us ; there is an old saying
that " Honesty is the best policy," which is quite
often untrue. Many men have built up large
fortunes by business methods that nobody could
call honest — and to look upon the virtue of
honesty as a policy is to degrade it to the level
of a money-making dodge, whereas it ought
really to be one of the great principles of our
hfe. The object of civics should be to teach the
sound principles that lie beneath our mutual
dealings with one another, and to prove that men
and women make the best citizens who do not
always think of their own advantage, but of the
common advantage of all — to use simple and
well-known words, we should try to do unto
others as we would they should do unto us.

The Object of Civics being thus defined, how
shall we work it out in detail ? By seeing how
our duty towards our neighbour affects us as
citizens and householders, and how these duties
create for us in return certain rights and
privileges which we call the rights of a citizen.

CHAPTER II

THE PRINCIPLES OF CIVILIZATION

^F Civilization is a rather vague word, which
implies that those who live under it are no longer
savages acting separately, but are bound together
by some common ties of agreement making for
the comfort and well-being of all. If we were
uncivilized we should have no houses, no roads,
no shops, no post, no railways — none of the
labour and time saving appliances to which we
are so much accustomed. Man in a savage state
tries to keep himself and his family from starvation,
and from perishing by cold, or by the attacks of
wild beasts and of enemies : and it takes him all his
time to do this. Perhaps his earliest thoughts are
turned to procuring food, then shelter, and rough
clothing. But he must also protect himself, and
defence and war take a very prominent place in
his life. If he has found a good cave, or a fruitful
tree, or a plentiful spring, he has to fight for it.
So the earliest steps that man takes in civilization
are towards the provision of defence : two or more
families agree to shelter together, or to share a
plot of land and to keep off aggressors. Or a
powerful head of a family, like an Arab sheikh,
gathers round him not only a numerous family,
but also servants- and captives who swell his train

5

6 ^ ELEMENTARY CIVICS

as he moves about the country, till, like Abraham,
he has to break up his party, for "the land was
not able to bear him and Lot, for their substance
was great." This is the beginning of the Tribe,
an early form of organization that has lasted on
amongst the Arabs to this day. In a modified
form this tribal government by an "old man" or
chief is found in every part of the world. But in
course of time the family-tribe becomes too large,
and work becomes more specialized : one man
becomes a smith, another a carpenter, and a third
a miller, and as the agriculture of a country grows,
the dwellers tend to live in groups, each with its
own special works supplying the simple needs of
the hamlet. Hence grows gradually village life,
the earlier form of that civilization which we still
see amongst us to-day.

Trade. — It happens very early in the history of
man that one family or one tribe possesses articles
that another family or tribe wants and cannot
procure for itself. Hence arises simple exchange
or "barter," if the more rough-and-ready way of
taking the goods in war fails. But it is not always
easy to balance advantages, and men soon found
the need of having the same standards of value.
In the early Greek stories men estimated slaves
or armour as worth so many cows or so many
cooking-pots, and exchanged them accordingly.
But cows and cooking-pots are rather unwieldy
and not convenient to divide into fractions, so
they soon took to bars of metal, tokens, and coins
as means of exchange ; and with the invention of

THE PRINCIPLES OF CIVILIZATION 7

money comes in the whole history of commerce.
Towns which began as fortresses for protection
of the neighbouring villagers and farmers in times
of stress, or for the defence of a ford, a port, a
shrine, a pass through mountains or forests, soon
began to be centres of trade. Markets and fairs
sprang up, and from the simple buying and selling
of goods over a stall there has gradually grown
up our complicated system of credit, finance, and
banking, and all this simply because it is found
to be of convenience.

TheHome. — Soon after the dawn of civilization
men began to settle in permanent dwellings and
to build for themselves some sort of home, and in
course of time the house became a most important
fact in every man's life. In a cold climate like
that of England it is not possible to sleep out all
the year round, and the home plays a larger part
in English life than in that of more Southern
nations. Once we get past the earliest and most
savage times, the home begins to be the symbol of
family life and unity.

But in the present day it is very rare that a
man builds his own house. In the vast number
of cases he takes one already built, or has one
built for him by others whose trade it is to make
houses or parts of houses. And when he has
settled to take this house he has either to buy it
outright, and so make it his own, or to pay rent to
someone else to whom it belongs. This at once
raises the question of ownership of land and house
property.

8 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Property. — In a civilized country it is under-
stood that a man owns what he buys with his
money, and what he inherits from his parents or
relations. Usually a man earns money in return
for the work he does at his trade or profession,
vyhich is his contribution to the life of the nation ;
and what he earns by his own toil is considered
fairly to belong to him. What he inherits repre-
sents either what his parents or ancestors earned
by their toil or (in some cases) took by superior
force in days long since gone by. The laws of
the country we live in uphold the rights of owner-
ship; and apart from the bare necessity of earn-
ing enough to keep himself and his family
alive, a man will usually try to acquire as much
private property as he can for the pleasure of
possessing it.

Land. — The ownership of land is a rather more
difficult problem than that of money. In early
times the King as head of the tribe was supposed
to own all the land, unless (as was the case in
New Zealand) it was held to belong equally to
all tribesmen. From the idea of royal ownership
grew up that of feudalism, a system in which
great lords held land direct from the King, and
lesser chiefs held it in turn from them, the mass
of the people only working on land held by one
of these feudal tenants of the King. But by the
gradual disappearance of the old feudal duties,
whereby the lords and barons paid for their
tenure of land by rendering "homage" to the
King and producing so many men-at-arms in

THE PRINCIPLES OF CIVILIZATION 9

time of war, the great landlords became in time
owners of the land and dealt with it as they saw
fit. At first they let their lands to tenants in
return for services rendered, later for money
rents ; and in the last two hundred years the old
system of great estates has rapidly disintegrated,
and land has been bought and sold in so many
ways and such varying quantities that landed
property is one of the most complicated subjects
for lawyers to deal with. It is now often possible
for the private householder to own the land on
which his house is built, and but little remains
as Crown property, save certain woods, parks,
and forests; also many public buildings, and in
some sense the Duchy of Lancaster and the
Duchy of Cornwall as belonging to the eldest
son of the King."^

* Cf. J. J. Clarke, " Outlines of Central Government." Pit-
man, 1919.

CHAPTER III

THE KING AND THE STATE

The King. — Ever since the beginning of history
some men have stood out above their fellows as
leaders — at first in w^ar, and later in the arts of
peace. Thus every tribe has some sort of chieftain
whose power remains as long as he is strong
enough to enforce it. There have been leaders,
like the Judges in the Old Testament, "raised
up " to guide their nation or tribe through some
crisis, and retiring into private life when the
danger is over; but much more often the chief
has held his power for life or until some more
powerful chief wrests it from him. And, once a
man has held such a position, he naturally wishes
to pass it on to his descendants; and thus grew
up the idea of hereditary kingship, which was the
traditional form of rule amongst our Anglo-Saxon
ancestors. These Kings had power of life and
death over the tribesmen, led them in war, judged
them and punished them when necessary. King-
ship in this form is called despotism or absolute
monarchy. But as a tribe or nation grows
larger, a King can seldom deal with all questions
that arise without advice or help, and so gradu-
ally the Kings gathered round them a body of
wise men and elders to advise them. Soon these

I

i

THE KING AND THE STATE n

bodies of elders (like the Saxon " Witenagemot,"
or "wise men's meeting") became a regular
council, and not only advised the King when he
asked for help, but checked him from acting
rashly, and even forbade him to carry out plans
which they disliked or thought unwise. Such
was the state of affairs at the time of the Norman
Conquest ; and though the Norman Kings tried
to restore the absolute monarchy, and act as
though unlimited in power, they soon found that
the feeling of the nation was too strong for them.
Limits to the royal power crept in, and when the
Great Charter was signed at Runnymede the
English Kings became constitutional monarchs
— that is, rulers whose right to rule rests upon
their keeping faith with the people and respecting
the free rights of citizens. The gradual growth
of the power of Parliament lessened the power
of the King, until the struggle of the Civil Wars
showed that the real power lay with the people ;
and since the Restoration of Charles II. (1660)
the actual government of the country has passed
more and more into the hands of Parliament and
the Ministry, though the Crown has retained the
nominal headship of all authority. Thus the
King is still in theory the head of the Army and
Navy, though no English King has led troops into
battle since George II. at Dettingen : he is head
of all justice, though he sits in no courts ; he is
the titular author of all laws which are quoted by
the year of his reign (thus the National Insurance
Act of 191 1 is quoted as i and 2 Geo. V., ch. 55),

12 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

yet he makes none and can only issue an Order
in Council.

But in spite of the limits of the British Monarchy,
the King plays a most important part in the life of
the Country and the Empire. He is the living
representative of a family that has ruled in
England for over a thousand years, and is the
visible symbol of the unity of the British nation,
and the continuity of government.

Many who cannot understand the difficult duties
of Parliament and all the administration of the
State, can see what is meant by the King and his
Ministers, and will readily obey the laws from a
sense of personal allegiance. It is said that the
millions of India believe that the King-Emperor
actually manages in person the whole of the
affairs of the vast British Empire, and accordingly
submit to the British Government in India as the
expression of his will. Certainly the strongest
bond that holds together our loosely-knit Empire
overseas is that of personal loyalty to the King.
In the sense, then, that he is the representative
of law, order, and justice, the King deserves the
allegiance of every British citizen.

The State is a word which we use to mean the
whole body of citizens in the country. It includes
all, whether old or young, rich or poor, educated
or not, even those who are infirm, helpless, or
insane. Those whom the State supports in Poor
Law institutions and asylums, or detains in
prisons and reformatories, are kept in those
institutions just because they are members of the

I
I

THE KING AND THE STATE 13

State. Thus when we talk of " State aid " we
mean help given by the whole country towards
some object, usually through taxes^ : when we
speak of the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs we mean the man chosen to represent the
interests of all citizens of this country in dealing
with other countries, and not the interests of one
class only. It is not quite correct to speak
of the State as the nation — for example, the
British Nation contains all those of British birth,
many of whom, for purposes of business, live in
other countries under the Government of some
other State, though a large majority live within
the British Isles. Nor is the British Empire
the State, for within the British Empire are
several States, such as the self-governing
Dominions of Canada, Australia, and New
Zealand ; and the Union of South Africa is a
collection of several States united for certain
purposes, but separate in other respects. How-
ever, speaking generally, in Great Britain, by the
State is meant the whole body of citizens of every
description.

The Body Politic— Within the State there
are certain persons who, by their age and con-
dition, are fit to take a part in carrying on the
affairs of the nation, both public and private.
These form the body politic — i.e., a group com-

* It is important to remember that the State is not a body
outside ourselves, but that; it is ourselves, and that we all
contribute to all expenditure by this State, either directly or
indirectly.

14 ■ ELEMENTARY CIVICS

posed of those who are capable of doing their
duty and exercising their privileges as citizens :
for the term ** politic " is derived from the Greek
word for a " citizen with full rights " as opposed
to a slave, a foreigner, or a child. It has long
been found that the best way of giving the
members of the body politic the means to express
their wishes is to give to those who are fit to use
it the power of electing representatives by vote
— i.e., of appointing persons whose particular
work it is to arrange and carry out the public
business of the State. Those who have this vote
are called electors, and the whole number of
electors who at any given time are qualified to
vote form the electorate.

The Electorate. — N<jt all citizens of the
British Isles have acquired a vote, though the
electorate is now very large. The growth of
this power of voting has been as follows :

In A.D. 121 5 Magna Charta, obtained from King
John by the Barons, asserted clearly the right of
citizens to be represented on the councils of the
nation.

In 1295 the first properly elected Council or
Parliament {i.e., "talking " body, from the French
parler, to talk) was summoned to Westminster
by Edward I. Representatives from every shire
and every borough {i.e., fortified town) were
present, though it is not clear how they were
elected — probably in the first case by a show of
hands at the "shire moot," or meeting of armed
men of the shire, the Sheriff counting and deciding

M

r

THE KING AND THE STATE 15

who were fit to vote, and in boroughs by a similar
meeting in the marl<;et-place.

In 1430 the system of voting changed ; only
those who held land to the value of forty shillings
could vote, and a voter had the right to send
someone else to record his vote, called a " proxy."
The number of "divisions" (i.e., shires and
boroughs each returning a member to Parliament),
as laid down in 1430, was not changed till 1832.
A man holding land in more than one division
had a vote in each division in which he held land.
Under Henry VII., and again under Queen
Elizabeth, Parliament, which had begun only as
a council to advise the King, rapidly gained
power, and in the seventeenth century, when the
Stuart sovereigns tried to curtail this power, was
strong enough to depose King Charles I. There
followed the Commonwealth, and when Charles II.
was restored Parliament could dictate terms tohim.

The year 1750 saw the first attempts to make
the divisions of England more equal. Many of
the boroughs which were important in the days
of the Wars of the Roses had almost ceased to
exist, and many great towns had grown up which
were not represented at all — such, for instance, as
Birmingham, Liverpool, and Cardiff. About a
million citizens could vote, but in many of the old
boroughs there were few voters — in some cases
less than ten, and these " rotten boroughs " were
so numerous that, by carefully picking the
representatives, it was possible for 6,000 voters
to command a majority of Members in Parliament.

i6 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

This was clearly unjust, and after many years of
agitation it was decided to alter the divisions
and change the qualification of voters.

In 1832 Lord John Russell's Reform Bill
extended the vote to those who possessed land of
the value of ^10 per year, or held land or houses
on lease of the value of ;^5o. This, at one blow,
increased the number of electors from one million
to three million. The Bill took away their
members from fifty-five rotten boroughs return-
ing two members each, and one returning one ; it
gave two members each to twenty-two towns not ^^^
previously represented, and one member each to m
twenty-four others. It did away with much
bribery and corruption, and gave a vote to almost
all men of the professional and business classes.

In 1867 Disraeli's Government brought in the
Representation of the People Act. This gave
a vote to every male householder in a borough
and to every occupier of a house or land to the
value of ;^i2 per year, and every lodger paying
more than ;^io per year. It took away members
from eleven towns, and reduced the representa-
tion of forty-five boroughs from two members to
one. It gave members to nine boroughs that had
none, a second member to large towns that already
had a member, and twenty-five more members to
the counties ; one to London University, one
more to Wales, and seven to Scotland. It in-
creased the electorate from three millions to over
four millions. Dissatisfied with the results of
the Bill of 1867, Gladstone's Government of 1884

I

I

THE KING AND THE STATE 17

passed a new Franchise Act giving further votes,
chiefly to holders of leasehold property and to
lodgers, and increasing the electorate from
4,500,000 to over 7,000,000. This enormous
increase in voters made politics unwieldy, and it
was pointed out that Members of Parliament
would have to spend all their life at their political
work, and must therefore be paid ; and payment
of members was at last brought in in 191 1. The
gradual shifting of population rendered many
divisions very unequal in size in the latter years
of the nineteenth century, but it was not until
191 8 that any attempt was made to equalize and
redistribute the divisions ; and in the meantime
the cry of " votes for women " had at last secured
that a certain number of women should be added
to the electorate, and in December, 191 8, the first
elections were held at which women voted. At a
bye-election in 1919 Lady Astor was elected as
the first woman member of Parliament. The
electorate was of course enormously increased by
adding the women's vote, and the number of
electors is now roughly between one-third and
one-fourth of the population, and will not increase
greatly unless votes are given to persons under
twenty-one j^ears of age.

