Studies scientific & social, by Alfred Russel Wallace

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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA.

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STUDIES

SCIENTIFIC & SOCIAL

STUDIES

SCIENTIFIC &> SOCIAL

BY

ALFRED RUSSEL WALLACE

LL.D., D.C.L., F.R.S., ETC

IN TWO VOLUMES.— VOLUME II

WITH NUMEROUS ILLUSTRATIONS

m

MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED

NEW YORK: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
IQOO

All rights reserved

•J.

RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED,
LONDON AND BUNGAY

ERRATA.

VOL. II.

CONTENTS.

IV., after " Epping Forest," £c., add (Fortniyhf/y fitview,

November, 1878).
XXVIII. , for " The " read "True. "

CONTENTS

OF VOL. II
EDUCATIONAL.

CHAPTER PAGE

I. MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE (Macmillan's Magazine,

1869) 1

II. AMERICAN MUSEUMS (Fortnightly Review, September

and October, 1887) 16

III. How BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH (Contemporary

Review, May, 1896) . 59

IV. EPPING FOREST AND TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS . 74
V. WHITE MEN IN THE TROPICS (The Independent, New

York, 1899) 99

VI. How TO CIVILISE SAVAGES (The Reader, June 17, 1865) 107
VII. THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH, OR MOUTH-GESTURE
AS A FACTOR IN THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE (Fort-
nightly Review, October, 1895) 115

POLITICAL.

VIII. COAL A NATIONAL TRUST (The Daily News, Septem-
ber 16, 1873) 138

IX. PAPER MONEY AS A STANDARD OF VALUE (The

Academy, December 31, 1898) 145

X. LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS IN THE ADMINISTRA-
TION OF JUSTICE (Contemporary Review, December,

1873) 150

XI. RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE, WITH A
REPLY TO MR. LOWE (Nineteenth Century, April,

1879) 167

XII. THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE, ITS CAUSES AND ITS

REMEDIES (Claim* of Labour Lectures, 1886) . . . 188

85543

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

XIII.
XIV.

XV.

A REPRESENTATIVE HOUSE OF LORDS (Contemporary
Review, June, 1894) '2'2'3

DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT, WITH A PRO-
POSAL FOR A REALLY NATIONAL CHURCH OF ENG-
LAND (Macmillarfs Magazine, April, 1873) .... '235

INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS AND UNJUST . 254

THE LAND PROBLEM.

XVI. How TO NATIONALISE THE LAND : A RADICAL SOLU-
TION OF THE IRISH LAND PROBLEM (Contemporary

Review, November, 1880) 265

XVII. THE "WHY" AND "How" OF LAND NATIONALIZA-
TION (MacmUlan's Magazine, August and September,

1883) 296

XVIII. HERBERT SPENCER ON THE LAND QUESTION : A
CRITICISM. (From an Address to the Land National-
ization Society, 1892) . . . • 333

XIX. SOME OBJECTIONS TO LAND NATIONALIZATION
ANSWERED. (From Tracts issued by the Land
Nationalization Society) 345

ETHICAL.

XX. A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION FOR SABBATARIANS (Nine-
teenth Century, October, 1894) 364

XXI. WHY LIVE A MORAL LIFE? (Agnostic Annual, 1895). 375
XXII. THE CAUSES OF WAR AND THE REMEDIES (UHumanite

Nouvdle, May, 1899) 384

SOCIOLOGICAL.

XXIII. THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE AND THE WAY OUT OF IT

(The Arena, Boston, U.S.A., March and April, 1893) 394

XXIV. ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE (Vox Clamantium,

1894) % 432

XXV. RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 455

XXVI. REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND : THE ONLY IMMEDIATE
SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED

(Forecasts of the Coming Century, 1897) 478

XXVII. HUMAN PROGRESS, PAST AND FUTURE (The Arena,

January, 1892) 493

XXVIII. THE INDIVIDUALISM : THE ESSENTIAL PRELIMINARY

OF A REAL SOCIAL ADVANCE 510

XXIX. JUSTICE NOT CHARITY, AS THE FUNDAMENTAL PRIN-
CIPLE OF SOCIAL REFORM. (An Appeal to my Readers) 521

LIST OF ILLUSTEATIONS

IN VOL. II

FIG. PAGE

1. MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE, MASS. . 19

2. ONE SIDE OF THE NORTH AMERICAN ROOM 27

3. SOUTH AMERICAN FAUNA 29

4. THE EUROPEAN FAUNA . 33

5. STONE IMPLEMENTS 41

6. STONE SCRAPERS 41

7 ARROW AND SPEAR HEADS 42

8. ARROW AND SPEAR HEADS 43

9. ARROW AND SPEAR HEADS 44

10. TOOLS 44

11. Discs 45

12. PLUMMETS 45

13. STONE SPADE 46

14. SPADE AND KNIVES 46

viii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

FIG. PAGE

15. WEIGHTS 46

16. CUPS AND SPOONS . .... 48

17. SHUTTLE AND REEL 48

18. THREAD-WINDERS 48

19. STONE Discs FOR GAMES 49

•20. CEREMONIAL STONES 49

21. CEREMONIAL STONES 49

22. CEREMONIAL STONES *. 50

23. ANIMAL SCULPTURES 51

24. YOKES AND A CELT 52

25. DIAGRAM OF EXPORTS AND IMPORTS 1864 TO 1883 . . 192

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

VOL. II

CHAPTER I

MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE

MUSEUMS of Natural History should be, one would
think, among the most entertaining and instructive of
public exhibitions, since their object is to show us life-like
restorations of all those wonderful and beautiful animals,
the mere description of which in the pages of the traveller,
the naturalist, or the sportsman, are of such absorbing
interest. Strange to say, however, such is by no means
generally the case ; and these institutions rarely appear to
yield either pleasure or information at all proportionate
to their immense cost. We can hardly impute this failure
to anything in the nature of museums or of their contents,
when we remember that good illustrated works on natural
history are universally interesting and instructive; and
that private collections of birds, shells, or insects are often
very attractive even to the uninitiated, and at the same
time of the highest value to the student. We must
therefore seek for an explanation of the anomaly in the
system on which public museums are usually constituted,
in the quality of the specimens they exhibit, and in the
mode of exhibiting them, all which, it is now generally
admitted, are equally unsuited for the amusement and
instruction of the public and for the purposes of the
scientific student.

VOL. II B

2 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Public museums of natural objects being such entirely
modern institutions, we can hardly wonder that no
generally accepted principles have yet been laid down for
their construction or arrangement. They most frequently
originated with private collectors, whose plan was naturally
followed in their enlargement; and when they outgrew
their original domicile, an architect was called in, who,
according to his special tastes, designed a temple or a
palace for their reception. However inconvenient or un-
suitable the original mode of exhibition might turn out,
or however ill adapted to its purpose the new building
might prove, it would, of course, be exceedingly difficult
and expensive to alter either of them, more especially as
the modified plan might be found, after trial, to have
defects as great as that which it replaced.

Two eminent naturalists, Sir Joseph Hooker and the late
Dr. J. E. Gray, both connected with great public museums,
have made suggestions towards a more rational system ; and
as it is evident that museums will increase, and may be
made an important agent in national education and the
elevation of the masses of the people, it seems advisable
that the subject should be brought forward for popular
discussion.

Accepting as a basis the few essential principles that
seem now to be agreed upon, I propose to follow them
out into some rather important details.

I shall consider, in the first place, what should be
the scope of a Typical Popular Museum, and then sketch
out the arrangements best adapted to make it both enter-
taining and instructive to the young and ' ignorant, and a
means of high intellectual culture and enjoyment to such
as may be disposed to avail themselves fully of its
teachings.

Museums are well adapted to illustrate all those
branches of knowledge whose subject-matter consists
mainly of definite movable and portable objects. The
great group of the natural history sciences can scarcely be
taught without them; while mathematics, astronomy,
physics, and chemistry make use of observatories and
laboratories rather than museums. The fine and

MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE

mechanical arts, as well as history, can also be illustrated
by extensive collections of objects; and we are thus led to
a broad division of museums, according as they deal mainly
with natural objects or with works of art.

A museum of natural objects appears, for a variety of
reasons, best fitted to interest, instruct, and elevate the
middle and lower classes, and the young. It is more in
accordance with their tastes and sympathies, as shown by
the universal fondness for flowers and birds, and the great
interest excited by new or strange animals. It enables
them to acquire a wide and accurate knowledge of the
earth and of its varied productions ; and if they wish to
follow up any branch of natural history as an amusement
or a study, it leads them into the pure air and pleasant
scenes of the country, arid is likely to be the best antidote
to habits of dissipation or immorality. Such museums,
too, offer the only means by which the mass of the
working classes can obtain any actual knowledge of the
wonderful productions of nature in present or past ages ;
and such knowledge gives a new interest to works on
geography, travel, or natural history. Owing to the wide
disconnection of these subjects from the daily pursuits of
life, they are so. much the better adapted for the relaxation
of those who earn their bread by manual labour. The
inexhaustible variety, the strange beauty, and the won-
drous complexity of natural objects, are pre-eminently
adapted to excite both the observing and reflective powers
of the mind, and their study is well calculated to have an
elevating and refining effect upon the character.

Works of art,' on the other hand, though in the highest
degree instructive and elevating to some minds, are not so
universally attractive; and, what is more important, do
not exercise so many faculties, and do not offer such wide
and easily-reached fields of study for the working classes.
Some previous training or special aptitude is required
in order to appreciate them ; and it may even be asserted
with truth that the study of nature is a necessary pre-
liminary to the appreciation of art. It does not seem
improbable that, even if our object were to make artists
and lovers of art, good museums of natural objects might
be the most useful first step. We have further to

B 2

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Public museums of natural objects being such entirely
modern institutions, we can hardly wonder that no
generally accepted principles have yet been laid down for
their construction or arrangement. They most frequently
originated with private collectors, whose plan was naturally
followed in their enlargement; and when they outgrew
their original domicile, an architect was called in, who,
according to his special tastes, designed a temple or a
palace for their reception. However inconvenient or un-
suitable the original mode of exhibition might turn out,
or however ill adapted to its purpose the new building
might prove, it would, of course, be exceedingly difficult
and expensive to alter either of them, more especially as
the modified plan might be found, after trial, to have
defects as great as that which it replaced.

Two eminent naturalists, Sir Joseph Hooker and the late
Dr. J. E. Gray, both connected with great public museums,
have made suggestions towards a more rational system ; and
as it is evident that museums will increase, and may be
made an important agent in national education and the
elevation of the masses of the people, it seems advisable
that the subject should be brought forward for popular
discussion.

Accepting as a basis the few essential principles that
seem now to be agreed upon, I propose to follow them
out into some rather important details.

I shall consider, in the first place, what should be
the scope of a Typical Popular Museum, and then sketch
out the arrangements best adapted to make it both enter-
taining and instructive to the young and ' ignorant, and a
means of high intellectual culture and enjoyment to such
as may be disposed to avail themselves fully of its
teachings.

Museums are well adapted to illustrate all those
branches of knowledge whose subject-matter consists
mainly of definite movable and portable objects. The
great group of the natural history sciences can scarcely be
taught without them; while mathematics, astronomy,
physics, and chemistry make use of observatories and
laboratories rather than museums. The fine and

MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE

mechanical arts, as well as history, can also be illustrated
by extensive collections of objects; and we are thus led to
a broad division of museums, according as they deal mainly
with natural objects or with works of art.

A museum of natural objects appears, for a variety of
reasons, best fitted to interest, instruct, and elevate the
middle and lower classes, and the young. It is more in
accordance with their tastes and sympathies, as shown by
the universal fondness for flowers and birds, and the great
interest excited by new or strange animals. It enables
them to acquire a wide and accurate knowledge of the
earth and of its varied productions ; and if they wish to
follow up any branch of natural history as an amusement
or a study, it leads them into the pure air and pleasant
scenes of the country, arid is likely to be the best antidote
to habits of dissipation or immorality. Such museums,
too, offer the only means by which the mass of the
working classes can obtain any actual knowledge of the
wonderful productions of nature in present or past ages ;
and such knowledge gives a new interest to works on
geography, travel, or natural history. Owing to the wide
disconnection of these subjects from the daily pursuits of
life, they are so. much the better adapted for the relaxation
of those who earn their bread by manual labour. The
inexhaustible variety, the strange beauty, and the won-
drous complexity of natural objects, are pre-eminently
adapted to excite both the observing and reflective powers
of the mind, and their study is well calculated to have an
elevating and refining effect upon the character.

Works of art, on the other hand, though in the highest
degree instructive and elevating to some minds, are not so
universally attractive ; and, what is more important, do
not exercise so many faculties, and do not offer such wide
and easily-reached fields of study for the working classes.
Some previous training or special aptitude is required
in order to appreciate them ; and it may even be asserted
with truth that the study of nature is a necessary pre-
liminary to the appreciation of art. It does not seem
improbable that, even if our object were to make artists
and lovers of art, good museums of natural objects might
be the most useful first step. We have further to

B 2

4 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

consider that objects of art are already widely spread, and
more or less accessible. Our great public buildings
contain their art-decorations. The houses of the wealthy
and the shops of our streets are full of art, and the artisan
has frequent opportunities of seeing them, while local
exhibitions of art are not uncommon, and will no doubt
be come more and more frequent. The very young and
the very ignorant would learn nothing in an art museum,
while they would certainly gain both knowledge and
pleasure in such an one as I am about to describe.

A Typical Museum of Natural History should contain
a series of objects to illustrate all the sciences which treat
of the earth, nature, and man. These are — 1, Geography
and Geology; 2, Mineralogy; 3, Botany; 4, Zoology; 5,
Ethnology. I will briefly sketch what seems to be the
best mode of illustrating these sciences in a museum for
the people.

GEOGRAPHY AND GEOLOGY. — Some knowledge of the
earth and its structure is so essential a preliminary to any
acquaintance with natural history, and the working classes
have so few opportunities of seeing large maps, globes, or
models, that a good series of these should form a part of
the museum. In particular, relief-maps, models, and
maps to illustrate physical geography and geology, large
sections and diagrams, and large globes, should be so
exhibited that they could be conveniently examined and
studied in detail.

The country around the museum should be shown on a
large scale by a model or relief-map, in which the undu-
lations of the ground and the hills, valleys, mountains
and streams should be shown on a natural scale of heights,
so as not to exaggerate the slopes to three or four
times their actual steepness, as is usually done. The
more important mountainous regions of our islands, as
well as some portions of the Alps and Himalayas, should
be shown in the same manner, and all on the same scale,
so as to exhibit their true relations to each other. Only
in this way can the erroneous ideas derived from maps on
different scales and models on an exaggerated vertical
scale, be counteracted.

Geological maps and sections should also be exhibited ;

MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE

and some geological models on a large scale, built up in
separate layers to show the actual position of the stratified
rocks in some district not far removed from the museum,
would give a more accurate notion of the geological
structure of the earth than could be obtained by any
number of maps and descriptions. In the same way
the extent of the ice during the glacial period in the
north of England might be shown, by movable layers of
white cement or papier-mache, while very large-scale
models of portions of the same area might show the
results of the ice-action in the rounded and smoothed
rocks, the moraines and the deposits of boulder-clays, as
well as the erratic blocks coloured to show the parent-rock
from which they had been brought by the ice and with
lines to show, the course they had travelled. Ice-ground
boulders from the moraines and slabs showing glacial
stria3 and polish should also be exhibited, with special
models of remarkable perched blocks and erratics, moraines
and extensive striated rocks. Clearly printed labels
should explain how these various objects enable us
to determine with considerable accuracy the height to
which different areas were buried in ice and the directions
in which it flowed. By these various illustrations the
reality and the marvellous character of the Great Ice Age
would be brought home to all intelligent visitors, and
would so interest them that they would long to see the
proofs of it in some glaciated country which they could
reach by a holiday excursion ; and the evidences of ice-
action are so widely spread over all the northern and
western portions of our islands that for most persons the
opportunity could without difficulty be found.

MINERALOGY. — A series of the most important and
best marked minerals should be exhibited, with tables
and diagrams explaining the principles of their classifica-
tion. Their number should not be too large, and every
specimen should be accompanied by a label containing a
brief account of all that is most interesting connected
with it — its chemical constitution, its affinities, its distri-
bution, and its uses. Combined with this collection there
should be a series of specimens illustrating the mode

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

of manufacture of the more important minerals, and their
application to the arts and sciences. To give a local in-
terest, all British specimens should be placed on tablets of
one distinct colour, so as at once to catch the eye, and
enable the student to form some idea of the comparative
productiveness of his own country.

BOTANY. — The series of specimens to illustrate the
science of botany in a popular museum may be of two
kinds : such as show the main facts of plant-structure and
classification ; and others to teach something of the
variety, the distribution, and the uses of plants.

By means of specimens, dissections, drawings, and
models, the important radical differences of the great
primary divisions of plants — cellular and vascular — acro-
genous, endogenous, and exogenous — might be made
clearly manifest. Alongside of the drawings and dissec-
tions there should be cheap fixed microscopes, showing the
main structural differences, thus giving a reality and
intensity to the characters which drawings or descriptions
alone can never do.

Each of the most important natural orders of plants
should next be illustrated by specimens of various kinds.
Their structure and essential characters should first be
shown, in the same way as the higher groups. Their geogra-
phical distribution should be marked out on small maps.
Good dried specimens, and, if necessary, drawings or
models of flowers or fruit, of the more characteristic and
remarkable species, should then be exhibited ; and along
with these, samples of whatever useful products are
derived from them. Where remarkable forest-trees occur
in an order, good coloured drawings of them should be
shown, as well as longitudinal and cross sections of their
wood. In the same, or an adjoining case, specimens or
casts of the most important fossil-plants of the same order
may be exhibited, illustrating their range backward into
past time.

By such a scheme as this, in a comparatively small
space and with a small number of specimens, all that is of
most importance in the vegetable kingdom would be
shown. The attentive observer might learn much of

MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE

the structure, the forms, and the varied modifications of
plants : their classification and affinities ; their distribution
in space and time ; their habits and modes of growth ;
their uses to savage and to civilized man. An outline of
all that is most interesting and instructive in the science
would be made visible to the eye and clear to the under-
standing ; and it does not seem too much to expect that,
so exhibited, Botany would lose much of its supposed
difficulty and repulsiveness, and that many might be
thereby induced to devote their leisure to this most useful
and attractive study.

In order to assist those who are really students, a
separate room should be provided, containing a Herbarium
of British plants, as well as one illustrative of the more
important exotic families and genera ; and to this should
be attached a collection of the more useful botanical
works.

ZOOLOGY. — Owing to the superior numbers and greater
variety of animals, their more complicated structure and
more divergent habits, the higher interest that attaches
to them, and their greater adaptability for exhibition,
this department must always be the most extensive and
most important in a Natural History Museum.

The general principles guiding the selection and exhi-
bition of animals are the same as have been applied to
plants, subject to many modifications in detail. The
great primary divisions, or sub-kingdoms (Vertebrata,
Mollusca, &c.), as well as the classes in each sub-kingdom
(Mammalia, Birds, &c. and Cephalopoda, Gasteropoda, &c.),
should be defined, by means of skeletons and anatomical
preparations or models, so as to render their fundamental
differences of structure clear and intelligible. At the
head of each order (or subdivision of the class) a similar
exposition should be made of essential differences of
structure ; and in every case the function or purpose of
these differences should be pointed out by means of clearly-
expressed tables and diagrams.

We now come to the specimens of animals to be
exhibited, in order to give an adequate idea of their
variety and beauty ; their strange modifications of form

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

and structure, their singular habits and mode of life, their
distribution over the surface of the earth, and their first
appearance in past time. To do this effectively requires a
mode of exhibition very different from that which has been
usually adopted in museums.

Throughout the animal kingdom, at least one or more
species of every important family group should be
exhibited ; and in the larger and more interesting
families, one or more species of each genus. The number
of specimens is not, however, so important as their quality
and the mode of exhibiting them. A few of the more
important species in each order, well illustrated by fine
and characteristic specimens, would be far better than ten
times the number if imperfect, badly prepared, and badly
arranged. Let any one look at an artistically mounted
group of fine and perfect quadruped or bird skins, which
represent the living animals in perfect health and vigour,
and by their characteristic attitudes and accessories tell the
history of the creature's life and habits ; and compare this
with the immature, ragged, mangy-looking specimens one
often sees in museums, stuck up in stiff and unnatural
attitudes, and resembling only mummies or scarecrows.
The one is both instructive and pleasing, and we return
again and again to gaze upon it with delight. The other
is positively repellent, and we feel that we never want to
look upon it again.

I consider it therefore an important principle, that in a
museum for the people nothing should be exhibited that
is not good of its kind, and mounted in the very best
manner. Fortunately, specimens of a large number of the
most beautiful and extraordinary animals are now exceed-
ingly common, and every well-marked group in nature
may be illustrated without having recourse to the rarer
and more costly species. Carrying out these views, we
should exhibit our animal in such a way as to convey the
largest amount of information possible. The male, female,
and young should be shown together, the mode of feeding
or of capturing its prey, and the most characteristic
attitudes and motions, should be indicated; and the
accessories should point out the country the species

MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE

inhabits, or the kind of locality it most frequents. A
descriptive tablet should of course give further informa-
tion ; and in the immediate vicinity, specimens showing
any remarkable points of its anatomy, and any useful pro-
ducts that are derived from it, should be exhibited.

Each group of this kind would be a study of itself, and
should therefore be kept quite distinct and apart from
every other group. It should be so placed that it could
be seen from several points of view, and every part of
each individual composing it closely examined. To
encourage such examination and study, seats should be
placed conveniently near it — a point strangely overlooked
in most museums, where it seems to be taken for granted
that visitors will pass on without any desire to linger, or
any wish for a more close examination. It would add
still further to the interest of these typical groups, if it
were clearly shown how much they represented, by giving
a list of all the well-known species of the genus or family,
with their native country 'and proportionate size, and in-
dicating, by means of a coloured line, which of them were
exhibited in the museum. This would be an excellent
and most intelligible guide to the collection itself, and
would enable the visitor to judge how far it gave any
adequate notion of the variety and exuberance of nature.

It would also, I think, be advisable, that as far as
possible each well-marked and important group of any
considerable extent should occupy one room or
compartment only, where it would be separated from all
others, where the attention could be concentrated upon
it, and where the extent to which it was illustrated could
be seen at a glance. This has not, I believe, been yet
attempted in any museum ; and when I come to speak of
the building arrangements, I will explain how it can be
easily managed. In this room, a department would also
be devoted to the comparative anatomy of all the more
important species and groups exhibited ; and a large map
should be suspended, showing in some detail their
geographical distribution. Here, too, we should place
specimens or casts of the fossil remains of the family,
with restorations of some of the more important species ;

10 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

and along with these, diagrams, showing the progress of
development of the group throughout past time, as far as
yet known.

This mode of attractive and instructive exhibition
might be well carried out in the Mammalia, Birds, and
Insects ; less perfectly in the Reptiles and Fishes, whose
colours can hardly be well preserved except in spirits.
Even here, however, by using oblong earthenware vessels
with glass fronts, instead of the usual bottles, many fishes
and marine animals could be exhibited in life-like attitudes
and with their colours well preserved. Mollusca may be
well illustrated by means of models of the animals, as also
may the marine and fresh-water Zoophytes. The more
minute and delicate animals should be shown by means
of a series of cheap microscopes or large lenses, fixed in
suitable positions ; and with a careful outline of the
animal's history on a tablet or card, close by.

Connected with this, as with the botanical division of
the museum, there should be a students'' department, to
which all should have free access who wished to obtain
more detailed knowledge. Here would be preserved, in
the most compact and accessible form, in cabinets or
boxes, all specimens acquired by the museum and which
were not required or were not adapted for exhibition in the
popular department. Here, too, should be formed a
complete local or British collection of indigenous animals,
according to the extent and means of the institution, with
the best zoological library of reference that could be
obtained. In this department, donations of almost any
kind would be acceptable ; for, when not required for
popular exhibition, an immense number of specimens can
be conveniently and systematically arranged in a very
limited space, and for purposes of study or for identification
of species are almost sure to be of value. One of the
greatest evils of most local museums is thus got rid of—
the giving offence by refusing donations, or being forced
to occupy much valuable space with such as are utterly
unfit for popular exhibition.

ETHNOLOGY. — We now come to the last department of
our ideal museum, and it is one to which a large or a

i MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE 11

small proportion of space may be devoted, according to
the importance that may be attached to it. In accordance
with the plan already sketched out for other departments,
the following would be a fair representation of Ethnological
science.

The chief well-marked races of man should be illus-
trated either by life-size models, casts, coloured figures,
or by photographs. A corresponding series of their crania
should also be shown ; and such portions of the skeleton
as should exhibit the differences that exist between
certain races, as well as those between the lower races and
those animals which most nearly approach them. Casts
of the best authenticated remains of prehistoric man should
also be obtained, and compared with the corresponding
parts of existing races.

The arts of mankind should be illustrated by a series,
commencing with the rudest flint implements, and passing
through those of polished stone, bronze, and iron — showing
in every case, along with the works of prehistoric man,
those corresponding to them formed by existing savage
races. Implements of bone and of horn should follow the
same order.

Pottery would furnish a most interesting series.
Beginning with the rude forms of prehistoric races, and
following with those of modern savages, we should have
the strangely -modelled vessels of Peru and of North
America, those of Egypt, Assyria, Etruria, Greece, and
Rome, as well as the works of China and of mediaeval and
modern Europe.

The art of sculpture and mode of ornamentation should
be traced in like manner, among savage tribes, the
Oriental nations, Greece, and Rome, to modern civilization.
Works in metal and textile fabrics would admit of similar
illustration. Characteristic weapons should also be
exhibited ; and painting might be traced in broad steps,
from the contemporary delineation of a Mammoth up to
the animal portraiture of Landseer.

This comprises a series of Ethnological illustrations
that need not occupy much space, and would, I think,
be eminently instructive. The clothing, the houses, the
household utensils, and the weapons of mankind, can

12 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

hardly be shown with any approach to completeness in a
Popular Museum ; and many of these objects occupy
space quite disproportionate to their intrinsic interest or
scientific value. They could in most cases be sufficiently
indicated by drawings or models.

Situation and Plan of Museum.

The museum here sketched, beginning with illustrations
of the earth and its component minerals, passing through
the whole vegetable and animal kingdoms, and culminating
in the highest art-products of civilized man, would combine
a very wide range of objects with a clearly limited scheme,
and would, I believe, well answer to the definition of a
Typical Museum of Natural History. Although of such
wide scope, it need not necessarily occupy a very large
space ; and I believe it might be instructively carried out
in a building no larger than is devoted to many local
museums. This brings me to say a few words on the kind
of building best adapted to such an institution as is here
sketched out.

In his President's address to the British Association
at Norwich, Sir Joseph Hooker made some admirable
remarks on the situation of museums. He observed :

4 ' Much of the utility of museums depends on two conditions
often strangely overlooked, viz. their situation, and their lighting
and interior arrangements. The provincial museum is too often
huddled away almost out of sight, in a dark, crowded, dirty
thoroughfare, where it pays dear for ground rent, rates, and taxes,
and cannot be extended. Such localities are frequented by the
townspeople only when on business, and when they consequently
have no time for sight seeing. In the evening, or on holidays, when
they would visit the museum, they naturally prefer the outskirts of
the town to its centre. . . . The museum should be in an open
grassed square or park, planted with trees, in the town or its out-
skirts ; a main object being to secure cleanliness, a cheerful aspect,
and space for extension. Now, vegetation is the best interceptor
of dust, which is injurious to the specimens as well as unsightly,
whilst a cheerful aspect, and grass and trees, will attract visitors,
and especially families and schools."

Evidently, then, the proper place for the museum is the
centre of the park or public garden. This furnishes the
largest and cleanest open space, the best light, the purest

i MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE 13

air, and the readiest access. With how much greater
pleasure the workman and his family could spend a day
at the museum, if at intervals they could stroll out on to
the grass, among flowers and under shady trees, to enjoy
the refreshments they had brought with them. They
would then return to the building with renewed zest, and
would probably escape the fatigue and headache that a
day in a museum almost invariably brings on. The
public park is the proper locality for the public museum.

In designing museums, architects seem to pay little
regard to the special purposes they are intended to fulfil.
They often adopt the general arrangement of a church, or
the immense galleries and lofty halls of a palace. Now,
the main object of a museum-building is to furnish the
greatest amount of well lighted space, for the convenient
arrangement and exhibition of objects which almost all
require to be closely examined. At the same time they
should be visible by several persons at once without
crowding, and admit of others freely passing by them.
None except the very largest specimens should be placed
so as to rise higher than seven feet above the floor, so that
palatial rooms and extensive galleries, requiring pro-
portionate altitude, are exceedingly wasteful of space,
and otherwise ill adapted and unnecessary for the real
purposes of a museum. It is true that side-galleries
against the walls may be and often are used to utilize the
height, but these are almost necessarily narrow, and
totally unadapted for the proper exhibition of any but a
limited class of objects. By this plan, too, the whole
upper-floor space is lost, which is of great importance,
because a large proportion of objects are best exhibited
on tables or in detached cases.

Following out this view, a simple and economical plan
for a museum would seem to be, a series of long rooms or
galleries, about thirty-five or forty feet wide, and twelve
or fourteen feet high on each floor, the four or five feet
below the ceiling on both sides being an almost continuous
series of window openings, while at rather wide intervals
large windows might descend to within three feet of the
floor. At such distances apart as were found most

14 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

convenient for the arrangement of the collections, movable
upright cases might be placed transversely, leaving a
central space of about five feet for a continuous passage ;
and the compartments thus formed might be completed by
partitions and doors connecting opposite cases, wherever
it was thought advisable to isolate any well-marked group
of animals, or other division of the museum. By this
means the proportion between wall-cases and floor space
might be regulated exactly according to the requirements
of each portion of the collection ; and abundant light
would be obtained for the perfect examination of every
specimen.