It must not be supposed that the object of those
who promoted the various Bills here described
for extending the electorate was solely to obtain
good government for the State, as it is obvious
that the House of Commons, with each extension
of the electorate, was increasingly elected by

2

i8 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

those of the people who had less knowledge.
From the point of view of good government it
was at least as likely that a man of character and
ability such as Pitt would be appointed by a
nobleman to a rotten borough as that an unwieldy
division early in 1914 should elect a man with
German sympathies. Nor were these Bills based
on any abstract idea of freedom, for it is clear
that if we divide up the nation into the classes of
rich and poor, the rich are more entirely in the
hands of the poor than ever the poor were in the
hands of the rich, for the poor have always had
the power of rebellion in extreme cases, but the
rich, owing to the smallness of their numbers,
have no redress. This, however, is rather a
question of economics. The real advantage of
democrac}'^ is that the government is in the hands
of the majority of the people, and therefore in the
hands of a body which, in the long run, is the
most powerful in the country. It has also the
further advantage that, by giving to all a voice in
the solution of the problems of government, it
gives to all a chance of seeing their views prevail
without recourse to arms. Lincoln's phrase,
" Government by the people for the people," is
somewhat deceptive. It is true that the people
all have a chance of joining in the government,
but only those who support the majority actually
do so ; and it would be truer to speak of " Govern-
ment by the majority for the majority."*

* For fuller information as to the details of the present
franchise see Clarke : "Outlines of Central Government," p, 19.

CHAPTER IV

THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT

The GoYernment of a constitutional State is
carried on by persons chosen to represent tlie
great body of citizens ; and in this country the
House of Commons is a body of citizens elected
by the voters to carry out their wishes, as shown
by the majority at the elections held from time to
time. The House of Lords acts as a second
chamber, to criticize and act as a check on hasty
legislation. But as the constant changes made
at. elections would make it rather hard to carry
on continuous work, the business of government
is divided up into three kinds — legislative, admin-
istrative, and executive ; and the work of the two
latter kinds is usually carried out by Government
officials or "civil servants," who take their orders
from the legislative body for the time being, but
carry out the details according to more permanent
methods.

I. — Legislation means the framing and passing
of laws, and the legislative work of government
is carried out by the Houses of Parliament, which
discuss and, if necessary, alter existing laws, and
form new ones to meet the increasing needs of
the country. A law is made as follows :

Any member of the House of Commons may
19

20 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

introduce a Bill into that House, or move the
House for leave to introduce it. The Speaker, at
the proper time, calls his name and invites him to
present the Bill. This he does by giving to the
Clerk at the Table of the House a "dummy" Bill,
giving the title of the Bill, the member's name,
and those of his supporters. The reading of this
title constitutes the " first reading " of the Bill,
which is then discussed in detail, and proceeds to
a ** second reading," or rough sketch, after which
it " goes into Committee," either before one of the
Standing Committees for Bills or before a Com-
mittee of the whole House — i.e., a sitting of the
House less formal than usual, with the Speaker
not present. Once the Bill has been discussed in
detail, clause by clause, before Committee, it is
reported to the House, sitting formally, in what is
called ** report stage." Then comes the third
reading, when the House considers the Bill as a
whole, and votes whether it should or not
become law. It then goes up to the House of
Lords and passes through similar stages, and, if
approved there, proceeds finally to the " Royal
Assent," when it is read again by " Lords Com-
missioners," sitting to represent the King. Thus
it will be seen that before a Bill can become law
it is subject to the most careful and repeated
discussion and examination ; and laws are not
added to the Statute Book hurriedly and without
consideration."^

* For further information about Parliament and its work,
which lies rather outside the scope of the present sketch of

II

r

THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT 21

2. — The Administration of Government is
the application of existing laws to the needs of the
moment. It is carried out by His Majesty's
Ministers of State, who are appointed by the
Government in power — i.e., the political party
which won most seats in the last election. Each
Minister of State is assisted by a Government
Office, at which there are permanent officials who
advise the Ministers and work out the details of
the laws to be applied. As the Ministers change
so often, these permanent officials are of the
greatest possible use; and a wise Minister usually
consults and is very largely guided by those who
have experience in the particular branch of
Government work carried on by the office over
which he presides.

The Ministry. — Every British Government has
some ninet}'- ministerial appointments to make ;
and the most important of the Ministers so
appointed, numbering roughly twenty, form the
Cabinet, or inner Committee of the Government.
At the head of the Cabinet, as of the Government,
is the Prime Minister. Curiously enough, the
Prime Minister, though he is the leader of the
party in power, has no real official position, and
usually combines his nominal status as head of
the Government with an actual salaried post such
as that of First Lord of the Treasury. This is a
good position for him to hold, as the Treasury,

civic duties, the reader is referred to Sir Courtenay Ilbert's
admirable manual on " Parliament," in the Home University
Library.

22 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

which controls all the money of the State, is the
most important of Government offices.

The Cabinet, of which the Prime Minister is
Chairman, also includes the following high officers
of state :

The Lord High Chancellor is Chairman of
the House of Lords, his official seat being known
as the Woolsack ; he is also head of the judicial
department of the Government — that is, the" chief
officer dealing with justice.

The Lord President of the Council is the

official Chairman of the Priv}'^ Council,* an ancient
body which now has purely formal duties, such
as issuing as Orders in Council the resolutions
passed by the Cabinet, which is in theory a
Committee of the Privy Council.

The Lord Privy Seal is in theory the King's
Private Secretary, but is by long custom the
leader of the ministerial party in the House of
Lords.

The First Lord of the Admiralty is head of
the department that deals with the Fleet and all
naval affairs.

The Secretaries of State for Home Affairs,
Foreign Affairs, 4he Colonies, War, and India are
each respectively head of the departments dealing
with those forms of Government business.

* I.e., private. It was originally the King's private body of
advisers, swrorn to secrecy, and has certain important judicial
powers (Clarke, p. 31).

THE CENTRAL GOVERNMENT 23

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is respon-
sible for the country's finance, and prepares the
estimates of the revenue and expenditure — that is,
he sees to the making and collecting of taxes, and
to the spending of them when collected. The
Secretary for Scotland and the Chief Secretary
to the Lord Lieutenant for Ireland are respec-
tively responsible for the local government of
those members of the United Kingdom.

The Postmaster-General is directly in charge
of the postal, telegraph, and telephone service.

The Ministers next in importance are those
respectively in charge of the Board of Trade,
Board of Education, Ministry of Agriculture and
Fisheries, Ministry of Labour, and Ministry of
Pensions. The New Ministries Act of 1917 added
to the number of these a Ministry of Reconstruc-
tion, now defunct, and the Act of 1919 added a
Ministry of Health. The Ministry also contains
the Attorney-General, the First Commissioner of
Works, and certain other naval, military, and
legal representatives.

3. — The Executive is that branch of the Govern'
ment which carries out in detail the functions of
government all over the country. Starting with
the administrative offices and their respective
ministerial heads, the Executive includes all who
are actively engaged in putting the laws and
regulations into being. Thus it may be said that
the Executive of the Treasury begins with the
Prime Minister and ends with the local income-

24 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

tax collector; the Military Executive starts with
the First War Lord and the Inspector-General of
the Forces and Chief of the General Staff, and
works down through Army and Divisional Com-
manders, brigadiers, colonels in command of
battalions, majors, captains, lieutenants, ser-
geants, and corporals to the private of the line,
trooper of horse, gunner, or airman, who carries
out the orders of his superiors and so promotes
the safety of his country. But a point where
^British government differs from that of many
other countries lies in the large amount of execu-
tive work that is done, not by paid officials, but by
voluntary effort on the part of private citizens.
Thus, in local government, Aldermen, County
Councillors, the various representatives on Urban
and Rural District Councils and Boards of Guar-
dians, are all unpaid, and the only salaried officials
present on these bodies are the clerks and their
permanent office staff. Justices of the Peace are
unpaid, and some of the higher county officials
are not only not paid but have heav}?^ expenses to
bear out of their private pocket in the fulfilment
of their official duties. It has been the tendency
of recent legislation to increase the number of
paid officials sometimes out of all proportion to
the work done; but there is no doubt that the
British tradition of unpaid Government work
gives one of the finest instances of good citizen-
ship in history.

CHAPTER V

LOCAL GOVERNMENT

Early Divisions, Parishes, and Shires. — -

Besides the government of a country, as a whole,
there is a great deal of local work that has to be
carried on for the benefit of citizens of a particular
area. For these purposes there are various ways
of dividing up the country, and of these the chief
are : the parish, the union, the district, the borough,
and the county. The two earliest divisions in point
of time were the parishes and shires. The word
"parish" means, in Greek, a group of people living
near together, and England was first divided into
parishes by Theodore of Tarsus, Archbishop of
Canterbury, in a.d, 670.

The word "shire" is connected with "share" and
" shear," and simply means the pieces into which
England was cut up by the Saxon Kings shortly
after the time of Alfred the Great (a.d. 880). Each
shire was then given some definite officials, of
whom the chief was the Earl, who was responsible
to the King for the government and good
behaviour of the shire ; a council, or meeting,
called the " shire-moot," composed of elder men, or
aldermen, who were summoned and presided
over by the shire-reeves, or sheriffs. A sheriff
had to produce so many soldiers at the bidding of

25

26 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

the Earl, or at the order of the King, and so he
divided up his shire into so many "hundreds," or
areas capable of producing a hundred armed men.
In some parts of England these hundreds are
known by other names, such as Wapentakes —
i.e., Weapon-takes. The great Yorkshire was
so large that it had to be subdivided into three :
Thirdings or Thridings, which have been corrupted
into Ridings. The old shires of England often
took the name of the still older kingdoms which
they replaced, such as Essex or East Saxons,
Sussex or South Saxons, Middlesex or Middle
Saxons. The name Surrey is a corruption of
Sudric,the "South kingdom" of the Middle Saxons.
Norfolk and Suffolk preserve the names of the
old North Folk and South Folk of the East
Anglian kingdom. Somerset and Dorset preserve
the names of two Saxon generals or leaders of
sets — i.e. J hosts of warriors. Other shires took
their names from their chief town, such as York
or Lincoln. Shropshire is so called from the
rough shrubs on the hilly Welsh border, and so
on. But when the Normans came William the
Conqueror wanted to reward his chief followers
or " Comites" {i.e., Counts), by giving them tracts ^^^
of land to govern, and as the old shires were too «■■
large and too few he made many new divisions "
called Counties, such as Bedford, Huntingdon,
and Hertford, but did not set up the old councils
of aldermen in the counties. Thus there were
aldermen in Hampshire in the ninth century,
but the first aldermen for Bedfordshire were

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 27

appointed in 1888. During the Middle Ages the
great nobles, such as Dukes (or Generals), and
the lesser Earls or Counts, controlled the shires
and counties almost as though they were their
private property. But after the Wars of the
Roses there arose other officials to take their
places, such as the Lord-Lieutenant — i.e., the
Lord "taking the place" of the King or his Earl —
Deputy - Lieutenants, Sheriffs as in the days
before the Norman Conquest, and Justices of the
Peace. These were the representatives of local
government in England, of whom we read in the
time of Shakespeare.

The Parish, like the shire, gradually developed
as a means of local government. At first parishes
were divisions for Church purposes only. But as
the "parson" (the word really means the "voice"
or representative of the parish) was usually the
only person who could either read or write, he
naturally became a local secretary for the sheriff.
Each parish had its meeting, or moot, which met
occasionally. When a crime was committed, and
the criminal was not caught red-handed, the
sheriff would send messages to all the parish
moots within the shire, and each moot had to
find four men to raise " hue and cry " until the
criminal was found. These moots usually met
either in the church or in the church porch, but so
many brawls took place that they had to be held
in the vestry, hence until quite recent times
parish meetings were known as " vestries."
These vestries, in course of time, acquired the

28 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

power of appointing overseers to look after the
poor of the parish, and " waywardens," or
surveyors, to look after the roads. But each
vestry, or parish meeting, only decided purely
local questions, and owing to the uncertainty of
the powers of these local bodies local government
was often very badly carried out until the last
quarter of the nineteenth century. There are
in this country now about 14,000 ecclesiastical
parishes, some of which have been divided up for
local government purposes into two or more civil
parishes, entitled in most cases each to its own
Parish Council since 1894.* The proper definition
of a parish, in the eyes of the law, is " the place
for which a separate poor-rate may be made."

The Union. — In the reign of Queen Elizabeth
the first great step was taken to deal with poverty,
and parishes were ordered to support their own
poor by means of rates. These, in the eighteenth
century, became so heavy, and the number of
poor to be supported so great, that many parishes
could not afford to do it — e.g., in the parish of
Cholesbury, Bucks, in the latter half of the eight-
teenth century the poor-rate rose to 21s. in
the pound, so for the sake of economy parishes
were formed into groups or unions, each with an
infirmary and workhouse for the sick and feeble
poor. The Acts of 1782 and 1834 divided
England and Wales into some 650 such unions,
and similar poor-houses were established in

♦ For the exact circumstances see Clarke : " Outlines of
Local Government," p. 20 (3rd edition).

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 29

Scotland to deal with rather larger areas. The
Union has hardly ever been used for other
purposes than those of the Poor Law (see p. 35).

Local Government Reform. — During the
nineteenth century it became clear that the
machinery of local government in England was'
very old-fashioned, if not altogether out-of-date,
and after several attempts at partial reform it was
decided to remodel the whole. Up to that time
county business had been conducted by the
Lord-Lieutenant of the county and the Justices
of the Peace whom he nominated. This meant
that no two counties were administered alike, and
that business was carried on very irregularly.
In 1888 the Local Government Act completely
re-arranged the counties, set up County Councils
on a uniform model, and gave power for sub-
dividing them into districts. In 1894 another'
Local Government Act brought the old parish
meetings into definite relations with the County
and District Councils, and a third Local Govern-
ment Act of 1897 linked up the whole of the
system under the Local Government Board.

Counties. — Before the Local Government Act
of 1888 there were in England forty-two counties
and twelve in Wales, varying greatly in size,
population, and importance, and there were also
several special areas with customs of their own.
The Act of 1888 divided some of these counties
and changed the boundaries of others — e.g., Wor-
cestershire. In some cases the old county town
remained the centre for county business, and in

30 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

others another town was chosen for sake of con-
venience. The following counties have been
divided : Cambridgeshire, which now forms
(i) Cambridge and (2) the Isle of Ely, with its
capital at March; Lincolnshire, which falls into
the "parts" of (i) Holland, capital Boston,
(2) Kesteven, capital Sleaford, (3) Lindsey, capital
Lincoln ; Northamptonshire, which now forms
(i) the county of Northampton and (2) the " Soke "
of Peterborough. (" Soke " is a Saxon word
meaning free lands, which in this case once
belonged to the Abbey of Peterborough.) The
old county of Southampton now forms Hampshire
with its capital of Winchester, and the Isle of
Wight with its capital of Newport. Suffolk is
divided into East Suffolk, capital Ipswich, and
West Suffolk, capital Bury St. Edmunds. Sussex
forms East Sussex, with its capital at Lewes, and
West Sussex, which divides its business between
Chichester, Horsham, and Lewes. Yorkshire falls
into three Ridings: the offices of the East Riding
are at Beverley, those of the West Riding at
Wakefield, and of the North Riding at North-
allerton.

The administrative County of London has been
carved out of Middlesex, Surrey, and Kent, and
touches the border of Essex.

The Scilly Isles form part of the County of
Cornwall, though for certain purposes they have
their own county council and meet at HughL^g^
Town. 9m

Instances of the old county town not being a

II

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 31

centre of county business are Essex, where the
county offices are at Chelmsford, not at Col-
chester ; Lancashire : Preston, not Lancaster ;
Westmoreland : Kendal, not Appleby ; Wiltshire :
Trowbridge, not Salisbury or Devizes.

Nearly all the Welsh counties have superseded
their old county towns by more convenient
centres — e.g., Pembrokeshire, where the county
offices are at Haverfordwest, not at Pembroke.

Many of our greatest towns are now counties
in themselves, or, as they are called, county
boroughs. Thus, Hull is administered by its
own council and not that of the East Riding.

Duties of County Councils. — County councils
are responsible for the administration of local
affairs within the county, except those of large
towns which are of themselves county boroughs.
They vary very much in size according to the
population of the area that they administer.
Thus there are twenty-nine county councillors in
Rutland and 1 19 in the West Riding of Yorkshire.
The local government electors of each county'^
elect the councillors to serve for three years ; the
councillors themselves elect a certain number of
aldermen, who serve for six, and the councillors
and aldermen together elect a chairman. The
work of the councils is very various, and is divided
amongst various' committees; their principal
duties are to deal with main roads, education,
lunatic asylums, the administration of Acts deal-

* See Representation of the People Act, 1918 : Clarke
"Outlines of Local Government," p. 17.