Two of the great evils of museums are, crowding and
distraction. By the crowding of specimens, the effect of
each is weakened or destroyed ; the eye takes in so many
at once that it is continually wandering towards some-
thing more strange and beautiful, and there is nothing to
concentrate the attention on a special object. Distraction
is produced also by the great size of the galleries, and the
multiplicity of objects that strike the eye. It is almost
impossible for a casual visitor to avoid the desire of con-
tinually going on to see what comes next, or wondering what
is that bright mass of colour or strange form that catches
the eye at the other end of the long gallery. These evils
can best be avoided, by keeping, as far as possible, each
natural group of objects in a separate room, or a separate
compartment of that room — by limiting as much as
possible the number of illustrative groups of species, and
at the same time making each group as attractive and
instructive as possible. The object aimed at should be,
to compel attention to each group of specimens. This
may be done by making it so interesting or beautiful at
first sight as to secure a close examination ; by carefully
isolating it, so that no other object close by should divide
attention with it ; and by giving so much information and
interesting the mind in so many collateral matters con-
nected with it, as to excite the observant and reflective
as well as the emotional faculties.

The general system of arrangement and exhibition here
pointed out does not at all depend on the building. It

i MUSEUMS FOR THE PEOPLE 15

can be applied in any museum, and is, I believe, already
to some extent adopted in our best local institutions. It
has, however, never yet been carried out systematically;
and till this is done, we can form no true estimate of how
popular a Natural History Museum may become, or how
much it may aid in the great work of national education.

NOTE.

The paper on American Museums, which follows this,
was written eighteen years later, in Washington, immedi-
ately after a careful study of the two most remarkable
museums in the United States. It will be seen, that one
of these has carried out most of the suggestions of my
early article, and has besides developed the idea of
illustrating the Geographical Distribution of Animals
which is, so far as I know, entirely new.

CHAPTER II

AMERICAN MUSEUMS

The Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University.

THE immense energy of the American people in all that
relates to business, locomotion, and pleasure, is to some
extent manifested also in their educational institutions,
and in approaching this great and all-important subject
they possess some special advantages over ourselves.
They are comparatively free from those old-world es-
tablishments and customs whose obstructiveness so often
paralyzes the efforts of the educational reformer, and their
originality of thought and action has thus freer scope ;
they are not afraid of experiments, and do not hastily
condemn a thing because it is new ; while, in all they
undertake they are determined to have the best or the
biggest attainable. Hence it is that colleges and uni-
versities for women, schools where the two sexes study
together, institutes for the most complete instruction in
technology and in all branches of experimental science,
and the combination of manual with mental training as
part of the regular school course, are to be found in
successful operation in various parts of America, though,
with rare exceptions, only talked about by us ; while in
most of the higher schools and colleges science and
modern literature take equal rank with those classical
and mathematical studies which still hold the first places
in Great Britain.

CHAP, ii AMERICAN MUSEUMS 17

The same originality of conception, and the same desire
to attain the best practical results are manifested in some
of the great American museums, which now rival, in
certain special departments, the long-established national
museums of Europe ; although there is, of course, as yet,
no approach to the vast accumulation of treasures of old-
world natural history which is to be found at South
Kensington. Notwithstanding the deficiency of material,
however, the Harvard Museum is far in advance of ours as
an educational institution, whether as regards the general
public, the private student, or the specialist ; and as it is
probably equally in advance of every European museum,
some general account of it may be both interesting and
instructive, especially to those who have felt themselves
bewildered by the countless masses of unorganized
specimens exhibited in the vast and often gloomy halls
and galleries of our national institution. Let us first
consider, briefly, what are the usual defects of great
museums, and we shall then be better able to appreciate
both what has been aimed at, and what has been effected
at Harvard.

Our British Museum, which may be taken as a type of
the more extensive institutions of the kind, originated in
the bequest of a private collector more than a century ago,
and has since aggregated to itself most of the collections
made by Government expeditions and explorations, while
it has received extensive donations of entire collections
made at great expense by wealthy amateurs, and has also
of late years made large purchases from professional
collectors. Such a museum began, of course, by exhibit-
ing to the public everything it possessed, and with some
exceptions this plan has been continued for the larger and
more popular groups of animals. Large glazed wall-cases
for stuffed quadrupeds and birds, with table cases for
shells, starfish, insects, and minerals, were early in use ;
and while these were gradually improved in quality, size
and workmanship, they have continued, till quite recently,
to be almost the sole mode of arranging the collection.
During the latter half of the present century the accession
of fresh specimens has been so extensive that the task of

VOL. II. C

18 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

naming, classifying, and cataloguing them has been beyond
the power of the curators and their assistants. During
the same period, while new species have been so rapidly
added to the collections, the labours of anatomists and
embryologists have led to constant and important changes
in classification, and as it is quite impossible to be con-
tinually re-arranging scores of thousands of specimens, it
necessarily follows that the museum cases have presented
to the public an old and long-exploded arrangement, often
quite at variance with the knowledge of the day as to the
affinities of the different groups. A still further difficulty
has been the overcrowding of the cases, because it was long
the custom to exhibit to the public at least one specimen
of every new species acquired by the museum ; and the
difficulty of finding room for the ever-increasing stores has
rendered nugatory all attempts to group the specimens in
varied ways, so as to convey the maximum of instruction
and pleasure to the visitor.

Although the evils of this method of arranging a
museum had been pointed out by many writers, notably by
Sir Joseph Hooker, in his address as President of the
British Association, at Norwich ; by myself, in an article
in Macmillaris Magazine, and by the late Dr. J. E. Gray,
keeper of the zoological department of the British Museum,
very little radical improvement has been effected in the
new building at South Kensington. It is true that many
of the large mammalia are more effectually exhibited in
costly glazed floor-cases, and there is a great extension of
the interesting series illustrating the habits and nesting
of British birds ; but the great bulk of the collection still
consists of the old specimens exhibited in the old way, in
an interminable series of over-crowded wall-cases, while
any effective presentation on a large scale of the various
aspects and problems of natural history, as now understood,
is almost as far off as ever.1 What may be done in this

1 The late able Director of the Natural History Museum, Sir William
Flower, utilized the entrance hall for educational purposes by means
of a series of collections illustrating the comparative anatomy of
animals, their protective colouring, and the phenomena of mimicry,
thus showing a full appreciation of the true objects of a public museum.
But the great bulk of the collection is still exhibited in the old manner,

AMERICAN MUSEUMS

19

direction, and how a museum should be constructed and
arranged so as to combine the maximum of utility with
economy of space and of money, will be best shown by an
account of the Museum of Comparative Zoology at
Harvard.

Origin of the Harvard Museum.

This museum originated in 1858, by a bequest of fifty
thousand dollars from Mr. Francis C. Gray of Boston to

FlG. 1. — MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY, CAMBRIDGE, MASS.

Harvard University, for the purpose of establishing a
museum of comparative zoology ; while the collections it
contains were begun by the late Dr. Louis Agassiz, who had
been for many years professor of zoology and geology.
Owing to the exertions and influence of Professor Agassiz,
the legislature of Massachusetts was induced to make a
grant of one hundred thousand dollars, while over seventy
thousand dollars were subscribed by citizens of Boston
"for the purpose of erecting a fire-proof building in

the expense of altering which would be so great that it will probably
be long before it is attempted. The building itself, though fine archi-
tecturally, is quite unsuited for such an educational museum as that
described in the following pages.

c 2

20 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP,

Cambridge suitable to receive, to protect, and to exhibit
advantageously and freely to all comers, the collection of
objects in natural science brought together by Professor
Louis Agassiz, with such additions as may hereafter be
made thereto."

The general plan of the building and the arrangement
of the contents were carried out in accordance with Pro-
fessor Agassiz's views, while the collections have been
greatly increased by the results of the great Thayer
expedition to Brazil, by numerous gifts from private
collectors, and especially by the many dredging expedi-
tions carried out by Professor Alexander Agassiz, at his
own cost, and by extensive purchases of specimens by the
same gentleman, who, since his father's death, has occupied
the post of curator of the museum, and has devoted his
time and large private means to the development of the
institution, so as to render it a worthy monument to his
father's memory.

Plan of the Building.

The portion of the building already erected is about 280
feet long by 60 feet wide, inside dimensions. This forms
the northern wing of the proposed museum, which, when
completed, will consist of two such wings, connected by a
front of 400 feet. A central partition wall runs length-
ways through the building, dividing it into rooms, each
30 feet wide and 40 feet long, except in the centre of the
wing, where a projection increases the width to about
70 feet, and this is left open on one floor, forming a room
70 feet by 40 feet for the exhibition of the larger mam-
malia. The angles connecting the wings with the front of
the building are also somewhat larger, and are occupied
by laboratories, professors' rooms, staircases, &c. The
museum thus consists essentially of rooms of the uniform
size of 40 feet by 30 feet, and from 10 to 12 feet high,
each being well lighted by a row of windows on one of its
sides, forming a building of five floors above the basement.
In some of the public rooms the upper floor consists of a
gallery, leaving the centre of the room open for the height
of two floors.

ii AMERICAN MUSEUMS 21

This it will be seen is very different from what is
usually considered the proper style of building for a great
museum, which is characterized by lofty halls, magnificent
staircases, and enormous galleries ; but however grand
and effective architecturally these may be, they are quite
unsuited to the essential purposes for which a museum
is constructed. Let us consider in the first place the
supply of well-lighted cases on which the efficiency of a
museum so much depends. A large gallery, such as is
often seen in great museums, may be 200 feet long and
50 feet wide, giving 500 feet of wall. But if this is
divided into five rooms, each 40 feet wide by 50 feet long,
we shall have 900 feet of wall, the greater part of which,
being opposite the windows and comparatively near to
them, will be far better lighted. But the vast gallery
must be proportionately lofty and would suffice for two
floors of moderately sized rooms, so that, after allowing
for the greater number of doors and windows in the
smaller rooms, we have an economy of space of at least
three to one in favour of the small-room plan, with an
even greater proportionate saving of expense, owing to the
smaller scale of all the ornaments and fittings.

But the chief advantage of this style of building
consists in the facilities which it offers for subdivision and
isolation of special groups of objects, and their arrange-
ment so as to illustrate many of the most interesting and
instructive problems of natural history. The galleries of
a large museum, crowded with specimens arranged in a
single series throughout the whole animal kingdom, con-
fuse and distract the observer. As Professor Alexander
Agassiz well says in one of his admirable reports as
curator :

" The great defect of museums in general is the immense number
of articles exhibited compared with the small space taken to explain
what is shown. The visitor stands before a case which may be
exquisitely arranged and the specimens carefully labelled, yet he
does not know, and has no means of finding out, why that case is
filled as it is ; nothing tells him the purpose for which it is there.
The use of general labels and a small number of specimens properly
selected to illustrate the labels, would go far towards making a
museum intelligible, not only to the average visitor, but often to the

22 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

prof essional naturalist. " . . . " The advantage, therefore, of com-
paratively small rooms, intended for a special purpose and for that
purpose alone, will overcome at once the objections to be made to
large halls where the visitor is lost in the maze of the cases, which,
to him, seem placed without purpose and filled only for the sake of
not leaving them empty."

Let us now see how these ideas have been carried out
at the Harvard Museum.

The first thing to be noticed is the small proportion of
the whole building open to the general public, as com-
pared with that devoted to the preservation and study
of the bulk of the collections. The existing portion of
the building comprises seventy-four rooms, which are
apportioned thus : — Ten rooms in the basement are filled
with the vast collection of specimens preserved in alcohol,
four rooms being occupied by the fishes, and the re-
mainder by reptiles, mammals, birds, Crustacea, mollusca,
and other invertebrata. Four rooms are devoted to the
entomological department. Seventeen rooms are devoted
to storage and workrooms for the various departments.
Four rooms are occupied by the libraries, and there are
also seven laboratories for the students, an aquarium and
vivarium, together with a large lecture-room. The re-
maining rooms are occupied by the curator and the
professors in the several departments, except the seven-
teen exhibition rooms, which alone are open to the
public. Before proceeding to describe these it will be well
to notice the admirable manner in which space is econo-
mized and work facilitated throughout the building.

In all the storage and work rooms the side next the
windows is wholly occupied by rows of tables, while the
collections are preserved in cases running across the room
in parallel rows, from front to back, and reaching from the
floor to near the ceiling, with just space enough between
them to get at the specimens conveniently. These cases
are quite plainly constructed to hold series of drawers or
trays of a uniform size and depth, but which will admit
drawers of two or three times the depth where the size of
the specimens require it. The drawers run loosely in
open frames so as to be freely interchangeable, and the

ii AMERICAN MUSEUMS 23

whole case is enclosed by well-fitting glass doors. Every
drawer or tray is distinctly labelled to show its contents,
while a part of the room (or of an adjacent one) is devoted
to a library of books specially treating of the groups
stored in it. In such a room the student or specialist
finds, close at hand, all that he requires, with ample
light, and table-room on which to arrange and compare
the specimens he may be studying. The general library
is arranged on a similar plan, on tiers of shelves running
across the room, with just space to walk between them,
the cases being enclosed by open wirework doors ; and it
is a striking proof of the purity of the atmosphere in this
suburb of Boston, that there was not the least visible
accumulation of dust on books which had not been
removed or dusted for several years. The fine trees
which surround the museum for some distance no doubt
greatly assist in preserving a dust-free atmosphere. The
vast number of specimens thus conveniently stored can
only be realized by seeing the tiers of cases in room after
room, the collection being especially rich in fishes, radiate
animals, and marine organisms generally. The advantages
of the uniform interchangeable drawers are enormous,
as they admit of the growth of the collection in any depart-
ment and the re-arrangement of the several groups with
the least possible amount of labour. To admit of this
growth and re -arrangement, a case is here and there left
empty ; while even the transference of a large part of
the collection from one room to another would be
effected with ease and rapidity.

Booms devoted to the Public.

Having thus seen the general character of the arrange-
ments for students and specialists, let us proceed to
examine the rooms devoted to the instruction and
amusement of the general public. On entering the
building the visitor finds opposite to him an open room,
over which is painted in large letters, " Synoptic Room —
Zoology," and, when inside he finds, on several blank
spaces of wall, an intimation that this room contains a

24 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Synopsis, by means of typical examples, of the whole
animal kingdom. Two large wall-cases are devoted to
the Mammalia ; each Order being represented by three or
four of its most characteristic forms, from the monotremes
and marsupials up to the apes and monkeys. The rodents,
for example, are illustrated by means of stuffed specimens
and skeletons of an agouti, a porcupine, a rabbit, a
squirrel, and a jerboa ; the ungulates by a small tapir and a
young hippopotamus, always accompanied by their skulls
or skeletons. The birds are similarly represented, in one
wall-case, by stuffed specimens and skeletons of all the
chief types. Another case is filled with reptiles — fine
examples of lizards and snakes in spirits, tortoises,
alligators, toads, &c., while the fossil forms are shown by
a small but very perfect oolitic crocodile, a Plesiosaurus,
a beautiful slender lizard of Jurassic age, and a cast of
the Pterodactyle with its wings. Another case contains
some striking specimens of fishes, both in spirits and
stuffed, with their skeletons, as well as some beautifully-
preserved fossil fishes. The worms, sponges, and insects
are exhibited in three more wall-cases, while the Crustacea,
radiata, and mollusca occupy two cases in the centre of
the room, and over these is suspended a model of a
gigantic cuttle-fish twenty feet in diameter.

The special features to be noted in this room are, that
its contents and purpose are clearly indicated to every
visitor, each group and each specimen being also well
and descriptively labelled; that every specimen is good
and perfect, well mounted, and beautiful or interesting in
itself; that skeletons exhibiting the differences of struc-
ture, and fossils exhibiting some of the strange forms of
earlier ages of the world, are placed along with stuffed
specimens ; and, lastly, that the specimens are compara-
tively few in number, not crowded together, and so
arranged and grouped as to show at the same time the
wonderfully varied forms of animal life, as well as the
unity of type that prevails in each of the great primary
groups under very different external forms. We here see
that a room of very moderate dimensions is capable of
exhibiting all the chief types of form and structure that

ii AMERICAN MUSEUMS 25

prevail in the animal kingdom, and of thus teaching
some of the most important lessons to be derived from the
study of nature. It constitutes of itself a typical museum
of animal life, and is more really instructive, as well as
more interesting, than many museums which contain ten
times the number of specimens and occupy far greater
space. It may serve as a model of the kind of room which
should form part of every local museum of Natural
History, leaving all the remaining available space for the
purpose of giving a complete representation of the local
fauna and flora.

The visitor now ascends to the third floor, which is
wholly devoted to exhibition rooms. He first enters the
largest room in the building (about seventy feet by forty),
in which is arranged a systematic collection of mammalia,
of sufficient extent to exhibit all the chief modifications
of form and structure without confusing the spectator by
a vast array of closely allied species or badly preserved
specimens. A large gallery surrounds this room, devoted
to the systematic collection of reptiles, and on a level with
this gallery is suspended a very fine skeleton of the Fin-
back whale, about sixty feet long, in a position to be
thoroughly inspected both from below and above. The
other prominent objects are fine specimens, with skeletons,
of the American bison, the giraffe, and the camel ; skele-
tons of each of the five great races of man, and of the
three chief types of anthropoid apes ; and some casts of
the large extinct Australian marsupials in the same cases
with the skeletons of their comparatively small modern
representatives. Four other rooms, each of the standard
size — forty feet by thirty — are devoted to a similar repre-
sentative collection of birds, fishes, mollusca, and polyps,
respectively ; while in galleries over these rooms are the
collections of batrachians, Crustacea, insects and worms,
echinoderms, acalephs, and sponges. The most striking
objects here are, perhaps, in the bird room, a grand skele-
ton of the Dinornis maximus, as compared with that of
an ostrich ; in the molluscan room, a model of the giant
squid or calamary of Newfoundland, about twenty feet
long, with two arms thirty feet in length, their dilated

26 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAV.

ends armed with powerful suckers ; and among the lower
forms the beautiful glass models of the sea-anemones and
polyps.

This systematic collection differs from the usual collec-
tions exhibited in public museums in the following im-
portant points. It is strictly limited to a series of typical
species, which may be from time to time improved by the
substitution of better or more representative specimens,
by alterations of arrangement, &c., but which are never
to be extended, because they are already quite as numerous
as the average intelligence even of well-educated persons
can properly understand. The skeletons and fossil types
are all exhibited in juxtaposition with the stuffed speci-
mens. Each class of animals is exhibited by itself, with
ample explanatory labels to teach the spectator what he is
examining, and what are the main peculiarities of the
different groups. Of course, in a comparatively new insti-
tution, the best and most illustrative species have not
always been obtained, or the best and most instructive
methods of exhibiting them hit upon. In all these matters
improvements will be constantly made, while the space
devoted to each class and the number of specimens ex-
hibited will undergo no material alteration.

Illustrations of Geographical Distribution.

We will now pass on to the special feature of the
museum and that which is most to be commended, the
presentation to the public of the main facts of the geo-
graphical distribution of animals. This is done by means
of seven rooms, each one devoted to the characteristic
animals of one great division of the earth or ocean, which
we will now proceed to describe.

Beginning with a room devoted to the North American
fauna, we at once note its general characteristics, in its
wolves, foxes, bears, and seals ; its numerous deer and
squirrels, its noble bison now approaching extinction,
while a grand skeleton of the mastodon exhibits its most
prominent mammal of the immediately preceding age. A
closer examination shows us its more special peculiarities,

AMERICAN MUSEUMS

27

its prong-horn antelope ; its raccoon, skunk, and prehen-
sile-tailed porcupine ; with its numerous small carnivora
and rodents. Several of these types are shown in the
illustration (Fig. 2) from a photograph of one side of
this room. Among its birds we notice the wild turkey,
the black vulture or " turkey-buzzard/' the fine ruffed
grouse and crested quail, as characteristic features ; while
among the smaller birds its numerous woodpeckers, its

FlG. 2.— ONE SIDE OF NORTH AMERICAN ROOM.

tyrants, and its prettily coloured thrushes, warblers, and
finches are most prominent. Its reptiles and amphibia
are characterized by numerous fresh-water tortoises, many
curious lizards, the rattlesnakes, and other striking forms ;
many varieties of frogs, some of large size ; and its very
curious and interesting salamanders and other tailed
batrachia. Its fishes are rich in fine and characteristic
forms, and we notice specimens of the siluroid cat-fish, the

28 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

garpike, and the mud-fish, belonging to the extremely
ancient type of the ganoids, the huge devil-fish of South
Carolina, one of the most gigantic of the rays ; with many
others. Among its shells, the fresh-water Uniodse are
prominent ; and, in the insect collection, the number of
large and brilliantly-coloured butterflies is very striking
as compared with those of Europe.

The next room takes us into South America, and here
we are at once struck with many remarkable contrasts.
First, there is the comparative scarcity of large mammalia,
the higher groups being represented by the llama, the
tapir, a few small deer, and the jaguar, which is common
to North America ; while such low and ancient types as
the sloths, ant-eaters, and armadillos abound, together
with an unusual number and variety of large rodents, and
many peculiar forms of monkeys. Some of these are shown
in the accompanying illustration (Fig. 3) from a photograph
taken in a corner of this room. The extinct mammals
are well represented by a fine skeleton of the Megatherium
or giant sloth of the Pampas. The birds exhibit a won-
derful richness and variety, with a similar preponderance
of low types of organization. The blue and claret- coloured
chatterers, the many-coloured little manikins, the strange
white bell-birds, the wonderfully-crested umbrella-bird of
the Upper Amazonian islands, the brilliant crested cock-
of-the-rock, and the innumerable tyrants, bush-shrikes,
and ant-thrushes, all belong to a type of perching birds
in which the peculiar singing-muscles of the larynx have
not been developed, and which are but scantily represented
in any other part of the world. The metallic trogons,
with yellow or rosy breasts ; the ungainly but finely-
coloured toucans, with their huge but exquisitely-tinted
bills ; the green and gold jacamars ; as well as the hun-
dreds of species of those winged gems, the humming-birds,
represent a yet lower and more archaic type of bird life
nowhere so strongly developed as in this marvellous con-
tinent. The beautiful crested curassows are also a low
form perhaps allied to the Australian mound-makers.
Reptile life is abundantly represented, but except, per-
haps, the iguanas, there are none to strike the ordinary

AMERICAN MUSEUMS

29

observer as being especially characteristic. The insects,
however, at once attract attention ; the grand blue morpho
butterflies ; the exquisite catagrammas, with their fantastic
markings beneath ; the immense variety of the Heliconoid
butterflies, with their elongated wings and antennae and
striking colouration, and the wonderful variety and beauty

FlG. 3.— SOUTH AMERICAN FAUNA.

of the little Erycinidse, a family almost confined to South
America. Among other insects we notice the strangely-
formed and fantastically-coloured harlequin-beetle; the
huge rhinoceros-beetle ; the large lanthorn-fly, and many
others, as being equally peculiar.

Passing next to the room which illustrates the opposite
continent of Africa, we are presented with a contrast in
the forms of life at once marvellous and interesting.
From the poorest continent in mammals we pass to the

30 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

richest, our eyes being at once greeted by the elephant,
rhinoceros, and hippopotamus, the buffalo, the giraffe, and
the zebra, with a vast array of antelopes, the lion, and the
great man-like 'apes. The most cursory inspection of these
two rooms will teach the visitor a lesson in natural history
that he will not learn by a dozen visits to our great
national storehouse at South Kensington — the lesson that
each continent has its peculiar forms of life, and that the
greatest similarity in geographical position and climate
may be accompanied by a complete diversity in the animal
inhabitants.

When we examine the birds, the difference between the
two continents is almost equally great, although not so
conspicuous to any one but an ornithologist. The great
bulk of the South American groups have no representatives
whatever in Africa. Instead of toucans we have hornbills
and turacos ; instead of humming-birds we have the totally
different group of sunbirds ; instead of the tyrants, hang-
nests, and chatterers, we have flycatchers, starlings, and
orioles ; instead of bush-shrikes and ant-thrushes we have
true shrikes and caterpillar-catchers — in almost every
case a high grade of organization in Africa in place of
the low grade in South America. Passing over the rep-
tiles and fishes, as not presenting forms sufficiently well
known or whose external characteristics are sufficiently
distinctive, we find in the insects equally marked differ-
ences. The African butterflies have a peculiar style of
form and colouring, distinguishing them from those of
most other parts of the world, sober greens and blues or
rich orange browns being common. The Heliconidse of
America are here replaced by the allied but distinct sub-
family of the Acrseidse, while among beetles the huge
goliaths and the monstrous tiger-beetles are altogether
peculiar.

The next room we enter is the Indian, or Indo-Malayan ;
and here the scene again changes, though not so radically
as we found to be the case in passing from South America
to Africa. There are still many great mammalia, but of
distinct characteristic forms ; the tiger replaces the lion,
deer and bears are abundant groups, which are entirely

ii AMERICAN MUSEUMS 31

unknown in Africa, the orangs and the long-armed apes
replace the gorilla and the chimpanzee, true wild cattle
are found as well as buffaloes, while the musk-deer, the
strange flying lemur, and the gigantic fox-bats are charac-
teristic forms unknown elsewhere. Among birds, the most
typical group is that of the pheasants, which reach their
highest development in the peacock and many-eyed
argus ; the hornbills are of a different type and more varied
forms than those of Africa ; the cuckoo family is abundant
and varied, while the gorgeously-coloured broadbills and
ground-thrushes belong to the low type of perchers so
abundant in South America. Among the insect tribes
we especially notice the glorious yellow and green-winged
ornithopterse, the princes of the butterfly world ; the huge
atlas moth, the largest of lepidoptera and probably the
largest-winged of all insects ; the three-horned rhinoceros
beetle ; the grand buprestidaB, and the strange leaf-insects
of Java and Ceylon.

We now enter the room devoted to the Europe-Siberian
fauna, the chief object in it being a fine skeleton of the
great Irish elk, while its most representative living mam-
mals are deer, wolves, wild boars, bears, wild oxen, wild
sheep and goats, the chamois, and some peculiar forms of
antelopes. Its most prominent birds are its partridges,
grouse, bustards and pheasants, but it is deficient in gay-
coloured perching-birds as compared with all other
regions. Its reptiles are few and insignificant, as are its
fresh-water fishes. In insects its chief characteristic is
the abundance of beetles of the genus Carabus, its dung-
feeding lamelliscorns and its fritillary butterflies.

Lastly, the Australian room brings us into an altogether
distinct world of life. All the conspicuous mammals are
of the marsupial type, from the giant kangaroos down to
the diminutive kangaroo-rats and flying-opossums ; and
these comprise representatives of all the chief types of the
higher mammalia in the form of herbivorous, carnivorous,
rodent, and insectivorous marsupials. Among the birds
we have such peculiar forms as the emu, the mound-
making brush- turkeys, the lyre-birds and bower-birds, the
birds of paradise, the cockatoos and lories, the brush-
tongued honey-suckers, and the varied and beautiful forms

32 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

of the kingfishers and fruit-pigeons — an assemblage of
peculiar and brilliant developments of bird life hardly to
be equalled except in South America. The recently
extinct forms — the colossal kangaroos and wombats of
Australia, and the huge dinornis of New Zealand — were
equally remarkable.

The six rooms now briefly described complete the ex-
position of the geographical distribution of land animals,
and the visitor who makes himself thoroughly acquainted
with their contents by repeated inspection and comparison,
will obtain a conception of the general aspects of animal
life in each of the great divisions of the globe which
hardly any amount of reading or of visits to ordinary
museums would give him. It is a remarkable thing that
so interesting and instructive a mode of arranging a
museum, and one so eminently calculated to impress and
educate the general public, has never been adopted in any
of the great collections of Europe, in all of which ample
materials exist for the purpose. It is a striking proof of
the want of any clear perception of the true uses and
functions of museums that pervade the governing bodies
of such institutions, and also perhaps, of the deadening
influence of routine and red-tapeism in rendering any such
radical change as this almost impossible. But we have
yet to see some further applications of the same principle
at the Harvard Museum.

Two rooms not yet opened to the public are being pre-
pared to illustrate the fauna of the Atlantic and Pacific
Oceans respectively. Here will be exhibited specimens of
the peculiar forms of whales and porpoises, seals, walruses,
and sea-lions, the oceanic birds, the fishes and mollusca
characteristic of each ocean, while separate cases will
illustrate the land fauna of the more remarkable of its
oceanic islands. On my suggesting to Professor Agassiz
that the northern and southern portions of these faunas
were usually distinct, he thought that these might be
perhaps exhibited at opposite ends of each room.

By .the kindness of Prof. Agassiz and of Mr. Samuel
Henshaw, his representative at the museum, I have been
able to give a view of a corner of the European room, showing
the goats, deers, bears, rabbits, and other characteristic

AMERICAN MUSEUMS

33

animals ; a similar corner of the South American room,
showing the llamas, armadillos, and sloths ; and one side of
the North American room with its bison, elk,&c. (Figs. 2, 3);
but any general picture of the assemblage of animals is

FlG. 4. — THE EUROPEAN FAUNA.

impossible in a photograph, owing to the distribution of the
separate cases, which stand out between the windows.