32 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

ing with weights and measures, foods ancj drugs,
diseases of animals, small holdings, etc. The
organization of police is not wholly in the hands
of the county councils, but of a standing joint
committee composed of county councillors and
justices of the peace. This committee elects a
clerk to the peace, who is the county council's
secretary, and administers county offices. The
Insurance Act is administered by the Ministry of
Health through the health committee of the
county council, and the Old Age Pensions Act is
controlled by the Inland Revenue, and adminis-
tered by a pensions committee belonging to each
county council.

Local GoYernment Districts. — It is clear that
there are many forms of local business that do
not affect the whole county, and for these pur-
poses counties are divided again into districts.
Where the population is scattered, and the villages
comparatively small, they are grouped together
into rural districts containing sometimes as many
as thirty parishes. Where there is a small town,
or group of small towns, an urban district is
formed. There are many towns in England
which, before the Act of 1888, were boroughs —
i.e.f they already had their local government
managed by a municipality — that is, a mayor and
corporation. But unless these towns are large
enough to be county boroughs (that is, to have a
county council of their own) they are to some
extent subject to the county council of the county
in which they lie. These boroughs (of which

M

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 33

more will be said), and also the rural and urban
districts, have consultative councils elected by
the Local Government electors which deal with
such questions as secondary roads, bridges,
drainage, and public health. They also carry
out in detail the orders issued by the Ministry
of Health and the County Council. Their officers
include a medical officer of health, inspector of
nuisances, and surveyor, a clerk, and a treasurer.
Boroughs and urban districts may levy and
collect a general district rate ; rural districts meet
their expenditure by a levy on the overseers.
The elections to these district councils are usually
held in April, and the councillors are elected for
three years.

County Boroughs were created by the Act of
1888 as special areas too thickly populated to be
governed by a Municipality or an Urban District
Council, and therefore large enough to have a
County Council of their own. These towns are
all over 50,000 in population, many of them much
larger; though it does not follow that all towns of
50,000 are County Boroughs. The chief differ-
ence between a County Borough Council and an
ordinary County Council is that in many cases
County Boroughs indulge in municipal trading —
that is, they run their own trams, gas, water, and
electricity on a business footing and for profit ;
this is not possible to an ordinary County Council
where the area is too great to make such trading
profitable. Apart from this difference and some
questions of the administration of justice. County

3

34 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Boroughs may be said to have the same powers
as County Councils.

Boroughs and Cities. — As has already been
stated, some old towns in England have for
centuries enjoyed peculiar privileges, not only
such as that of returning members to Parliament,
but also of having special titles and special
officials — e.g., many Cathedral towns by ancient
tradition are called "cities," which is purely a
title of honour. Some are even known as
"counties and cities" — e.g., the City and County
of Exeter. Some (such as York, with its Ainsty)
have a small piece of territory attached which is
not part of any county. Some have the right to
call their chief official Lord Mayor ; but all these
survivals make no legal difference. All Munici-
pal Boroughs have a "Corporation," that is a
" grouping together in a body " of the inhabitants,
and their government by a Mayor, Aldermen, and
Burgesses [i.e., persons upon the Local Govern-
ment register of electors), who act through a
Council consisting of a Mayor, Aldermen, and
Councillors, the Mayor holding office for one
year. Aldermen for six, and Councillors for three
years. Their work, like that of County Councils,
is chiefly carried on by committees, and their
officers are the Town Clerk, Treasurer, and
Sanitary officials. Some boroughs have a separate
** Commission of the Peace " and Court of Quarter
Sessions; and some that possess ancient privileges
have their own High Sheriff. Boroughs have
the peculiar right of presenting to persons of

Jl

LOCAL GOVERNMENT 35

distinction their " Freedom " — i.e., the position and
honour of a burgess of that borough.

The Poor Law Unions are groups of parishes
which combine to provide workhouses and infir-
maries for the aged and sick poor, and to deal
with other forms of relief under the Poor Law
Act of 1834, such as casual wards for vagrants,
cottage homes, and boarding-out for children not
otherwise provided for, and schools for such chil-
dren. These are known as indoor or institutional
forms qf relief; and also outdoor and medical
relief to the sick and aged poor in their homes.
Each Union has a Board of Guardians, elected in
rural parishes as Rural District Councillors, and
in urban parishes as Guardians only, and serving
for three years ; and each Board can co-opt its
chairman, deputy-chairman, and not more than
two members, often persons whose knowledge of
such relief work is intimate. The Guardians are
empowered to spend the moneys raised as poor-
rate by the overseers of the parishes in the
Union. Each Board manages an institution
and infirmary, and sometimes other institutions
for relief, and maintains a Clerk and Treasurer
(who, in Rural Unions, serve also for the Rural
District Council), a master and matron of the
workhouse, relieving officers and medical officers
to report on and inspect cases. The system is
now passing through a period of change and
reform.

Parish Councils. — There is yet a smaller divi-
sion under the Act of 1894, which gave a Parish

36 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Council to all villages and civil parishes with a
population of over 300 (and even, with the consent
of the County Council, to all parishes with a
population of over [qo). It was found that out
of some 15,000 civil parishes in England nearly
13,000 had the right to a Parish Council. The
Parish Councillors are elected by the ratepayers
by ballot, and have certain powers of which the
most important are the following :

i. The appointment of overseers to raise a

poor rate,
ii. The provision of an allotment or garden for

any householder who demands one.
iii. The maintenance of footpaths,
iv. The right to report on unhealthy dwellings
or farm buildings to the Local District
Council.

~ CHAPTER VI

THE HOUSEHOLDER : RATES AND TAXES.

The Householder has the protection of the
laws of the country. He has the security of
knowing that the police are bound to prevent
anyone breaking into his house or steahng his
property. He has the use of the roads, the
postal, telegraph, and telephone service ; and in
towns, and in some cases in the country, water,
gas, or electric light are laid on for him. His
country is defended from invasion by an Army
and a Navy ; trade and commerce are rendered
possible for him by an organized currency or
system of coins and paper money. In return for
these and many other privileges it is natural that
he should be asked to pay his share of their
upkeep, and this is easily seen in the case of
letters or telegrams, on to which he actually puts
Government stamps representing so much money
paid for the use of public means of communica-
tion. But for the other privileges, or, as they are
called, public services, he pays a contribution
either in the form of rates or of taxes ; and for
some of the goods he buys at a shop he pays
more than their actual value (plus the shopman's

37

38 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

profit), because the Government has already taken
a tax upon them before sale.

If the householder does not pay his rates and
taxes he is eventually punished, either by a fine or
by imprisonment; so that we have to say that one
of the first duties of a citizen as householder is to
pay his rates and his taxes cheerfully and punctu-
ally, because they represent so many privileges
to him.

Rates are moneys levied and collected by the
local authority, to be spent within the district.
They are calculated on a proportion of the value
of the house occupied by the householder, usually
five-sixths or four-fifths of its annual rent; thus
a man may pay ;^ioo a year in rent for his house
to his landlord and find that its " rateable value "
is ;^8o. On this " rateable value " charges of so
many pence in the pound are made by the local
authority ; thus if the rateable value of the house
is ;^8o, and there is an eightpenny rate for county
purposes, levied by the County Council, the
householder will pay 8ox 8d. — i.e.^ £2 13s. 4d. For
convenience, several rates are usually levied
together, thus :

General District Rate at ... 8d. in the £.

Poor Rate ... ... ... 3s. od. „

Rates payable at ... ... 3s. 8d. „

The money thus collected is spent on public
undertakings within the area in which the rate
payer lives : some only within his actual parish,
some within the union of parishes which con-

^1

>lic ■

THE HOUSEHOLDER 39

stitutes the local poor-law unit, some within the
urban or rural district or municipality which
contains his parish, some within the county or
county borough in which he lives. All these are
local government administrative areas, and are
explained under the section dealing with local
government. Water,''^ gas, and electric light are
sometimes managed by the local authority and
are then charged as "rates," but more often they
are run by private companies permitted by the
local authorities to supply these very useful
advantages. •

Public health and education are now to a great
extent dependent on rates; the district council
or municipality provides proper drainage and
sees to the maintenance of healthy conditions in
houses, shops, and factories, whilst in most cases
the county authority provides the educational
facilities.

Briefly, then, -rates are charged to the house-
holder to enable him to pay his share towards
good conditions locally, such as good roads, good
sanitation, and good education.

Taxes are moneys, levied and collected by the
Government of the country as a whole, and are
intended to pay for the national needs.

To state these briefly, a nation needs protection,
hence we pay taxes to keep up a Navy and an

* In the depths of the country each house usually has its
own spring or well as a water supply ; but villages often
depend upon a common well or pump, and the water question
is often a difficulty.

40 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Army. It needs direction, so we pay for govern-
ment; it needs communications, so we pay for
postal services, and so forth. Moreover, in the
past there have been great expenses, usually for
war, which the nation has had to meet by borrow-
ing money, and the payment of interest upon this
national debt, as well as the gradual reduction of
the debt itself, has to be met out of taxes.

Taxes are commonly raised in two ways, known
as direct and indirect taxes, or as taxes on condi-
tion and taxes on exchange.

Taxes on Condition are those which are paid
directly by those whose condition or position is
sufficiently prosperous to enable them to con-
tribute actual sums of money towards the nation's
need. Those who are only just able. to pay for
their daily sustenance and housing and a few
small comforts do not fall under these taxes. Of
these, the principal taxes are the income-tax,
house duty, taxes on land,^ estate duty, licences,
and some monopolies.

Income-tax is a direct charge upon the income
of a citizen, based on the return he makes, on the
prescribed form, of the money that he earns,
the interest on his capital, the profit on his
business, etc. At present, workers earning less
than £120 are exempt from this tax, and those
with incomes less than ;^700 a year can claim
relief from, or abatement of, the tax; larger

* On this difficult subject see " Taxation of Land Values,"
by John Orr (191 2).

I

THE HOUSEHOLDER 41

incomes are taxed on a rising scale, till the "super-
tax" is reached on incomes over ^2,000 a year.
In each year's estimate of the current expenditure
and revenue, called the Budget, the Chancellor of
the Exchequer can raise or lower the amount of
income-tax according to the country's debts ; thus,
in the last thirty years the income-tax has been
as low as pd. in the pound, and as high as 6s. It
is only right that income-tax should fall more
heavily on very large incomes than on small, and
that some difference should be made between
"earned income" and "unearned income" — i.e., the
interest on capital invested in Government bonds,
trading companies, etc.

Inhabited House Duty is paid by the occupier
of the house, and is usually calculated, like local
rates, on four-fifths of the annual rental: it is not
charged to the owners of empty houses, but is a
direct means of making the householder pay for
the privilege of dwelling safely under a roof — i.e.,
in a country protected by Army, Navy, and police.
This safety was rather rudely attacked by the air
raids of the Great War, and many householders
found therein an opportunity to grumble against
the inhabited house duty.

Estate Duty is charged on properties passing
from one owner, at his death, to another owner.
The State steps in and, in effect, says : " This land
and money is yours by inheritance, not by any
effort of your own, and we will therefore tax it to
show you that your ownership of it depends on

42 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

the safety of the nation," The duty is like the
income-tax, calculated on a scale that rises with
the size of the estate, and also varies with the
relationship of the late owner to his successors.
If the property passes from father to son, the duty
to be paid is less than if it passes to more distant
relations, and is very high on legacies to persons
of no connection with the family of the testator —
i.e., the maker of the will. There are other varia-
tions in this tax, such, for instance, as the com-
paratively low charge on money left to charities, tt

Licences again only affect those who can
afford a certain amount of luxuries, or who
practise certain profitable trades. In the first of
these classes we find licences to keep dogs, to
use firearms and kill game, to carry armorial
bearings {i.e., to put a family crest or coat-of-arms
on a carriage, etc.), and to keep men-servants.
Remissions are possible, as in the case of the '
shepherd, who pays no tax upon his dog, as he
has to have one to keep the sheep in order, or
the farmer who only uses a gun to keep down
destructive vermin. Further, licences are charged
on wheeled vehicles, except when used for trade
purposes ; and in the case of motor-cars the
licence increases according to the size and power ^_
of the engine. ■!

In the second class of licences fall such trades
as brewing, retailing beer, wines and spirits,
whether at the inn or the grocer's shop. Again,
licences are charged on theatres, music-halls, and

i

THE HOUSEHOLDER 43

entertainments, except when the whole of the
profits taken are given to charity.
• The object of these licences is to increase the
revenue by taxing some citizens who can afford
to pay— in the first class, by charging them a
little for the use of certain pleasures, and in the
second, for carrying on occupations that bring a
quick and easily calculated profit.

Monopolies are undertakings allowed to be
run by the State, the local authority or their
representative, and by no one else — the name
meaning " sole sale." An instance of a Govern-
ment monopoly is the sale of postage stamps and
the control of the telegraph by the Post OfTfice.
The telephone service, previously run by a
private company, was taken over by the Post
Office authority in 1912.

It may be argued that these are not really
taxes ; yet they are expenses incurred by the
State for the citizen, and paid for by the citizen's
money across the counter of the local post office,
and so are practically a tax upon condition, as
the man who sends many letters or telegrams,
whether for pleasure or in course of business,
pays more than he who sends but few.

Taxes upon Exchange, or, as they are often
called, indirect taxes, are not collected direct from
the citizen, but in the course of sale, transfer, or
exchange. Many goods that cannot be produced
in England, and have to be brought from abroad,
are capable of producing considerable revenue,

44 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

and are therefore taxed by the Government on
entering the country, or, as we say, pay custom-
house duties — often called " customs " for short.
Other goods produced in this country have a tax
"taken out " from them before being sold to the
general public; this is called excise, a word
merely meaning "cut out."

Many business transactions are carried on by
means of legal documents bearing a stamp of
varying value, representing a Government charge
on the transaction — these are called stamp duties.
The railway companies pay a small duty on every
passenger carried, and this is included in the
price of the ticket bought ; and during the War
an entertainments tax was introduced on all
theatre, music-hall, and other entertainment
tickets. These last two instances approach very
near to direct taxation, and indeed it is difficult to
draw a very sharp distinction.

Customs afford the most complicated instance
of taxation. The amount charged depends not
only on the cost of production of the article, but
also on the way in which it is collected and
distributed. The simpler customs duties are
those on such imported goods as tea, coffee,
tobacco, wines, and foreign spirits. These are
all produced outside the British Isles, and have
to enter our ports, and can consequently be
taxed on arrival at British shores and before
distribution to the public — i.e., the consumers.
So the importer of the goods pays the tax to the

THE HOUSEHOLDER 45

Revenue officials, but as he adds the amount of
the tax on to the price he charges to the con-
sumer, the tax is really paid by the public,
though indirectly; and a rise or fall in "customs"
levied on tea or tobacco means to the man in the
street a rise or fall in the price he pays for his
cup of tea or for his smoke after it.

Excise Duties are "cut out" of some goods
manufactured in this country, such as whisky,
patent medicines, mineral waters, and refined
motor spirit. The quantities that each consumer
requires are not very large, and so the duty is
imposed upon the manufacturer, who pays it, and
adds it to the price he charges to the customer.
In the case of patent medicines an excise stamp
is pasted over the cork to prevent the same bottle
being used again without paying duty. Excise
and certain licences {e.g., for the sale of tobacco
and intoxicating liquors) are controlled by the
Inland Revenue, which has local offices in each
area.

Stamp Duties on business transfers are a
guarantee that the State upholds the rights of
property.

Perhaps the two commonest forms of stamp
duty are the stamp on cheques and the receipt
stamp upon a paid bill.

CHAPTER VII

LAW AND JUSTICE

Law. — We are so accustomed to the idea that
laws are the rules by which the country is governed,
that perhaps it is a surprise to many people to
know that a great deal of English Law was not
made by Act of Parliament. Indeed, amongst
early peoples, a certain course of conduct grows
up and forms a custom, which after a time is often
thought to have been sent from heaven, and not
made by man. Soon there grew up a class of
men who were specially skilled in these customs ;
these were usually priests, and they very often
used the customs for their own benefit. But after
a time, to avoid disputes, these customs were
written down, sometimes by one man, as at
Athens, where the early laws were written down
by Draco, and again, later, by Solon. More often
they were collected by a Council of Wise Men
under the orders- of their King ; thus the early
Saxon laws of some districts of England were
written down by Ethelbert and by Alfred. But
neither of these Kings had really made the laws :
they simply had them written down, and thus
gradually grew up a great body of traditional
laws in England that form the basis of our Ejiglish

46

1

LAW AND JUSTICE 47

" Common Law." Gradually the Kings claimed
the right to issue royal commands, usually only
for some temporary purpose, but they tried to
enforce these as laws. However, in the thirteenth
century, Parliament acquired the right to vote
" supplies" — that is, taxes — to the King. They also
claimed a power to " petition " the King, begging
him not to carry out some unpopular royal
command, and threatening that, if he did, they
would grant him no taxes. But this was rather
putting the cart before the horse, because it meant
that the Parliament had to wait till the King had
done something really bad before they could ask
him to make any improvement. So, by the
fifteenth centur}", the two Houses of Parliament
acquired the custom of suggesting improvements
or remedies in the existing laws and orders by
bringing forward " Bills." If the King approved,
the " Bill " became law. But the King still had the
power to issue certain commands on the advice
of his Privy Council; these were known as
Orders in Council, and usually only dealt with
temporary matters, and were not entered into the
" Statute Book " — i.e., did not become laws."'*'

Civil and Criminal Law. — We have seen that
the laws of England have grown up partly from
custom, partly from royal command, and partly
from Acts of Parliament. There is no simple
statement of all English Law in one book, as
Roman Law is set forth in the " Institutes " of

* These distinctions still exist between Acts of Parliament
and Orders in Council.

48 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Gaius or French Law in the "Code Napoleon."
The consequence is that it requires much more
skill for a judge to interpret English Law ; but
because there are not always hard-and-fast rules
laid down for the punishment of any offence,
English Law is much fairer than a strict code, and
there are far fewer " hard cases " where people
are unjustly punished. Indeed, whereas Roman
Law is based on the idea of absolute justice, so
that every breach of a given law should be equally
punished, the English Law is based on " equity " —
i.e., fairness — so that every man should be treated
as fairly as possible. It has been said that Roman
Law assumes that every man brought up for trial
is guilty until he is proved to be innocent, whereas
English Law maintains that he is innocent until
it is proved that he is guilty.

Laws are made as rules of conduct for citizens,
and a man who breaks the law is a bad citizen,
because he is disregarding the wise rules drawn
up by his countrymen in the past. But law-
breakers fall into two different classes : those who
commit an offence against the State, and those
who in some way have wronged their neighbour.
The former are called " Criminal," and the latter
"Civil" offenders. In both cases the King is the
source of justice which deals with their cases,
and, if necessary, punishes them.

Criminal Courts. — In theory, the peaceful
relations between citizens are held to be a direct
result of government by the King, and anyone
who disturbs those relations is considered to be

LAW AND JUSTICE 49

breaking " the King's peace," and in the thirteenth
century there were appointed Justices of the
Peace, who still survive as the simplest form of
judicial officers. They are appointed by the
King, acting through the Lord Chancellor, on what
is known as the ** Commission of the Peace " for
the local county or borough. In most cases they
are unpaid, but in London and some large towns
permanent paid, or stipendiary, magistrates give
up the whole of their time to this duty. When a
man is accused of a crime he is either '* arrested "
— i.e., forcibly brought before the magistrate —
or "summoned" — i.e., ordered to appear before
several magistrates on a certain day. If there is
no evidence against him the magistrate dismisses
the charge, but if the magistrate decides there is
a case against him he commits him for trial,
except in certain cases where the offence is so
simple and clear that the offender can be dealt
with " summarily," in which case the magistrates
pass immediate judgment upon him without a
ju^3^ It is also possible in some slight offences
for the magistrate not to punish him, but to bind
him over to keep the peace — that is, to make him
swear not to commit the offence again. If the
offender is committed for trial, the magistrates
can either give orders for him to be kept in prison
till his case is tried before a jury, or to be let out
"on bail" — i.e., allowed to go free on the promise
of some responsible persons, under threat of a
fine, that they will see that he comes up for
justice when called for. The meetings of the

50 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

magistrates before whom the offenders are first
brought up are called " Petty Sessions." " Sum-
mary" justice can only be delivered by a court
composed of at least two magistrates, sitting in a
regular court-house, except in the case of stipen-
diary magistrates. When a prisoner is committed
for trial by a more important court than Petty
Sessions, a formal " indictment " has to be brought
against him — i.e., a written statement of a par-
ticular way in which he has broken a particular
law. The less serious of such offences are tried
at Quarter Sessions — that is, a meeting held once
every three months by all the justices of the
county or the recorder of a borough. The
chairman of the justices acts as their mouthpiece,
and is thus a sort of Judge. The recorder of a
borough is a professional lawyer, appointed on
the recommendation of the Home Secretary. At
Quarter Sessions the case is tried before a jury
composed of twelve men, chosen at random by
the Sheriff from a list of householders drawn up
by the local authorities. Evidence is produced
on both sides, and, since 1898, the accused may
make a statement if he wishes. When both sides
of the case have been heard, the chairman oc
recorder acting as Judge "sums up" the case —
i.e., picks out the important points of evidence
and reminds the jurymen of the laws that bear
on the case. The jury then retire to think over
their verdict; if they find the offender "not
guilty "he is discharged; if they find him "guilty"
the chairman or recorder passes sentence — i.e.,

LAW AND JUSTICE 51

states the punishment provided by the law. In
most cases he exercises considerable discretion ;
it rests with him to say how large the fine or how
long the term of imprisonment must be.

Assizes. — But there are many offences which are
too serious to be tried by Quarter Sessions, such
as treason, murder, forgery, perjury, and bigamy.
These must be brought before permanent Judges
who, since the thirteenth century, have held
"Sittings, or Courts of Assize," three or four
times a year, in certain county and assize towns.
These Judges of the " High Court," as they are
called, are learned and experienced lawj^ers, and
travel on "Circuit" to dispense the King's justice
in all serious cases. There is also a Central
Criminal Court in London, at the Old Bailey,
which meets monthly. The procedure before these
Judges is, in substance, the same as at Quarter
Sessions,* but the courts are conducted with more
solemnity, and the Sheriff of the county is in
attendance on them to represent the King's power
to enforce his laws. Only Judges at Assizes can
pass the death sentence. But in 1907 there was
instituted behind and above the Assize Courts a
Court of Criminal Appeal, to which, in certain
cases, the accused, if diss.atisfied with the form of
his trial, could appeal for a fresh hearing. Here
he can be tried before not less than three Judges,
who can modify the sentence, but cannot order a
new trial. From this it will be seen that the

* For the question of Grand Juries at Assizes and Quarter
Sessions see Clarke, " Central Government," p. 79.

52 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

English criminal law system is perhaps rather
slow and complicated, but it is scrupulously fair,
and the trial is in open court before an unbiassed
jury, while the whole burden of proving the case
rests upon the accuser.

Civil Courts are those in which one citizen
brings an action against another, either for some
real or fancied wrong, known as a " tort " ; or for a
" trespass " — that is, interference with his privi-
leges; or for a breach of contract — that is, failure
to keep some business promise. Nearly all these
wrongs involve money, and the "plaintiff" — i.e.,
the person who complains — claims so much money
from the " defendant " — i.e., the person whom he
accuses of wronging him. If the claim is not a
large one (perhaps not more than ;^ioo) he will
sue the defendant in the County Court.

Under the Act of 1846 County Courts were set
up on an uniform plan all over the country to take
the place of innumerable and widely different
local courts. They are each presided over by a
paid County Court Judge, chosen from amongst
barristers of experience by the Lord Chancellor.
If the amount claimed is over ^5, the "plaintiff"
or "defendant" may demand a jury of eight
persons. But this is very seldom done, because-
County Court proceedings are very simple and
usually rather informal. Claims for more than
^100 must (and claims for less may) be taken to
the High Court of Justice. The County Courts
deal with much other business besides civil cases —
e.g., the distribution of bankrupts' property and

J

LAW AND JUSTICE 53

the assessing of claims under the Workmen's
Compensation Act. An appeal can be made from
the County Court to the High Court; thence, if
necessary, to the Court of Appeal, and finally to
the House of Lords. If the amount claimed is
more than ^100, or the value of the property under
dispute is over ;^5oo, instead of being taken to the
County Court the case is usually referred to the
High Court of Justice. This sits in London, and
is divided into three principal sections which have
taken over the duties of various ancient bodies.
The first of these is known as the Chancery Divi-
sion, which took over the work of the old Court of
the Lord Chancellor, dealing with questions of
equity, and, in some cases, with the work of the
old Court of Exchequer. The second division is
that of King's Bench, which deals with the ques-
tions of "Common Law" and has taken the place
of the old Courts of King's Bench, and of Com-
mon Pleas, and, in part, of the Court of Exchequer.
The third division is that of Probate, Divorce, and
Admiralty, which deals with the special laws
relating to wills and testaments, to dissolution of
marriages, and to maritime matters. Many of
the duties of this latter division were formerly
managed by separate' Courts belonging to the
Established Church. Each division has its own
separate Judges and a great number of peculiar
and difficult rights, but, in the great majority, trial
is by jury and the sentence is at the discretion
of the Judge. In some cases there is no jury, the
Judge himself sitting as a jury and deciding both

54 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

on the facts and on the law; and much of the work
of the Probate Division is not done in court at all,
but through the Government offices at Somerset
House.

But besides these divisions of the High Court
of Justice, there is a still higher branch of the
Supreme Court of Judicature, called the " Court
of Appeal," where certain Lords Justices of Ap-
peal can hear again cases tried before the Lower
Division, and it is possible for three Judges of
this Court to alter or reverse a decision of the
Lower Court. Even this is not the last resort of
a dissatisfied claimant. In certain cases an appeal
can be taken before the House of Lords,* just as
in some cases an appeal from a Court in the
Colonies and India can be taken before a Judicial
Committee of the Privy Council.

This is a very brief and incomplete outline of
the British system of justice, but should be enough
to show that in civil cases, as in criminal, the
chance of a case being fully and fairly heard is as
great as can reasonably be expected. One of the
features that other nations have always noticed as
particularly British is the love of fairness and
justice, and our Law Courts, both in the United
Kingdom and all over the Empire, bear a very
high name for impartial and patient administration
of justice to all that come before them. The
British Law is cumbrous and sometimes costly to
put into action, but it never condemns a man un-
heard, and is more likely to err on the side of
leniency than that of harshness.

* See Clarke, " Central Government," p. 73.

1

CHAPTER VIII

THE MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC PEACE

Internal Peace. — In the early days of English
history, the King, as the chief representative of
the power of the State, was bound to maintain
order. This was necessary, not only because it
is very hard to raise taxes in a country which is
not at peace (as King Charles I. found to his
cost), but' also because the country that is not at
peace within is liable to fall an easy prey to an
enemy without. So much has it been considered
the duty of the King to maintain peace through-
out the country, that the peace of the nation
is still spoken of as the "King's Peace." To
maintain this peace in very early days seems to
have been the special duty of the Master of the
Royal Stables (the Comes Stabuli, or constable),
under whom was a special class of " civilian
soldiers" maintained to observe the "King's
Peace." This central force seems to have been
formally recognized by the Statute of Winchester,
1285, but by the reign of Edward III. there were
" petty constables " appointed to carry out these
duties locally, and by the time of Shakespeare
every village had its constable and "watch" — i.e.,
men appointed to maintain good order, to prevent

55

56 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

and detect crime, and generally to preserve the
peace.

Police. — The growth of large towns in the
nineteenth century showed that the old parish
constables were insufficient for the needs of a
rapidly growing population, "but it was felt that
for work of such local importance it would not be
well to have a body too much under central
control. This would make the police force far
too like an army enforcing the will of the Govern-
ment on the people instead of protecting the
rights of peaceful citizens. So, in the Police Act
of 1856, each county was permitted to appoint its
own police, and municipal boroughs with a
population of not less than 10,000 could have
their own police if they wished. London has two
forces, the Metropolitan and the City of London,
who are directly under the Home Office.

County Police are controlled by a standing
joint committee of the County Councils and
Justices of the Peace, Borough Police by a
Watch Committee of not more than one-third of
the Borough Council. The Home Office has
general authority over all the police in the
country, which are subject to inspection by
officials directly responsible to the Secretary of
State for Home Affairs. The police are officered
by chief constables, superintendents, inspectors,
and sergeants, and are a particularly well-trained
and responsible class of men. They are enlisted
voluntarily, paid and clothed at the expense of

i

il

I

MAINTENANCE OF PUBLIC PEACE 57

the local authority, and given a special form of
education. In every case they represent the
authority of the State, and act in the King's
name. Even the staff or truncheon which a-
policeman carries bears a little copy of the King's
crown. For ordinary purposes the police may
enter any public building in discharge of their
duties, but can only enter a private house on the
invitation of the householder, or under a warrant
from a magistrate. Besides the maintenance of
good order, the management of traffic, and the
prevention and detection of crime, they have a
large number of duties of inspection to carry out
under various Acts.

Special Constables. — In addition to the police
appointed by the local authorities, it is possible
for special constables to be appointed when there
is any unusual need, and if volunteers are not
forthcoming, householders can be compelled by
the Justices of the Peace to act, and there is a
general obligation on all citizens to assist the
police, when necessary, in the performance of
their duty. In the War period of 1914 to 1918,
in the absence of many policemen on active
service, large numbers of special constables came
forward and took up the important work, not
only of preserving public peace, but also of
promoting public safety and restoring confidence
in such emergencies as air raids.

CHAPTER IX

NATIONAL DEFENCE

I

The Army and the Navy. — It is one of the

simplest duties of a citizen to protect his home
and country so far as he can. In early stages of
civilization every able-bodied man was a soldier ;
and there are many who think that all that is
needed to protect a State is a " citizen army."
But modern warfare, whether by land or sea, is a
very complicated business, and before each in-
dividual can become an efficient fighter he needs
months, if not years, of training. Moreover, in
an island realm, the defence of the coasts and
merchant shipping cannot be left to chance
volunteers, however brave. It is necessary to
maintain a permanent and professional Navy. For
centuries past, therefore, the calling of arms,
whether by land or sea, has been considered a
special life's work, and has attracted brave and
venturesome citizens by its very dangers.

The Army has grown from being a gathering
of armed householders, through the stage of a
feudal army, to that of a professional army,
equipped by the Crown with the sanction of
Parliament. The Army Act of 1881 embodies

58

I

NATIONAL DEFENCE 59

most of the law dealing with the permanent
force of regular soldiers, though an annual Army
Act is passed, carrying on the old Mutiny Acts
(which date back to William and Mary's reign), and
setting forth exactly the number of regular troops
which the King may levy and maintain. The less
important affairs of military life are set forth in a
number of minor rules known as the King's
Regulations. The Secretary of State for War
controls the Government office which deals with
the Army, and prepares and lays before Parlia-
ment the annual estimates for military expenditure.
The Army Council is the central authority which
issues formal orders for the administration of the
Army. It consists of the Secretary of State for
War, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary for War,
and the Financial Secretary of the War Office,
acting with the Inspector-General of the Forces
and the Chief of the General Staff, the Adjutant-
General, Quartermaster-General, and the Master
of the Ordnance. In peace time the Army over
which they exercise authority consists of —

1. The Regular Army, including infantry,
cavalry, artillery, and engineers ;

2. The Royal Marines ;

3. The Territorials ;

and there are also Reserves of various classes.

In the recent war-time, after the passing of the
Militar}' Act of 1916, every male subject resident
in Great Britain became liable to be enlisted and
transferred to the Reserve for calling up as
required.