It might perhaps be better in any future attempt to
show the geographical distribution of animals in a museum,
that a different method should be adopted. The two longest
sides of a large room lighted from above or from the ends,

VOL. II. D

34 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

should have cases about eight or ten feet wide, wholly
glazed in front with as few bars as possible. If the floor
of the cases were raised two feet above the floor of the
room, sheets of glass eight or ten feet high might be fitted
edge to edge, the joints being filled with Canada balsam, or
some similar material, to render them-dust tight, the
openings to the cases being at the back or the two ends.
Each case should represent a scene characteristic of the
Region represented. In that illustrating the Neotropical
Region for instance, one case would represent a Brazilian
forest, with, say, a tapir, some agoutis, ant-eaters, and
sloths, all in natural attitudes and surroundings. A
troop of spider-monkeys ; some macaws, toucans, chat-
terers, trogons, and curassows, would be seen perched
upon the branches ; an iguana, some ground lizards, and
the great harlequin and elephant beetles would also appear
in the foreground ; while sitting upon leaves or on the
ground, or flying in the air, would be a score or two of the
most characteristic butterflies — the blue morphos, the
lovely catagrammas, the brilliant heliconii and ithomias,
&c. There should be no crowding, no attempt to show
too many species, but just that amount of characteristic
life and that variety of form, structure, and colour, which
might, under the most favourable conditions, be witnessed
by a concealed observer.

The other side of the same room might be fitted to show
the south temperate plains and the highlands of the
Andes ; and here would be seen the llamas and huanacos,
the rheas, the condor, the vischaca, the chinchilla, the
crested screamer, the puma, armadillos, and many
humming-birds; with the characteristic vegetation and
insects of the district.

If the six great regions of the globe were thus illustrated
in the best possible manner, in some cases two rooms being
devoted to a region, such a museum would be at once so
attractive and so instructive, that comparatively little
space would be required for a general collection to be
exhibited to the public. In fact what is termed a typical
collection, illustrating all the more important families,
would be quite sufficient.

AMERICAN MUSEUMS 35

Extinct Forms of Life.

Four other rooms are also being prepared to exhibit the
geological succession of animal life. In the first room the
visitor will find illustrations of the mollusca, the trilobites,
and the strange and often gigantic fishes of the palaeozoic
era down to the Devonian age. The next will contain the
same groups as exhibited in the Carboniferous period,
with the earliest forms of amphibia and reptiles, and their
later developments in the Jurassic period when the first
small mammals made their appearance. Here will be
exhibited models of the huge reptile (Atlantosaurus) dis-
covered by Professor Marsh, by far the largest of all
terrestrial animals. Then will come a room devoted to the
Cretaceous deposits, the wonderful giant Ammonites, and
the abundant reptilian and bird forms which have been
discovered in America. The last room of the series will
be devoted to the Tertiary deposits, and will show the
many curious lines of modification by which our most
highly-specialized animals have been developed. If some
of the preceding rooms contain the most marvellous pro-
ducts of remote ages, here assuredly will be the culminat-
ing point of interest in seeing the curious changes of form
by which our existing cattle and horses, sheep, deer, and
pigs, our wolves, bears, and lions, have been gradually
modified from fewer and more generalized ancestral
types.

Of all the great improvements in public museum-
arrangement which we owe to the late Professor Agassiz
and his son, there is none so valuable as this. Let any
one walk along the vast palseontological gallery at South
Kensington, and note the crowded heaps of detached bones
and jaws and teeth of fossil elephants and other animals,
all set up in costly mahogany and glass cases for the
public to stare at, with here and there a more complete
specimen or a restoration ; but all crowded together in
one vast confusing series from which no clear ideas can
possibly be obtained, except that numbers of strange
animals, which are now extinct, did once live upon the

D 2

36 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

globe, and he will certainly admit the imperfections of this
mode of exhibition, as profitless and puzzling to the
general public as it is wasteful of valuable space and in-
convenient to the student or the specialist. In a proper
system of arrangement all these fragments would be
treated as material for study, not as specimens to be
exhibited to the public. Casts and models of bones and
other fossils can now be cheaply and easily made of paper,
which when carefully coloured are to the ordinary eye in-
distinguishable from the specimen itself; and the materials
already existing in the museums of Europe and America
are so vast that nearly complete skeletons can be obtained
of a great number of the more interesting extinct
animals.

What ought to be exhibited to the public is a typical
series of such skeletons or models, so arranged as to show
the progression of forms and the evolution of the more
specialized types as we advance from the earlier to the
later geological periods. Instead of one huge gallery, a
series of moderate-sized rooms should be constructed, each
to illustrate one geological epoch, with subsidiary rooms
where necessary to show the successive modifications
which each class or order of animals has undergone.
Where only fragments of an important type have been
obtained, these might be exhibited with an explanation
of why they are important, and an outline drawing
showing the probable form and size of the entire animal.
A museum of this kind, utilising the palaeontological
treasures of the whole world, would be of surpassing
interest, and would probably exceed in attractiveness and
popularity all existing museums. It would offer scope for
a variety of groupings of extinct and living animals,
calculated, as Professor Agassiz intended his museum to
do, " to illustrate the history of creation, as far as the
present state of scientific knowledge reveals that history/'
It is surely an anomaly that the naturalist who was most
opposed to the theory of evolution should be the first to
arrange his museum in such a way as best to illustrate
that theory, while in the land of Darwin no step has
been taken to escape from the monotonous routine of one

n AMERICAN MUSEUMS 37

great systematic series of crowded specimens, arranged in
lofty halls and palatial galleries, which may excite wonder,
but which are calculated to teach no definite lesson.

A grand opportunity is now afforded for a man of great
wealth, who wishes to do something for the intellectual
advancement of the masses. Let him build and endow a
" Museum of Comparative Palaeontology," for the purpose of
carrying out Agassiz's idea on a scale worthy of it. Such
a museum, built on the plan of that at Harvard, but with
rooms of a larger average size, would easily accommodate
the far larger number of spectators that would certainly
visit it, and would tend more than anything else could do
to raise the sciences of palaeontology and zoology in
popular estimation, and to clear away the clouds of mis-
understanding which still enshroud the grand theory of
evolution. It would enable the general public to
appreciate for the first time the marvellous story pre-
sented by the sequence of animal life upon the globe, and
would at once instruct and elevate the mind by exhibiting
the comparative insignificance of existing animals, in
variety and often in size, to those which have preceded
them, and by demonstrating the innumerable and startling
changes of the forms of life upon the globe during the long
series of ages which preceded the advent of man. Such
a museum would certainly become the most popular, as it
would be the most instructive, of all the great scientific
exhibitions yet established, while its founder would secure
to himself an amount of honourable fame rarely accorded
to those who devote money to public purposes.

Museums of American Pre-historic Archceology.

Few Englishmen have any adequate idea of the pre-
sent condition of the study of prehistoric archaeology in
America, or are at all aware of the vast extent and in-
teresting character of the collections which illustrate the
early history of that continent. The recognition of the
antiquity of man in Europe, and the establishment of
the successive periods characterized by the palaeolithic

38 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

and neolithic implements, are events within the memory
of many of us ; while even at the present day the exist-
ence of man before the glacial period is vehemently
denied by some geologists, and all the evidence brought
forward to establish the fact is sought to be explained
away with as much misspent ingenuity as was exerted in
the case of the early finds of McEnery and Boucher de
Perthes. Notwithstanding that almost every fact of the
early discoveries has now been proved to have been a
reality, every new fact which goes to show that man is
only a little older than we have hitherto supposed, is
still received with incredulity or neglect, although it is
universally admitted that not only is there no ante-
cedent improbability in these new discoveries, but that
the theory of evolution if it is worth anything, demands
that the origin of man be placed very far back in the
tertiary period.

While such has been the frame of mind with which each
new discovery in Europe has been met, it was natural that
comparative ignorance should prevail as to the course of
discovery across the Atlantic ; more especially as there was
a common notion that America was really a new world as
regards man, and that except a few puzzling facts, like
the ruined cities of Central America, Mexico, and Peru,
its native races were comparatively recent immigrants from
Asia by the north-western route, and that their prehistoric
history was brief, simple, and altogether unimportant as
compared with that of early Europe. The facts, however,
point to an exactly opposite conclusion, the prehistoric
remains of North America being at least equally abundant,
equally varied, and offering as numerous and as interesting
problems for solution as are met with in the European
continent. In no other part of the world has the use of
stone for all the purposes of savage and barbarous life been
so extensive and so highly elaborated ; nowhere else has a
race which has many features in common, and which was
long held to be perfectly homogeneous, been found to present
more diversities in customs, in arts, in language, and in
physical characteristics.

The study of prehistoric archaeology and of man's an-

AMERICAN MUSEUMS

tiquity has run almost a parallel course in America
and in Europe. The early discoveries of Schmerling and
Godwin-Austen compare with those of the Natchez
human bones in the Mississippi loess, and of arrow-
heads, pottery, and burnt wood in close connection with
skeletons of the mastodon. The kitchen-middens of
Denmark are far less extensive than the shell-heaps of
New England, Florida, and Alaska; while the dis-
coveries in the lake-dwellings, peat-bogs, and tumuli may
be compared with the still more extensive finds in the
" mounds " of the great valley of the Mississippi. Even
the mysterious structures at Stonehenge, on Dartmoor,
and in Brittany, are not more mysterious than some of
the animal mounds or extensive systems of earthworks of
Ohio and Illinois, nor offer more difficult problems than
the sculptures and hieroglyphics of Central American
and Mexican temples.

Before giving a brief sketch of the varied specimens
which illustrate the history of early man in America, it may
be well to state the character of the museums in which
they may be best studied — the Peabody Museum of
American Archeology and Ethnology at Cambridge,
Massachusetts, and the Museum of Prehistoric Archaeology
at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. These
two museums illustrate very distinct methods of arrange-
ment, each of which has its advantages. At Cambridge
the collections are arranged according to localities or
areas. Everything found in one mound, or group of mounds,
is kept together, so as to illustrate, as far as possible, the
life history of the constructors. Surface finds are grouped
according to States or districts ; the instruments, bones,
shells, &c., of the shell-heaps are similarly arranged ; the
same is done with objects found in caves, in stone-graves, in
the old Pueblo villages, &c. In the words of the curator,
Mr. F. W. Putnam :

"A natural classification has been attempted, grouping together
objects belonging to each people. By this method is brought out
the ethnological value of every object in the museum, so that in the
mind of the student each is put into the great mosaic of human
history. Thus it is that throughout the arrangement of the museum

T7NIV

40 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the chip of stone and the polished instrument are side by side.
There is no forcing into line, no selection of material, in order to
illustrate a theory. Every object falls into its place with its own
associates, and tells its part of the story of the efforts of man and
the results which he has reached at different times and in different
places. By this method of arrangement nothing is forced, and
misconception is impossible. Separate the objects and classify them
by their kind, independently of their source, and the result is
simply a series of collections illustrating the development of the
arts of man ; and although such collections will find appropriate
places in a museum like this, they should be secondary to the main
collection, and be formed of duplicate material. Upon these
principles and methods the arrangement of the collections in the
present building has been carried on."

The great collection in the National Museum at Wash-
ington, on the other hand, is arranged to illustrate
the development of prehistoric industry and arts. First
we have cases filled with the rudest chipped implements,
many quite as rude as the palaeolithic flints of Europe,
and closely resembling them in form. These are of
the most varied materials — calcite, chalcedony, obsidian,
quartzite, slate, sandstone, or trap. Many are scrapers,
rude knives, spears, &c., and come from every part of the
continent. In other cases we find leaf-shaped, arrow-
shaped, and spear-shaped stones ; passing on successively
to all the varied uses to which stone has been applied,
through a long gallery containing probably a hundred
large floor-cases. Besides this progressive series there are
some special cases containing the whole of the contents
of certain mounds or graves, or the weapons and
implements from some specially interesting locality or
island. This method of arrangement has the advantage
of enabling a visitor more easily to appreciate the endless
variety in the forms of each class of articles, and to
compare the development of the stone age in America
with that of Europe. As in the case of zoological
collections, a great national museum should combine both
methods of arrangement ; and it is therefore fortunate that
in the present progressive condition of the study the two
great museums of American prehistoric archaeology should
have adopted different systems.

AMERICAN MUSEUMS

41

FIG. 5.

The first thing that strikes the visitor is the immense
number and variety of forms of stone weapons, im-
plements, and ornaments, far ex-
ceeding anything known in Europe.
First we have ovoid or leaf-shaped
stones, often of flint quartzite or
other hard material, and probably
used as scrapers. Fig. 5, b, is a com-
mon type, often shorter and rounded
with the broad end worked to a
fine edge. These scrapers are

usually better shaped and more carefully worked than
the flint scrapers so commonly found in England.

Diverging from these we have a great variety of shapes
evidently adapted for special purposes, such as scraping
down the hafts of spears and arrows, as in the strange
forms shown in Fig. 6, b, c, and d. Borers, probably used

for making
holes in skins
for lacing
them to-
gether, are
shown in Fig.
6, a, and these
too vary great-
ly, some being
very slender
and delicate,
and all are
formed of
flint, quartz-
ite, or other hard stone. It may be noted that very rude
tools and weapons are found in certain deposits in
America as in Europe, some in New England and others
in Utah closely resembling the palaeolithic implements of
the high gravels of our own country and France.

Passing on to the more decided weapons we notice a
number of very distinct types. Fig. 7, h, shows a
transition from the well-formed scraper to the spear-head.
This takes a more definite form in g, and j ; while in i,

FIG. 6.

42

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

and k, we have the base narrowed and elongated evidently
to fix into a notched haft and to fasten by a binding of
thongs. Another development is into the triangular thin
arrow-head a, sometimes with the angles elongated and

delicately, pointed, as in e. These carry us on to the more
definite spear head with a notched base, as in b, c, f, and
1, an improvement which would render the fastening to the
shaft more secure. Many of these are large and beautiful
weapons, like that here figured (1), which is nine inches
long by four inches wide.

ii AMERICAN MUSEUMS 43

There remain two other weapons figured above, d and
m, characterized by the deep square serrations. These
are formed of obsidian and are from California, to which
State they appear to be confined. In a California!!
magazine, The Land of Sunshine (Oct. 1899), Mr.
H. C. Meredith gives figures of a number of very
remarkable forms of these deeply serrated obsidian
weapons, some curved like a broad bladed knife, others
shaped like an Australian boomerang, while some are bent
at right angles. They are about two or three inches long,
with one end formed to be fastened to a handle, and
would then be a very formidable weapon to throw in an
enemy's face. There are also some fine obsidian spear-
heads, four and a half inches long. Mr. Barr, of Stockton,
has a very fine collection of these obsidian weapons of
varied shapes, especially the curious " curves." They have
been found only in the central valley of California.

From these we pass to more perfectly formed barbed
arrow and spear-heads, such as
the three examples in Fig. 8,
the exceedingly broad and deli-
cate type on the right being
from California. These very
small arrow-heads are often
formed of agate, jasper, corne-
lian or other gem-like stones. FIG. s.

Among the very interesting

forms of arrow-head are those represented in Fig. 9, in
which the two faces are bevelled off on opposite sides,
so as to produce the effect of a slight screw or twist.
In some cases the whole arrow-head appears to be twisted,
probably owing to a favourable grain in the stone.
These specimens have been found in the ancient mounds
of Wisconsin, Ohio, Georgia, and Alabama, and seem to
have been designed for the purpose of giving a rotation
to the arrow about its axis, thus counteracting any slight
curvature in the shaft and producing a straighter flight.

The next set shown in Fig. 10 are flat and finely chipped
tools of uncertain use. The upper one, a, was of a black
flinty material from Oregon and was fourteen inches long,

44

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

a

but there was a still slenderer one of the same type that
was no less than two feet long. The others, b and c,

II

AMERICAN MUSEUMS

45

were probably the heads of ceremonial spears and were
also from a foot to two feet long. They were found in
California.

Fig. 11 shows a series of flat discs of flint or shale of

various round oval or elongate shapes, perhaps used in
some game.

The set of seven articles in Fig. 12 have the common
feature of being nearly circular in section, and having a
constriction at one end or projection at both ends, so as to
facilitate suspension by a string. They are very numerous,

of many curious forms, often very rude, yet adapted for
the same purpose, and they were found in many localities.
Some may have been sinkers for nets or fishing lines,
while the more symmetrical may be weights used in
twisting thread.

46

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

FIG. 13.

Numbers of flat flint hoes have been found of consider-
able size, having a projection like that of the best-formed
arrow-heads for fastening to a handle ; and some of these
have the outer edge highly polished, evidently by use as a
hoe in fine alluvial soil. Fig. 14, b, shows one of
these hoes or spades about fifteen inches long
with a hole near the base evidently for the
purpose of tying it more firmly to the handle ;
while Fig. 13 is a curious tool notched on each
side at the base, perhaps for the purpose of
cutting through roots, and with a long pro-
jection, giving a very firm attachment to the
handle. This was formed of a tough black
stone, perhaps basalt, and was found in Louisiana.
Among other tools we find numbers of ham-
mers, pounders, grinders, pestles and mortars, rub-
bing stones,crushers, club-heads, weight-stones for
diggers, as now used by some Indians to assist
in piercing the earth, and many others of unknown use.
Fig. 14, a, and c, are some kind of knife or cutting tool,
the lower edge
being finely
ground, and the
base fastened to
a wooden han-
dle to allow of
freat pressure,
ig. 15, a, and
b, shows two

small oval pebbles carefully grooved round the longer
diameter, to be used apparently as well
secured weights.

The great variety of cutting tools, such as
axes, adzes, chisels and gouges, are often
beautifully worked, of the hardest fine-
grained rocks, such as syenite or haematite,
and are sometimes highly polished. The gouges especially
are often deeply hollowed out and ground to a perfect
cutting edge.

The tools and household implements here Jnoted show

FIG. 14.

FIG. 15.

IT AMERICAN MUSEUMS 47

that those who made them were an agricultural people,
cultivating the ground largely and with skill, as did most
of the tribes on the eastern coast and in California when
Europeans first encountered them. We have heard so
much of late years of the warlike and nomad character of
the American Indian tribes that we are apt to forget that
many of the more peaceful agricultural peoples have been
exterminated. Yet the early settlers in the north-eastern
States were often saved from famine by the stores of
maize of the peaceful Indians.

The extensive use of roots, nuts, acorns, maize, &c. as
food required facilities for cracking, crushing, or grinding ;
and hence some of the most common implements, both of
modern Indian tribes and throughout all prehistoric ages,
are hammers, grinders, pestles, and mortars, of varied
sizes, forms, and workmanship. The pounding, crushing,
and grinding stones are of very varied forms, from the un-
worked pebble up to the most elaborate grinder with a
broad handle, something like a tailor's iron, but carved out
of solid stone. Corresponding to these are the grinding-
stones and mortars, of equally varied forms and sizes.
Some are flat, some slightly hollowed; some have
numerous small pits or cups in them, probably to hold
nuts of various kinds, so as to prevent them from flying
away when being cracked. From these we pass on gradu-
ally to shallow basins and large deep mortars, some of the
latter found in California being a foot or eighteen inches
wide, and having corresponding stone pestles, some of
which are two and a half feet long.

We now come to a series of implements or articles for
domestic use of varied form and size, but often involving a
large amount of labour.

In Fig. 16, we have representations of five types of
stone spoons or cups with handles, some of the former are
only two inches diameter, while the latter are often six or
eight inches. These are very nicely finished. Others
were somewhat ruder, and there are many of larger size
used as plates, or bowls, up to ten or twelve inches across.
These are all from California, where stone work attained a
high degree of perfection.

48

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

In Fig. 17 we have examples of curious boat- or cup-
shaped stones of doubtful use. but c, and d, have grooves
with a hole through the stone near each end, suggesting a
thread reel or a shuttle for weaving.

FIG. 16.

In Fig. 18 we have ten different forms of flat smooth
stones symmetrical in shape, and with one or two holes
through them. These look much as if used for winding
thread for weaving, and perhaps the different shapes may

FIG. 17.

have been used for different colours, so that patterns could
be woven correctly in a dark hut or at night, the colours
being known by the shape of the winder. These indicate
a considerable amount of skill in the weaving of textile

fabrics, remains of which have been found in some of the
mounds.

Besides these varied implements and weapons, whose
uses are known from observation of modern savages, or

AMERICAN MUSEUMS

49

Fia. 19.

may be fairly conjectured, there are many others which
appear to be either personal ornaments or objects used
in favourite games, or for ceremonial purposes. Of
the former class are small stones of various forms, and
more or less
decorated with
pits or incised
lines, some of
which were
probably ear
ornam en t s,
others gorgets

(Fig. 19). Great numbers of stone discs have been found,
of various sizes, from two or three up to eight inches in
diameter, some of which are worked beautifully true and
smooth. They are usually hollowed on one or both sur-
faces, and many have a
central perforation. Some
are formed of hard quartz-
ite, three or four inches
diameter, and must have
required an enormous
amount of labour to cut
and polish them without
a lathe or any of the ap-
pliances of the modern
These were probably used in a game called
chungke, practised among some Indian tribes, and resem-
bling a combination

of bowls and spear- , , , x

throwing; and the [ --/ /\ ^f^ \\\\
Creek Indians had
chungke yards kept
smooth and level on
purpose for the game
(Fig. 20 c). The sup-
posed ceremonial
stones have been
found from Connecticut to Florida, mostly in mounds,
and are of very varied symmetrical forms, and all have a

u

b

FIG. 20.

lapidary.

FIG. 21.

VOL. II.

50

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

CHAP.

central hole sufficiently large to admit a small stick. One
has a form closely resembling the " key " of the maple
(Fig. 21 a), others are cylindrical, but slightly curved
(Fig. 21 d), some are like triangles joined by a narrow con-
necting bar at the centre of their opposite bases (Fig. 21 b);
others, again, like the longitudinal section of a dice-box
(Fig. 22 a), with many more, only a few of which are here
figured.

Sculptured objects are numerous, and some have con-
siderable artistic merit. Among the modern Indians the
Sioux carve animal arid human figures on pipes of cat-
linite or red pipe stone, some of which are well executed
and of fanciful design. The Haida Indians, of Queen
Charlotte Island, are celebrated for their skilful carving

FIG. 22.

in wood and slate, the latter being very elaborate, highly
polished, and having the appearance of black marble.
These are grotesquely idealised into more or less sym-
metrical designs, and bear a considerable resemblance to
some of the Mexican sculptures, while in language and
physiognomy these tribes differ from all the Indians of
the adjacent regions. It is, however, in the mounds that
the greatest variety of sculptures have been found, and
among them are some of a very remarkable character. .
The pipes from- the mounds of Ohio and Illinois are
often carved into the form of human heads, some of which
have Indian characteristics, while others seem quite dis-
tinct. Animal forms are also abundant, and among them
are seen the dog, bear, otter, prairie-dog, beaver, tortoise,
frog, serpent, hawk, heron, coot, duck, woodpecker, owl, &c.

ii AMERICAN MUSEUMS 51

The supposed tropical animals carved by the mound
builders, such as the manatee and the parrot, are errors of
identification. There is, however, a curious carving repre-

FIG. 23.

senting some form of llama or camel found on the site of
a mound in Ohio.1 (Fig. 23, a.) Many carvings of animals,

1 The history of this remarkable piece of sculpture is as follows.
Mr. J. F. Snyder, M.D., purchased it along with a few other pre-
historic relics, flint arrow points, stone axes, &c., of a typical back-
woodsman, who was migrating from Marion Co., Ohio, to the west,
with his family and household goods. The man was rough and un-
educated, and profoundly ignorant of archaeology, but attached some
value to the specimens, partly because others did, but chiefly because
he had himself found them. He stated that he had ploughed up the
llama, together with many Indian bones, and two of the stone axes,
and some of the flints, from a low flat mound in his field, while pre-
paring the ground for corn -plant ing. He sold the specimens because
he needed money to prosecute his journey. These facts were com-
municated in a letter to" myself from Dr. Snyder, in answer to an
inquiry as to the history of the "llama." There can, I think, be no
reasonable doubt of the genuineness of the find. A number of similar
objects have been found in Peru, and several of them are figured in
The U.S. Naval Astronomical Expedition to the Southern Hemi-
sphere during the Years 1845-52, but none of these exactly correspond
with the Ohio specimen. It has been suggested that this relic was
brought to Florida by one of De Loto's men, who had obtained it in
Peru while engaged there under Pizarro, and that it reached Ohio
from Florida by Indian conquest or by trade and barter. This purely
hypothetical explanation seems highly improbable and quite unneces-
sary. There are many proofs of widespread intercommunication among
most savages, and there can be no doubt that it existed among such
ancient and comparatively advanced peoples as the inhabitants of Peru
and Mexico and the mound builders. In an interesting paper published
in the Proceedings of the American Antiquarian Society, in 1886,
Mr. F. W. Putnam shows that jade ornaments have been found in a
mound in Michigan, and also in burial mounds in many localities in
Central America, which have evidently been formed by cutting up jade
celts ; and further, that the same material is nowhere found in situ in
America, while it exactly corresponds with Asiatic jade, some of the
specimens exactly matching the material of the jade celts of New

E 2

52

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

CHAP.

not on pipes, some rude (Fig. 23, b), others more delicate,
have been found in New York and other States. In Iowa
two pipes, with rude carvings of an elephant or mastodon
but with neither tusks nor tail, have been found by two
separate individuals; but suspicion has been thrown on
their genuineness because they both passed through the
hands of the same person, and because they resemble in
general form the well-known elephant mound of Wisconsin.
It is, however, absolutely demonstrated, by bones pierced
with stone arrows and others burnt with fire, that the
mastodon was coeval with man in America, and there is
therefore no antecedent improbability in its being repre-
sented both in mounds and carvings.

FIG. 24.

Very strange are the stone collars, or " sacrificial yokes,"
found in great abundance in the island of Porto Rico, and
more rarely in Mexico. These are in shape and size like
small horse-collars, but carved out of single blocks of hard
volcanic rock. They all have a curious ornamental pro-
jection on one side, as if to represent the junction of. the
material out of which the type collar was formed. Some
are slender and comparatively light, while others are so
massive that they would be a heavy load for a man. They
are said to be found in surface deposits, and along with
them are many finely worked and polished celts and axes
(Fig. 24, a, b, yokes ; c, celt).

The long-continued use of stone in America for the

Zealand. These specimens, as well as the carved llama, may therefore
be considered to prove the widespread intercommunication between
distant peoples at a very remote epoch.

AMERICAN MUSEUMS 53

most varied purposes, and the occupation of the country
by Indian tribes down to comparatively recent times, is
the obvious cause of the extreme abundance of stone
weapons and implements all over the country. As indica-
tions of this abundance, the case of Dr. Abbott's farm at
Trenton, New Jersey, may be mentioned. This gentleman
has obtained, on a very limited area, about twenty thousand
stone implements and several hundreds of associated
objects made of bone, clay, and copper, besides numerous
pipes and carved stone ornaments. In a small field on
the banks of the Potomac, near Washington, arrow-heads
of quartz and quartzite have been collected for many
years, and are sometimes still so abundant that hundreds
may be found in a few days. This is on the site of an
Indian settlement abandoned about two hundred years
ago. In California, the large stone mortars used for
pounding the acorns, which seem always to have formed
the food of the indigenes, are scattered over the country
by thousands ; while the beautiful little arrow-heads of
jasper and chalcedony found abundantly in some districts,
are systematically collected to be set in gold and used as
ornamental jewellery.

Next in interest and extent to the stone weapons and
implements are the articles of pottery found abundantly
in the various classes of mounds and sites of villages.
These consist chiefly of cooking vessels, water jars, drinking
cups, and mortuary urns, extremely varied in form, size,
and ornamentation, and often exhibiting a considerable
amount of artistic skill. In a group of mounds in New
Madrid, in Missouri, over a hundred such vessels were
found, exhibiting about thirty distinct types of form, from
flat dishes to long-necked jars, vessels with or without
handles or feet, and with the handles greatly varied in
number, form, and position. Many of these are moulded
above into the form of human heads or busts, and some
of them are in strange attitudes, recalling the fantastic
Peruvian pottery. Similar pottery has been found in the
mounds of Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, as well as in
the curious stone graves found extensively in the Southern
States ; but their various peculiarities can only be under-

54 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

stood by examining the specimens or a good series of
figures. Very numerous tools and utensils of shell have
also been found in the mounds, a moderate quantity in
copper, with many ornaments of mica and some of silver
and of gold.

Ancient Mounds and Earthworks.

The general character of the mounds and earthworks of
various parts of the United States, and which are more
especially abundant in the great valley of fche Mississippi
and its tributaries, is sufficiently known, though their vast
numbers and the great variety of form and structure
which they present is hardly understood in England. A
voluminous memoir will shortly be published by the
Bureau of Ethnology, which will give most important
information on the entire subject. In some parts of
Indiana and Kentucky a hundred mounds have been
found in a hundred acres. The enclosed area of the
ancient earthworks at Aztalan, Wisconsin, is more than
fourteen hundred feet long and near seven hundred wide.
The great mound of Cahokia, St. Louis, was ninety feet
high, and covered an area of seven hundred feet by five
hundred feet, with an inclined road up one side to reach
the flat platform on the top. Another almost equally
large mound exists at Seltzerbown, Mississippi. In
Louisiana are some curious platform mounds, in the form
of squares or parallelograms, connected by terraces. Be-
sides the wonderful Fort Ancient in Ohio, containing five
miles of embankment, now, sad to relate, being gradually
destroyed by cultivation, there are in Georgia and other
southern states several fortified mountain-tops, recalling,
in their inaccessibility, the hill-forts of India.

Ash-pits, Cemeteries and House sites.

Another curious class of works are the ash-pits, dis-
covered a few years since near Madisonville, Ohio. Mr.
Putnam, curator of the Peabody Museum, has opened no
less than one thousand of these pits, and has obtained
from them a large amount of implements, ornaments, pot-

ii AMERICAN MUSEUMS 55

tery, and other articles. They are found on a plateau
which is covered with a remnant of the virgin forest.
There is a surface deposit of twelve to eighteen inches of •
leaf-mould, below which is hard clay. These pits are
found to be circular in form, from three to four feet in
diameter, and from four to seven feet deep. At the bottom
there is often a small circular excavation, either in the
centre or at one side. They are usually filled with ashes,
in more or less defined layers, the bottom portion being
very fine grey ashes, while the upper part may be more
or less mixed with gravel or sand, with occasianal layers
of charcoal. Throughout the whole mass of ashes and
sand, from the top of the pit to the bottom, are bones of
fishes, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Those of the larger
species of mammalia, such as the elk, deer, and bear, are
generally broken, and appear to have been those of animals
used for food. Half a bushel of such bones are sometimes
taken out of one pit. Shells of many species of Unio are
also found. There is also much broken pottery, but
rarely any entire vessels. Numbers of implements of
bone or horn are found, some of large size and apparently
used for digging, as well as awls, beads, harpoon points,
and small whistles. Arrow points, drills, scrapers, and
other stone instruments are common, with some polished
celts and rough hammer-heads. Stone pipes and copper
beads and finger-rings are also found. In some of the pits
a considerable quantity of charred corn has been found,
together with nuts and other articles of food, and in one
case only a human skeleton was found at the bottom of a
pit. A considerable area, including that occupied by the
pits, seems to have been used as a cemetery, both before
and since they were constructed. A great number of
skeletons are found buried just beneath the layer of leaf
mould, and in some cases these skeletons lie across a pit,
while in others skeletons already buried have been evi-
dently disturbed by digging the pit.

In the same district, but at a little higher elevation,
are a number of earth-circles, from forty-three to fifty-
eight feet in diameter, which prove to be sites of houses,
with a central fire-place of clay, and with implements and

56 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

utensils agreeing with those found in the pits. After
an extensive and most laborious investigation of this
locality, the only explanation of the peculiar feature of
the pits is, that at certain times or on certain special
occasions the whole contents of a house were burned, and
the remains and all the ashes buried in a pit, while the
quantity of bones found indicates that the ceremony was
accompanied by feasting. The thick layer of leaf-mould
covering the pits, graves, and house-sites would indicate
an antiquity much greater than that of the large forest-
trees which grow on the present surface, while the
enormous number of the pits and the extent of the
cemetery, covering over fifteen acres of ground and from
which over five hundred skeletons have been obtained,
indicates that the place was permanently occupied by a
large population.

American Shell-banks.

Another class of remains, the shell-banks, are far more
numerous and extensive than the kitchen-middens of
Europe. They are found from Nova Scotia to the Gulf
of Mexico, and on the west coast they have been dis-
covered in Alaska and in California, while similar mounds,
composed entirely of fresh-water shells, occur in the
valleys of the Mississippi, Ohio, and other rivers. These
accumulations are often of great extent. One on the
coast of Georgia covers ten acres to a depth of from five
to ten feet. In Florida, on Amelia Island, a shell-heap
extends a quarter of a mile inland by a hundred and fifty
yards along the shore ; and many others are found thickly
scattered over a district a hundred and fifty miles long.
An immense number of works of art and animal and
human remains have been found in them, some of which
indicate a considerable antiquity.

Cave-dwellings.

America also has its cave dwellings, with characteristic
remains of their human inhabitants ; its cliff-houses, forts,
and towns, partly excavated and partly built up with good

IT AMERICAN MUSEUMS 57

stone walls, so as to resemble mediaeval castles or eastern
rock-cities ; and its ruined towns of the Zuni and Pueblo
Indians scattered over the vast desert-regions of Arizona
and New Mexico. Some of these are highly interesting
and remarkable. The ruined pueblo of Penasca Blanca
in the Chaga Canon, New Mexico, forms a regular oval
of about five hundred by four hundred feet, the houses
being symmetrically placed around the outside so as to
enclose an open area, which contains a depression,
probably a pond for storing water. The walls of the
nouses are regularly and solidly built of stone. Equally
remarkable is a large round tower about forty feet in
diameter with double walls, the space between which is
divided into numerous small rooms. This is in ruins, but
was evidently well constructed of good stone masonry.
Accurate models of these and many other structures
exist in the National and Smithsonian Museums.

The preceding brief outline of the materials which
exist in American Museums for the study of prehistoric
man are sufficient to show that they are not inferior in
extent, variety, and interest to those of Europe ; while if
we extend our survey to the marvellous prehistoric
remains of Mexico, Central America, Peru, and Bolivia,
their pyramids and temples, their ruined cities, their
cemeteries, their highways and aqueducts, their highly
characteristic sculpture, their fantastic pottery, and their
still undeciphered hieroglyphics, we may claim for the
American continent a position, as regards the early history
and development of the human race, hardly inferior to
that of the whole of the Eastern hemisphere. A body of
earnest and painstaking students are now engaged in the
collection, preservation, and study of these various classes
of remains ; and at the same time a vast mass of most
valuable material is being brought together relating to
the manners and customs, the tools, weapons, and orna-
ments, the tribal relations, the migrations, the folk-lore,
the religions, and the languages of the aboriginal inhabi-
tants. Already much light has been thrown on the
prehistoric remains by their comparison with objects still

58 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, n

in use in some parts of the continent ; and this study has
resulted in the formation of two schools of American
anthropologists. The one school, impressed by the very
numerous resemblances to be found between existing
Indians and the mound-builders, maintain the practical
identity of race and continuity of habitation from the
epoch of the earliest prehistoric remains down to the date
of the European discovery. The other school, laying
more stress on the differences between the remains left
by the mound-builders and other prehistoric races and
the works of modern Indians, and being convinced,
further, that there are indications of great antiquity and
successive occupation in many areas, believe that there
has been a long series of changes in America as in the
old world, that each group of remains and each area has
its characteristic features, that there have been higher
grades of civilisation succeeded by lower as well as lower
by higher, and that the facts, no less than the proba-
bilities, are all in favour of successive displacements of
tribes or races, of which the displacement of the mound-
builders by the ancestors of the historic " red men " was
perhaps the latest.

This divergence of opinion is probably the very best
security for the ultimate discovery of the truth, since it
assures us that no important evidence on either side will
be neglected. The whole inquiry is in good hands ; fresh
material is continually being obtained and elaborated ;
and we may look forward with some confidence to a final
consensus of opinion which shall disperse, by the light of
accurate knowledge, some portion at least of the obscurity
which has hitherto overshadowed the early history of the
American continent.

CHAPTER III

HOW BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH

M. ELISEE RECLUS, the well-known geographer, in a
pamphlet printed at Brussels,1 has elaborated a startling
and even sensational proposal for the construction of a huge
globe, on a scale of one hundred thousandth the actual size
of our earth. This is only about one-third smaller than
the maps of our own one-inch Ordnance Survey ; and the
magnitude of the work will be appreciated when it is stated
that the structure will be 418 feet in diameter, so that
the London Monument, if erected inside it, would not
reach to its centre, while even the top of the cross of St.
Paul's Cathedral would fall short of its highest point by
fourteen feet. This enormous size is considered to be
necessary in order to allow of the surface being modelled
with minute accuracy and in true proportions, so as to
show mountains and valleys, plateaux and lowlands, in
their actual relations to the earth's magnitude. Even on
this large scale the Himalayas would be onlyabout three and
a half inches high, Mont Blanc, about two inches, the Gram-
' pians half an inch, while Hampstead and Highgate would
be about one-sixteenth of an inch above the valley of the
Thames. It may be thought that these small elevations
would be quite imperceptible on the vast extent of a globe

1 Elisee Reclus, Projet de Construction d'un Globe Terrestre a Vechelle
du Centmillieme. Edition de la Societe nouvelle. 1895.

More recently (1898) a paper on the same subject was read
before our Royal Geographical Society, in which the same eminent
geographer explained the advantages of his plan, even if the globe
were constructed on a smaller scale than he first proposed.

60 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

which would be a quarter of a mile in circumference ; but
the visibility of inequalities of surface depends not on their
actual magnitude so much as on their steepness or abrupt-
ness, and most hills and mountains rise with considerable
abruptness from nearly level plains. All irregularities of
surface are appreciated by us owing to the effects of light
and shade produced by them ; and by a proper arrange-
ment of the illumination the smallest deviations from a
plane can be easily rendered visible. Again, the slopes of
mountains are always much broken up by deep valleys,
narrow gorges, or ranges of precipitous cliffs, which give
a distinct character to mountainous countries, thus pro-
ducing striking contrasts with lowlands and plateaux, which,
when brightened by appropriate colouring and brought to
view by a suitable disposition of the sources of light, would
give them any desired amount of distinctness.

It is proposed that the globe shall always be kept up to
the latest knowledge of the day, by adding fresh details
from the results of new explorations in every part of the
world ; so that, by means of photography, maps of any
country or district could be formed on any scale desired ;
and for a small fee the globe might be available to all map-
makers for that purpose. Such maps would be more
accurate than those drawn by any method of projection,
while the facility of their construction would render them
very cheap, and would thus be a great boon to the public,
especially whenever attention was directed to any particu-
lar area.

M. Reclus states the scientific and educational value of
such a globe as due to the following considerations — (1)
its accuracy of proportion in every part, as compared with
all our usual maps, especially such as represent continents
or other large areas ; (2) the unity of presentation of all
countries, by which the erroneous ideas arising from the
better-known countries being always given on the largest
scale will be avoided ; and (3), that the true proportions of
all the elevations of the surface \yill be made visible, and
thus many erroneous ideas as to the origin, nature, and
general features of mountain ranges, of valleys, and of
plateaux, will be corrected. He has fixed upon the scale

in HOW BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH 61

of one hundred thousandth for several reasons. In the
first place, it gives the maximum size of a globe that, in
the present state of engineering science, can probably be
constructed, or that would be in any case advisable ;
secondly, it is the scale of a considerable number of im-
portant maps in various parts of the world ; and, thirdly,
it is the smallest that would allow of very moderate
elevations being modelled on a true scale. He considers
that even Montmartre at Paris, and Primrose Hill at
London, would be distinctly visible upon it under a proper
oblique illumination.

When, however, we consider the size of such a globe,
nearly 420 feet in diameter, it is evident that both the
difficulties and the cost of its construction will be
very great ; and both are rendered still greater by
the particular design adopted by M. Reclus — a design
which, in the opinion of the present writer, is by
no means the best calculated to secure the various
objects aimed at. I will therefore first briefly describe
the exact proposals of M. Reclus as set forth in his
interesting and suggestive pamphlet, and will then
describe the alternative method, which seems to me to be
at once simpler, less costly, and more likely to be both
popular and instructive.

The essential features of the proposed globe are said to
be as follows. Nothing about it must destroy 01 even
diminish its general effect. It must not therefore rest
upon the level ground, but must be supported on some
kind of pedestal ; and it must be so situated as to be seen
from a considerable distance in every direction without
any intervening obstruction by houses, trees, &c. BUD, in
our northern climate, the effects of frost and snow, sun
and wind, dust and smoke, rain and hail, would soon
destroy any such delicate work as the modelling and
tinting of the globe ; it is therefore necessary to protect
it with an outer covering, which will also be globular, its
smooth outer surface being boldly and permanently
coloured to represent all the great geographical features
of the earth, so as to form an effective picture at a con-
siderable distance. In order to allow room for the various

62 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

stairs and platforms which will be required in order to
provide for access to every part of the surface of the in-
terior globe, and to afford the means of obtaining a view
of a considerable extent of it, there is to be a space of
about fifty feet between it and its covering, so that the
latter must have an inside diameter of about 520 feet.
It is also to be raised about sixty feet above the ground, so
that the total altitude of the structure will be not far short
of 600 feet.

M. Reclus adds to his general description a statement
furnished by a competent engineer giving a general
estimate for the erection of the globe, with some further
constructive details which are, briefly, as follows : Both
the globe and the envelope are to be built up of iron
meridians connected by spiral bands, leaving apertures
nowhere more than two metres wide. The envelope is to
be covered with thick plates of glass, and either painted
outside on a slightly roughened surface, or inside with the
surface remaining polished, either of which methods are
stated to have certain advantages with corresponding dis-
advantages. The envelope being exposed to storms and
offering such an enormous surface to the wind would not
be safe on a single pedestal. It is therefore proposed to
have four supports placed about 140 feet apart, and built
of masonry to the required height of sixty feet. The globe
itself is to have a surface of plaster, on which all the
details are to be modelled and tinted, the oceans alone
being covered with thin glass. In order to provide access
to every part of the surface of the globe it is proposed to
construct in the space between the globe and its covering,
but much nearer to the former, a broad platform, ascend-
ing spirally from the South to the North Pole in twenty-
four spires, with a maximum rise of one in twenty. The
balustrade on the inner side of this ascending platform is to
be one metre (three feet three inches) from the surface of
the globe, and the total length of the walk along it will be
about five miles. But as the successive turns of this
spiral pathway would be about twenty feet above each other,
the larger portion of the globe's surface would be at too
great a distance, and would be seen too obliquely, to

in HOW BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH 63

permit of the details being studied. It is therefore
proposed that the globe should rotate on its polar axis,
by which means every part of the surface would be
accessible, by choosing the proper point on the platform and
waiting till the rotation brought the place in question
opposite the observer. But as such an enormous mass
could only be rotated very slowly, and even more slowly
brought to rest, this process would evidently involve much
delay and considerable cost. Again, as the facility of
producing accurate maps by photography is one of the
most important uses which the globe would serve, it is
clear that the spiral platform, with its balustrade and
supporting columns, would interfere with the view of any
considerable portion of the surface. To obviate this
difficulty it is stated that arrangements will be made by
which every portion of the spiral platform may be easily
raised up or displaced, so as to leave a considerable
portion of the globe's surface open to view without any
intervening obstruction. In order that this removal of a
portion of the roadway may not shut off access to all parts
of the globe above the opening, eight separate staircases
are to be provided by means of which the ascent from the
bottom to the top of the globe may be made.

Objections to the Plan of M. Eeclus.

This account of the great earth-model proposed by M.
Reclus clearly indicates the difficulties and complexities in
the way of its realisation. We are required to erect, not
one globe, but two, the outer one, to serve mainly as a
cover for the real globe, being very much larger, and there-
fore much more costly, than the globe itself. Then we
have the eight staircases of twenty-four flights each, and
the five or six miles of spiral platform, wide enough to
allow of a pathway next the surface of the globe and a
double line of road outside for the passage of some form
of auto-motor carriages. Then, again, the greater part of
this huge spiral platform is to be in movable sections,
which can be either swung aside or lifted up in order to
allow of an uninterrupted view of any desired portion of

64 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the globe's surface. But even this will not suffice to get
an adequate view of the globe in all its parts, and this
enormous mass is to be rendered capable of rotating on a
vertical axis. It is suggested that this rotation shall be
continuous in the space of a sidereal day, and it is thought
that it will be so slow as not to interfere with any photo-
graphic operations that may be desired.

But a little consideration will show us that, even with
all these complex constructions and movements, and sup-
posing that they all work with complete success, the main
purposes and uses of the globe, as laid down by M.
Reclus himself, would be very imperfectly attained. His
first point is that such a globe would correct erroneous
ideas as to the comparative size and shape of different
regions due to the use of Mercator's or other forms of pro-
jection. But in the globe as proposed no comparison of
different countries, unless very near together, would be
possible ; and even if considerable portions of the plat-
form could be removed, and the observer could be placed
near the outer covering, at a distance of, say, forty feet from
the globe, only a comparatively small area could be seen
or photographed in its accurate proportions. If we take a
circle of forty feet diameter as our field of view it is evident
that all the marginal portion would be seen very obliquely
(at an angle of 30° from the perpendicular if the surface
were flat, but at a somewhat greater angle owing to the
curvature of the surface), and would also be on a smaller
scale owing to their greater distance from the instrument,
so that the central portions only would be seen in their
true proportionate size and shape. For ordinary views
this would not much matter, but when we have to produce
maps from a globe which is estimated to cost somewhere
about a million sterling, and one of whose chief uses is to
facilitate the production of such maps, a high degree of
accuracy is of the first importance. In order to attain even
a fair amount of accuracy comparable with that of a map
on any good projection, we should probably have to limit
the portion photographed to about ten feet square, equal to
190 or 200 miles, so that even such very restricted areas
as Scotland or Ireland would be beyond the limits of

v

f
in HOW BEST TO MODEL T

{ UNIVERSITY
'HK EAf-

any high degree of accuracy. Larger areas, such as
the British Isles, France, or Germany, would be quite
beyond the reach of any accurate reduction by means of
photography. As affording exceptional facilities for
accurate map-making the globe would be of very limited
service.

The second advantage to be derived from the proposed
globe is stated to be the correction of erroneous ideas as to
the comparative sizes of various countries and islands, owing
to the fact of their representation in atlases on very different
scales, while each country gives its own territories the
greatest prominence. But a large part of this advantage
would be lost owing to the fact that distant countries
could never be seen together. That Texas is much larger
than France would not be impressed upon the spectator
when, after losing sight of the one country several hours
might pass before he came in sight of the other, while
even the various States of Europe, such as Great Britain
and Italy, or Portugal and Turkey, would never be in
view at the same time. For this special purpose, there-
fore, the globe would not be so instructive as the large wall
maps of continents at present used in every schoolroom.

The third advantage, that the globe would admit of the
varied contours of the surface being shown in their true
proportions, does undoubtedly exist, and is very important ;
but even as regards this feature, its instructiveness would
be very largely diminished by the impossibility of seeing
the contours of any considerable area in its entirety, or of
comparing the various mountain ranges with each other,
or even the different parts of the same mountain range. It
may be doubted whether the relief-maps now made do not
give as useful information as would be derived from a
globe of which only so limited a portion could be seen
at one view.

Alternative Plan.

It thus appears that the gigantic earth-model proposed
by M. Reclus would very imperfectly fulfil the purposes
for which he advocates its construction. But this defect
is not at all inherent in a globe of the dimensions he

VOL. II, F

66 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

proposes, but only in the particular form of it which he
appears to consider to be alone worthy of consideration.
I believe that such a globe can be made which shall
comply with the essential conditions he has laid down,
which shall be in the highest degree scientific and
educational, which shall be a far more attractive ex-
hibition than one upon his plan, and which could be
constructed for about one-third the amount which his
double globe would cost. It would only be necessary to
erect one globe, the outer surface of which would present
a general view of all the great geographical features of the
earth, while on the inner surface would be formed that
strictly accurate model which M. Reclus considers would
justify the expense of such a great work, and which, as I
shall presently show, would possess all those qualities
which he postulates as essential, but which the globe
described by him would certanly not possess.

I make no doubt that the eminent geographer would at
once put his veto upon this proposal as being wholly
unscientific, unnatural, and absurd. He would probably
say that to represent a convex body by means of a concave
surface is to turn the world upside-down, or rather outside-
in, and is fundamentally erroneous ; that it must lead to
false ideas as to the real nature of the earth's surface, and
that it cannot be truly educational or scientifically useful.
But these objections, and any others of like nature, are,
I venture to think, either unsound in themselves or are
wholly beside the question at issue. M. Reclus has him-
self declared the objects of the gigantic earth-model, and
the educational and scientific uses it should fulfil. I take
these exactly as he has stated them, and I maintain that
if the plan proposed by me can be shown to fulfil all these
requirements, then it can not be said to be less scientific,
or less instructive, than one which can only fulfil them in
a very inferior degree.

Before showing the overwhelming advantages of the
concave over the convex globe for all important uses, I
would call attention to two strictly illustrative facts.
Celestial globes have been long in use, and I am not aware
that it has ever been suggested that they are unscientific

in HOW BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH 67

and deceptive, and that they ought to be abolished. Posi-
tions seen on such a globe can be, and are, easily transferred
to the apparently concave sky; while many problems
relating to the motions of the earth and the planets are
clearly illustrated and explained by their use. A concave
surface suspended from the ceiling of a schoolroom would,
no doubt, show more accurately the position of the heavenly
bodies, but would probably not be so generally useful as
the unnatural convex globe.

The representation of the earth's surface on the inside
of a sphere has been tried on a considerable scale by
Wyld's globe in Leicester Square, and was found to be
extremely interesting and instructive. Before seeing it I
was prejudiced against it as being quite opposed to
nature ; but all my objections vanished when I entered
the building and beheld the beautiful map-panorama from
the central gallery. I visited it several times, and I never
met with any one who was not delighted with it, or who
did not find it most useful in correcting the erroneous
views produced by the usual maps and atlases. It
remained for twelve years one of the most instructive ex-
hibitions in London, when it was removed owing to the
lease of the ground having expired. This globe was sixty
feet in diameter, and it showed how grand would be the
effect of one many times larger and admitting of greater
detail, while variety would be obtained by the view at
different distances and under various kinds of illumina-
tion.

One other consideration may be adduced in this con-
nection, which is, that even the outer surface of a huge
globe has its own sources of error and misconception. It
would perpetuate the idea of the North -pole being up and
the South-pole down, of the surface of the earth being not
only convex but sloping, while for the whole southern
hemisphere we should have to look upwards to see the
surface, which we could never do in reality unless we were
far below that surface. Again, we all know how the sea-
horizon seen from an elevation, and especially from a
balloon, appears not convex but concave, A convex globe,

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

therefore, will not represent the earth as we see it, or as
we can possibly see it ; and to construct such a globe with
all the details of its surface clearly manifest, while at the
same time we see the convexity and have to look up to some
parts of the surface and down upon others, really introduces
fresh misconceptions while getting rid of old ones. We
cannot reproduce in a model all the characteristics of the
globe we live on, and must therefore be content with that
mode of representation which will offer the greater number
of advantages and be, on the whole, the most instructive and
the most generally useful. This, I believe, is undoubtedly
the hollow globe, in which, however, the outer surface
would be utilised to give a general representation of the
earth as proposed by M. Eeclus. and which would no doubt
be itself a very interesting and attractive object.

Advantages of a Concave Globe.

I will now proceed to show, in some detail, how the
concave surface of a hollow globe is adapted to fulfil all
the purposes and uses which M. Eeclus desires.

We should, in the first place, be able to see the most
distant regions in their true relative proportions with a
facility of comparison unattainable in any other way. We
could, for instance, take in at one glance Scandinavia and
Britain, or Greenland and Florida, and by a mere turn of
the head could compare any two areas in a whole hemi-
sphere. Both the relative shape and the relative size of
any two countries or islands could be readily and accu-
rately compared, and no illusion as to the comparative
magnitude of our own land would be possible. In the
next place, the relief of the surface would be represented
exactly as if the surface were convex, but facilities for
bringing out all the details of the relief by suitable illu-
mination would be immensely greater in the hollow globe.
Instead of being obliged to have the source of illumination
only fifty feet from the surface, it could be placed either
at the pole or opposite the equator at a distance of 200 or
300 feet, and be easily changed in order to illuminate a
particular region at any angle desired, so as to bring out

in HOW BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH 69

the gentlest undulations by their shadows. Of course,
electric lighting would be employed, which by passing
through slightly tinted media might be made to represent
morning, noon, or evening illumination.

It is, however, when we come to the chief scientific and
educational use of such a globe — the supply of maps of any
portion of the earth on any scale by means of photo-
graphy— that the superiority of the concave model is so
overwhelming as to render all theoretical objections to it
entirely valueless. We have seen that on the convex
surface of a globe such as M. Reclus has proposed, photo-
graphic reproductions of small portions only would be
possible, while in areas of the size of any important
European State, the errors due to the greater distance and
the oblique view of the lateral portions would cause the
maps thus produced to be of no scientific value. But, in
the case of the concave inner surface of a sphere, the
reverse is the case, the curvature itself being an essential
condition of the very close accuracy of the photographic re-
production. A photograph taken from anywhere near
the centre of the sphere would have every portion of
the surface at right angles to the line of sight, and
also at an equal distance from the camera. Hence there
would be no distortion due to obliquity of the lateral por-
tions, or errors of proportion owing to varying distances
from the lens. We have, in fact, in a hollow sphere with
the camera placed in the centre, the ideal conditions which
alone render it possible to reproduce detailed maps on the
surface of a sphere with accuracy of scale over the whole
area. For producing maps of countries of considerable
extent the camera would, therefore, be placed near the
centre, but for maps of smaller areas on a larger scale, it
might be brought much nearer without any perceptible
error being introduced, while even at the smallest distances
and the largest scale the distortion would always be less
than if taken from a convex surface. It follows that only
on a concave globular surface would it be worth the expense
of modelling the earth in relief with the greatest attainable
accuracy, and keeping it always abreast of the knowledge
of the day, since only in this way could accurate photo-

70 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

graphic reproductions of any portions of it be readily
obtained. For absolute accuracy of reduction the sensi-
tive surface would have to be correspondingly concave, and
this condition could probably be attained.

I will now point out how much more easily access can
be provided to every part of the surface of a concave than
to that of a convex globe. Of course, there must be a
tower in the position of the polar axis. This would be as
small in diameter as possible consistent with stability,
and with affording space for a central lift ; and it would
be provided with a series of outside galleries supported
on slender columns, at regular intervals, for affording
views of the whole surface of the globe. This general
inspection might be supplemented by binocular glasses
with large fields of view and of varying powers, by means
of which all the details of particular districts could be
examined. For most visitors this would be sufficient ;
but access to the surface itself would be required, both for
purposes of work upon it, for photographing limited areas
at moderate distances, and for close study of details for
special purposes. This might be provided without any
permanent occupation of the space between the central
tower and the modelled surface, in the following manner.

Outside the tower and close to the galleries will be fixed,
at equal distances apart, a series of three or four circular
rails, on which will rest by means of suitable projections
and rollers, two vertical steel cylinders, exactly opposite
to each other and reaching to within about ten feet of the
top and bottom of the globe, with suitable means of
causing them slowly to revolve. Attached to these will
be two light drawbridges, which can be raised or
depressed at will, and which also, when extended, will
have a vertical sliding motion from the bottom to the top
of the upright supports. The main body of this draw-
bridge would reach somewhat beyond the middle point
from the tower to the globular surface, the remaining
distance being spanned by a lighter extension sliding out
from beneath the main bridge and supported by separate
stays from the top of the tower. When not in use, the
outer half would be drawn back and the whole con-

ii HOW BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH 71

struction raised up vertically against the galleries of the
tower. The two bridges being opposite each other, and
always being extended together, would exert no lateral
strain upon the tower.

By means of this arrangement, which when not in use
would leave the whole surface of the globe open to view,
access could be had to every square foot of the surface,
whether for purposes of work upon it or for close
examination of its details; and, in comparison with the
elaborate and costly system of access to the outer surface
of a globe of equal size, involving about five miles of
spirally ascending platform and more than a mile of stairs,
besides the rotation of the huge globe itself, is so simple
that its cost would certainly not be one-twentieth part that
of the other system. At the same time, it would give access
to any part of the surface far more rapidly, and even when
in use would only obstruct the view of a very small
fraction of the whole globe.

A Suggested Mode of Construction.

A few words may be added as to a mode of construction
of the globe different from that suggested in the project
of M. Reclus. It seems to me that simplicity and
economy would be ensured by forming the globe of equal
hexagonal cells of cast steel of such dimensions and form
that when bolted together they would build up a perfect
oblate spheroid of the size required. As the weight and
strain upon the material would decrease from the bottom
to the top, the thickness of the walls of the cells and of
the requisite cross struts might diminish in due pro-
portion, while the outside dimensions of all the cells were
exactly alike. At the equator, and perhaps at one or two
points below it, the globe might be encircled by broad
steel belts to resist any deformation from the weight
above. A very important matter, not mentioned by
M. Reclus, would be the maintenance of a nearly uniform
temperature, so as to avoid injury to the modelling of the
interior by expansion and contraction. This might be
secured by enclosing the globe in a thick outer covering

72 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

of silicate or asbestos packing, or other non-conducting
material, over which might be formed a smooth surface of
some suitable cement, or papier-mache, on which the broad
geographical features of the earth might be permanently
delineated. With a sufficiency of hot-water pipes in and
around the central tower, and efficient arrangements for
ventilation, the whole structure might be kept at a nearly
uniform temperature at all seasons.

It has now, I think, been shown that the only form of
globe worth erecting on a large scale is one of which the
inner surface is utilised for the detailed representation
and accurate modelling of the geographical features of the
earth's surface, while on the outside, either by painting or
modelling or the two combined, all the grander features
could be so represented as to be effectively seen at con-
siderable distances. But as to the dimensions of such a
globe there is room for much difference of opinion. I am
myself disposed to think that the scale of TiroVcnr*
proposed by M. Reclus, is much too large, and that for
every scientific and educational purpose, and even as a
popular exhibition, half that scale would be ample. The
representation of minute details of topography due to
human agency, and therefore both liable to change and of
no scientific importance — such as roads, paths, houses, and
enclosures — would be out of place on such a globe, except
that towns and villages and main lines of communication
might be unobtrusively -indicated. And for adequately
exhibiting every important physiographical feature — the
varied undulations of the surface in all their modifications
of character, rivers and streams with their cascades and
rapids, their gorges and alluvial plains, lakes and tarns,
swamps and peat-bogs, woods, forests, and scattered wood-
lands, pastures, sand dunes and deserts, and every other
feature which characterises the earth's surface, a scale
of -2-Tnr1Tnjirth, or even one of o-yoVoirkh* would be quite
sufficient. And when we consider the difficulty and
expense of constructing any such globe, and the certainty
that the experience gained during the first attempt would
lead to improved methods should a larger one be deemed

in HOW BEST TO MODEL THE EARTH 73

advisable, there can, I think, be little doubt that the
smaller scale here suggested should be adoped. This
would give an internal diameter of 167 feet, and a scale
of almost exactly a quarter of an inch to a mile, and would
combine grandeur of general effect, scientific accuracy,
and educational importance, with a comparative economy
and facility of construction which would greatly tend to
its realisation. It is with the hope of showing the
importance and practicability of such a work that I have
ventured to lay before the public this modification of the
proposal of M. Reclus, to whom belongs the merit of the
first suggestion and publication. Now that Great Wheels
and Eifel Towers are constructed, and are found to pay, it
is to be hoped that a scheme like this, which in addition
to possessing the attractions of novelty and grandeur,
would be also a great educational instrument, may be
thought worthy of the attention both of the scientific and
the commercial worlds.