6o ELEMENTARY CIVICS

1. — The Regular Army is recruited* under a
voluntary system for a period not exceeding
twelve years ; in practice, however, the private
soldier usually serves seven years with the Colours
and five with the Reserve, and during his service
with the Colours he is liable to be sent an3''where
and on any service that the Army Council sees
fit. The officers who accept a " commission "
from the King serve during the pleasure of the
Crown.

2. — The Royal Marines occupy a curious
position ; when they are serving on land, whether
as infantry or artillery, they are subject to the
Army Act, but when on board a ship of war they
come under the Navy Discipline Act.

3. — The Territorials subject to the Act of
1907 are a body of trained citizen soldiers, liable
for home defence and service ; they include the
older corps of "Yeomanry" and "Volunteers."
The former are cavalry and the latter infantry
and artillery. The Act also provides for voluntary
enlistment of men willing to give up part of their
time during four years to periods of concentrated
military training.

The Territorials are largely managed by County
Associations under the presidency of the Lord
Lieutenant. There is also a Special Reserve,which
is liable under certain circumstances for service
abroad.

* At the time of writing, the question of recruiting is under
revision.

NATIONAL DEFENCE 6i

By nature, the Englishman is averse to pro-
fessional soldiering : partly because we are not a
militarist nation, and have had little experience of
war in our own country, partly because recruiting
fell into disrepute and the Army became a refuge
for broken men. Our first organized regiments
date back only to the time of Cromwell's new
Model Army.

The Navy, since 1832, has been controlled by
the Board of Admiralty, consisting of the First
Lord of the Admiralty and several "Naval" and
" Civil Lords " who act as Lords Commissioners.
The Navy is recruited voluntarily, and no man
can be compelled to serve for more than five
years. But in addition to the regular Navy there
is a large force known as the " Royal Naval
Reserve," which includes many volunteers and
time-expired sailors. The Royal Navy is under
special discipline Acts and its sailors are, to some
extent, outside the jurisdiction of ordinary justice,
being tried by Naval Courts-Martial.

So long as we retain our great overseas Empire
a navy is of the utmost importance to us, as our
communications are all by sea.

The Air Force is a distinct new branch of the
armed Forces of the Crown, dating only from 1917,
and uniting the two previous separate forces of
the "Royal Naval Air Service" and the "Royal
Plying Corps." Airmen are recruited in much
the same way as sailors and soldiers, and are
subject to military law.

62 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Note on Universal Service.

It has never been the custom in England to compel every
citizen to bear arms. Though, in the recent war, the MiHtary
Service Act of 1916 enacted that, speaking generally, all men
between the ages of eighteen and forty-five should be liable
to some form of service, the exceptions mentioned in that
Act show that in the eyes of the State there is a great deal of
useful national work that can be considered equivalent to
combatant service. Indeed, England has never been a
militarist nation, and it has been argued from the experience
of the late war that it suits her better to have a small standing
Army, capable of sudden expansion in war-time to a large com-
batant force, rather than to insist upon conscription or some
other form of compulsory military service.

CHAPTER X

PUBLIC HEALTH

One of the first cares of a well-ordered State is
'for the health of its citizens. Yet so rapid was
the growth of towns in England between 1750
and 1840 that there were few, if any, precautions
taken to insurfe that the dwellings of the poorer
residents were healthy. It is said that in the
year in which Queen Victoria came to the throne,
though there were 200,000 persons living in
Whitechapel, there was not one single sewer.
However, in 1848, Government legislation took up
the question of sanitation, and from that year to
1875 many Acts were passed dealing with public
health. During this period many large towns
experimented on various methods of keeping
streets and houses clean and healthy, and in 1875
the results of a generation's work took shape in a
very comprehensive Public Health Act, which
forms the basis of our present Law. How various
were its enactments will be seen from a few of its
headings, which deal with :

I. Sanitary provisions, such as regulations for
sewers and drains, and water supply ; inspection
of cellars and lodging-houses, offensive trades

63

64 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

and nuisances, infectious diseases, Iiospitals, and
mortuaries.

2. Local Government provisions as to highways,
streets, pleasure grounds, parks, markets, and
slaughterhouses. Besides these provisions there
were a large number of sections dealing with
powers to raise money for these duties, prosecute
offenders, and to enforce the regulations. Many
of the duties of the Public Health Act are carried
out by the Borough Councils and Urban and
Rural District Councils, others by County
Councils, and since 1875 many additions have
been made to the laws on the subject, dealing
with such various questions as the sale of food and
drugs, pollution of rivers, factories and work-
shops, milk and dairies, and a host of other
subjects. The Ministry of Health deals with
questions of public health through the local
authorities.

Mental Deficiency. — Besides the bodily health
of citizens the mental welfare of the nation is a
matter of great importance to the State, and the
difficult question of dealing with those who are
not right in their mind has to be dealt with by
State institutions. Those who are definitely
-insane — i.e., too dangerous or too helpless to be
dealt with at all in their own homes — come under
the Lunacy Acts of 1890-1911. Of course, there
are many lunatics whose relations can pay for
their maintenance, and for these there are private
asylums and homes not supported by the State.
But those lunatics whose relatives are too poor to

PUBLIC HEALTH 65

provide for their proper maintenance are ** de-
tained" in county and borough asylums, or, in
the case of the more violent who have already
shown themselves dangerous to the public, in
State institutions known as " criminal asylums."
The supreme authority to deal with these cases
consists of the Lord Chancellor, the Home Secre-
tary, and a Board of Control, formerly known as
the "Commissioners in Lunacy," who can decide-
on legal and medical grounds whether a patient
should be detained or not. The local authorities
who control the actual buildings and maintenance
of the asylums are generally the County or
County Borough Council, • acting through a
Visiting or Asylums Committee, and the expenses
are partly met by a grant from the Exchequer
Contribution Account, and partly by the Guar-
dians of the Poor. Under the Mental Deficiency
Acts of 19 1 3 a much larger class of mental cases
is dealt with. This includes idiots {i.e., those
whose mind is practically useless, but who are
harmless), imbeciles {ie., those who are too weak-
minded to support themselves), feeble-minded
persons {ie., those who are capable of only a little
education), and moral imbeciles {i.e., those whose
freedom is a danger to the morality of the public).
Here again the Central Board of Control works
through the local authorities — i.e., the County and
County Borough Councils, who have power to
provide for the supervision of such persons, and,
if necessary, to maintain homes and institutions
for them. But the whole of this system is not yet

5

66 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

fully worked out, and there is much to be done
before it can be said that all mental cases in the
country can receive proper care and treatment.

Care of Children. — One of the most important
questions allied to public health is the care of
children. Apart from education, very little was
done for children by the State until the Chil-
dren Act of 1908. The conditions under which
children might work in mines and factories had
indeed been the subject of laws passed in 1833
and 1867. But it was not until the end of the
nineteenth century that anything was done to
safeguard the conditions under which the children
in crowded towns were brought up. The Act of
1908 gave the local Boards of Guardians authority
to enquire into the homes of infants and protect
them from neglect and ill-usage.

The second part of the Act deals with the
prevention of cruelty to children. This includes
not only physical cruelty, but also the exposure
of children to bad surroundings, or the sending of
them out to beg. But perhaps the most impor-
tant part of the Act is that which deals with
children who are convicted of some offence
against the law. This enacts that these "juvenile
offenders," as they are called, should be tried in
separate courts, and as far as possible in a way
that is not too public ; and also that they shall
not be put into police cells or prison, but kept in
separate places of detention, and if they are
sentenced to a period of punishment they should
be sent to a reformatory school, and not to prison.

d

PUBLIC HEALTH 6j

Those whose surroundings are so bad that they
might be led into crime may be sent to industrial
schools, away from their homes. The object of
all this legislation is to prevent children from
being treated as criminals and joining that part of
the population which is habitually given to crime.
Other enactments of the Act endeavour to deal
with juvenile smoking, and to prohibit children
from frequenting public-houses and pawnbrokers'
shops.

Children's care committees, set up in conjunc-
tion with all education authorities and juvenile
employment exchanges of the Ministry of Labour,
endeavour to ensure that children should not only
be brought up free from crime, but also clean,
healthy, and able to take proper care of them-
selves.

There is one caution that should be urged in
this connection. It is the object of the State to
see to the wellbeing of children, but at the same
time the responsibility of parents towards their
own offspring ought not to be set aside. And the
State should aim rather at helping and advising
the parents than at relieving them of their natural
duties.

Housing presents one of the most difficult
problems of a civic nature. With the growth of
interest in public health and legislation on its
behalf, there has come the recognition of the fact
that bad housing is often the cause of ill-health
and even of crime, but the increase of the popula-
tion has outrun the supply of houses, especially

68 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

as the cost of building and the growth of rates
have discouraged property-owners from adding
to the number of dwellings. Moreover, in many
districts, old and badly-built houses have been
condemned by the local sanitary authorities, so
that in some places the actual number of available
houses is less instead of more. A very large
number of houses are seriously overcrowded ;
thus, in the 191 1 census, it was shown that at least
five million persons dwelt in overcrowded houses,
and that some 8 per cent, of the houses had more
than two inhabitants to each room. Often the
conditions were infinitely worse, as, for instance,
in a street in Southwark, where thirty-six houses
contained 800 people, or in Edinburgh, where it
was shown that 45 per cent, of the population
lived in single-room tenements. It was not only
the towns that were overcrowded ; in a rural
district in Oxfordshire, in 1912, it was shown that
out of 723 cottages, 710 had two rooms, or less,
and the average number in each of these houses
was seven inhabitants.

As private enterprise seems powerless to deal
Vk^ith this shortage of accommodation, Parliament
has tried to undertake some improvement, and the
Housing of the Working Classes Acts, 1890 to
1903, supplemented by the Housing and Town
Planning, etc., Acts of 1909 and 1919, give the
local authorities power to prepare schemes for
improving existing dwellings and laying out
additional streets and houses, subject to the
approval of the Ministry of Health. Unfortunately,

PUBLIC HEALTH 69

the expense of this has so far deterred many local
authorities from doing much in the matter, and
the housing problem still remains very acute, and
will continue to be so until it is found possible to
build large numbers of satisfactory dwellings,
that can be let at an economic rent.

It must not be forgotten that improved housing
means a general rise in the standard of comfort.
As long as many persons are content to remain
in bad houses their whole outlook will remain
unsatisfactory. It is thus advisable to educate
people to want better conditions, as well as to
help them to get them — for a dirty, feckless family
will soon spoil a good house.

CHAPTER :XI

PENSIONS AND INSURANCE

Old Age Pensions. — It has always been a
difficulty among the poorer citizens of any State
that, as they get old, their power to work becomes
less, and with it decreases the chance of their
earning money. For very many generations it
has been part of good citizenship to encourage
thrift — i.e.^ the saving of money to meet the extra
calls of illness or old age. But there are often
people who, through no fault of their own, have
been unable to save, and to meet these hard
cases charitable citizens have in many parishes
given or left sums of money to provide dwellings
or grants of money, clothing, or food for such
persons. These old alms-houses and parish
charities were constituted in many different
ways, but they nearly all of them had a test of
good character, so that the pension or alms-
house was not granted to lazy or undeserving
people. But these benefactions, which are now
largely controlled by a Government authority
known as the Charity Commission, are by noflHJ
means enough to deal with all cases of poverty
or sickness in old age, and the aged poor naturally

70

I

PENSIONS AND INSURANCE 71

dislike being compelled to live in the workhouse
in the midst of invalids and imbeciles.

Gradually it was felt that something like
Government pensions should be given to all
over a certain age, who could prove that they
were in need. Mr. Gladstone's Administration
in 1 88 1 promised to do something for the aged
poor, and for twenty-five years Bill after Bill was
drafted, but none proved satisfactory, because it
was so difficult to know how to make those who
would receive the pension after a certain age
contribute towards it. At last, in the Election of
1906, the Liberal Party promised free pensions
to all persons over seventy who could prove
poverty. In spite of opposition the Old Age
Pensions Act was passed in 1908, and soon
superseded by a revised Act in 191 1, and an
Amending Act, 1919. The cost to the country
is very heavy, as nearly a million people are
entitled to a pension, and it is possible that the
Act may have had a rather bad effect in one way
— if it has discouraged thrift, or has given some
sons and daughters who ought to have helped
their aged parents an excuse for not doing so.

Insurance against Sickness. — But it is not

only the aged poor who are in need of relief; a
great number of citizens fall into poverty because
of sickness. Of course, there are other causes of
poverty, such as drink and ignorance, dirt and
neglect ; the two latter are probably curable by
Government legislation and educational and
temperance movements ; and laws may do some-

72 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

thing towards lessening the former evils. But
sickness may fall on the members of any family
and find them unprepared, and if they have not
been thrifty in the past their resources soon run
short. For years past various Friendly, Sick
Benefit, and Assurance Societies have collected
the money of the thrifty and so raised large funds
to enable them to receive grants in times of sick-
ness or stress. There are also large business
companies which are prepared to insure any
citizens against sickness or accident ; and the
enormous wealth of these companies depends
upon the very large numbers who insure with
them. So that for some generations many
citizens have been able to practise thrift and
to insure against sickness. It is just those who
are lazy and thriftless, and have not insured, that
make it necessary for the Government to step in
with a system of State-aided insurance. Conse-
quently, in 191 1, there was introduced the
Insurance Bill, the first part of which, as a
National Health Insurance Act, provides that
all persons over sixteen years of age who are
employed at a rate of less than ;(f^25o a year shall
contribute to a National Insurance scheme, their
subscriptions being met by further contributions
from their employers and from the State. In
this Act there are numerous provisions for differ-
ent classes of benefit which include medical treat-
ment, sanatorium treatment, sickness and dis-
ablement benefit — i.e., a payment of so much each
week during the continuance of illness or dis-

J

I

PENSIONS AND INSURANCE n

ability — and also maternity benefit. Under this
Act two important principles come into play —
the first, that workers should contribute towards
their own support in times of sickness, and the
second, that the employer must, also bear his
share. It used to be a complaint that a hard
master worked his men for his own profit whilst
they were well and able to serve him, but dis-
carded them ruthlessly as soon as they were ill
or old. Of course, this was not true of a very
large number of employers. Indeed, the relations
between masters and workpeople often were, and
are, most cordial and brotherly ; but those who
were anxious to make a big profit could, and did,
maintain that the support of sick and disabled
people was " bad business," as indeed it is from a
purely monetary point of view. And many held
that, with the rapid growth of trade competition
with other countries, all business expenses must
be rigidly cut down in order to enable British
industry to continue at all, so that it was probable
that fewer and fewer employers would be able to
treat their workpeople generously, and hence a
compulsory Government scheme of insurance
became necessary. There is no doubt that
competition, unless it is most carefully safe-
guarded on lines of equity, does tend to make it
difficult for the different sections of society to
work together in a fair and brotherly spirit.
However, it is true to say that some employers,
who have invariably met their workers fairly, and
have given them pleasant and satisfactory condi-

74 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

tions of life, have been very successful in com-
petitive trade, and have avoided industrial dis-
putes.