CHAPTER IV

EPPING FOREST, AND THE TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS

^Introductory Note

THIS article is reprinted in its original form for two
reasons. It describes the actual condition of Epping
Forest from personal observation, when it was first secured
for the public in 1877, and will thus enable residents or
visitors to know how much has been done in the way of
re-afforestation of the bare portions of it, and the im-
provement of the unsightly waste of gravel-pits near
Whip's Cross and the dreary Flats of Wanstead. It also
describes some of the most interesting phenomena of the
distribution of the forest trees of the temperate zone, a
matter of permanent interest to all lovers of nature, and
makes suggestions for the formation of illustrative forests
of three or four distinct types, which, though not adopted
at Epping Forest as here proposed, might still be under-
taken in the New Forest, where there are several thousand
acres of open pastures or boggy heaths of dreary aspect,
which could thus be rendered at once interesting and
beautiful.

Epping Forest in the Past.

Our greatest legal authorities will not admit that the
people of England have any right whatever to enjoy the
beautiful scenery of their native land, beyond such
glimpses as may be obtained of it from highways and
footpaths. Legally there is no such thing as a " common,"
answering to the popular idea of a tract of land over

CHAP, iv EPPING FOREST 75

which anybody has a right- to roam at will l Every
supposed common is said by the lawyers to belong abso-
lutely to some body of individuals, to a lord or lords of
the manor and the surrounding owners of land who have
rights of common over it ; and if these parties agree
together, the said common may be enclosed, and the
public shut out of it for ever. The thousands of tourists
who roam every summer over the heathy wastes of Surrey
or the breezy downs of Sussex, who climb the peaks or
revel on the heather-banks of Wales or Scotland, are every
one of them trespassers in the eye of the law ; and there
is, perhaps, no portion of these favourite resorts of our
country-loving people that it is not in the power of some
individual or body of individuals to enclose and treat as
private property.

How far this legal assumption accords with justice or
sound policy, it is not our purpose now to inquire ; that
question having been treated by many able pens, and
being one which will assuredly not become less important
or less open to discussion as time goes on. We have now
a far pleasanter task, that of calling attention to one of
our ancient woodland wastes, Epping Forest, which, in the
words of an Act of Parliament passed at the end of last
session, is to be for ever preserved as <; an open space for
the recreation and enjoyment of the public." Here at
length every one will have a right to roam unmolested,
and to enjoy the beauties which nature so lavishly spreads
around when left to her own wild luxuriance. We shall
possess, close to our capital, one real forest, whose wildness
and sylvan character is to be studiously maintained, and
which will possess an ever-increasing interest as furnish-
ing a sample of those broad tracts of woodland which
once covered so much of our country, and which play so
conspicuous a part in our early history and national folk-
lore. Unfortunately the spoilers have been at work, and
much of the area now dedicated to the people has been

1 "Although the public have long wandered over the waste lands
of Epping Forest without let or hindrance, we can find no legal right
to such user established in law." (Preliminary Report of the Epping
Forest Commissioners, 1875, p. 12.)

76 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

more or less denuded of its woodland covering and other-
wise deteriorated. Before, however, we describe the present
state of the forest, and discuss the important question
of how best to restore its beauty and increase its interest,
it will be well to give our readers some notion of its
former extent and of the circumstances that have led to
its preservation.

It appears by the Reports of the Epping Forest Com-
mission (1875 and 1877) that in the reign of Charles I.
the Forest of Essex, or of Waltham, as it was then called,
comprised the whole district between the rivers Lea and
Roding, extending southward to Stratford Bridge, thus
including the site of the great Stratford Junction Station,
and northward to the village of Roydon, a distance in a
straight line of sixteen miles. Much of this wide area
was, however, even at that early date, only forest in a
legal sense, for it included many towns and villages and
much cultivated land, and these seem to have left the
actual unenclosed forest not much larger than in the first
half of the present century. We are told, for example,
that during the two centuries from 1600 to 1800 only eighty
acres of the forest were enclosed, and that even up to 1851
barely 600 acres had been enclosed. The unenclosed forest
at that date is estimated by the Commissioners at 5,928
acres. Then came the development of our railway system,
and the discovery of Californian and Australian gold.
The wealth of the country began to increase at an un-
precedented rate ; the growth of London became more
rapid than ever, and its citizens more and more acquired
the habit of residing in the country. Land everywhere
rose in value ; the wastes of Epping were temptingly near
at hand ; and illegal enclosures went on at such a pace that
during the twenty years between 1851 and 1871 they
amounted to almost exactly half the entire area, leaving
only 3,001 acres still open.

This wholesale process of enclosure, which, if quietly
submitted to, would soon have left nothing of Epping
Forest but the name, roused the indignation of many who
dwelt near the forest or felt an interest in it, and a
powerful agitation was commenced, in which the Cor-

EPPING FOREST 77

poration of the City of London and many members of
the Legislature took a prominent part. In 1871 the
Epping Forest Commissioners were appointed by Act
of Parliament, and they gave in their final report only in
the spring of last year. But in the meantime a most im-
portant case had been decided in the courts. At the
request of the Corporation of London, which supplied all
the necessary funds, the Commissioners of Sewers (as
freeholders in the forest) commenced a suit in Chancery
against the lords of manors and persons to whom they had
granted lands, claiming a right of common over all the
waste lands of the forest, and that all enclosures made
since 1851 should be declared illegal. The Master of the
Rolls decided (on the 24th November, 1874) in favour of
the plaintiffs, and against this decision the defendants did
not appeal. It has therefore been made the basis of
legislation in the Act just passed, which declares, that
the whole 5,928 acres which the Commissioners found to
have been open waste of the Forest in 1851 are to be
treated as common lands, and (the lords of manors or
their grantees being first duly compensated for their
manorial rights and property in the soil) that the whole
of this extensive area, with the exception of lands built
upon before 1871, gardens, and pleasure-grounds, is to be
preserved " uninclosed and unbuilt upon as an open space
for the recreation and enjoyment of the public/'

Large sums of money were, however, required to buy up
the manorial rights, and although this might possibly
have been done by public subscription, the necessity for
this course was obviated by the liberality and public
spirit of the City of London, which offered to supply all
the needful funds, not only for this purchase, but also for
all work that might be found necessary for the preserva-
tion, management, and replanting of the forest. This
munificent offer was accepted, and the very reasonable
desire of the Corporation to have the chief voice in the
management of the newly acquired domain in trust for
the public, was acceded to by the Legislature ; and the
Act accordingly declares that Epping Forest is to be
managed by a committee consisting .of twelve members of

78 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the Corporation of London, and four verderers, chosen by
the commoners of the twelve parishes in which the forest
is situated.

Condition of the Forest when Acquired.

Let us now take a brief glance at the present state of
the land thus dedicated to the public, before proceeding
to discuss the question — how it may be made the most
of. First, and nearest to London, we have the open
expanse of Wanstead Flats, not half a mile from the
Forest Gate Station of the Great Eastern Railway, and
which, together with some illegally enclosed ground north-
wards towards the village of Wanstead, comprises an area
of nearly five hundred acres. Crossing it from north to
south opposite Lake House is an avenue of lime-trees,
never very fine, and now rapidly dying from the combined
effects of want of shelter and the smoky atmosphere.
With this exception almost the whole of the Flats is de-
nuded of trees, and offers a drear expanse of wiry grass
interspersed with a few tufts of broom, stretching for more
than a mile in length and not far short of half a mile
wide. On the northern side considerable excavations have
been made for brickfields, and here, where the ground
rises somewhat, there is a very nice turf, with fern,
broom, and even heather, in considerable patches. North-
westward is a large piece of recovered land, about fifty
acres in extent, dotted over with oaks and bushes, and
intersected by a fine double avenue of limes a third of a
mile long, but many of the trees, in the part nearest
London, are rapidly dying. Planes are probably the only
trees which would now thrive well here. This is, on the
whole, a rather pretty piece of half- wild woodland, well
worth careful preservation for the use of the dense popu-
lation surrounding it.

To the west of Wanstead and Snaresbrook, and north-
ward towards Woodford, is a fine expanse of unenclosed
land, nearly a mile long, and from a quarter to half a mile
wide ; and when some illegal enclosures are thrown open,
this will be continued uninterruptedly to Woodford
Green. The southern portion of this tract between Wan-

iv EPPING FOREST 79

stead Orphan Asylum and Whip's Cross has been utterly
devastated by gravel-digging, the whole surface being a
succession of pits and hollows with stagnant pools of
water, and a few miserable oaks left standing on mounds
where the gravel has been dug away around them. One
would think that here the lords of the manors had in-
fringed on the rights of the commoners, by destroying the
pasture and even the surface soil on which any herbage
can grow ; and that in equity they should be called on to
pay damages instead of receiving payment for their alleged
property in the soil, which they have here succeeded in
rendering almost wholly worthless either for use or enjoy-
ment. North-westward, towards Woodford Green, is a
rather pretty piece of wild forest-land, with open grassy
glades, intervening thickets, and ponds swarming with
interesting aquatic plants. There are, however, very few
ornamental trees, the oaks being mostly small, with a
quantity of miserable pollard-beeches hardly more sightly
than so many mops.

Passing Higham Park we come upon a large extent of
illegally enclosed land, now to be thrown open, and much
of it already given up. Between Woodford Green and
Chingford Hatch there are about sixty acres of poor grass
and fallow-land adorned with a few bushes and one fine
oak-tree, but sloping gently towards the north-west, and
with extensive views over the wooded country beyond.
Further north there are more than a hundred acres of
small enclosures — rough pasture, fallow-land, or cultivated
fields, dotted with a few poor trees, and at present far
from picturesque, but with an undulating surface offering
considerable opportunity for improvement. To the west
these fields are bounded by Chingford brook, by the side
of which are some very handsome willow-trees growing in
stiff clay and indicating what this part of the land is
adapted for. A little to the north-east is the new village
of Buckhurst Hill, to the south-east of which is a fine
piece of enclosed forest, about a hundred acres in extent
and called the Lodge Bushes.

We now enter the northern and grandest division of the
Forest, which stretches away for a distance of five miles

80 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

from Queen Elizabeth's Lodge to near the town of
Epping. North and west of the Lodge are nearly three
hundred acres of illegally enclosed fields, now dreary
fallows and poor pastures, but with fine slopes affording
opportunity for producing new effects of forest-scenery. To
the west and south of Loughton village are more extensive
enclosures of several hundred acres of land, much of it
arable or pasture land of good quality ; and further north,
near Theydon Church and on towards Epping, are other
enclosures of less extent, and almost all of this will again
be thrown open to the forest.

To the north of the road from Loughton to High Beech
there is a vast extent of rough forest-land, nearly three
miles long and from half a mile to a mile wide, which
has all been recovered after having been illegally enclosed
by the lords of the manors, but not before they have de-
nuded large portions of it of everything deserving the
name of a tree, and left it a scrubby waste without any
pretensions to sylvan beauty. Here are square miles of
land, once as luxuriant as the unenclosed portions further
west, but now presenting a hideous assemblage of stunted
mop-like pollards rising from a thicket of scrubby bushes.

From this brief sketch of the present condition of Epping
Forest (1878), with more especial reference to the newly
recovered portions of it, we find, that probably not much
less than a thousand acres, which are now or have recently
been enclosed and cultivated fields, will soon be thrown into
the forest ; while, in addition to this, there are considerably
more than a thousand acres which are almost entirely
denuded of trees and in a generally unsightly condition.
The question at once arises — How can these wide tracts
of land be best dealt with for the future recreation and
enjoyment of the public ? The Act of Parliament, it is
true, empowers the conservators to form playgrounds and
cricket-grounds in suitable places, and some portion of these
lands may be so applied. But a very few acres will serve
for this purpose, or indeed are at all suitable for it ; and
there will remain by far the larger portion to be otherwise
dealt with. After all the agitation, all the arduous legal
struggles, all the liberal, nay, lavish, expenditure of money

iv TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS 81

to secure this land to the people, it cannot surely be left
as it is. Some steps must be taken to make it beautiful
and picturesque in the future, and at least as well adapted
for the recreation and enjoyment of coming generations as
the old forest was for those which have passed away. The
obvious course, and that which will at once occur to every
one, is to plant this ground in some way or other. It was
once all forest. It is as a forest that the whole domain is
dedicated to the public ; and it is the forest scenery which
has always given to the entire district its peculiar charm.
Our country still has wide tracts of common and of open
wastes, as well as extensive enclosed woods, and parks, and
plantations ; but our genuine forests are few and far
between. Undoubtedly, therefore, as forest or woodland
of some kind this land should be restored ; and the question
we have to decide is — Of what kind ?

Some may say, restore it as much as possible to its
ancient state ; plant it with oaks and beeches, with a
sprinkling of elm, birch, and ash. This may be the easiest
and the simplest, but it is certainly the least advantageous
mode of dealing with the land. While these trees were
growing — for a couple of generations at least— they would
be utterly uninteresting woods, and even in the far-distant
future would hardly surpass many other parts of the forest,
while they would increase the monotony which is its chief
defect. Another plan would be, to make a mixed planting
of choicer trees, shrubs, and evergreens, which would be
more beautiful while growing, and would in time form a
forest of a more diversified character. Or again, a regular
arboretum might be formed, a great variety of trees, and
especially choice pines and firs, being planted so as to form
specimens. Either of these plans would at once possess some
interest ; but they would be utterly deficient in novelty, or
in that special and peculiar interest we should aim at, when
we have to deal with such an extensive and varied area as
the recovered portions of Epping Forest. We have already
fine mixed plantations and woods, and many splendid arbor-
etums ; and at Kew we have in process of formation a
magnificent collection of specimen trees which it would
be out of place to attempt to imitate, while the .expense

VOL. II. G

82 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

would be far greater than almost any other kind of
planting.

Proposed illustration of Temperate Forests.

The plan I have now to propose is very different from
all these. It is one which would be perfectly novel,
perfectly practicable, intensely interesting as a great arbori-
cultural experiment, attractive alike to the uneducated
and to the scientific, not more expensive than any other
plan, and perfectly in harmony with the character of the
domain as essentially " a forest. " It is, briefly, to form
several distinct portions of forest, each composed solely of
trees and shrubs which are natives of one of the great
forest regions of the temperate zone.

In order to understand how interesting and how instruc-
tive this would be, and, especially, to how great an extent
it would add to the variety and beauty of the scenery,
while retaining to the fullest extent its character as a wild
and picturesque woodland district, it will be necessary to
give a brief sketch of the great forests of the north
temperate zone, to point out their comparative richness,
their distinctive characters, and their different styles of
beauty : and in doing this I shall avail myself largely of the
writings of the greatest authority on the subject, the late
Professor Asa Gray, who has made the relations and origin
of the various forest regions of the Northern Hemisphere
the study of his life.

The two northern continents, America on the one side,
Europe and Asia on the other, have each two great and
contrasted forest regions, an eastern and a western ; and
in both cases the eastern is very rich, while the western
is comparatively poor. The trees of our own country
belong to the western or European forest region, which
includes also the adjacent parts of Western Asia. That
region contains about eighty-five different kinds of trees
(seventeen being conifers, or firs and pines), and of these
only twenty-eight are really natives of Britain, about
twenty being tolerably common, and forming the wild trees
of our woods and wastes, with which we are all more or less
familiar.

iv TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS 83

If we compare the European set of trees with that of the
forest region of Eastern America we find a wonderful differ-
ence. Instead of a total of eighty-five, we have there no less
than 155 different kinds of trees, and a large number of
these are very distinct from those of Europe, constituting
altogether new types of vegetation, many of which, how-
ever, we have long cultivated for ornament. Among these
are magnolias, tulip-trees, red and yellow horse-chestnuts,
the locust or common acacia, the honey-locust (a far
handsomer tree), the liquidambar, the sassafras, the
hickories, the catalpa, the butter-nut and black walnut,
many fine oaks, the hemlock spruce, the deciduous cypress,
and a host of others less generally known. Most of these
differ from our native trees by their more varied and beau-
tiful foliage, by many of them being flowering trees often
of the most magnificent kind, and, what is equally import-
ant, by the glorious tints which a large proportion of them
assume in autumn. Every one has heard of the rich
autumnal tints in Canada and the United States as some-
thing of which our woods, beautiful as they are, give hardly
any idea. Instead of the yellows and browns of our trees,
there is in the American forest every tint from the richest
scarlet and crimson to yellow, which, combining in endless
varieties, give a splendour to the autumnal landscape which
is worth a journey across the Atlantic to behold. The
Virginian creeper, which drapes our houses with a crimson
mantle even amid the smoke of London, the red maple and
the sumach of our shrubberies, give us some notion of
these tints, but hardly any idea of the effect they produce
when their colours are lavishly spread over a varied land-
scape. Most of the trees which acquire these brilliant
hues grow as well with us as in their native country.
Some American trees, strange to say, seem to grow even
better, for the beautiful ash-leaved Negundo is a small
tree in its native country, rarely exceeding thirty feet high,
while London tells us that it grows to forty feet in
England ; the white maple reaches only forty feet in
America and fifty feet here ; and a similar difference oc-
curs with many other trees. So favourable, indeed, is our
climate to the growth of trees generally, that, according

G 2

84 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

to Professor Asa Gray, we "can grow double or treble
the number of trees that the United States can/' although
their native species are five times as numerous as ours !

There is therefore really no difficulty in producing in
England an almost exact copy of a North American
forest, with all its variety of foliage, with its succession of
ornamental flowers, and with its glorious autumnal tints ;
yet this has never been attempted either in this country
or in any part of Europe. That many of these trees will
reach noble dimensions there is no doubt whatever. A
honey-locust (Gleditschia triacanthos) in Professor Owen's
garden at Richmond Park was, in 1872, a magnificent tree
nearly eighty feet high, and was then sixty years old.
There is at Dorking a tulip-tree about the same size;
while the many beautiful American oaks, maples, birches,
and poplars, form noble forest trees in many of our parks
and pleasure-grounds. Were such trees planted in masses,
they would grow upwards more rapidly and produce a
forest-like effect in from twenty to forty years ; while from
their varied foliage and general novelty of aspect, they would
be both beautiful and interesting at a far earlier period.

Here, then, we may do something which has never been
done before, which is sure to succeed (since it is only
growing trees in masses which have already been grown
singly), and which will ultimately produce a real addition
to our landscape, while the individual trees will be a con-
stant source of gratification and delight. As yet we have
only mentioned the different kinds of trees, but North
America is not less rich in beautiful shrubs to form an
underwood to the forest or open patches here and there in
its recesses. The rhododendrons, azalias, and kalmias, will
grow as underwood wherever there is peat or loam, while
the well-known snowberry, the aloe-like yuccas, several
fine spiraeas, American blackberries, and many others,
would grow anywhere.

Now let us suppose one of the most suitable of the open
tracts recovered at Epping to be thus converted into an
American forest, in which as many trees and shrubs pecu-
liar to Eastern North America as we know to be hardy,
are planted in masses and variously intermingled. Such

iv TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS 85

an experiment would excite interest at every stage of its
growth. The paths and open glades intersecting it would
be visited year after year to see how it was thriving, and
this would necessarily lead many of its visitors to acquire
an intelligent interest in the trees, and shrubs, and flowers
of other lands. And as time rolled on, and one kind of
tree after another arrived at its period of blossoming, and
displayed each succeeding year in greater perfection its
glowing autumnal tints, the " American forest " would
become celebrated far and wide, and would attract visitors
who would never think of going to see the more homely
beauties of a native woodland, and still less a young plan-
tation of common trees.

Before proceeding to describe the other characteristic
" forest pictures " which might be produced in the waste
lands of Epping, it will be well to answer an objection
sure to be made, that the kind of planting here proposed,
consisting wholly of foreign, and largely of rare trees and
shrubs, would be very expensive. This, however, is a
complete error. Many of the trees in question are
certainly rather expensive when large specimens are
purchased of nurserymen ; but this is chiefly because
there is so little demand for them, and they occupy ground
and require attention for many years unprofitably. But
nearly all these American trees could be raised from seed
almost as cheaply as the very commonest kinds. The
seeds could be obtained from their native country at a
mere nominal cost; and by forming a nursery-ground,
small at first, and increased year by year, in which to raise
them, their removal at the most suitable age and season to
the places which they were permanently to occupy would
ensure rapid and vigorous growth. The great item of
expense in forming any extensive plantation is labour, and
this would be little if any more in growing one kind of
tree than another, supposing both to be raised from seed
and to be equally hardy. The question of expense cannot,
therefore, be of importance, as compared with the vast
difference in permanent results between the plan here
advocated and that of the ordinary English wood, the
mixed plantation, or the systematic arboretum. The

86 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

latter, indeed, would be very much more expensive,
because, few specimens being wanted, it would not be
worth while raising them from seed, while an arboretum
would require more weeding and pruning, as well as some
amount of permanent gardening, which in a forest is
unnecessary.

Another important feature of such a forest would be,
that it would furnish reliable information as to what
valuable timber trees may be profitably grown in this
country. Among American trees the sugar-maple,
hickory, tulip-tree, redwood, and locust, are well-known
as producing valuable timbers for special purposes ; and
there are many trees of Eastern Europe and Asia equally
valuable, which it might be profitable to grow largely. As,
however, they have been hitherto almost always grown
singly for ornament, we have been unable to test, either
the rapidity of their growth under more natural conditions,
or the quality of their timber at different ages; all which
points would be determined, were they grown in quantity
as here proposed, by the mere periodical thinnings-out
necessary to encourage the free development of those that
were to remain and form the permanent forest.

Passing now to the western or Californian coast of
North America, we find another forest region, remarkably
different from that of the Eastern States. It is charac-
terized at once by extreme richness in coniferous trees,
and what Professor Asa Gray terms its "desperate
poverty " in deciduous kinds, of which it has only one-
fourth as many as Eastern America, and one-half as many
as Europe.1 Almost all the trees which are especially
characteristic of Eastern America are wanting, their place
being chiefly supplied by peculiar species of oaks, maples,
ashes, birches, and poplars, groups which are equally
abundant on both sides of the Atlantic. When we turn
to the coniferous trees, however, Western America stands
pre-eminent, possessing nearly twice as many different
kinds as the Eastern States, and nearly three times as many
as all Europe, while it exhibits the grandest, tallest, and
most beautiful firs, pines, and cypresses in the world.

1 Deciduous trees, 34 species ; conifers, 44 species !

iv TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS 87

Here we find the giant Wellingtonia and redwood, the
magnificent Douglas fir, the exquisitely beautiful piceas-
nobilis and lasiocarpa, such fine cypresses as Lawsoniana
and Lambertiand, such unequalled pines as insignis and
macrocarpa, the well-known handsome thujas, gigantea
and Lobbii, and many others. These glorious trees form
forests by themselves, surpassing in grandeur those of any
other temperate land ; and every one of these grows freely
and rapidly with us (which they do not in Eastern
America), and, if grown under natural conditions, would
probably attain nearly as great a size as in their native
country. Their extreme beauty has, however, caused them
to be almost always grown singly as specimens, and even
thus the rapidity of their growth is often amazing. The
Wellingtonia will reach twenty feet in ten years ; the
Douglas fir grows even more rapidly when young, and a
specimen at Dropmore, fifty years old, is now more than a
hundred feet high, while its branches, spreading on the
ground, cover a space sixty-six feet in diameter. The
beautiful grass -green Finns insignis at the same place
reached sixty-eight feet high in thirty-four years ; and
were these trees planted in masses, so as to draw each
other upward, and cause the lower branches to drop off as
in their native forests, they would almost certainly grow
even more rapidly, and the younger members of the present
generation might live to walk amid forests of these noble
trees not much inferior to those which excite so much
admiration on the mountains of California and Oregon.

Here, again, there is no question of success. The
experiment has been made already for us hundreds of
times over, and we have only to profit by it. These trees
succeed well in every part of England without exception,
and they would certainly not fail at Epping. An expanse
of a hundred or two hundred acres covered with the
coniferous trees of Western America, planted in masses,
groups, or belts, and with winding paths, broad glades,
and occasional shrub-planted openings admitting of free
access to every part of it, would probably be even more
attractive than the forest of Eastern America. For many
of these trees are exquisitely beautiful objects in their

88 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

young state, the varying colours of the under and upper
surfaces of their foliage and the delicate tints of the new
growth in summer, being especially remarkable. Their
different rates of growth would soon cause some species to
tower above others, and thus produce that charm of
variety which is wanting where large areas are planted
with trees which all grow at about the same rate.

The next forest type of which we should have an
example, is that of Eastern Europe and Western Asia,
containing all those interesting trees of the European
forest region which are not natives of our own country.
Here we should grow the various European pines and firs,
including the symmetrical pinsapo of Spain, the well-
known silver fir of the Alps, and the allied but more beau-
tiful Nordman's fir of Russia. Here, too, we should have
the nettle-tree, the Judas-tree, the flowering ash, the wild
olive, the hop-hornbeam, the almost evergreen Neapolitan
alder, and our old favourites the plane, the walnut, the
laburnum, and the Portugal laurel. Along with these we
should plant the many beautiful and often sweet-scented
shrubs of the same districts — laurestinus, myrtles, Spanish
broom, coronillas, cistuses, Mediterranean heaths, the
favourite lilac, and the luscious Philadelphus, or syringa.
A smaller space would serve to exhibit these trees and
shrubs in forest growth, as they are less numerous and
generally not of large size ; but as they comprise so many
of our garden favourites, the forest of Eastern Europe
would certainly be very attractive.

We now come to the most remarkable of all the forest
regions of the temperate zone — that of Eastern Asia and
Japan. This forest is even richer than that of Eastern
America in deciduous trees, and at the same time richer
than that of Western America in conifers ; l and, as it is
only partially explored, while the others are well known,
its comparative richness will certainly increase as future
discoveries are made. We find here a number of the
deciduous trees of Eastern America represented by closely
allied species, and, in addition, a number of altogether
peculiar types. Among these are the well-known ailanthus,

1 Deciduous trees, 123 species ; conifers, 45 species.

iv TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS 89

on the leaves of which silkworms are fed, and which grows
with extreme rapidity ; the beautiful paulownia, with
flowers like those of a foxglove ; the handsome Sophora
japonica ; and of smaller trees and shrubs, the winter-
flowering chimonanthus, the crimson-flowered japonica
which adorns our walls in early spring, the favourite
weigelia, the yellow-flowered forsythia, the red-berried
aucuba, and last, but not least important for our purpose,
the camellia. This glorious evergreen is really as hardy as
the common laurel, and will grow out of doors in perfect
health and vigour. Its beautiful flowers will, indeed, be
often destroyed by the wet and frosts of our springs, but
if a sunny bank in the midst of the protecting forest were
covered with these shrubs, they would blossom abundantly
whenever we had a mild spring, and would then, indeed,
be worth a journey to see ; while at all times their splendid
glossy green foliage would be a delightful spectacle.

Even more varied and more beautiful than the conifers
of California are those of Japan and China, of which there
are no less than forty-five species belonging to nineteen
generic groups, many of which are altogether peculiar to
this region. Here are the elegant cryptomeria and retino-
sporas, the remarkable salisburia, or gingko-tree — a pine
with foliage like that of a gigantic maiden-hair fern, and
the hardly less curious sciadopitys, or umbrella-pine. To
these we may add the fine cunninghamia, the funereal
cypress, and some interesting species of arbor-vitae.

The space required for this Asiatic forest would not at
first be large, as only the most distinct and interesting
species need be made use of, while many are not yet to be
obtained in this country. Some of the Japanese trees
grow slowly, but it is not improbable that when planted
in greater quantities they might make more rapid pro-
gress. Anyhow, the plants themselves are usually so
peculiar and generally so beautiful, that in every stage of
their growth they would be sure to prove attractive to
the public.

We might, however, increase the extent of our Asiatic
forest by adding to it another small piece of land in
order to cultivate several beautiful trees which characterize

90 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the temperate regions of the higher Himalayas, among
which are the favourite deodara, some beautiful maples,
birches, and oaks, the elegant leycesteria, some fine ber-
berries, rhododendrons, and other interesting plants.

There remain the temperate forests of the Southern
Hemisphere, chiefly represented in Chili and Patagonia,
in Australia, and in New Zealand, and comprising a
number of very interesting species, many of which will
grow in this country. From Chili there is a peculiar
pine, libocedrus, and the well-known araucaria, which
when grown in avenues or masses produces a very grand
effect. Many of our favourite shrubs come from this
region, as the golden-balled buddlea, the lovely flowering
evergreens, escallonia and berberis, and the pretty cross-
leaved veronica. These would form exquisite flowering-
thickets to set off the stiff forms of the araucarias. From
Australia and New Zealand more variety may be ob-
tained, though comparatively few of the trees of these
countries have yet been proved to be perfectly hardy.
The common Eucalyptus globulus, celebrated as a remover
of miasma, suffers much from frost when young, but may
possibly become hardier as it grows older. Other species
of eucalyptus are much more hardy and more ornamental.
One raised from seed by myself has, in an exposed situa-
tion, reached a height of twenty feet in five years, though
once cut down by frost. Another mountain species, raised
at the same time, is only five feet high, but is perfectly
hardy, the leaves being quite uninjured by frost, and it
will probably grow into a lofty tree.1 Some of the acacias
are also probably hardy, as they grow well and flower
beautifully out of doors ; but the most elegant of these
southern trees are the pittosporums of New Zealand,
which in five years have formed splendid bushes nearly
six feet high, and as much in diameter, with delicate
foliage of a pale green colour which does not appear to
suffer the least from any ordinary winter's frost. These
will grow into small flowering-trees fifteen or twenty feet
high, having an appearance quite distinct from anything

1 This tree, Eucalyptus Gunnii, is now (1899) over 30 feet high, the
stem being nearly 3£ feet in circumference.

iv TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS 91

at present in cultivation. The celebrated huon pine of
Tasmania is another fine tree of this region ; and one of the
proteaceae (Lomatici longifolia) has lived more than twenty
years in a garden near London. These, with such shrubs
as the white-flowered leptospermum and the purple veroni-
cas, will form a group of plants well illustrating the
beautiful evergreen woods of the Southern Hemisphere.