Unemployment Insurance. — Besides old age
and sickness there is another very serious cause
of poverty — i.e., lack of work. Unemployment is,
of course, sometimes the fault of the worker ; if
he is idle, or careless, or wasteful, employers are
naturally not very anxious to give him work.
But there are many who are out of work through
no fault of their own ; the causes are numerous.
Some of the commoner ones are the shifting of
the centres of trade or employment, the changes
of public taste or demand, foreign competition
and dumping — i.e., the sale in Britain of foreign
goods not needed in their own country and sold
here at a price lower than that which the British
manufacturer must charge if he wishes to make a
profit. For these and other reasons workpeople,
either singly or in large numbers, were in times
past often unable to obtain work. Shortly after
the South African War there were so many cases
of unemployment that, in 1905, an Act was passed
to deal with the question, and this set up distress
committees to deal with applications from
persons out of work ; these committees, if satis-
fied that the applicants were genuine or suitable
cases, had the power to provide temporary work,
and in some cases to assist the applicants to
emigrate or to remove to some district where work
was forthcoming. In London these distress com-
mittees were under a Central Unemployed body

PENSIONS AND INSURANCE 75

It was found that, though the Act provided for a
certain number of temporary cases, it did not
really provide a permanent solution of the
problem of unemployment. It seemed that what
was really needed Vas some system of Labour
Exchanges, by which the movement of workpeople
about the country could be rendered easier, and
their search for work more quickly rewarded.
The recommendations of the Royal Commission
on the Poor Law and Relief of Distress, 1905-
1909, were strongly in favour of Employment
Exchanges, as also of Trade Boards and Un-
employment Insurance. In 1909 an Act, entitled
the Labour Exchanges Act, was passed to
provide a voluntary market for labour; the idea
underlying it is that it is the duty of the nation to
prevent the waste of the citizen's time and
energies by providing free a list of employers
wanting workpeople and workpeople wanting
employment. This has led to the establishment
of a regular " Ministry of Labour," inquiring into
all the conditions of work, and from this sprang
the Trade Boards Act of 1909 to remedy abuses
in trades which appeared underpaid or ill-
supervised ; and as a result of these two Acts the
second part of the National Insurance Act of
191 1 provided for insurance against unemploy-
ment. In this scheme the worker and the
employer both contribute and the State adds a
further grant, so that there is actual out-of-work
pay provided by the State in certain " insured
trades " such as building, constructional work,

^6 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

shipbuilding, engineering, ironfounding, etc. By
a further Act in 1916 this insurance is controlled
locally by " Employment Exchanges " {i.e.^ the
Labour Exchanges of 1909 Act, with further
powers), and the Acts of 1916 and 191 8 have
still further developed the principle of national
insurance against unemployment. Against un-
employment, as against sickness, the thrifty
workmen in the past insured in his Trades
Union or Society, but the present scheme forces
all workpeople to insure, and also their employers
to help with the insurance, in those great
industries which have proved in the past to be
most liable to the evils of unemployment*

* One of the chief sources of industrial unrest, and thus of
unemployment, is the so-called " ca' canny " principle. The
theory embodied in this is that the less work a man does, the
more there is for others to do. The truth, however, seems to
be that the more means of production — say coal, iron, and food
— that a man handles, the greater is the productive power of
the whole country, the greater are its exports, and the greater
becomes the demand for labour to carry on this increased
trade.

CHAPTER XII

EDUCATION

The object of Education is to guide us to right
and useful knowledge, that we may make the best
use of life, and forward the progress of humanity.
To educate people is to train their minds to form
correct inferences from the facts before them.
It is possible for men and women to grow up
ignorant and ill-informed, and yet to live good
and useful lives ; but their chances of usefulness
are greatly widened if they have received some
form of education, and do not act simply by the
light of nature or from information casually picked
up. Hence, it has long been the aim of good
citizens to promote education; and many of the
oldest charities in this country are educational —
i.e., money has been left and buildings raised to
ensure the education of a certain number of de-
serving or promising children. But anything like
general education is not of very great age in this
country.

Elementary Education has had a rather
chequered history. In the eighteenth century
there were few towns and villages where there
was not some sort of teaching offered, but by no
means all the population availed themselves of it.

77

78 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Indeed, even at the beginning of the nineteenth
century, more than half the people of this country
were unable to read and write ; and, so far, the
State had taken no steps to provide uniform
schools. The Church of England, which for some
time past had been providing some form of educa-
tion in Sunday schools, now came forward with a
strong movement in favour of elementary educa-
tion, and the "National Society," founded in 1811,
was started with a view to provide schools for the
children of all Church of England parents, the
Nonconformists, in a parallel movement, having
started schools for children of their own denomi-
nations, which were soon controlled by two
societies known as the " Wesleyan " and the
" British " Societies respectively. By the aid of
these denominational schools and those provided
by the Poor Law Unions, the children of the great
mass of English parents were given elementary
education on no very definite system up till the
year 1834. In the meanwhile, the Catholic Eman-
cipation Act of 1828 had permitted Roman Catho-
lics to open schools for children of their creed.
In 1834 the first step towards a system of national
education was taken by the Treasury in giving a
small annual grant towards the erection of schools
in "necessitous areas;" and in 1839 ^ Committee
of the Privy Council was formed for educational
purposes. But the vast bulk of national educa-
tional work was still carried on by private enter-
prise; and the small payments made by the
scholars (usually 2d. per week) did not nearly

I

EDUCATION 79

cover the expenses, which were met by private
subscription. At last, in 1856, Parh'ament set up
the office of Vice-President of the Privy Council
for Education, whose first duty was to try to
ensure that these different denominational and
charity schools should produce something like an
uniform standard of education ; and in i860 there
was drawn up the Code of Regulations for
elementary schools, which still forms the basis of
rules for teachers in schools of that type. But the
result of this code was to show that many schools
did not come up to the Government requirements,
and many districts had no schools, or insufficient
accommodation ; and so, to make sure that ele-
mentary education should be within the reach of
all, the Government decided to start additional
schools, supported by rates and taxes.

The Elementary Education Act of 1870
therefore set up, in areas where the existing
denominational and charity schools were insuffi-
cient for the needs of the people, School Boards.

These were bodies of citizens elected locally by
the ratepayers and empowered to raise rates for
education, and so to supply schools and teachers
to districts which were not already provided for-
Such schools were known as Board Schools, and
were directly under Government control, whereas
the denominational schools were to some extent
independent, though liable to be visited and
reported upon by Government inspectors. As
soon as schools of one or the other kind were
provided for all, it became necessary to make sure

8o ELEMENTARY CIVICS

that they were fully used ; so in 1880 a lawmade
it compulsory for all children under the age of ten
to attend school, and this age was raised to eleven
in 1886. Meanwhile, it was agreed that, whereas
the denominational or, as they were now called,
the Voluntary Schools, had always upheld the
principle of payment by the scholars (or their
parents), education ought really to be offered free.
In the County Councils Act of 1888 provision was
made for education to become one of the duties
devolving upon County Councils, and in 1890 the
Local Taxation Act gave the County Councils
right to raise money for educational purposes, so
that the payment of fees for Board Schools, which
now fell under the control of County Councils, was
abolished. Naturally the Voluntary Schools could
not charge fees if the Board Schools did not, and
further Government grants had to be given to aid
them. In 1899 a permanent Board of Education
was established, and the school age was raised to
twelve, or in some cases to thirteen, years, and in
1900 to thirteen or fourteen. Meanwhile, a long-
standing difference between Voluntary Schools
and Board Schools called for settlement. In
Voluntary Schools, from the start, religious teach-
ing had been given according to the wishes of the
trustees or managers ; but the Board Schools had
from the first made no definite provision for
religious teaching, simply leaving the nine o'clock
school hour open for religious teaching to be con-
ducted by the teachers if they wished, and as they
wished. Every Government between 1870 and

i

EDUCATION

1896 tried to meet this difficulty; and from 1896 to
1902 there were various experiments in educa-
tional legislation, leading to the Act of 1902.

Education Act of 1902. — By this Act all
elementary schools are placed under the Board of
Education, and more directly under the local
County (or Borough) Educational Authority, but
differing in the appointment of their managers.
The former Board Schools, now called "Provided"
schools, have as their managers two members of
the Local District Council, and four of the County
Council Education Committee, whereas the " non-
Provided" schools (formerly known as "volun-
tary") have on their boards of management one
member from the County Council Education
Committee, one from the District Council, and
four managers under their original trust. In the
"non-Provided" schools the religious teaching
has continued as before. In the " Provided " the
managers have had the option of continuing it on
simple lines, or dropping it altogether. The Clerk
to the County Council is Clerk to the Count}'-
Education Authority, so that all schools in his area
are directly under his supervision, and thus uni-
formity under the general Board of Education
scheme is assured. (Much the same is true of
Boroughs of over 10,000 and Urban Districts of
over 20,000 population, though the relation of the
local Education Authority to the Board of Educa-
tion is here a httle more complicated.)

After the 1902 Act many regulations were
passed dealing with methods and teachers, and

6

82 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

giving local Education Authorities special powers
to deal with defective children, to give medical
treatment, to provide meals for scholars, and to
find employment for those leaving school. These
regulations have greatly assisted to remove the
difficulties in the way of the spread of education.
But one of the most awkward problems was that
of the removal of children from school to work,
before their education had reached even a com-
paratively low standard. This practice was
specially common in some of the industrial dis-
tricts where children were made to work part of
the day in the mills or factories under the name
of " half-timers," thus losing much of their
schooling.

JVIoreover, the limit of school age was put too
low. Girls and boys going out to work at thirteen
and fourteen often drifted into " blind-alley "
employments and learnt no regular trade or pro-
fession, consequently swelling the ranks of casual
labour. For these and other reasons it was felt
that new legislation was necessary.

The Education Act of 1918 at one blow pro.
vided that no children should be exempted from
education between the ages of five and fourteen :
none should be employed at any trade under
twelve, and very few between that age and four-
teen. All should attend continuation schools for
part of their time up to the age of eighteen, unless
their full-time education should have been con-
tinued up to sixteen. All fees for elementary
and technical education were abolished, and an

EDUCATION 83

attempt was thus made to put an end to any
restriction upon all young citizens receiving a
thorough schooling.

Secondary Education. — Besides elementary
education there has always been some provision
for higher or advanced teaching. This was, of
course, provided voluntarily until the State had
undertaken the burden of elementary education.
The old endowed schools provided a certain
amount of this higher education free, or at very
low fees to those who could obtain scholarships
or bursaries, and also allowed any who chose to
pay full fees to attend and receive higher
instruction. But all these schools, many of which
still exist, had different methods and different
standards, and it is only since the Education Act
of 1902 that the local Education Authorities have
been empowered to offer standardized secondary
education of several different types through the
medium of State-aided schools. Higher education
falls roughly into four classes, as follows :

Technical Education. — This is definite
teaching or training in some special art or science,
leading directly to some trade or profession ; in
many large centres technical schools are open to
receive scholars recommended by the elementary
and other schools as particularly suited to take up
some art or science. These schools are expensive
to raise, as they need so much equipment and
machinery, but the Act of 191 8 abolishes any fees
or charges for technical education, and so the
whole cost falls on the State.

I

84 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Commercial Education undertakes to instruct
pupils in the art of buying and selling the products
of industry to the best advantage ; so, in addition
to the ordinary knowledge of English, geography,
and arithmetic, it provides special teaching in
foreign languages, book-keeping, and economics.
Secondary Education, other than technical or
commercial, is taken to mean that further training
in languages, history, and science, which will
enable a pupil who has satisfactorily passed
through the elementary stages to proceed to a
university. Finally, University Education in-
cludes all the highest branches of science and
philosophy. Indeed, a university should be able
to provide competent teaching in the highest
branches of any subject asked for by a genuine
student. It is the wish of the Board of Education
that all educational institutions in the country
should work together, and though the universities
and many secondary schools are not directly
under the Board of Education, there is a general
system of co-operation which makes it possible
for a promising boy or girl to be passed on from
one stage of education to another with very little
cost to their parents. Education, however, is still
very much in the experimental stage, and it will
be some time before a complete scheme of educa-
tion is formulated.

CHAPTER XIII

HIGHWAYS, ROADS, AND BRIDGES

Transit. — Before the advent of railways the
transit of the country was carried on by road,
except in a few districts where rivers provided a
natural waterway, and though in the eighteenth
century many rivers were artificially deepened
and improved for navigation, and a certain number
of canals were dug (one of the earliest being the
Duke of Bridgewater's canal from Worsley to
Manchester, 1757), yet traffic by water in England
has never reached the same importance as in
Belgium or in Germany. So from early times
roads have been the principal method of transit,
and the care and repair of them has been an
important civic duty. The Romans, to subdue
Britain, constructed main roads to serve as arteries
of traffic, many of which, like the Watling Street
from Dover to London and London to Chester,
still follow nearly the same course ; others, like
the Fosse Way from Somerset to Lincoln, are
partly neglected and grass-grown. Through the
Saxon times these roads continued in use, though
gradually growing worse from lack of repair, and
cross-country journeys had to be taken on horse-
back over the roughest possible tracks. The

85

86 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Norman Kings used the Roman roads for their
mihtary purposes, and indeed claimed that they
belonged to the King, hence the term the " King's
Highway." Edward III, ordered the trees and
shrubs for loo yards on either side of these roads
to be cut down, lest any should shoot at the King's
messengers or soldiers in discharge of their duty.
But in spite of this royal claim to the main roads,
very little was done to mend them, and hardly
any side roads were made. Here and there a
charitable person would build a bridge and leave
a sum of money to endow it and the chapel upon
it. But even as late as the reign of Queen Eliza-
beth the roads were so bad as to be almost im-
passable for wheeled vehicles, and dangerously
beset by highwaymen. In that reign the over-
seers of the poor seem to have taken on the duty
of " way wardens," so that each parish became
responsible for any roads within it. Thus the old
roads were gradually mended and new ones made
to suit the occupiers of outlying houses. The
haphazard way in which this was done accounts
for the extraordinary winding of many of our
English roads to-day."^ But though a rich parish
could keep up its highways and byways fairly
well, the poor ones could not, and thus the roads

♦ The nature of the old tracks, gradually converted into
roads by parish authorities, often indicates the type of early
settlers in the district. Thus, in the old territories of the East
Saxons, who lived in scattered homesteads, the roads often
run with frequent right-angled turns, showing that the tracks
run from homestead to -homestead along the edges of en-
closures, and not direct from village to village.

HIGHWAYS, ROADS, AND BRIDGES ^7

became extremely patchy and awkward to travel
upon until, in 1752, a new system was introduced.

Turnpikes. — In order to improve the main
through roads of the country, the Turnpike Act
of 1752 permitted private owners or companies
to take over a main road for a certain number of
years. They could alter and improve it, and
charge all those who used it a small sum for its
use. This money was collected at "Turnpike
Gates," or "Toll Bars," which can be seen even now
in some parts of England. This system rapidly
improved the roads, but it led to two evils — (i) that
selfish owners could, and often did, divert the roads
to suit their own convenience, and (2) that it made
the transit of goods very costly ; for instance, it is
said that in 1 790 goods travelling from Southampton
to Oxford, a distance of less than 70 miles, had to
pay no less than eleven tolls at separate turnpike
gates. Roads gradually fell back again into the
hands of the parish authorities, and early in the
nineteenth century a great improvement was
introduced by the scientific methods of John
MacAdam, who in 181 2 was presented by Parlia-
ment with ^10,000 as a reward for improving the
road surfaces. At last, in 1835, the Government
took up the question of roads, and the General
Highway Act appointed proper surveyors of
roads for each parish. But again the unit of the
parish proved too small, and in 1848, under the
Public Health Act, parishes were united into
Highway Districts. The Local Government Acts
of 1888 and 1894 put the roads into the hands of

88 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

the Local Government authorities, and now the
County Council is responsible for the upkeep of
main roads and bridges ; the Urban or Rural
District Council or Borough Authorities keep up
the secondary roads, and the Parish Councils see
to footpaths that do not run along the public
roads. The Road Board, set up in 1914, now
treats certain main roads as of national importance,
and gives grants to County Councils for their
upkeep ; such roads are those of great naval or
military importance, as those from London to
Southampton and Portsmouth, or London to
Dover. Thus it will be seen that anything like
good roads are barely 200 years old in this
country, and first-class roads less than 100. The
ordinary citizen who now drives, or cycles, or
motors with comparative ease where he will,
could only have ridden or walked over the
majority of highways in the days of Queen Anne.
In view of the increase of motor and steam traffic
by road, both for travel and for transport of goods,
it has become necessary to organize a Ministry of
Transport, which has only recently begun to take
up its functions. (Clarke, " Local Government,"
P- 15.)

I

PART II
CHAPTER XIV

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE

Both industry and commerce are subjects of
economic study ; but though it is not possible to
enter into a full discussion of them here, their
importance from the point of view of civics is so
great that a few words are necessary.