There remain still the climbing plants, which form a
conspicuous ornament of all these forests, and many of
which are quite as hardy as the trees they decorate. We
might adorn our North American forests with festoons of
the Virginia creeper and wild vines, while the red trumpet-
creeper and the passion-flower of the Southern States
would form beautiful objects, climbing over the bushes and
among the branches of trees, and displaying their showy
blossoms, which are hardly surpassed by the denizens of
our hothouses. The Asiatic forest would in like manner
be ornamented with lilac-flowered clematises, the Japan
honeysuckle, the evergreen bariksian rose, the winter-
flowering yellow jasmine, and the glorious wistaria, the
very queen of climbing plants. It is the opinion of some
eminent horticulturists, that even the superb Chilian
Lapageria rosea would grow freely out of doors in a suit-
able soil and situation, and it might well be tried in
association with the trees and shrubs of the same country.

Treatment of the Native Forest.

Quitting now that portion of Epping Forest which
requires to be replanted, we find extensive tracts still more
or less covered with wood, and which require, comparatively
speaking, little to be done to them ; but that little should
be well considered and carefully executed. The preserva-
tion of " the natural aspect of the forest/' as specially
mentioned in the Act of Parliament, should always be kept
prominently in view, and this principle should influence
the character of such foot-bridges, dams, banks, or other
building or engineering works as may be found absolutely
necessary. Every such work should be carefully studied,
so as to be at once in harmony with the surroundings,

92 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

permanent, and picturesque. Unpainted wood and stone,
both as bold and substantial as possible, should alone be
employed, brick being, whenever possible, avoided as both
commonplace arid unsightly. Wherever possible, earth-
work or natural masses of rock should be used, so as to
blend imperceptibly with the surrounding forest scenery.
Among the works absolutely needed for the enjoyment of
the forest are numerous footpaths ; and these should be
systematically laid out in connection with broader " rides "
traversing the larger wooded tracts between well-marked
points on either border, thus serving as a means of extri-
cating any unfortunate tourist who may have lost his way.
Grassy or shrubby openings might also be occasionally
formed in the most densely wooded portions, such clear
spaces being very pleasing, admitting air and sunshine,
arid forming agreeable contrasts. Trees which are any
way remarkable for their age, size, or picturesque beauty
should be cleared of surrounding thicket, so that they may
be properly seen and admired ; and this comprises nearly
all that need be done here, beyond the ordinary forester's
duty of keeping up a sufficient stock of healthy young
trees to supply the place of those which die or are acci-
dentally destroyed.

Among the powers conferred upon the conservators is
that of draining where needed, and as very great miscon-
ception prevails on this subject a few remarks here may
not be out of place. People have been so accustomed to
hear " draining " spoken of as one of the greatest and
most necessary of improvements, that they may not
unnaturally think it equally necessary in a forest as in a
farm or private estate. It is true that where some
particular timber is to be grown for profit, draining may
be necessary, but when you only require trees growing
naturally, so as to produce beauty and picturesque effects,
then every variety of soil and every degree of moisture
are beneficial. Forests as a rule grow better in damp than
in dry soils, and there is no ground so wet that some kinds
of trees will not flourish in it. It is only necessary, there-
fore, to plant the right kinds of trees, and the wet places
may be covered with wood even more quickly than the dry.

iv TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS 93

It must be remembered, too, that a proportion of bog
and swamp and damp hollows, are essential parts of the
" natural aspect " of every great forest tract. It is in
and around such places that many trees and shrubs
grow most luxuriantly; it is such spots that will be
haunted by interesting birds and rare insects ; and there
alone many of the gems of our native flora may still be
found. Every naturalist searches for such spots as his
best hunting-grounds. Every lover of nature finds them
interesting and enjoyable. Here the wanderer from the
great city may perchance find such lovely flowers as the
fringed buck-bean, the delicate bog pimpernell and creep-
ing campanula, the insect-catching sundew, and the pretty
spotted orchises.1 These and many other choice plants
would be exterminated if, by too severe drainage, all such
wet places were made dry ; the marsh birds and rare
insects which haunted them would disappear, and thus
a chief source of recreation and enjoyment to that numerous
and yearly-increasing class who delight in wild flowers,
and birds, and insects, would be seriously interfered with.

There is also a wider and more general point of view
from which it may be important to survey this question of
drainage. Epping Forest lies within the area of scanty
rainfall, which extends over much of the eastern part of
England, and as its surface consists largely of gravel,
the rain-water rapidly passes away, and thus tends to
create an aridity not favourable to luxuriant vegetation.
Now, every marsh and bog and swampy flat acts as a
natural reservoir, retaining a part of the rainfall, and
permanently moistening both the atmosphere and the
surrounding soil. In order to improve the climate and
foster the vegetation of the forest, it should be the
object of its conservators to retain as much as possible of
the rainfall-water within the area under their jurisdiction.
The forest streams might be dammed up at intervals, so as

1 Besides those above mentioned, the following rare or interesting
marsh or bog plants inhabit Epping Forest : marsh St. John's wort
(Hypericum Elodes}, opposite-leaved golden saxifrage (Chrysosplenium
opfwsitifolium) red cranberry (Vaccinium oxycoccos), bladderwort
( Utricularia vulgaris), water-violet (ffottonia palustris], and the royal
fern (Osmunda regali*), but this last is, perhaps, extinct.

94 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

to form permanent ponds or lakes, by which means,
combined with the natural reservoirs already alluded to,
and aided by the check to evaporation which additional
planting will produce, the forest itself and even the
surrounding country will be permanently benefited. By
extensive draining, on the other hand, water is carried
away rapidly from the district, and with it much fertilising
matter; the climate is made drier, and the growth of
herbage as well as of trees and shrubs is rendered less
luxuriant.

Differences of Temperate Forests, and their Causes.

Coming back now to the general question of forest
distribution in the Northern Hemisphere, many of my
readers must have been struck by the singular inequality
and remarkable contrasts of the four great temperate
forests of which we have proposed that illustrations should
be grown at Epping. In a lecture recently delivered before
the Harvard University Natural History Society, Pro-
fessor Asa Gray has given an explanation of these
contrasts, which will commend itself to all naturalists who
know how important has been the agency of the glacial
period in bringing about the existing relations between
Alpine and Arctic plants.

Let us first consider the remarkable difference between
the forest vegetation of Eastern America and that of
Europe and Western Asia. The latter area is the more
extensive and more varied of the two, yet its trees, both
deciduous and coniferous, are scarcely half as numerous
or half as diversified. Why, we naturally ask, is America
so rich ? Professor Asa Gray answers, it is not America
that is exceptionally rich, but Europe that is exceptionally
poor. This is shown in two ways. Firstly, because
America, rich as it is, is surpassed by Eastern Asia ; and,
secondly, because Europe itself was formerly at least as
rich as America is now. During the later Miocene or
Pliocene periods, Europe possessed most of the generic
groups of trees now confined to North America and East
Asia, and was wonderfully rich in different kinds. The

iv TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS 95

later Tertiary deposits of Switzerland alone have yielded,
according to Professor Heer, 291 species of trees and 242
shrubs, or far more than the present rich flora of Eastern
Asia added to the poorer one of Europe. It is true that
this number includes the species of several distinct
deposits of somewhat different ages. But in the beds of
one single locality and period, at (Eninghen, the remains
of nearly two hundred species of trees have been found ;
and it is in the highest degree improbable that all which
lived there have been preserved, while it is certain that the
flora of (Eninghen was not so rich as that of Switzerland,
and was, a fortiori, very much poorer than that of Europe.
Making, therefore, all necessary deductions for imperfect
determinations of species, it is impossible to doubt that
the kinds of trees inhabiting Europe in late Tertiary times
were far more numerous and varied than they are now
even in Eastern Asia, which, as we have seen, is the richest
part of the north temperate zone. Since the period of
these deposits the climate of all these regions has greatly
deteriorated, culminating in a Glacial epoch which has
only recently passed away ; and to this is naturally
imputed the wonderful change from riches to poverty
which has come over the woody plants of Europe. But
we have still to ask, Why did not Eastern America and
Eastern Asia become equally poor ? And Professor Asa
Gray has now answered that question for us in a very
satisfactory manner.

We must first call attention to the fact that when
Europe enjoyed a milder climate, with a rich and varied
flora, there was also an abundant vegetation, very similar
in character to that which now clothes our north
temperate latitudes, extending northward to the Arctic
circle and far beyond it. In Arctic America, in Green-
land, and even in Spitzbergen, there have been found
well-preserved remains of maples, poplars, birches, and
limes, like those of Europe ; of magnolias, hickories,
sassafras, and Wellingtonias, like those of America ; as
well as of gingko-trees and several other kinds now peculiar
to Japan. The period when these Arctic woods flourished

96 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

was no doubt earlier than that of the forests of (Eninghen
(though both are usually termed Miocene), the northern
plants having migrated southward owing to the lowering
of the mean temperature. As the severer cold of the
Glacial epoch came on, the same species could only live
by migrating still farther south ; and then, when the cold
period had passed away, they moved back again, and
many of them now occupy the same countries as they did
before the Glacial epoch.

And now we arrive at the explanation of the exceptional
poverty of Europe. If we look at a good map or large
globe, we shall see that in North America the Alleghany
Mountains run north and south, and the lowlands east
and west of them extend uninterruptedly to Florida, to
Texas, and to the Gulf of Mexico. There was, therefore
nothing to prevent the southward migration of the flora,
when the mountains were covered with snow and ice,
and its return afterwards. But in Europe the geo-
graphical conditions are very different. There is a great
chain of mountains, the Alps and Pyrenees, running in an
east and west direction, and farther south a great sea, the
Mediterranean, also running east and west. As the
Glacial epoch came on, the icy mantle crept southward
from the Arctic Ocean and downward from the mountain
heights, thus preventing the plants of Central Europe
from migrating southward, and destroying all that were
not capable of enduring a very severe climate, or which
did not also exist south of the Alps. But here, too, the
Mediterranean prevented any southern migration; and
being crowded into a diminished area between the
mountains and the sea, many species must have perished.
When the cold passed away, the survivors spread northwards
and rapidly covered the whole country, but their greatly
diminished numbers and the prevalence of a few hardy
species over very wide areas, sufficiently attest the severe
ordeal they have passed through.

The correctness of this explanation can hardly be
doubted, more especially as it equally serves to explain the
superior riches of Eastern Asia. For here we find a far

iv TEMPERATE FOREST REGIONS 97

greater extent of northern land from which the existing
forest-trees originally came, and also a greater extent of
southern lowlands extending uninterruptedly into the
tropics, for them to retreat to during the period of cold.
All the conditions were here favourable, first for the
production and next for the preservation of a rich
flora.

The poverty of Western America in deciduous trees
and its richness in conifers, Professor Asa Gray considers
to be a more difficult and at present an insoluble problem.
But here, too, a consideration of the physical character of
the country suggests an intelligible explanation. Conifers
are more especially mountain plants, while deciduous trees
abound most in the lowlands. Now in North-west
America there is a vast stretch of mountains from the
extreme north to the far south, and no extensive lowlands
— exactly the reverse of what obtains in Eastern America,
where the lowlands are vastly more extensive than the
mountains. Conifers, therefore, most likely always abounded
most on the western side of the continent, and during
their enforced southern migrations always found suitable
mountain habitats. The deciduous trees, on the other
hand (always, probably, few in number), were many of
them exterminated in their migrations first southward and
again northward, for want of suitable places of growth, or
were overpowered by the greater vigour of the competing
coniferous trees.

Turning again to Eastern Asia we find a combination of
both these conditions. Ample mountain ranges traverse
every part of it from the Arctic circle to the tropics, but
these are everywhere interrupted by great river- valleys
and extensive plateaus of moderate elevation, thus offering
equally favourable conditions for the preservation of both
kinds of trees ; and here we accordingly still find the richest
and most perfectly balanced woody vegetation of the north
temperate zone.

The marvellous history that we have here sketched in
the merest outline, teaches us that our own country has
been denuded of its proper share of wild trees and shrubs
by a great natural catastrophe — the Glacial epoch — which

VOL. IL H

98 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, iv

destroyed them just as a hurricane or a conflagration might
have destroyed them, only more gradually, and at the same
time more thoroughly. In replanting the same or similar
trees as those which inhabited Europe before the Glacial
period, we may be said to be only bringing back our own,
and again clothing our land with those forest denizens
which at no very distant epoch it actually possessed.

CHAPTER V

WHITE MEN IN THE TROPICS

CAN the tropics be permanently colonized by Europeans,
and particularly by men of the Anglo-Saxon race ? This
is the question that now occupies much attention in view
of the mad struggle among the chief European Govern-
ments for a share of all those parts of tropical Africa
and Asia still held by inferior races. And the general
opinion seems to be that there is something in the
tropical climate inimical to Europeans, who cannot live
and work there as the natives can, and who must,
therefore, be content with a few years' residence, occupy-
ing the country solely as rulers, and as exploiters of
native labour. Again and again the statement is made in
the public press, and by writers of some authority, that
" white men cannot live and work in the tropics ; " and
this dogma is made the foundation of theories as to our
conduct toward the natives, and is often held to justify us
in inducing or compelling them to work for us by methods
which do not very much differ in their results from modi-
fied slavery. It therefore becomes important to ascertain
whether this dogma is true or false ; and on this question,
having myself lived and worked for twelve years within
ten degrees of the equator, in the Amazon valley and in
the Malay Archipelago, I have formed a very definite
opinion.

A few preliminary remarks are needed to avoid mis-
conception. In the first place, we must clearly distinguish

H 2

100 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

between the climate and the diseases of the tropics. Most
people form their opinions from the effects of those
tropical diseases which prevail in the cities and towns
where Europeans most congregate, or of the climate in
the very worst portions of the tropical regions. The great
trading centres of tropical America, from Havana and
Vera Cruz to Rio de Janeiro, owe their extreme unhealth-
iness to two main causes — the absence of all effective
sanitary arrangements among the native population, and
the fact that they were for several centuries emporiums of
the slave trade. It is to this latter cause that Dr. C.
Creighton, one of the greatest authorities on the history of
epidemic diseases, traces the origin and persistence of the
fatal yellow fever, which is only endemic in the slave trade
area on the two sides of the Atlantic. The slave ships
reached their destination in a state of indescribable filth,
which year after year was poured out into the shallow water
of the harbours, and soon formed a permanent constituent of
the soil between high and low water marks. In the East
there were no such slave ships and there is no yellow
fever ; but the overcrowding in all centres of population,
and the neglect of sanitation, both by the natives and by
their English rulers in India, who, knowing better, are
most to blame, produces and propagates plague and other
zymotic diseases. But these are in no way due to the
tropical climate, since three centuries ago plague was as
prevalent in the cities of England as it is now in those of
India.

Still more commonly associated with the tropics are the
various forms of malarial fevers, but these also are in no
sense due to the climate, but simply to ignorant dealing
with the soil. My own experience has shown me that
swamps and marshes near the equator are perfectly
healthy so long as they are left nearly in a state of nature
• — that is, covered with a dense forest or other vegetation.
It is when extensive marshy areas are cleared for culti-
vation, and for half the year are dried up by the tropical
sun, that they become deadly. I have lived for months
together in or close to tropical swamps, both in the
Amazon valley> in Borneo and in the Moluccas, without a

v WHITE MEN IN THE TROPICS 101

day's illness ; but when living in open cultivated
marshy districts I almost invariably had malarial fever,
though I believe the worst types of these fevers are due to
unwholesome food. But here again, malaria was equally
prevalent in England less than two centuries ago.

If we take the great belt, about two thousand miles
wide, extending from twelve to fifteen degrees north and
south of the equator, we have an enormous area, by far the
larger part of which is not only well adapted for European
colonization in the true sense, that is, for permanent
occupation by white men, but is also with proper sanitary
precautions the most healthy and enjoyable part of the
world, and that in which the labourer can obtain the
maximum return with the minimum of toil. I ^formed
this opinion in 1851 when returning down the Rio" Negro
and Amazon after four years' residence there, and my
subsequent eight years' experience in the East has only
confirmed it. I then wrote as follows :

"It is a vulgar error, copied and repeated from one book to
another, that in the tropics the luxuriance of the vegetation over-
powers the efforts of man. Just the reverse is the case : Nature
and climate are nowhere so favourable to the labourer, and I fear-
lessly assert that here (on the Rio Negro) the primeval forest can
be converted into rich pasture or into cultivated fields, gardens
and orchards, containing every variety of produce, with half the
labour, and, what is of more importance, in less than half the time
that would be required at home."

Then, after giving some details as to the various crops
that may be grown and the varieties of fruits, vege-
tables and animal food that can be easily had, I conclude
thus :

' ' Now I unhesitatingly affirm that two or three families, each
containing half a dozen working and industrious men and boys, and
being able to bring a capital in goods of £50 ($250), might in three
years find themselves in possession of all I have mentioned. Sup-
posing them to become used to the mandiocca and maize bread,
they would, with the exception of clothing, have no one necessary
or luxury to purchase ; they would be abundantly supplied with
pork, beef and mutton, poultry, eggs, butter, milk and cheese,
coffee and cocoa, molasses and sugar. Delicious fish, turtles and
turtles' eggs, and a great variety of game would furnish their table

102 STUDIP:S, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

with constant variety, while vegetables would not be wanting, with
fruits, both cultivated and wild, in superfluous abundance and of
a quality that we at home rarely obtain. Oranges and lemons, figs
and grapes, melons and watermelons, jack-fruit, custard-apples,
cashews, pineapples, etc., are among the commonest, while nu-
merous palm and other forest fruits furnish delicious drinks and
delicacies which every one soon gets very fond of. Both animal
and vegetable oils can be procured for light and cooking. And
then, having provided for the body, what lovely gardens and shady
walks might be made ! How easy to form natural orchid bowers
and ferneries ! What elegant avenues of palms might be planted !
What lovely climbers abound to train over arbours or up the walls
of the house ! "

But, it is objected, this cannot be done without hard
work, and we know that " white men cannot live and work
in the tropics." But I maintain that we know nothing of
the kind. It is not the fact that white men cannot
permanently live and work in the tropics. Work of some
sort, there as here, is a condition of healthy life. But
with a reasonable amount of work — and such is the
beneficence of nature that little is needed — man can
not only live permanently but most healthily and en-
joy ably in those portions of the tropics I am referring
to, and probably, with special precautions, in every part.
I will now give some of the facts bearing upon this
question.

My own experience assures me that I owe my long life
and comparatively good health to my twelve years'
residence in the uniform climate and pure air of the
equatorial forests, although I suffered frequently from
fevers, and on one occasion was brought to the very point of
death. I was a very delicate child, with weak lungs, and
at the age of sixteen or seventeen suffered from serious
ulceration of the lungs, and was only saved by the applica-
tion of Dr. Ramage's common-sense air-treatment, some-
what analogous to that now being introduced for
consumption. When I came home in 1862, although
much weakened by other illnesses, my lungs were quite
sound; and I distinctly trace my recovery to an open-air
life in an equable, warm, pure atmosphere. My work as a
collector of natural history specimens led to my being out

v WHITE MEN IN THE TROPICS 103

of doors for six or seven hours during the heat of the day,
and I found that I could take as much exercise without
fatigue as I could at home.

At Para, in 1848, I saw a striking case of how a white
man can work in the tropics. A tall, gentlemanly young
Scotchman, finding no suitable occupation, and seeing that
good milk was scarce in the city, determined to turn
milkman. He hired a hut and some sheds about half a
mile away, surrounded by second-growth forest and coarse
grassy fields, obtained three or four cows, and when I
made his acquaintance had got his business in full swing ;
and his work was certainly rather heavy. He lived
absolutely alone ; all the fodder for his cows when in milk
had to be cut with a scythe and carried to the sheds where
they were kept ; water had also to be brought to them
and the sheds kept clean. Early in the morning the cows
were milked, filling two large cans, when he immediately
started for the city, carrying them from a yoke across the
shoulders in the orthodox manner, and making his rounds
to all the houses he served. Returning, he had to get his
own breakfast. Then for several hours there was grass-
cutting and attending to the cows, and getting his own
dinner. Yet often in the early evening he was dressed
and made calls, often -at the very houses he had served
with milk in the morning. Notwithstanding this hard
work, with the thermometer from 80 to 90 degrees or
upward every day, he was the picture of health, and
appeared to enjoy his life.

It is a well-known fact that in Ceylon and India the
men who have the best health are the enthusiastic
sportsmen who seize every opportunity of getting away
from civilization, and who often submit to much privation
and fatigue with benefit rather than injury to their
health. Our soldiers, again, even in the unhealthy
climate of India, most of which is really outside the tropics,
have to do a good deal of work, and when marching
against an enemy undergo much fatigue, and we do not
hear that they are unequal to it on account of the heat.
The same is even more clearly the case with our sailors,
who do their regular work when stationed in the tropics,

104 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

and do not suffer injury either from the climate or the
work, if not exposed to infectious disease while on shore.
The editor of the Ceylon Observer, commenting on my
letter on this subject in the Daily Chronicle, adduced case
after case of officers, planters, doctors, &c., who had lived
from twenty-five up to fifty-eight years in Ceylon and
have retained almost continuous good health. He also
refers to Dutch families descended from settlers who came
out from 150 to 200 years ago, and who have maintained
average good health even in the hot country of the plains.
In the Moluccas there are even more striking examples,
many of the Dutch families having been continuously on
the islands for 300 years, and they have still the fair
complexions and robustness of form characteristic of their
kinsfolk in Holland. The Government physician at
Amboyna, a German, assured me also that the race is
quite as prolific as in Europe, families of ten or a dozen
children being not uncommon. The Dutch, however, live
sensibly in the tropics, doing all their official work between
the hours of 7 and 12 a.m., resting in the afternoon, and
going out in the evening.

But perhaps the most conclusive example is that of
Queensland, the climate of which is completely tropical ;
yet white men work in every part of it. Whether as
gold miners, sheep shearers, sugar workers or railway
builders, there has never been any complaint that white
men cannot work ; while almost all the heavy mechanical
work of the country, engineering of every kind, carpentering
and all the various building trades, and the scores of
varied industries of a civilized community are carried on
by white workmen without any difficulty and with no
special effect on their general health. In an article on
" Industrial Expansion in Queensland " ( Westminster
Review, March, 1897), Mr. T. M. Donovan tells us that
many of the large estates have now been broken up into
small farms of about eighty acres each, and sold to white
farmers, and he adds :

" Where a few years ago there was a large plantation worked by
gangs of South Sea Islanders, there are now twenty or thirty com-
fortable homesteads. And the contention that white European

WHITE MEN IN THE TROPICS • 105

labour could not stand the field work is blown into thin air by the
practical experience of thousands of white labourers all along the
coast. The black labour question is settling itself ; it is only a
matter of time until the sugar industry can entirely do away with
Kanaka labour."

This experiment in Queensland really settles the
question.

The fact is that white men can live and work anywhere
in the tropics, if they are obliged, and unless they are
obliged they will not, as a rule, work even in the most
temperate regions. Hence, wherever there are inferior
races, the white men get these to work for them, and the
kinds of work performed by these inferiors become infra
dig. for the white man. This is the real reason why the
myth, as to white men not being able to work in the
tropics, has been spread abroad. It applies in most cases
to agricultural work only, because natives can usually be
got to do this kind of work, while that of the skilled
mechanics has usually to be done by white men. And
another reason is that it is only by getting cheap labour in
quantity that fortunes can be made in most tropical
countries. But when people come to recognize that the
fortune-makers, whether by gold mining, speculating or
any of the various forms of thinly- veiled slavery, are not
by any means the happiest, the healthiest or the wisest
men, whereas those who really work, under the best
conditions, so as to receive the whole produce of their
labour, may be both healthy and happy, will usually live
longer and enjoy life more, and by working in association
may obtain all the necessaries and comforts of existence
—then the enormous advantage of living in the best parts
of the tropics will become evident. For not only is nature
so much more productive that equal amounts of produce
may be obtained with half or perhaps a quarter of the
labour required in northern lands, but the essentials of a
happy and an easy life are so much fewer in number.
Houses may be slighter and far less costly ; clothing may
be reduced to less than half what is required here ; fuel is
only wanted for cooking ; while the enjoyability of the
early morning hours is so great that everybody rises

106 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

before the sun, and thus comparatively little artificial
light is required. When all this is fully realized we may
hope to see co-operative colonies established in many
tropical lands, where families of the same grade of
education and refinement may so live as really to enjoy
the best that life can give them. Thus only, in my
opinion, can the best use be made of the tropics.

CHAPTER VI

HOW TO CIVILIZE SAVAGES

Do our missionaries really produce on savages an effect
proportionate to the time, money, and energy expended ?
Are the dogmas of our Church adapted to people in every
degree of barbarism, and in all stages of mental develop-
ment ? Does the fact of a particular form of religion
taking root, and maintaining itself among a people, de-
pend in any way upon race — upon those deep-seated
mental and moral peculiarities which distinguish the
European or Aryan races from the negro or the Australian
savage ? Can the savage be mentally, morally, and phy-
sically improved, without the inculcation of the tenets
of a dogmatic theology ? These are a few of the interest-
ing questions that were discussed, however imperfectly,
at a meeting of the Anthropological Society in 1865, when
the Bishop of Natal read his paper, " On the Efforts of
Missionaries among Savages ; " and on some of these ques-
tions we propose to make a few observations.

If the history of mankind teaches us one thing more
clearly than another, it is this — that all true civilizations
and all great religions are alike the slow growth of ages,
and both are inextricably connected with the struggles
and development of the human mind. They have ever
in their infancy been watered with tears and blood — they
have had to suffer the rude prunings of wars and perse-
cutions— they have withstood the wintry blasts of anarchy,
of despotism, and of neglect — they have been able to
survive all the vicissitudes of human affairs, and have
proved their suitability to their age and country by suc-
cessfully resisting every attack, and by flourishing under
the most unfavourable conditions.

108 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

A form of religion which is to maintain itself and to
be useful to a people, must be especially adapted to their
mental constitution, and must respond in an intelligible
manner to the better sentiments and the higher capacities
of their nature. It would, therefore, almost appear self-
evident that those special forms of faith and doctrine
which have been slowly elaborated by eighteen centuries
of struggle and of mental growth, and by the action and
reaction of the varied nationalities of Europe on each
other, cannot be exactly adapted to the wants and capaci-
ties of every savage race alike. Our form of Christianity,
wherever it has maintained itself, has done so by being in
harmony with the spirit of the age, and by its adapta-
bility to the mental and moral wants of the people among
whom it has taken root. As Macaulay justly observed
in the first chapter of his history :

" It is a most significant circumstance that no large society of
which the tongue is not Teutonic has ever turned Protestant, and
that, wherever a language derived from that of ancient Rome is
spoken, the religion of modern Rome to this day prevails."

In the early Christian Church, the many uncanonical
gospels that were written, and the countless heresies that
arose, were but the necessary results of the process of
adaptation of the Christian religion to the wants and
capacities of many and various peoples. This was an
essential feature in the growth of Christianity. This
shows that it took root in the hearts and feelings of men,
and became a part of their very nature. Thenceforth
it grew with their growth, and became the expression of
their deepest feelings and of their highest aspirations ;
and required no external aid from a superior race to keep
it from dying out. It was remarked by one of the speakers
at the Anthropological Society's meeting, that the absence
of this modifying and assimilating power among modern
converts— of this absorption of the new religion into
their own nature — of this colouring given by the national
mind — is a bad sign for the ultimate success of our form
of Christianity among savages. When once a mission has
been established, a fair number of converts made, and the
first generation of children educated, the missionary's

vi HOW TO CIVILIZE SAVAGES 109

work should properly have ceased. A native church,
with native teachers, should by that time have been
established, and should be left to work out its own
national form of Christianity. In many places we have
now had missions for more than the period of one genera-
tion. Have any self-supporting, free, and national
Christian churches arisen among savages ? If not — if the
new religion can only be kept alive by fresh relays of
priests sent from a far distant land — priests educated and
paid by foreigners, and who are, and ever must be, widely
separated from their flocks in mind and character — is it
not the strongest proof of the failure of the missionary
scheme ? Are these new Christians to be for ever kept
in tutelage, and to be for ever taught the peculiar doc-
trines which have, perhaps, just become fashionable among
us ? Are they never to become men, and to form their
own opinions, and develop their own minds, under national
and local influences ? If, as we hold, Christianity is good
for all races and for all nations alike, it is thus alone that
its goodness can be tested ; and they who fear the results
of such a test can have but small confidence in the doc-
trines they preach.

The views here expressed are now, after more than
thirty years, receiving unexpected support, if we may
rely on a well-written and thoughtful article by Mr. E.
M. Green in the Nineteenth Century of November, 1899.
It appears that in our Colonies in South Africa the edu-
cated Kaffirs are beginning a movement for a church of
their own with native ministers and native organisation.
There is said to be ample education, talent, and religious
enthusiasm to support such a church ; but instead of being
welcomed and fostered by encouragement and assistance,
it seems to be viewed with suspicion and dislike by the
official representatives of the local churches. The South
African Congregational Magazine, for example, writing on
this movement, remarks :

' ' The ground of their revolt appears to have been a sense of
resentment against the social barriers in the way of their advance-
ment to the chief seats of official authority in their ecclesiastical
system. Conceiving they had a grievance on the ground of such

HO STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

suppression of their self-importance, the dream of a formation of a
native Church, dissociated from all European influence and control,
began to impress itself 011 their imaginations."

The writer goes on to say that as there was no hope
of financial aid from any section of the colonial con-
stituencies, a new idea struck the "curly pow'' of the
Rev. Mr. Dwaine, which was to get the negroes of
America to take up the movement. Then the writer tells
us that this " Rev. Mr. Dwaine "is an accomplished lin-
guist (although a Kaffir), " speaks English as to the
manner born," as well as Dutch and his own native tongue,
and has a record of unsullied reputation and honourable
Christian service ; that he went to America, and " was
enthusiastically received into the fellowship of the Metho-
dist Episcopal Church, blessed by its bishops, and sent
back with the assurance that the new cause would be
taken up and backed by the available resources of the
denomination in America."

Mr. Green visited this Mr. Dwaine, and tells us that he
was dressed as a clergyman, and that his English was
excellent. He said : -

* l The missionaries cannot understand how we feel about our old
customs, and we think that if all the ministers for natives were
natives themselves it would be better. You tell us that we are all
the same in God's sight, but your people will not worship in the
same church with our people."

Mr. Green adds, that as Dwaine's position is national
rather than doctrinal, it is probable that he will in-
fluence his people in large numbers ; and I told him
that I had never attended a missionary meeting in
London about Africa without hearing that a native
ministry was the end to keep in view. His reply was :
" They say that in London, but they do not say it here."

Nothing more strikingly illustrates the way these edu-
cated natives are treated in the Colonies than the fact
that when Dwaine visited England to get funds in order to
found a South African College for natives, he wished much
to see St. Paul's Cathedral, but was afraid of being turned
out. But some one told him to walk in, and he did so,
and finding he was not turned out, he went again, and

vi HOW TO CIVILIZE SAVAGES 111

also went several times to Westminster Abbey to hear
noted preachers, and he was surprised at the toleration of
the white man — in London. Here we have the skin-deep
Christianity that preaches brotherhood and equality, but
acts the very opposite ; while the colonial dislike of the
idea of a native church is evidently due to another form
of that love of place and power which, notwithstanding
fine promises and theories, still refuses all self-government
or political rights to the countless millions in British
India, as well as to these educated Kaffirs who are still
subjected to the most irritating and degrading subjection
to petty officialdom, as strikingly illustrated by cases
which Mr. Green gives us.

Yet these people are quite as intelligent and as capable
of benefiting by a good education as are average Europeans.
This is well shown by a letter to the Queenstoivn Free Press,
from a Basuto named Pelem, which is given in Mr. Green's
article. This letter is not only very good sense, but is
written in clearer and better English than are the average
letters that appear in our own local newspapers, showing
to what a marvellous extent education has spread among
these people, and how high are their natural capacities.

But we are told to look at the results of missions. We
are told that the converted savages are wiser, better, and
happier than they were before — that they have improved
in morality and advanced in civilization — and that such
results can only be shown where missionaries have been
at work. No doubt, a great deal of this is true ; but cer-
tain laymen and philosophers believe that a considerable
portion of this effect is due to the example and precept
of civilized and educated men — the example of decency,
cleanliness, and comfort set by them — their teaching of
the arts and customs of civilization, and the natural in-
fluence of the superiority of race. And it may fairly be
doubted whether most of these advantages might not be
given to savages without the accompanying inculcation
of particular religious tenets. True, the experiment has not
been fairly tried, and the missionaries have almost all the
facts to appeal to on their own side ; for it is undoubtedly
the case that the wide sympathy and self-denying charity

112 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

which gives up so much to benefit the savage, is almost
always accompanied and often strengthened by strong
religious convictions. Yet there are not wanting facts to
show that much may be done without the influence of
religion. It cannot be doubted, for example, that the
Roman occupation laid the foundation of civilization in
Britain, and produced a considerable amelioration in the
condition and habits of the people, which was not in any
way due to religious teaching. The Turkish and Egyptian
Governments have been, in modern times, much im-
proved, and the condition of their people ameliorated, by
the influence of Western civilization, unaccompanied by
any change in the national religion. In Java, where the
natives are Monammedans, and scarcely a Christian con-
vert exists, the good order established by the Dutch
Government and their pure administration of justice, to-
gether with the example of civilized Europeans widely
scattered over the country, have greatly improved the
physical and moral condition of the people. In all these
cases, however, the personal influence of kindly, moral,
and intelligent men, devoted wholly to the work of
civilization, has been wanting ; and this form of influence,
in the case of missionaries, is very great. A missionary
who is really earnest, and has the art (and the heart) to
gain the affections of his flock, may do much in eradicating
barbarous customs, and in raising the standard of morality
and happiness. But he may do all this quite independently
of any form of sectarian theological teaching, and it is a
mistake too often made to impute all to the particular
doctrines inculcated, and little or nothing to the other
influences we have mentioned. We believe that the
purest morality, the most perfect justice, the highest
civilization, and the qualities that tend to render men
good, and wise, and happy, may be inculcated quite inde-
pendently of fixed forms or dogmas, and perhaps even
better for the want of them. The savage may be certainly
made amenable to the influence of the affections, and will
probably submit the more readily to the teaching of one
who does not, at the very outset, attack his rude super-
stitions. These will assuredly die out of themselves, when

HOW TO CIVILIZE SAVAGES 113

knowledge and morality and civilization have gained some
influence over him ; and he will then be in a condition to
receive and assimilate whatever there is of goodness and
truth in the religion of his teacher.

Unfortunately, the practices of European settlers are
too often so diametrically opposed to the precepts of
Christianity, and so deficient in humanity, justice, and
charity, that the poor savage must be sorely puzzled to
understand why this new faith, which is to do him so
much good, should have had so little effect on his
teacher's own countrymen. The white men in our Colonies
are too frequently the true savages, and require to be
taught and Christianized quite as much as the natives.
We have heard, on good authority, that in Australia a
man has been known to prove the goodness of a rifle he
wanted to sell, by shooting a child from the back of a
native woman who was passing at some distance ; while
another, when the policy of shooting all natives who came
near a station was discussed, advocated his own plan of
putting poisoned food in their way, as much less trouble-
some and more effectual. Incredible though such things
seem, we can believe that they not unfrequently occur
wherever the European comes in contact with the savage
man, for human nature changes little with times and
places ; and I have myself heard a Brazilian friar boast,
with much complacency, of having saved the Government
the expense of a war with a hostile tribe of Indians, by
the simple expedient of placing in their way clothing in-
fected with the smallpox, which disease soon nearly exter-
minated them. Facts, perhaps less horrible, but equally
indicative of lawlessness and inhumanity, may be heard of
in all our Colonies ; and recent events in Japan and in
New Zealand show a determination to pursue our own
ends, with very little regard for the rights, or desire for
the improvement, of the natives. The savage may well
wonder at our inconsistency in pressing upon him a
religion which has so signally failed to improve our own
moral character, as he too acutely feels in the treatment
he receives from Christians. It seems desirable, therefore,
that our Missionary Societies should endeavour to exhibit

VOL. II. I

114 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, vi

to their proposed converts some more favourable speci-
mens of the effect of their teaching. It might be well to
devote a portion of the funds of such societies to the
establishment of model communities, adapted to show the
benefits of the civilization we wish to introduce, and to
serve as a visible illustration of the effects of Christianity
on its professors. The general practice of Christian
virtues by the Europeans around them would, we feel
assured, be a most powerful instrument for the general
improvement of savage races, and is, perhaps, the only
mode of teaching that would produce a real and lasting
effect.

CHAPTER VII

THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH ; OR, MOUTH-GESTURE
AS A FACTOR IN THE ORIGIN OF LANGUAGE

THE science of language, as treated by its modern stu-
dents and professors, is so largely devoted to tracing the
affinities and the laws of growth and modification of
existing and recently extinct languages, that some of the
essential characteristics of human speech have been ob-
scured, and the features that contribute largely to its inhe-
rent intelligibility overlooked. Philologists have discovered,
as the result of long and laborious research, what they
hold to be the roots or fundamental units of each of the
great families of language ; but these roots themselves
are supposed to be for the most part conventional, or, if
they had in the very beginning of language any natural
meaning, this is held to have been so obscured by succes-
sive changes of form and structure as to be now usually
undiscoverable. As regards a considerable number of
the words which occur under various forms in a variety of
languages, and which seem to have a common root, this
latter statement may be true, but it is by no means always,
and perhaps not even generally, true. In our own lan-
guage, and probably in all others, a considerable number
of the most familiar words are so constructed as to pro-
claim their meaning more or less distinctly, sometimes by
means of imitative sounds, but also, in a large number of
cases, by the shape or the movements of the various parts
of the mouth used in pronouncing them, and by pecu-
liarities in breathing or in vocalisation, which may express
a meaning quite independent of mere sound-imitation.

I 2

116 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

These naturally expressive words are very often repre-
- sented by closely allied forms in some of the Teutonic,
Celtic, or other Aryan languages, and they have thus every
appearance of constituting a remnant of that original
imitative or expressive speech, the essential features of
which have undergone little change, although the exact
form of the words may have been continually modified.
But even when it can be shown that a word which is now
strikingly suggestive of its meaning has been derived from
some other words which are less, or not at all, suggestive
of the same idea, or which even refer to some totally
different idea, the obvious conclusion will be that, even in
the present day, there is so powerful a tendency to bring
sound and sense into unison, as to render it in the highest
degree probable that we have here a fundamental
principle which has always been at work, both in
the origin and in the successive modifications of human
speech.

Many writers have discussed the inter] ectional and
imitative origin of language — especially, in this coun-
try, Dean Farrar and Mr. Hensleigh Wedgwood — but
neither in their volumes, nor in any other English work
with which I am acquainted, is the subject elaborated
with any approach to completeness, while many of its.
most important features appear to have been overlooked.
One of the most celebrated philological scholars and
writers has treated it with extreme contempt, and has
christened it the " Bow-wow and Pooh-pooh theory ; " and,
perhaps in consequence of this contempt, its advocates
often adopt an apologetic tone, and, while urging the cor-
rectness of the principle, are prepared to admit that its
application is very limited, and that it can only be used
to explain a very small portion of any language. This is,
no doubt, true, if we go no further than the ordinary
classes of inter] ectional and imitative words — the Oh !
of astonishment, the Ah ! and Ugh ! of pain, the infantile
Ba, Pa, and Ma, as the origin of father and mother terms,
and the direct imitation of animal or human sounds, as
in cuckoo, mew, whinny, sneeze, snore, and many others,
together with the various words that may be derived from

vii THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 117

them. But this is merely the beginning and rudiment
of a much wider subject, and gives us no adequate con-
ception of the range and interest of the great principle
of speech-expression, as exhibited both in the varied forms
of indirect imitation, but more especially by what may be
termed speech or mouth-gesture. During my long
residence among many savage or barbarous people I first
observed some of these mouth-gestures, and have been
thereby led to detect a mode of natural expression by
words which is, I believe, to a large extent new, and which
opens up a much wider range of expressiveness in speech
than has hitherto been possible, giving us a clue to the
natural meaning of whole classes of words which are
usually supposed to be purely conventional.

Mouth- gestures,

My attention was first directed to this subject by
noticing that, when Malays were talking together, they
often indicated direction by pouting out their lips. They
would do this either silently, referring to something
already spoken or understood, but more frequently when
saying disdna (there) or itu (that), thus avoiding any
further explanation of what was meant. At the time, I
did not see the important bearing of this gesture; but
many years afterwards, when paying some attention to
the imitative origin of language, it occurred to me that
while pronouncing the words in question, impressively,
the mouth would be opened and the lips naturally pro-
truded, while the same thing would occur with our cor-
responding English words there and that ; and when I saw
further that the French la and cela, and the German da
and das, had a similar open-mouthed pronunciation, it
seemed probable that an important principle was in-
volved.1

The next step was made on meeting with the statement,
that there was no apparent reason why the word go should

1 The botanical explorer, Martins, describes lip-pointing as used
by certain Brazilian tribes, but he does not seem to have connected it
with the character of the word accompanying the gesture, or to
have drawn any conclusions from it.

118 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

not have signified the idea of coming, and the word come
the idea of going ; the implication being that these, like
the great bulk of the words of every language, were pure
conventions and essentially meaningless : or that if they
once had a natural meaning it was now wholly lost and
undecipherable. But, with the cases of there and that in
my mind, it seemed to me clear that there was a similar
open-mouthed sound in go, with the corresponding mean-
ing of motion away from the person speaking ; and this
view was rendered more probable on considering the word
with an opposite meaning, come, where we find that the
mouth has to be closed and the lips pressed together, or
drawn inwards, implying motion towards the speaker.
The expressiveness of these two words is so real and in-
telligible that a deaf person would be able to interpret the
mouth-gestures with great facility. The fact that words of
similar meaning in several other European languages are
equally expressive, lends strong support to this view.
Thus for go, we have the French vay the Italian vai, the
German geh, and the Anglo-Saxon gdn, all having similar
open-mouthed sounds ; while the corresponding words for
come — venez, vieni, komm, and Tcuman — are all pronounced
with but slight movements of the mouth and lips, or even
with the lips closed.

If, now, we assume that the word-gestures here described
afford us indications of the primitive and fundamental
expressiveness of what may be termed natural, as opposed
to mere conventional speech, we shall be prepared to find
that the same principle has been at work in the formation
of many other simple words, though in some cases its
application may be less obvious. We must, however,
always bear in mind that, though to us words are for the
most part mere conventions, they were not so to primitive
man. He had, as it were, to struggle hard to make
himself understood, and would, therefore, make use of
every possible indication of meaning afforded by the
positions and motions of mouth, lips, or breath, in pro-
nouncing each word : and he would lay stress upon and
exaggerate these indications, not slur them over as we do.
The various examples of these natural forms of speech

THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 119

which will now be adduced will be almost wholly confined
to the English language, since I have no sufficient know-
of foreign tongues. I also think that the importance and
reality of the principle will be better shown by illus-
trations drawn from one language only, while such a
method will certainly be both more intelligible and more
interesting to general readers.

First, then, we have a considerable number of pairs of
words which are pronounced with mouth-gestures very
similar to those of go and come. Thus we have to and
from, out and in, down and up, fall and rise, far and near,
that and this ; in all of which we have, in the first series,
the broad vowels a or o, pronounced, expressively, with
rather widely-open mouth, while in the second series we
have the thin vowels e, i, or u, or the terminal consonants
m, n, or p, which are pronounced either within the mouth
or with closed lips ; and in each special case the action will
be found to be expressive of the meaning. Thus, in to
the lips are protruded almost as much as in go (always
supposing we are speaking impressively and with energy),
while from requires only a slight motion of the lips
ending with their complete closure; in out we have an
energetic expiration and outward motion of the lips, while
in is pronounced wholly inside the mouth, and does not
require the lips to be moved at all after the mouth is
opened ; in down we have a quick downward movement of
the lower jaw, which is very characteristic, since the word
cannot be spoken without it ; while in up the quick
movement is upward, after having opened the mouth as
slowly as we please ; in fall we require a downward motion
of the jaw as in down, but slower, and the word is com-
pleted with the mouth open, indicating, perhaps, that fall
is a more decided and permanent thing than down, which
implies position rather than motion, while in rise we have
a slight parting of the lips, and the meaning would
probably be made clearer by the gesture of raising the
head, which is natural during inspiration. In repeating
the lines —

"On the swell
The silver lily heaved and fell,"

120 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

we feel the motion in our heaving and falling chest, and
we may be sure that with early man, such motions, when
they helped the meaning of the words, were always fully
emphasized.

Of the same general character as the words just con-
sidered, are the personal pronouns — thou, you, he, they —
all of which are pronounced with outward breathing, and
more or less outward motion of the lips, as compared with
/, me, we, us, which require only slightly parted lips, thus
clearly marking the difference between inward and out-
ward, self and not-self. In like manner, there is spoken
open-mouthed, and with strong outward breathing, while
here requires but a slightly open mouth, and is only
slightly aspirated.

Mr. E. B. Tylor has called attention to " the device of
conveying different ideas of distance by the use of a
graduated scale of vowels/' as being one of great philo-
logical interest, on account of " the suggestive hint it gives
of the proceedings of the language-makers in most distant
regions of the world, working out in various ways a similar
ingenious contrivance of expression by sound." He then
gives a list of the words for this and that, here and there,
I, thou, and he, in twenty-three languages of savage or
barbarous tribes in both hemispheres, in all of which the
ideas of nearness and distance, or self and not-self, are
conveyed by the "similar ingenious contrivance " of
different vowel-sounds.1 But he does not appear to have
observed that there is a method in the use of vowels, and
that they are not therefore merely " ingenious contri-
vances," or contrivances at all in the true sense of the word,
but are natural expressions of the difference of meaning
in the way here pointed out. This is decidedly the case
in eighteen out of the twenty-three languages given by
Mr. Tylor, the broad, open-mouthed sounds ah, o, and u,
being used to express outwardness or distance, while the
contrasted vowels e and i, occur whenever self-hood or
nearness is implied. In the other five languages the
vowels are apparently reversed, which may be due either
to a mistake of the compiler of the vocabulary--not at all

1 Primitive Culture., vol. i., p. 199.

UNIVERSITY

^LCAUFOS

THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 121

an uncommon thing when vocabularies are obtained
through interpreters — or, possibly, to a real change of the
letter used, owing to some of the numerous causes which
bring about modifications of language, and even reversals
of the original meaning of words. The tendency to pre-
serve or add to the expressiveness of speech evidently varies
much among different peoples, and we must not, therefore,
be surprised at finding some incongruities in the use of
even the most simple and natural sounds.

We now come to a series of words in which the action
of breathing is the expressive part, the motion of the lips
being very slight or altogether imperceptible ; such are air,
which is merely a modulated breathing ; wind, in which
more movement of the lips is required, with a slight in-
dication of the characteristic murmuring sound ; while in
How we almost exactly imitate the action of blowing. The
words breath and life are related, inasmuch as the life-
giving action of breathing is the fundamental part of both,
modified by a different slight action of the lips and tongue,
and it is suggestive that in many languages breath is used
for spirit or life. High and low are also breath- or throat-
words, the former being pronounced with open mouth,
and, probably, with the accompanying gesture of raising
the head, the latter with the tongue and palate only, the
lips being but slightly parted. Small modifications of
the former word would lead to shy, and perhaps also to
fly, in both of which the idea of height is prominent.

We next have a group of words of which the essential
character seems to be that the mouth remains open when
they are spoken, as in the word mouth itself, in which the
lips, teeth, and tongue are all employed ; and in all, in
which the mouth is still more widely opened. This is
especially the case in words denoting round objects, such
as moon, l/all, ring, wheel, round, in all of which, as well as
in many of the corresponding words in other languages,
the chief feature is that the lips are held apart, and the
mouth more or less rounded in pronouncing them. Sun
may well belong to the same group, if it is not the chief
of them, since it is the only object in nature that is
always perfectly round, a feature that would be more easily

122 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

represented in primitive speech than the light or heat
which to us seems its most important characters. The
root su, and the various forms of sun in other Aryan
languages, have all the same character of open-mouthed
pronunciation, and the term for south, or sunward, is
clearly derived from it. In Mr. Kavanah's work on Myths
traced to their Primary Source in Language, the symbol O,
representing the sun, is held to have been the first word
and symbol used by primitive man, and a vast wealth of
illustration from various sources is brought together to
support the somewhat fantastic idea.

Other characteristic mouth-words are mum (silence), a
mere parting and closing of the lips, whence comes
mumble and perhaps dumb. Spit also is a labial imitative
word, but it imitates the action of spitting as well as the
sound. Sleep may also be considered a mouth-word, and
in pronouncing it we gradually close the mouth in a very
suggestive manner, while in wake, aivake, we abruptly
open it.

We now pass on to words for nose and whatever
appertains to it, which, in a considerable proportion of
known languages, are formed by nasal sounds, such as are
represented by our letters m, n, ng, writh the sibilants s or
2. Thus we have snout, nozzle, nostril, snore, ^snort, sneeze,
sneer, sniff, snivel, all things or actions immediately con-
nected with the nose, while smell, stink, stench, and nasty,
are also expressive nasal words.

A distinct set of words, appertaining to the teeth,
tongue, or palate, are characterized by t, d, s, and n sounds,
and are pronounced wholly within the mouth without any
definite action of the lips. Thus, besides tooth and tongue,
we have tusk, eat, gnaw, gnash, and taste ; while perhaps
knee, knot, knob, knoll, knuckle, and some other words of
doubtful derivation, may get their characteristic type
from the analogy of a tooth-like projection. It is to be
noted that nasal and dental sounds characterize words of
similar meaning, not only in European languages, but
more or less all over the world.

THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 123

Continuous or abrupt Sounds and their Meanings.

Before passing on to consider the various modes in
which sounds, actions, and even qualities, are expressively
represented in speech, attention must be called to the way
in which certain groups of consonants are utilized to in-
dicate differences in the general character of sounds and
motions. When either of the following letters — -/, I, m,
n, ny, r, v, s, or z — occur at the end of a word, either with or
without a final vowel, we can dwell upon them and thus
give them a continuous sound ; and the more important
of these have been termed liquids, because they seem to
flow together and form one continuous sound. But the
letters b, d, g, Jc, p, and t, have a very different character,
and when any of them comes at the end of a word, and
are not silent, the sound ends abruptly, and we find our-
selves altogether unable to dwell upon and lengthen out
the sounds of these letters as we can those of the first

§roup ; neither does the addition of a final e help us to
well upon them. Compare, for instance, the words ball
or bear with bat or dog. In the former the sound of
the final letters can be continued indefinitely, while in
the case of the latter we come to a dead stop, and by no
effort can continue the sound.

Now, the various sounds which occur in nature may be
broadly divided into two classes, the continuous and the
abrupt ; and it is a most suggestive fact that these two
classes of sounds are almost always represented in our
language by words which, owing to their terminal letter,
are of a corresponding character. Thus, among continuous
sounds we have roar, snore, hiss, sing, hum, scream, wail, purr,
and buzz, all of which end in letters of the first series,
enabling us to dwell upon the word as long as we please.
But when we name abrupt sounds, such as rap, clap, crack,
tick, pop, thud, grunt, and many others, we find that the
word ends as abruptly as does the sound it represents,
and that the final letter does not in any case admit of
being dwelt upon and drawn out as in the case of words of
the first series.

124 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

But even more curious is the fact that the same law of
expression applies in the case of motions. These, too, are
either continuous or abrupt; and these are also repre-
sented by words whose terminal letters either can or can-
not be dwelt upon. Of the former kind are — fly, run,
swim, swing, move, crawl, turn, ivhirl, and slide ; and these
words all indicate the continuity of the various kinds of
motion by their terminal sounds being indefinitely con-
tinuous. But motions whose chief characteristic is their
abrupt termination, such as step, hop, jump, leap, halt,
stop, drop, bump, wink, or actions which imply such motion
as strike, hit, knock, pat, slap, stamp, sta~b, kick, all have a cor-
responding ending in noii-continnous letter-sounds.

This remarkable series of correspondences is highly
suggestive of a law of primitive word-formation. At a
very early stage in the growth of speech, it would be ob-
served that some vocal sounds were capable of being drawn
out, while others necessarily had an abrupt termination ;
and, as natural sounds and motions had also these con-
trasted features of abruptness or continuity, it was the
most natural thing in the world to make the names of
these sounds, motions, or actions, agree in this respect with
the things named. Most of these words are very similar
in other Teutonic languages, and however much they may
have changed in the course of ages, they have, as we see,
retained this particular form of expressiveness in a very
remarkable degree. In all this we have no mere convention
or ingenious contrivance, but a natural imitative expres-
siveness, arising out of the very nature and limitations of
articulate speech.

Words imitating Soimds.

We will now proceed to a brief discussion of the various
classes of words which are more directly sound-imitations ;
and though many of these are among the most familiar
examples adduced by the exponents of the imitative origin
of language, yet their great range, the variety in their
modes of imitation, and their marvellous power of in-
dicating not only sounds, but even motions, actions,

(xm~

Xg^CALlFO*^
THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 125

and physical qualities, have hardly received sufficient
attention.

Human cries have already been referred to when
noticing the difference between abrupt and continuous
sounds, but there are a few points of detail that may be
'noted here. In the word whistle we have the nearest
representation a word can give to the action of whistling ;
in babble we have the ba ba of infancy ; in whisper we
have a word which is a mere articulate breathing or
aspirate ; in hush ! we have a gentle aspirate alone ; in
cough, wheeze, and spit, we have not merely the sounds but
the actions closely represented in words ; in pronouncing
yawn we open the mouth and produce a throat sound as
in yawning ; in scream, screech, squall, and yell, we have a
fair imitation of loud and energetic cries due to sudden
pain or anger ; while in moan, groan, wail, sigh, and sob,
we hear the more subdued indications of grief or continuous
pain. Stutter and stammer almost exactly reproduce the
acts indicated.

In naming the sounds or voices of animals we use words
which are almost universally imitative, and are so well
known that they need not be here given ; but we may note
how well chirp and warble represent the voices of the less
and more musical of our small birds, as do the cawing of
the rook, and the cooing of the dove, those of larger
species.

It is when we come to the varied sounds of inanimate
nature that we begin to realize the wonderful expres-
siveness and picturesqueness of our every-day speech, and
how far superior it is to any purely conventional lan-
guage as a means of conveying to another person a
description of the varied scenes, actions, and passions of
life.

And first, how well the word murmur serves to represent
the low, modulated sound of a gentle wind among
trees, or of the distant waves ; while breeze indicates the
distant rustle of leaves shaken by a stronger wind ; and
from these sounds and motions the word trees and tremble
have not improbably arisen, as they occur with but slight
modifications in all the Teutonic languages. Then, again,

126 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

how well the minute differences of quality between various
common sounds are represented in their names — the light
and moderately sharp tap, the much sharper snap, the
fuller and broader clap, with the less abrupt flap, the
duller flop, and the softer and still duller thud.

Sounds which have an element of vibration in them are
represented by words containing r or cr when harsh, as in
creak and crack ; but when the vibration is of a more pro-
nounced or musical character we have clang, ring, and
sing ; and when vibratory objects strike together we have
clink and clash. How well the sound of boiling liquids is
represented by bubble ; the confused sound of various hard
objects striking together by clatter or rattle; while hiss,
whizz, and fizz well represent the effects of rapidly escaping
air or gases.

Words imitating the sounds of various kinds of breaking
objects are highly characteristic. Beginning with squash,
which applies best to soft fruits, we find crush, in which
the cr represents the somewhat harsh sound of the initial
break, as in crack ; and crunch, in which we seem to hear
the final crushing up of the hard pieces into which the
first crack reduced the object. In grind we have this
final breaking up into dust alone represented ; while in
crumble we have the disintegration of a much softer
substance under moderate pressure. Split represents the
sudden, sharp sound of splitting wood ; tear, the violent
pulling asunder of a woven fabric ; and rip, the still harsher
sound when a seam is cut or torn apart. In scratch,
we have the sound first represented, followed by the
interj ectional ach of pain which is the result of the action.
In the word saw we have an imperfect imitation of the
sound produced by sawing, though in Sanscrit, and in
many of the languages of semi civilized peoples, it is more
exactly imitative.1

The sounds produced by liquids in motion are often
indicated by sh, as in wash, splash, and dash; a quantity
of liquid falling to the ground causes a slop which repre-

1 See Tylor's Primitive Culture, vol. i., p. 191, where a rather full
account is given of imitative words in the languages of all parts of
the world.

THE EXPRESSIVENESS OP SPEECH 127

sents the sound it makes, as does drop when caused by
a small globular portion ; while quench well represents the
noise produced by water used in sufficient quantities to
extinguish a fire.

Many natural objects appear to have been named from
their characteristic sound. Brass and glass, from their
resonance; tin, from its more delicate, tinkling sound;
iron, perhaps from its peculiar harsh vibration when struck ;
lead and wood, from the dull sound, or thud, which they
produce. In ice we have probably the indications of the
sh of " shiver " caused by touching it, and its transparency
may have led to the use of the somewhat similar term for
glass. In pronouncing the word fire we seem to imitate
with the lips and breath the wavy flickering motion of
flame, and the name for the fir tree, almost identical in
many of the Scandinavian and Celtic languages, is doubt-
less in reference to the upward -growing, pointing form,
like that characteristic of fire. Glow seems to represent
the steady light of embers as contrasted with the incessant
motion of fire, for while the latter word requires a double
motion of the lips, the former is pronounced wholly inside
the mouth by means of the tongue and palate, the lips
remaining motionless. In the words step, stamp, and stop,
we have a very close representation of the sound of the
bare foot upon the ground in walking, and it seems quite
probable that the root sta, from which they are said to be
derived, had this origin.1

Sounds which represent Motions.

We now pass on from mere sounds to the various kinds
of motions to be observed in nature ; and we shall
find that these also are represented by curiously expres-
sive combinations of vocal utterances, often requiring
imitative motions in the organs of speech. The modes
of indicating the difference between continuous and abrupt
motions have already been referred to, but each particular
kind of motion has also its characteristic combination of

1 A considerable number of these directly imitative words are
given in Dean Farrar's Essay on the Origin of Language, chap. iv.