Industry means work — to produce goods that
men need or want for the carrying out of the
business of life. It is, in a sense, the life-blood
of a nation, and commerce is the circulation of
this life-blood. Upon these two depend the
interest and the progress of national life. But
both have to be guided aright. The plea that
"business is business" may be used to justify
evil means, if not evil ends. No nation is secure
or prosperous without trade ; but trade by itself,
without a sense of civic duty, may lower the
national standard of what is right. If it were
not for the fact that men were not unselfish in
their trade aims in the past, trade between
countries, as between individuals, might have
been free. Free trade in theory expresses the
natural relation between countries, each country
supplying what other countries need, and getting
in return from them what it needs itself. The

89

90 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

world would be happiest if all men aimed at
peace, and all trading were free. In the earlier
years of the nineteenth century this view was
upheld by such great thinkers and speakers as
Cobden and Bright, and British trade was made
freer than that of any other country in conse-
quence. But so long as there is a danger of one
nation attacking another in war, free trade has to
be qualified by the necessity of a country being
self-supporting as far as is possible, for in war-
time imports from abroad may cease. Thus in
Great Britain agriculture has to some extent
decayed, and the crops grown are not nearly
enough to support the population. It may be
necessary to support agriculture by taxing foreign
imports, even if the immediate result is to raise
the price of bread.

Industry has developed very rapidly in the last
two hundred years, and the problems it raises
have become acute. Whereas in the earlier stages
of human industry individual workers each made
some article of commerce, the development of
machinery and of the factory system has now
made it the exception for any worker to produce
a finished article by himself. This has had very
wide results, and chiefly in the relations between
the workers and those who employ them. Thus,
in very many industries the workers have little or
no knowledge of their employer, and the personal
touch between master and craftsman has been
lost. The feeling has too often grown up that
those who do the actual work do not receive the

I

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE 91

right share of the profits of their industry. But
in order to maintain the very costly means of
production, machinery, buildings, transport, and
so forth, something more than the immediate
profit on the sale of the goods is needed to carry
on the trade, and thus there has grown up the
store of wealth known as Capital. And in all
modern industry some amount of capital is wanted
to ensure the continuance of the trade. Unfor-
tunately, the distinction between Labour and
Capital has become more and more sharply drawn,
and many have come to believe that their interests
are different. This is not really the case, for no
industry can go on without labour, and no group
of workers can produce and put their goods on
the market without some form of capital. So that
what is needed is a feeling of confidence and
mutual trust. If it were possible, the best solu-
tion of the difficulty seems to lie in co-operation.
If the workers both with hand and brain — for no
industry can be carried on successfully without
good organization and management — can combine
to work in harmony, and to share in the profits
of the undertaking, all will work smoothly. The
workers should take an interest in their work,
feeling themselves actually partners in the busi-
ness with those who provide the capital and find
the money for wages and cost of materials and
manufacture ; and the owners should feel that the
workers have a right to a share in the produce of
their toil, and to a voice in the management of
their affairs.

92 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Many writers and thinkers have urged that, as
the system of capital tends to bring money in
large quantities into the hands of the few rather
than the many, and thus make the conditions un-
equal, the State should in some way intervene
and make the ownership of some of the main
means of industry national, rather than personal.
There is much to be said on both sides of the
question. At first sight it would seem that
Government ownership would make for the happi-
ness of the greatest number. Yet experience has
shown that one of the greatest sources of progress
in industry is the desire to increase personal
wealth ; and that private enterprise is much more
likely to take risks than any Government, which
is liable to the criticism of every citizen. More-
over, many instances prove that Government
servants, paid regular salaries, work more slowly
and less keenly than those working for them-
selves; as the saying is, "What is everyone's
business is no one's business." Thus the national-
ization of some of our main industries might not
tend to progress, but even to less production. It
is hardly a question of right and wrong, but
rather of expediency. Is it better for a nation to
have large and growing industries, full of energy
and initiative, or to keep all production at one
level, and prevent rapid growth of personal
wealth by stifling enterprise? Only experience
can show.

The wealth of a nation does not consist only in
the actual money owned by the members of it, but

I

INDUSTRY AND COMMERCE 93

in the happiness and contentment of the citizens,
and their ability to lead prosperous and peaceful
lives; and whatever tends most to produce this
result is the best policy to pursue.

The commerce of a nation depends upon the
circulation of goods. Some articles can be pro-
duced at home and consumed — that is, used on the
spot ; others have to be brought from abroad, and
either consumed at once, such as foodstuffs, or
manufactured into articles of consumption. But
it is clear that if a nation does not produce every-
thing that it needs within its own borders, and
has to buy food or raw materials from abroad, its
wealth will decrease, unless it can send goods to
other countries and sell them there, and so balance
its trade. Upon these two principles has grown
up the whole system of exports and imports ; and
that nation is most prosperous which can pay for
its imports by exporting as much, or more, to
other countries. Britain has, in the past, been a
great trading country, and has built up her system
of commerce by making and selling to other
countries manufactured goods'*^ to pay for the
quantities of food and raw materials that she has
had to import to feed and to employ her large
population. When the price of imported goods
rises, the only way to meet the cost of these
imports is to make and export more goods than
before — i.e., to increase production.

* The only large British export that is not manufactured is
coal, and the tendency is for home consumption of coal to
exceed export.

94 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

However, this is perhaps going somewhat
beyond the scope of civics ; for the purposes of
citizenship it should be enough to understand the
main problems of industry and commerce, and to
see that, so far as may be, the industries of the
country may be conducted in a manner to conduce
to the welfare of the largest number, and that the
commerce of the nation may lead to its prosperity.
British commerce has in the past won for itself a
good reputation in the markets of the world. The
credit attaching to British honesty is the chief
asset in British trade ; and as it is to the interest
of the State that the citizens should be honest and
straightforward in their dealings, this is some-
thing to be proud of. Indeed, the individual fair-
ness and justness of traders goes far to make the
character of a nation.

As was said above, the relations of Capital and
Labour, and kindred subjects, belong more
properly to the sphere of Economics ; and the
questions raised by Trade Unionism and the
attitude of workers to their employers are not
purely civic, but rather sociological. However,
they are very intimately connected with civic
duties, and every good citizen should study these
matters, so as to be able to form a sound judg
ment upon them.

4

p

CHAPTER XV

PATRIOTIC FEELING AND PUBLIC SERVICE

Patriotism, or a natural feeling of pride in one's
country and a desire to uphold it, is a sentiment
common to civilized man. But it is quite possible
for this feeling to be led into wrong channels, and
to be actually harmful. If the desire to forward
the interests of one's fatherland at all costs
becomes too strong, it may lead to the neglect of
the just claims of other countries. The doctrine
of Chauvinism, or " my country, right or wrong,"
is surely false. True patriotism should lead us
to serve our country if it is right, and where it
is wrong to help to set it right. Just as the first
duties that we recognize as binding upon us are
,, those towards our family, and then as we grow up
|i we recognize our duty towards our neighbour, and
then to all fellow-citizens, so we must learn that
beyond our duty to our fellow-citizens and to our
country lies our duty towards all mankind. It
may sometimes prove to be the case that the
interests of the family must give way to the
interests of the State ; and so also, at times, the
claims of home and country must make room for
those of mankind as a whole. No patriotic feeling
can be just unless it can be put into action in such

96 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

a way as not to injure the reasonable claims of
other countries ; but when a conflict arises
between the rights of the fatherland and those of
other nations, the good citizen must be guided by
the dictates of his conscience.

The way to train the citizens of a State into a
right patriotic feeling should be by teaching them
that all have a duty towards the State, and that
they themselves constitute the State. If, then, the
State calls for service, it is right that those who
wish to serve it should learn the principles of
justice and equity; and it is even more right that
they should try to put what they learn into
practice.

The best cure for selfishness is a ready willing-
ness to help others, and this can be made the
basis of a good civic and patriotic spirit. But it
is not always easy to see how to be useful, and
hence the importance of knowing a little about all
departments of national life. The understanding
of different points of view helps to clear away
distrust and difficulty, and to stir up a keen and
active public spirit.

Some attempt has been made above to show the
position of the citizen in the State, and the duties
of the State towards the citizen. But it is not
enough for the good citizen to know how and why
certain questions are dealt with by the nation or
by local authorities. Men and women should all
try to take an active interest, and to see how far
they can play a useful part in the national life.
This is not merely a matter of using a vote at

i

PATRIOTIC FEELING 97

parliamentary or local elections. It implies
taking an active interest in all the questions of the
day, and seeing whether there is not some side of
Local Government work or assistance that each
can give to make the lot of others happier and
more satisfactory. It is clearly the diity of those
who have special knowledge or ability to serve on
Local Council Boards or Committees, rather than
to avoid the trouble that a few extra meetings
may give. Those who have had superior educa-
tion or training should be willing to put their
knowledge at the disposal of those who have been
less fortunate, and those who know anything of
the laws of the country should feel it a duty not
to leave unnoticed any open breach of them that
they may observe. The Englishman is by nature
reserved, and anxious to mind his own business if
others will mind theirs; but this feeling is too
often made an excuse for leaving things undone
that should certainly be done. Nobody wants to
be considered a busybody, but an intelligent and
kindly interest in the affairs of others promotes
good feeling and good citizenship. It is not
possible to make a nation good by Act of Parlia-
ment any more than to make it sober by
legislation. At the present time there is a
tendency to trust too much to Government inter-
ference ; many think that State ownership of
mines, railways, and land would solve some of the
most difficult questions of industry. But experi-
ence has shown that some of the best work in the
past has been done by private enterprise in all

7

98 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

departments of national life ; it is possible that
too great an insistence on law and State regula-
tion may destroy the sense of free citizenship,
and perhaps the best motto for a free citizen is
that of the Prince of Wales, " I serve."

Willing and hearty service on behalf of others
undoubtedly brings out the best qualities of mind
and character. Perhaps, in the future, that ideal
will be better realized, and education will be
aimed at producing keen citizens rather than
selfish wage-earners. There are three hopes
which should be before the mind of every British
subject : —

1. That every child born in the country should
have a full opportunity of finding self-expression ;

2. That the standard of justice between man
and woman should not only be maintained, but
rise to the utmost possible point ; and

3. That the freedom of each should mean the
freedom of all.

CHAPTER XVI

NATIONAL UNITY

It is much easier for the citizens of a small
city-State, such as those of ancient Greece, to
realize their unity, their oneness as members of the
State, than it is for those who are members of a
great modern nation. There is an old saying
that it is often not easy to see the wood for the
trees ; and this is true of our present masses of
population. The neighbours whom we know
can easily be thought of as fellow-citizens ; but
it is hard to feel much interest in the teeming
thousands of some distant town. And so, in
peace time, we are apt to make more of our
differences and our divisions than of our common
nationality: it takes some great crisis, such as
the recent War, to bring together the different
elements in a nation. Yet it is possible for
people with widely different traditions and aims
to work together for common national objects.
England itself is in its history a witness to this :
the various Saxon kingdoms combined into one
and absorbed their Danish conquerors ; the
Normans fused with the Saxons to form the
English people ; the Welsh, though preserving
their language and many national customs, have

99

loo ELEMENTARY CIVICS

become united with the English ; Scotland, after
centuries of strife with England, eventually
became united, at first in sentiment through the
Stuart dynasty, and then in fact by the Act of
Union (1707); and though there were attempted
risings in 171 5 and 1745, their very failure shows
the union of Scotland with England to have been
more than a mere paper agreement. Ireland has,
unfortunately, never understood this principle of
unity, and her attitude to England creates the
most difficult problem of the day.

National unity calls for some sacrifice of
personal wishes. It means that the party spirit
must sometimes give way to the good of the
whole. It is quite right and reasonable that
each should hold his own party views, and party
government seems to lead to the freest discussion
of all questions ; but the interests of one party
should not be allowed to override the good of the
country as a whole. It is this that makes the
Crown in this country so valuable an asset to the
State : the King is assumed to be above all party,
and to be independent of the changes of political
fortune, and as such is the head of the Nation and
the Empire, and the visible proof of its oneness.
Ip the same way, it is held that the foreign affairs
of a nation ought to be beyond the range of party
warfare, and managed by experts with no object
in view but the good of the country as a whole.

Again, there is the utmost difference between
man and man in religious matters ; and it is right
that there should be freedom and toleration fc

NATIONAL UNITY loi

all points of view. But most good citizens, how-
ever different their opinions in religion, agree as
to the principles of justice and truth ; and where
there is a National Church it should stand for
these principles and, however much people may
differ from it in shades of thought and creed,
it should uphold the standard of national honesty
and purity.

Perhaps the chief bar to national unity lies in
class distinction. Men are not born equal in gifts
and capacities, and still less in position ; and the
sense of social or political privilege tends to make
those who enjoy it proud, and those who do not
possess it jealous. But though it is not possible
to remove all social inequalities, much has been
done to put aside political privilege. It is the
glory of Great Britain that her citizens may rise
from the humblest origin to the highest and most
responsible positions ; and more and more the
ideal of "equality of opportunity" is being realized.
The distinctions of caste and class are being
broken down, and education, the great means of
self-improvement, thrown open to all. Nothing
makes for mutual trust and understanding more
surely than work done together for the common
good, and hence one of the most valuable means
towards securing national unity is public service
in the national interest. Thus it has been found
that comradeship in the recent War has, for many,
broken down old prejudice and misunderstandings,
and made possible a better spirit. English folk
are proud of being sportsmen ; and the essence of

I02 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

true sport is that it should be a common sharing
of some strenuous or venturesome enterprise.
Any game that makes those who play it play for
the side, and not for their own hand, brings out
this sportsmanlike feeling. To " play the game "
means to us to be fair, to submit to the orders of
a captain, and not to grudge the victory to the
better side; and there is no better training for
national unity than a sound training in healthy
national games. Not the watching of a football
match or a race meeting (which though harmless
in themselves may lead to betting and gambling),
but the actual participation in an athletic or gym-
nastic contest makes men not only physically
stronger, but mentally and morally sounder.

Again, nothing can be better than that boys
and girls should be trained as scouts and guides
to work and play together for a common object,
and no personal gain. The character-forming
value of these growing institutions is inestimable,
and will bear fruit in years to come as a real
source of national unity.

Just as in industry and commerce, co-operation
appears to point the way to a fuller recognition of
individual rights, so, too, in political and social life,
common work for a common object breaks down
the barriers of exclusiveness and caste, and pro-
motes goodwill and the happiness of the greatest
number; and that leads eventually to a feeling of
national unity.

CHAPTER XVII

THE BRITISH EMPIRE

In addition to the British Isles, the nation holds
or administers vast regions overseas. Our island
position to the north-west of the continent of
Europe has caused generations of Englishmen to
look to the sea for their livelihood, and to take
part in the exploration of the w^orld. Under the
great Elizabethan mariners, such as Raleigh,
Drake, Frobisher, and Hawkins, our knowledge of
the lands beyond the Atlantic grew apace, and
British settlements grew up along the coasts of
North America as well as in the West Indies.
These became, under the Stuart Kings and the
Commonwealth, trading stations and penal settle-
ments, and gradually developed into colonial
dependencies. In the reign of Elizabeth English
merchants turned their attention also towards the
East, and there grew up an East India Company,
which gradually acquired lands in India and the
Eastern Seas. The wars of the eighteenth century
to some extent put a stop to this colonial expan-
sion, and the unfortunate action of Grenville and
Lord North lost to us, in 1771, the greater part of
our North American colonies, which then began
their separate existence as the United States of

103

I04 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

America, and have since grown into one of the
greatest world Powers. But we retained our
hold upon Canada, and gradually pushed its
boundaries westward from the banks of the
St. Lawrence to the Pacific Ocean.

The loss of the American colonies caused us to

look farther afield for a penal colony, and in 1788

the east coast of Australia was selected and

settled upon; and from the first stations at Botany

Bay and Port Jackson, British dominion gradually

spread over the whole of that vast continent.

New Zealand was not formally annexed until

1840, though British settlers had traded with the

Maoris and held land there for fully fifty years

before. In South Africa we had some interests

since the seventeenth century, but did not finally

purchase Cape Colony from the Dutch till 18 14;

and the gradual expansion of British influence

over the South of that great continent took fully a

hundred years. In India, the British Trading

Company had bought land and been drawn into

relations with native princes, which led to the

gradual acquisition of nearly two-thirds of the

surface of India ; and in 1858 the Company handed

over its territories and rights to the Crown, which

has since administered British India and advised

the native sovereigns, to the great advantage of

the millions that live there.

It would not be possible here to trace the history
of all our lesser dependencies and colonies, or of
the great Protectorates, such as Egypt ; but in one
way or another Great Britain has acquired sway

THE BRITISH EMPIRE 105 •

over, or direction of, one-fifth of the land surface
of the globe. This is not only a great privilege
for the British race : it is also a very great respon-
sibility. Of the total population of this Empire,
estimated kt some 436,000,000 in 1919, only one-
sixth are white people : some 46,000,000 in Great
Britain, 7,000,000 in Canada, 6,000,000 in Australia
and New Zealand, and barely 3,000,000 in South
Africa; whilst in India the white population is
only some 300,000, and the coloured folks number
330,000,000.

Is this great collection of different peoples and
lands really an Empire ? Not in the sense that
an Empire may be defined as a State, ruled over
by a single monarch with a single system of
government, such as was the great Roman Empire^
or the short-lived Empire of Napoleon, or the rule
of the Czars in Russia. Nor is it a State upheld
by military despotism, such as was the German
Empire before the War. Rather, the British
Empire is a collection of loosely related units,
bound together by a common sentiment of loyalty
to the British Crown and a common interest in
trade. The Governments of the various units
composing the Empire differ widely. There are,
besides the British Isles, five great self-governing
Dominions — Canada, the Commonwealth of Aus-
tralia, South Africa, New Zealand, and Newfound-
land; there is the great Dependency of India:
there are Crown Colonies, Protectorates, Feder-
ated States (such as those of Malaya), and isolated
outpostsofEmpire(such as Aden, Malta, Gibraltar);

io6 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

there are wide spheres of influence in Eastern
Africa, and territories temporarily administered
by Great Britain such as Mesopotamia. In some
parts of the world British administration has tried
to pave the way for a nation hitherto backward
or undeveloped to find her own independence;
this is the case with Egypt, and may prove to be
the solution of our problems in India. But how-
ever acquired, and great though the mistakes
made in the past may have been, the aim of the
British Empire has been to spread the sense of
liberty and justice, and to forward the progress of
civilization. There is no doubt that, on the whole,
British colonial and imperial government has
been for the good of mankind. Native races have,
in countless examples, shown their trust in British
justice. British trade has made for honesty and
fair dealing, and, where there have been abuses,
our imperial administrators have tried to deal
with them justly and impartially. The British
flag has rescued many races from slavery, and
waged incessant war upon the slave trade.
British government has encouraged freedom of
speech, political rights, and religious toleration,
and British colonial governors and civil servants
have shown an unexampled devotion to the
interests of the peoples under their charge. The
aim of those in charge of the affairs of the Empire
has been, and should always be, to direct the
government of the various nations within the
Empire towards their advancement and improve-
ment. This has often been difficult, and those at

THE BRITISH EMPIRE 107

home, who know little or nothing of the overseas
countries, have often criticized our colonial ad-
ministrators unfavourably ; but no other country
can show such a record of devoted service to
mankind.

It is the duty of every good citizen to take an
interest in the Empire and its welfare, and to
acquaint himself with its extent and nature, A
strong body of sound public opinion upon Empire
subjects will greatly help those who carry out
the administration. ^

CHAPTER XVIII

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

I

It has been seen that the growth of civic ideas
is from the family to the group or tribe, from that
to the State or nation ; and only when civilization
has reached a high level do men realize their
duties to citizens of other countries and to the
world as a whole. The first feeling that we have
towards those of other races and languages is not
friendly ; we do not naturally understand them
or agree with them, and there is a tendency to
suspect or to despise all those who are not of the
same nation as ourselves. But this is not neces-
sary, nor is it right ; the interests of other nations
need not be the same as ours, though they may
fit in with ours and we may derive benefit from
each other. From the early stage of dislike of
foreigners sprang wars ; the actual causes of war
being many — sometimes the desire to gain land,
sometimes to overthrow a hostile Power, some-
times to attack a religious creed. Thus, the
Normans overthrew the Saxon Kings to gain
their land, the continental Powers allied them-
selves against Napoleon to break his power, the
Crusades were organized to regain the Christian

io8

i

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS 109

holy places from their Mohammedan conquerors-
It is only within recent centuries that the idea
has gained ground that nations can agree to differ,
and that differences can be settled by the pen
and not the sword : the idea of international rights
and justice does not date back two hundred years.
Even now it is misleading to talk of international
law, for that impHes that such law has been made
and sanctioned by all or many nations ; but it
does not really exist, and all that has been done
is to substitute conferences and conventions for
warfare where possible. This movement dates
only from the middle of the nineteenth century.
Perhaps the first instance of a disputed inter-
national point being submitted to arbitration was
the celebrated Alabama case in 1872.

The Geneva Convention and the Hague Con-
ference, in the last years of the nineteenth century
and the beginning of the twentieth, did much to
bring about peaceful discussion of international
affairs, but their decisions were not backed -with
any real power, and were set aside by some of
the combatants in the recent War.

Failing the existence of a real international law,
it has been the custom of civilized nations to send
special ministers to each other, to watch the
interests of their own nation, and, if possible, to
avoid causes of offence. These envoys, ambassa-
dors, or plenipotentiaries, as they are called, are
supposed to represent their own Governments,
and to speak with authority on behalf of their
own nation ; an embassy or legation deals with

no ELEMENTARY CIVICS

questions affecting the rights of its own citizens
and their trade in the country in which it is
situated. As the relations between embassies
and foreign Governments are very delicate, there
has grown up a special art of dealing with these
international questions, known as diplomacy ; the
word is derived from the " diploma," or official
document, certifying the genuineness of the
ambassador's appointment. For many years the
object of diplomacy has been to bring about the
peace of the world by a "balance of power" —
that is, a rough attempt to stave off wars by
equalizing the powers of rival nations, and, where
smaller or weaker dominions seemed likely to be
crushed by greater Powers, seeking alliances with
other nations to restore the balance. This ideal
of diplomacy is a low one, for it rests upon the
assumption that Might is Right, and does not
appeal to the moral sense of humanity. It is
therefore liable to break down, and has done so ;
and the future of diplomacy must lie in taking a
higher view of international aims. The idea of a
League of Nations is that every nation, however
small, should have the right of self-expression or
self-determination, and that the greater should
help the smaller to achieve this object. How far
diplomacy will succeed in bringing this about
remains to be seen. In the past, diplomacy has
too often been used for selfish ends by scheming
rulers or Governments, and its fault has been too
great secrecy. President Wilson has appealed
for open diplomacy, in which each nation may

i

INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS iii

state clearly its aims and work openly for the
peace of the world, instead of secretly for the
advantage of one Government. It is, of course,
difficult for the public to follow closely all the
steps in international relations, largely owing to
the difficulties caused by differences of language
and customs, but much more could be made
known to all through the Press than has hitherto
been the case, and then the suspicion of secret
treaties and agreements would be avoided.

English folk have a great belief in good be-
haviour, or, as they say, the gentlemanly way of
dealing with one another. There is no reason
why nations should not behave in this manner ;
if disputes arise, it is far better not to quarrel or
go to war, but to submit the case to arbitration.
Such a case arose when Chile and the Argentine
Republic referred the settlement of their difficult
boundary question to King Edward VII. in 1902;
and other instances can be quoted to prove the
value of this way of adjusting disagreements. If
simple arbitration fails, there should still be some
Court of international law to which the case
could be sent ; and this is one of the objects of the
League of Nations. Between nations, as between
individuals, what is needed is a spirit of confid-
ence. Those who deal fairly and honestly with
their neighbours think well of them, and in their
turn deserve to be trusted, and are trusted. This
is the ideal to aim at in national affairs as well as
in private, and the world is becoming more
accustomed to the idea. Years ago travel was

112

ELEMENTARY CIVICS

difficult, and nations were very much cut off from
each other ; but, with the improved means of com-
munication at our disposal, the countries of the
world are becoming much more closely united,
and humanity is gradually finding that it is all
one family, and that the interests of each are, to a
great extent, the interests of all.

i

CHAPTER XIX

SOME CIVIC PROBLEMS

The study of civics arouses interest in a very
great number of questions, and it may not be out
of place here to treat of some important problems
of the day. Luxury and waste are at the present
time responsible for a great deal of misery. The
distribution of wealth is a subject more to be
treated under the heading of Economics, but it is
clear that v^here money and property are very
unevenly divided, then some will get more, and
others less, than they should. It is not true to say
that the rich man's extravagant tastes give work
to his less fortunate neighbours. Work is, of
course, employed in the production of articles of
luxury, but it is quite easy to show that that
amount of work could quite as well be applied to
objects of more use to the community. It is very
hard to define luxuries. Besides the bare neces-
sities of food, shelter, and clothing, we all have
certain reasonable wants, and with the growth of
civilization there is a rise in the standard of
comfort. But luxuries are neither needs nor
comforts, but rather things which are unnecessary
and extravagant, and often only purchased to give
a sense of pride and possession. Similarly, there

113 8

114 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

is much unnecessary waste, both of life and
material, which could be avoided by the use of a
stronger sense of civic duty.*

If taxation of large incomes can be regulated,
so as to secure that a greater proportion of the
wealth of the country really goes to promote the
welfare of the greater number, much of the more
obvious form of luxury will be avoided. But it
is not- only the rich who are extravagant or waste-
ful. Often those whose wealth is not great
squander their money on unnecessary food, or
useless display of clothes, or expensive entertain-
ments, and thus reduce the amount that they can
save or spend upon necessaries. What is above
all needed is sound public opinion on these
matters. Rationing during the War taught the
country to be economical, and to see how much
can be dispensed with ; and some form of Govern-
ment control can reduce extravagance in food and
fuel.

Drink. — It is asserted that much of our national
poverty and misery is directly due to .drink.
Certainly the Northern races of Europe have a
tendency to err in excessive drinking, and the
evils resulting from it are national disasters.
Apart from the waste of foodstuffs in the manu-
facture of intoxicants, the serious danger has lain
in the fact that the promotion of the sale of drink
has been to the interest of brewers and distillers.
No such private interest should stand in the way

* See " Luxury and Waste of Life," by E. J. Urwick.
(J. M. Dent and Co.)

I

SOME CIVIC PROBLEMS 115

of reform. The nation cannot afford to be a
drunken nation. The excessive use of drink
lowers the standard of efficiency.

Prohibition in the United States of America
and in some of our Colonies — e.g., New Zealand —
is an industrial, rather than a social, measure. It
is claimed that where the sale of liquor is heavily
restricted or prohibited the efficiency of workers
is increased by 10 per cent, at least. The public-
houses in this country have too often been run
simply in the interests of the brewers, and not of
the public, and many political clubs have served
as an excuse for drinking. There should be more
restriction of licences, and the local authorities
in each area should have local option as to the
number of licences issued and the amount to be
sold. During the War Government control has
made a marked difference to the sobriety of the
country, the Central Liquor Control Board having
reduced the amount manufactured and issued, and
greatly shortened the hours of sale. And there are
two strong new factors making for temperance —
firstly, the women's vote, and secondly the growth
of sound teaching on the subject in the schools.
There arises the question of the duty of the State
in regard to the Liquor Trade. So long as private
interest in the sale of drink exists there is danger
to the State ; and it might be to the good of the
community if the State purchased and managed
the entire trade. At any rate, much can be done
by making those who sell liquor less directly
interested in the quantity sold. Such disinterested

ii6 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

management as exists in public-houses managed
by the People's Refreshment House Association
and the Public House Trust Association and
kindred bodies makes the problem easier, the
profits on the sale of non-intoxicants and of food
being to the advantage of the manager, who
receives none for the sale of intoxicants. But
there is more to be gained by teaching citizens
to seek something better than by all the control
and licensing laws. The State should try to
remove the temptation to drink, and at the same
time give encouragement to clubs, associations,
refreshment-houses, and entertainments where no
drink is sold. Children are wisely excluded from
public-houses already, but there should be healthy
and happy refreshment-houses where a man can
take his wife and family without temptations to
intoxicating drink, and without the degrading
spectacle of human beings under the influence of
liquor.

Of Betting and Gambling it is difficult to
speak. There is no doubt that they lead to dis-
tress, and are a national evil. But there is a
strong feeling that " a man may do what he likes
with his own," and the temptation to risk money
on a sporting event is common to many British
folk; whether it be horse-racing, football,
coursing, or boxing, there is always the motive of
a desire to " put money on the winner." In some
countries betting on horse-racing is controlled
by the State on the totalizator system, and the
profits on the working of the system go towards

SOME CIVIC PROBLEMS 117

the revenue ; this is actually the case in New
Zealand. But a great deal of betting takes place
privately and not upon the racecourse, and is
extremely difficult to control. So, too, with
gambling; the police can find and suppress
houses kept simply for the purpose of gambling,
but they cannot prevent games played privately
for high, even ruinous, stakes. Public opinion on
this point is certainly sounder than in the earlier
years of the nineteenth century, when many
families were gambled out of house and home;
but there is room for much improvement yet in
these matters.

CHAPTER XX

THE PRESS

rint-- ■

There is no doubt that the invention of print--
ing has made a wonderful difference to the life of
nations. Since it became common to print books,
the influence of the spoken word has decreased ;
and, with the coming of cheap newspapers, the
spread of ideas has become extraordinarily rapid.
The Press is most powerful in a state of society
where all, or most, can read, but not all have
learnt to criticize and to set a just value upon
what they read. There are far too many
ordinary men and women who are prepared to
accept any statement as true because they have
seen it in print. It is owing to this that advertise-
ments, very often couched in highly-coloured
language, have such a success ; patent medicines,
and tipsters in horse-racing, owe their popularity
to the gullibility of the public. Thus, if the
printed word is to be taken at its true value,
readers must learn to be more ready to use their
own judgment. The responsibility for the news
published in a newspaper rests with the owner
and editor; and the danger in the control of
several newspapers by one owner or editor is that
the news issued in all of them may be misleading.

ii8

I

THE PRESS 119

It is not at all certain that the publication of false
news, whether intentionally or not, should not
be made a criminal offence. The law is extremely
severe as regards slander and libel — that is, the
publication of statements likely to damage the
character of any individual — and it might be
extended to include false statements in general.
Again, the Press is apt to encourage in the public
a desire for sensation. This arises from the
craving for excitement which is not healthy or
wise, and leads to the printing of a great deal of
ugly and sordid matter, such as police news,
which cannot do good to the citizens as a whole.
The British Press bears, on the whole, a good
reputation as compared with that of other
countries. The newspapers are not directly in
the pay of the Government or any political party,
and this makes for freedom of thought and speech.
Indeed, freedom of the Press is essential to con-
stitutional liberty, and attempts to suppress it
lead to conspiracy and crime. The purity and
decency of the British Press is in marked con-
trast to that of some lands, and the police can
suppress at once printed matter that can offend
against the better moral feelings of the citizens ;
so that the standard of public morals is largely in
the hands of the newspapers, and the higher they
can keep it, the better for the country. At the
present time the chief fault of the Press from a
civic point of view is the prominence given to
certain reports which cannot do good, and may be
responsible for serious harm. It is the aim of the

I20 ELEMENTARY CIVICS

Press to supply the public with facts, attractively
and readably set forth ; and so the journalists
who prepare the news are bound to be closely in
touch with popular opinion and wishes. They can
do much to guide the public to think aright, and
thus become a very great asset to the State.
During the War Press censorship on foreign news
had to be exercised by the Government, as well as
on the reports of military and naval affairs ; this
led to some restrictions, but also did a good deal
to assure the reliability of news. If the Press can,
without control from above, supply the country
with true and healthy news, well put, and not
liable to lead to excitement or alarm, the service
so rendered to the State will always be valuable.

BILLING AND SONS, PRINTERS, GUILDFORD, ENGLAND

University of Toronto
Library

DO NOT

REMOVE

THE

CARD

FROM

THIS

POCKET

Acme Library Card Pocket
LOWE-MARTIN CO. UMITED