128 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

letters. The word slow, to be spoken distinctly and
impressively, must be pronounced slowly, while quick and
swift, on the contrary, must be spoken rapidly. Move
takes time to pronounce it distinctly, and implies slow
and smooth motion, as fly implies swifter motion. In
crawl, the harsh sounds at the beginning and end of the
word imply slow and difficult motion, and the still harsher
sound in drag recalls the noise of a heavy object forcibly
drawn over an irregular surface. In flutter and flicker we
have complex motions of the lips, tongue, and palate,
corresponding to those they indicate ; in hurry and flurry
we seem to hear the rapid breathing of a tired or excited
person ; while in wobble and hobble, the clumsy movements
are reproduced in the mouth of the speaker. How
perfectly is smoothness of motion imitated while we say
slide or glide ; while the slow down and up motion of the
lips in pronouncing wave is highly suggestive of wave-
motion. The more rapid wave-movement we term
vibration is indicated by the br in vibrate ; while in
tremble we have a more irregular shaking denoted by the
tr at the beginning, and the bl at the end of the word.
When we say twist or screw, there is a tendency to twist
the mouth ; while shiver represents ^a trembling motion
accompanied by the sh of cold. In stream and flow the
liquid consonants well represent the smoothness and con-
tinuity of liquid motion ; and in glow we have, as already
stated, a corresponding word to imply the smooth and
steady light of incandescent matter, so different from the
unsteady flicker which is characteristic of flame. A
similar use of liquid sounds in blush and flush serves to
indicate a gradual and steady increase of colour.

Qualities represented by Sounds.

We have now to take another step — and a most
important one — in the development of language, and to
show how the various qualities or properties of inanimate
objects, and even the powers and faculties of men and
animals, are clearly indicated by characteristic com-
binations of vocal sounds, affording us many striking
examples of the expressiveness of speech.

vii THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 129

Just as certain motions were seen to be distinguished
by the use of harsh or liquid sounds, so are the qualities
of objects on which these varied kinds of motion often
depend equally well characterized. Compare, for example,
the words smooth, even, polished, with rough, rugged, gritty,
and we at once see that these are not merely conventional
terms, but that they are as truly and naturally expressive
as are the most direct imitations of human or animal
cries. Corresponding to these, we have the names of
many smooth substances — as oil, soap, slime, varnish,
characterized by smooth or liquid sounds; and, on the
other hand, such objects as rock, gravel, grit, grouts,
ground, all containing the harsh sounds implying rough-
ness. When we pronounce the words sticky, or clammy,
we seem to feel the tongue and palate stick together, and
have to pull them apart ; and the same peculiarity applies
to the words cling and glue.

There are in all languages words allied to foul, putrid,
pus, &c., which are usually traced to the interjectional
expressions of disgust, puh ! fie ! Similar expressions are
shown by Mr. Tylor to be used among the most widely
separated races in all parts of the world, and the reason
of this identity is to be found in the natural and almost
involuntary action of blowing away, through both mouth
and nostrils, the emanations from putrid matter — as when
we draw back the head and say puh ! — an action more
or less common to all mankind.

The words hard and soft are also expressive, though it
is more difficult to define why. The former word, how-
ever, is pronounced with a strong aspirate, and the
terminal rd requires more effort to pronounce than the
gentle sibilant and terminal ft of soft. But when we
consider the various terms designating contrasts of size,
we have no such difficulty. The words great, grand, huge,
vast, immense, monstrous, gigantic, are all pronounced with
well-opened mouth and with some sense of effort, and the
more stress we lay upon the word, the more distinctly we
show our meaning by the wide opening of the mouth.

In the correlative words small, little, wee, tiny, pigmy, on
the contrary, we use no effort, and hardly need to open

VOL. II. K

130 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHA*.

the mouth at all, the pronunciation being effected almost
wholly by the tongue and teeth. Even when new words
are invented they follow the same rule, as in Swift's
" Brobdingnag " and " Lilliput ; " while the languages of
uncivilized peoples are usually, as regards these words,
equally characteristic. Though usually limiting my
illustrations to our own language, I will here give the
words for great and small in several of the languages of
the Malay Archipelago ; thus — busar, bagut, bake1, lamu,
ilahe, maina, all with broad open-mouthed vowel-sounds,
mean great or large ; while kichil, chili, kidi, koi, roit, kemi,
anan, fek, didiki, all meaning small in the same languages,
are in every case pronounced inside the mouth, and with
but slightly parted lips.

Even more expressive are the words by which we
indicate power or effort, such as might, strive, strenuous,
struggle, laborious, strong, strength — this last being one of
the most remarkably expressive in the language, con-
sisting, as it does, of no less than seven consonants and
only one vowel, all the consonants being fully and
distinctly sounded. To pronounce this word clearly and
emphatically requires a considerable effort, and we thus
seem to be exerting the very quality it is used to express.
How different are the words of opposite meaning, such as
weak, weary, languish, faint, which can all be spoken with
the minimum of effort, and with a hardly perceptible
motion of the lips ; and the same contrast is found in the
common adjectives, difficult and easy.

How much the natural expressiveness of words adds
to the beauty of descriptive poetry may be seen every-
where. In Pope's well-known lines —

" When Ajax strives some rock's huge weight to throw,
The line too labours and the words move slow,"

the very nature of the words which are of necessity
employed, produces that effect of appropriateness which
we are apt to think is due wholly to the skill of the poet.
In another couplet from the same poem —

" A needless alexandrine ends the song,
And like a wounded snake drags its slow length along,

THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 131

the natural expressiveness of the words, drags, slow, and
length, is what conveys such a sense of appropriateness to
the simile. Tennyson also is full of such naturally
descriptive passages. The lines—

' ' The myriad shriek of wheeling ocean-fowl,
The league-long roller thundering on the reef,"

owe much of their force and beauty to the natural
expressiveness of our common words ; and the same is the
case in the still more beautiful lines —

" Myriads of rivulets hurrying through the lawn,
The moan of doves in immemorial elms,
And murmuring of innumerable bees."

A few examples of words that are especially expressive
may now be given, in order to illustrate some of the varied
ways in which the principle has acted, and how largely it
has influenced the formation of language. The word
growth is expressive of the gradual extension of a young
plant owing to the circumstance that we begin its
pronunciation far back in the mouth, and that it seems to
move outwards till the tongue touches the teeth or even
the protruded lips. If we watch carefully we shall see
how curiously, when we say "growth," we imitate with
our vocal organs the very process which the word implies.
From this foundation the name of the colour green has
been derived, as that of growing things, and probably also
grass, graze, and even ground. This last word is usually
supposed to be allied to grind, as implying that the
ground is dust, earth, or rock ground up. But this is
surely a very unlikely idea to have occurred to primitive
man, since the natural ground is usually firm and covered
with some kind of vegetation or " growth," whence its
name would be naturally derived.

When pronouncing the work suck, we are evidently
imitating both the sound and the action of sucking, by
drawing back the tongue during an inspiration; and in
taste we are equally imitating the act of tasting, by
moving the tongue twice within the mouth into contact
with the palate, as we do when using it to move about

K 2

132 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

and taste a savory morsel. So, in the word sweet, we seem
to draw in and taste an agreeable substance ; while in
sour we open the mouth and the tongue remains free from
either teeth or palate, as if we desired to get rid of a too
biting flavour. Now sweet, with various modifications of
form and meaning, occurs in all the Teutonic and Latin
languages, but its whole significance as a naturally expres-
sive word is lost when we are referred for its origin to the
Aryan root swad, to please.1 In Sanscrit, svad is to taste,
and svddu sweet ; and the more probable inference would
be that the abstract root swad, to please, was derived from
the more primitive and naturally formed terms for taste
and sweetness.

Even moral qualities may be indicated by words which
are naturally expressive, as in right and wrong. The
former is, in most languages, connected with straight and
stretch, the latter word being imitative of the sound
produced when stretching a cord, the only straight line
accessible to primitive man ; while wrong is undoubtedly
the same word essentially as wrung, from wring, wry,
wrench, wrest, and other wprds meaning twisted, in
pronouncing which and giving its full sound to the initial
w, we seem naturally to give a twist to the mouth.
When we speak of " rectitude," of an " upright " man, of
" crooked " dealings, of a " perverted " disposition, we show
how easy it is to describe moral characteristics by means
of words applicable to mechanical or physical qualities
only.2

1 Skeat's Etymological Dictionary of the English Language, under
"Sweet."

2 As examples of this transference of meaning from the physical
to the mental or moral, Dean Farrar gives, ''imagination," the
summoning up of an image before the inward eye ; "comprehension,"
a grasping; "disgust," an unpleasant taste; "insinuation," getting
into the bosom of a thing or person ; " austerity, " dry ness ; " humility,"
related to the ground; "virtue," that which becomes a man;
"courtesy," from a court or palace; "aversion" and "inclination,"
a turning away from, and a bending towards anything; "error," a
wandering; "envy," "invidious," a looking at, with bad intent;
"influence," a flowing in; "emotion," a motion from within, or of
the soul. (See Origin of Language, p. 122.) To which we may add,
" evident," to be seen clearly ; and from the same Latin words — videre,
to see, and viaus, ^ight— a whole series of English words jire deiived,

vii THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 133

Summary of the Argument.

I have now briefly sketched and illustrated the varied
ways in which many of the most familiar words of our
language are truly expressive of the meaning attached to
them, and have shown how far these carry us beyond the
range of inter jectional and imitative speech, as usually
understood. Besides the more or less direct imitation of
the varied sounds of nature, animate and inanimate, we
have form, indicated by the shape of the mouth ; direction,
by the motion of the lips ; such ideas as those of coming
and going, of inward and outward, of self and others, of up
and down, expressed by various breathings or by lip and
tongue- motions ; we find the distinct classes of abrupt or
continuous sounds, as well as the corresponding contrasted
motions, clearly indicated by the use of expressive terminal
letters; motion of almost every kind, whether human,
animal, or inorganic, we find to be naturally expressed by
corresponding motions of the organs of speech ; the
physical qualities of various kinds of matter are similarly
indicated; while even some of the mental and moral
qualities of man, as well as many of his actions and sensa-
tions, are more or less clearly expressed by means of the
various forms of speech-gesture.

If we consider the enormous changes every language
has undergone; that words have often taken on new
meanings, or have been displaced by foreign words quite
distinct in derivation and original signification ; that
inflections have been altered or altogether dropped ; and
that, in various other ways, words have been undergoing a
continual process of growth and modification, the wonder
is that so much of the natural foundations of our language
can still be detected. Philologists give us innumerable

among which are "advice," according to a person's judgment or
seeing ; "provide" and "prudent," to act with foresight ; " visit," to
go to see a person; "visage," the face or seeing part; "view," that
which is seen ; and many others. Hence it is easy to perceive that,
once given terms for the physical characteristics and qualities of
objects, and the whole range of language which refers to mental and
moral qualities can be easily developed.

134 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

examples of how words come to be used in ways quite
remote from their original meanings, and how several
quite distinct words grow out of a common root — as when
cannon, a great gun, and canon, meaning either a dignitary
of the church or a body of ecclesiastical or other laws, are
alike derived from canna, a cane or reed, used either as a
tube, or as a ruler, while from canistrum, a reed basket, we
get canister, now used chiefly for metal cases of a particu-
lar form.

The late Mr. Hyde Clarke has shown how very widely
the primitive terms for mouth, tooth, tongue, &c., are
applied to other things of like form or motions, or having
a supposed or real analogy to them ; thus, languages can
be found in which the words for head, face, eye, ear, sun,
moon, egg, ring, blood, and mother, are derived from mouth,
for reasons which we can, in most cases, perceive or guess
at. It follows that, whenever people use any form of
written symbol for words or things, the growth of language
goes on more rapidly, because symbols, which were at first
actual representations of the object, for convenience
become conventionalised, and then other objects which
resemble the modified symbol are given either the same
or an allied name. With us, door is named after the
opening used for entering a house, and is allied to through ;
but, according to Mr. Hyde Clarke, in some languages the
door- way or opening is derived from mouth — as we our-
selves say the mouth of a pit or cavern — while the door
itself is formed from a word meaning tooth}- The words
hill and mountain have no light thrown upon their real
origin by a reference of the former to the Latin collis, and
the latter to mons and montanus ; but, on the principles
here set forth, both of them, as well as the German berg,
owe their characteristic form of open-mouthed aspirated
words to the natural panting ejaculations of those who
ascend them. Yet in many languages they have been
named from their form -resemblances, as in the well-known
terms dent, sierra, peak, pap, ben, &c.

1 See letter in Nature, vol. xxvi., p. 419, and vol. xxiv., p. 380.

THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 135

How Speech originated.

Some of the correspondences which have been here
pointed out between words and their meanings, will doubt-
less be held by many to be mere fantastic imaginings
But if we try to picture to ourselves the condition of man-
kind when first acquiring and developing spoken lan-
guage, and struggling in every possible way to produce
articulate sounds which should carry in themselves, both
to the speaker and the hearer, some expression of the
things, motions, or actions represented, it will seem quite
natural that they should utilize everything connected
with the act of speaking which could in any way further
that object. We are apt to forget that, though speech is
now acquired by children solely by imitation, and must
be to them almost wholly conventional, this was not its
original character. Speech was formed and evolved, not
by children, but by men and women who felt the need of
a mode of communication other than by gesture only.1
Gesture-language and word-language doubtless arose
together, and for a long time were used in conjunction and
supplemented each other. It is admitted that gesture-
language is never purely conventional, but is based either
on direct imitation or on some kind of analogy or sug-
gestion ; and it is therefore almost certain that word-
language, arising at the same time, would be developed in
the same way, and would never originate in purely con-
ventional terms. Gesture would at first be exclusively

1 One of the critics of this article ignored this very obvious fact, and
argued that the only way to gain correct notions of the origin of
language was, through close observation of the speech of children, —
that this was the scientific method, and mine altogether unscientific.
I venture to maintain the contrary. Men and women would need
language, while to children it would be quite unnecessary. And
at its first origin it could not have been conventional, since there
would have been no means of explaining the conventions or coming
to any agreement as to their use. Both gesture and speech must
have originated in actions or sounds which were felt by the hearers
to be expressive. Every one would be seeking after such modes of
expression, and amidst these various efforts the fittest would survive.
New words are even now formed and adopted in this way, and hardly
any other mode is conceivable.

136 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

used to describe motion, action, and passion; speech to
represent the infinite variety of sounds in nature, and,
with some modification, the creatures or objects that pro-
duced the sounds. But there are many disadvantages in
the use of gesture as compared with speech. It requires
always a considerable muscular effort ; the hands and limbs
must be free ; an erect, or partially erect, posture is
needed ; there must be sufficient light ; and, lastly, the
communicators must be in such a position as to see each
other. As articulate speech is free from all these disad-
vantages, there would be a constant endeavour to render it
capable of replacing gesture ; and the most obvious way
of doing this would be to transfer gesture from the limbs
to the mouth itself, and to utilize so much of the corre-
sponding motions as were possible to the lips, tongue and
breath. These mouth-gestures, as we have seen, necessarily
lead to distinct classes of sounds ; and thus there arose
from the very beginnings of articulate speech, the use of
characteristic sounds to express certain groups of motions,
actions, and sensations which we are still able to detect
even in our highly-developejd language, and the more
important of which I have here attempted to define and
illustrate.

It may be well to give an example of how definite
words may have arisen by such a process. Each of the
words — air, wind, breeze, blow, blast, breathe — has to us a
definite meaning, and a form which seems often to have
nothing in common with the rest. Yet they possess the
common character that the essential part of each is a
breathing, more or less pronounced and modulated ; and at
first they were probably all alike expressed by a strong
and audible breathing or blowing. For convenience and
to save exertion, this would soon be modified into an
articulate sound or word which would enable the act of
blowing to be easily recognized. Then, as time went on
and the need arose, some one or other of the different
ideas comprised in the word would be separated, and this
would be most effectually done by the use of different
consonants with the same fundamental form of breathing
or blowing, and the distinction caused by the r and I in

vii THE EXPRESSIVENESS OF SPEECH 137

these two words well illustrates the principle. Thus,
every such class of expressive words would have a natural
basis, while the detailed modifications to differentiate the
various ideas included in it might be to a considerable
extent conventional.

In conclusion, I venture to submit the facts and argu-
ments here set forth as a contribution to the fascinating
subject of the origin of language. Of their novelty
and value I must leave Anthropologists and Philologists to
judge.1

1 The fundamental idea of mouth- gesture was stated by the present
writer in a review of Mr. E. B. Tylor's "Anthropology," in Nature,
vol. xxiv. p. 242 (1881).

CHAPTER VIII

COAL A NATIONAL TRUST1

IT has now become an axiom with all liberal thinkers
that complete freedom of exchange between nations and
countries of the various products each has in super-
abundance and can best spare, for others which it requires,
is for the benefit of both parties ; and this principle is
thought to be so universally applicable, that, even when it
produces positive injury to ourselves and is certain to
injure our descendants, hardly any public writer who pro-
fesses liberal views ventures 'to propose a limitation of it.
It seems clear, however, that there are limitations to its
wholesome application, and that there are certain com-
modities which we have no right to exchange away without
restriction, for others of more immediate use to the
individuals or communities who happen to be in possession
of them. These commodities may be briefly defined as
those natural products which are practically limited in
quantity, and which cannot be reproduced.

What is meant may perhaps be best explained by
taking what may be considered a very extreme case as an
illustration. Let us suppose, for instance, a country in
which the springs or wells of water were strictly limited
in number, but sufficiently copious to supply all the actual
needs of the people, who had always had the use of
them on making a nominal payment to the owners of the
land on which they were situated. Acting on the princi-

1 This article appeared in the Daily News of September 16th, 1873.
It is even more applicable to-day.

CH. viii COAL A NATIONAL TRUST 139

pies of unrestricted free trade, and anxious to increase
their wealth, one after another of the landowners sold
their springs to manufacturers, who used up all the water
except that required to supply the wants of their own
workpeople, thus rendering the remainder of the country
almost uninhabitable. A still more extreme case, but one
rather more to the point, would be that of a country
possessing a surface soil of very moderate depth, but of
extreme fertility, and supporting a dense population on its
vegetable products. The landowners might find it very
profitable to them to sell this surface soil to the wealthy
horticulturists of other countries ; and if the principle
of free trade is unlimited, they would be justified in
doing so, although they would permanently impoverish
the land, and render it capable of supporting a less
numerous and less healthy population in long future
ages.

Most persons will admit that in both these cases the
exercise of the unrestricted right of free trade becomes a
wrong to mankind, and should on no account be permitted ;
and it will perhaps be said that such cases could never
occur in a civilized community, as public opinion would
not allow the landowners to act in the manner indicated
even were they disposed to do so. I believe, however, it
may be shown that, under circumstances far worse than
those here supposed, the landowners in the most civilized
community on the globe do act in a very analogous
manner, and, moreover, are not yet condemned by public
opinion for doing so. Let us first, however, deduce from
such supposed cases as those above given a general prin-
ciple determining what articles of merchandise are and what
are not the proper subjects of free trade. A little con-
sideration will convince us that most animal or vegetable
products or manufactured articles, the production and
increase of which are almost unlimited in comparatively
short periods, are those whose free exchange is an unmixed
benefit to mankind; the reason being that such exchange
enriches both parties without impoverishing either, and by
leading to improved modes of cultivation and an increased
power of production, adds continually to the sustaining

140 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

power of the earth, and benefits future generations as much
as it does ourselves.

On the other hand, all those articles of consumption
which are in any way essential to the comfort and well-
being of the community, and which are, either absolutely
or practically, limited in quantity and incapable of being
reproduced in any period of time commensurate with the
length of human life, are in a totally different category.
They must be considered to be held by us in trust for the
community, and for succeeding generations. They should
be jealously guarded from all waste or unnecessary ex-
penditure, and it should be considered (as it will certainly
come to be regarded) as a positive crime against posterity
to expend them lavishly for the sole purpose of increasing
our own wealth, luxury, or commercial importance. Under
this head we must class all mineral products which are
extensively used in domestic economy, the arts or manu-
factures, and which are in any way essential to the health
or well-being of the community, and more especially those
which from their bulk, weight, and extensive use could not
be imported from distant regions without a very serious
addition to their cost, such as is pre-eminently the case
with coal and iron.

Now, it will be seen that we have here to deal with a
case quite as extreme in reality as those supposititious cases
with which we commenced this inquiry. For coal and
iron are almost as much necessaries of life to the large
population of this country as are abundance of water and
a fertile soil ; but there is this difference, that the water
might be restored to its legitimate use, and the soil might
be renewed by a sufficient period of vegetable growth ;
whereas coal burned, and iron oxydized, are absolutely
lost to mankind, and we have no knowledge of any restora-
tive processes except after the lapse of periods so vast that
they cannot enter into our calculations. It may be
replied, that the quantity existing on the globe is vast
enough for the necessities of mankind for any periods we
need calculate on ; but even if this be so (of which we are
by no means certain), it may none the less be shown that
numerous and wide-spread evils result from our present

vin COAL A NATIONAL TRUST 141

mode of recklessly expending the stores in certain coun-
tries, while the same products remain totally unused in many
of the countries they are exported to. For a number of
years we have been increasing our production of coal and
iron at an enormous rate, and sending vast quantities of
both to all parts of the world, civilized and uncivilized, and
have thereby produced, so far as I can see, only evil results
in various forms some of which have hitherto received
little attention.

Briefly to state these : — In the first place, we have
seriously, and perhaps permanently, increased the cost of
one of the chief necessaries of life in so changeable a
climate as ours — fuel. This is in itself so great and posi-
tive an evil that no considerations of mere convenience to
remote nations, such as the construction of railways in
New Zealand or in Honduras, ought even to be mentioned
as an excuse for it. Coal in winter is a question of comfort
or misery, even of life or death, to millions of the people
whose happiness it is our first duty to secure ; and shall
we coolly tell them that the Antipodes must have rail-
roads, and that landowners, coalowners, and contractors
must make fortunes, although the necessary consequence
is the yearly increasing scarcity of one of their first
necessaries and greatest comforts ?

In the second place, by destroying for ever a consider-
able and ever-increasing proportion of the mineral wealth
of our country, we have rendered it absolutely less habit-
able and less enjoyable for our descendants, and we have
not done this by any fair and justifiable use for our own
necessities or enjoyments^ but by the abuse of increasing
to the utmost of our power the quantity we send out of
the country, never mind for what purpose, so that it adds
to the wealth of our landowners, capitalists, and manu-
facturers.

In the third place, we have brought into existence a
large population wholly dependent on this excessive pro-
duction and export of minerals, and therefore not capable,
under existing conditions of society, of being permanently
maintained on their native soil. In proportion as other
nations make use of their own mineral productions, and

142 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

as our own minerals, from the ever increasing diffi-
culty of procuring them, become necessarily more costly,
so must our excessive exports diminish, and with it
must diminish our power of maintaining our present
abnormal mining population. A period of adversity
will then probably set in for us, only faintly fore-
shadowed in intensity and duration by those arising from
mere temporary fluctuations in the demand for minerals
and their manufactured products.

Fourthly, we not only injure ourselves and our successors
by thus striving to get rid of our mineral treasures as fast
as possible, but we probably do more harm than good to
the nations to whom we export them ; for we prevent them
from deriving the various social and intellectual benefits
which would undoubtedly arise from their being compelled
to utilize for their own purposes the mineral products of
their own lands. The working of mines and the establish-
ment of manufactures bring into action such a variety of
the mental faculties, and so well vary and supplement the
labours and the profits of agriculture or trade, that a
people who wholly neglect these branches of industry can
hardly be said to live a co'mplete and healthy national
life. By considering our rich stores of coal and iron as
held in trust by us for the use of the present and future
populations of these islands, we should probably stimulate
and advance a healthy civilization in many countries which
the most lavish expenditure of our own minerals, aided by
our capital and engineering skill, fail to benefit.

Lastly, I would call attention to the way in which the
lavish production of minerals disfigures the country,
diminishes vegetable and animal life, and destroys the
fertility (for perhaps hundreds of generations) of large
tracts of valuable land. It would be interesting to have a
survey made of the number of acres of land covered by
slag-heaps and cinder-tips at our iron and copper works,
and by the waste and refuse mounds at our various mines
and slate quarries, together with the land destroyed or
seriously injured by smoke and deleterious gases in those
"black countries" which it pains the lover of nature to
travel through. The extent of once fertile land thus

viii COAL A NATIONAL TRUST 143

rendered more or less permanently barren would, I believe,
astonish and affright us. How strikingly contrasted, both
in their motive and results, are those noble works of
planting or of irrigation which permanently increase both
the beauty and productiveness of a country, and carry
down their blessings to succeeding generations !

This brief sketch of some of the more salient features of
the subject of mineral export will serve to show how many
and various are the evil results which flow from allowing
these invaluable treasures to be wasted at the dictates of
mad speculation and the eager race for wealth. These
considerations have a very practical bearing at the present
time. The recent great rise in the price of coal has
brought up the question of the advisability of an export
duty upon it. The press, almost without exception, has
opposed this as being " contrary to the principles of free
trade ; " and it has further been argued that such a duty
would have little or no effect, because the real cause of the
high price of coal is that so much is used in the excessive
manufacture of iron. But it is evident, from the con-
siderations here set forth, that the export both of coal and
iron requires to be regulated or forbidden, and for the same
reasons ; and if the " principles of free trade " are opposed
to this, so much the worse for those " principles," since they
will be opposed not only to the true economy of human
progress, but also to the clearest principles of social and
national morality. Many persons will now ask whether
those can be true principles which lead to the exhaustion
of our coal-fields for the purpose of lighting South American
cities with gas or for building railways in every insolvent
South American Republic, while our own hard- working
population has to suffer the pangs of cold in winter,
in consequence of the high price of coal which such
reckless projects tend to cause. And the fact that all
parties concerned — landowners, colliery proprietors, specu-
lators, and legislators — are so far from seeing anything
wrong in what they are doing that their one aim at all
times is to secure a larger annual output, and an increased
export, will be to many an additional argument for taking

144 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, vin

the property in land altogether out of private hands.
Waiving that question, however, for the present, I main-
tain that it is a wrong to our own population, and a still
greater wrong to the next generation, to permit the
unlimited export of those mineral products which are
absolute necessaries of life, but which once destroyed we
can never reproduce. To do so is to sell and alienate for
ever a portion of our land itself, and should no more be
permitted to private individuals than the selling of the
land surface to a foreign State.

Whether or not the period of the total exhaustion of
our coal-fields can be approximately estimated, it is clear
that the present vast and increasing rate of consumption
must be stopped. The numerous evils of the present
system I have briefly indicated — where are the benefits
which counterbalance them ? And the benefits, if they
exist, must be large and clear and positive indeed to
justify us in recklessly scattering over the whole world
the mineral products of our land. It is to their possession
that we attribute much of our wealth and power and
national prosperity, yet w€ are doing our best to deprive
future generations of any bf the advantages we have
derived from them.

It appears, then, to be clearly our duty to check the
further exhaustion of our coal supplies by at once putting
export duties on coal and iron in every form, very small
duties at first, so as not to produce too sudden a check
on the employment of labour, but gradually increasing
them till, by stimulating an increased production in other
countries, they may no longer be required. If other
nations should see the wisdom and justice of following our
example, each may in future develop and enjoy its own
mineral products, may help to supply what is necessary to
the welfare of those countries which do not possess these
natural gifts, and may still leave an ample supply to
their descendants.

CHAPTER IX

PAPER MONEY AS A STANDARD OF VALUE

THE proposition embodied in this heading will seem to
most persons to be an absurdity ; but I hope to be able to
show from the statements and admissions of orthodox
authorities that paper money, under proper regulations,
would be the most permanent, and therefore the best,
possible standard of value. I presume that the late Prof.
W. Stanley Jevons was a trustworthy authority on the
subject; and in his volume on Money and the Mechanism
of Exchange he gives some important facts and principles
bearing upon this question, and these I shall take as the
basis of my argument.

1. He shows that gold has undergone great changes of
value during the last hundred years, as determined from
the average prices of fifty or a hundred of the chief
necessaries of life. The difference amounted to a fall of 46
per cent, from 1789 to 1809; while from 1809 to 1849 it
rose 145 per cent. Since 1849 it fell about 20 or 25 per
cent. ; while in the last twenty or thirty years all the
authorities declare that it has risen considerably.

2. Having thus shown that gold does not even approxi-
mate to a permanent standard of value — though I believe
the alleged fluctuations are enormously exaggerated, for
reasons which it would take too long to give here — he
goes on to explain the various proposals which have been
made to obviate the evils of such fluctuations by means of
a " Tabular Standard of Value." A Government official —
who might be called the Registrar of Prices — would collect

VOL. II. L

146 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the market prices of the list of commodities fixed upon to
determine the value of money, and would publish the
result monthly or quarterly, and the value of money so
determined would be used to regulate all payments of debts,
salaries, &c. " Thus suppose a debt of £100 was incurred
on July 1, 1875, and was to be paid July 1, 1878, and the
Registrar's table showed that in that interval gold had
fallen in value six per cent., then the creditor would claim
to be paid an increase of six per cent., while, if there had
been a rise in the value of gold then the debtor would
have a right to pay proportionally less than the amount
nominally due."

He says there are only two difficulties — the determina-
tion of the commodities chosen to fix the standard value,
and the complexity introduced into the relations of debtors
and creditors. The latter is, no doubt, a real objection,
but it does not arise (as I shall presently show) when
paper money alone is used. Neither is there any real
difficulty in the former. What is needed is to take a
representative selection of all the necessaries of life. These
may be roughly classed as food, clothing, houses, fuel, and
literature. For the first we might take meat, bread,
potatoes, sugar, tea, butter, and beer ; for houses timber,
bricks, iron, glass, lime, cement, slates, and building land
— and so on under the other headings. But the most
important consideration is, that each item be taken in the
proportion in which it is consumed in the country. The
need of this was seen by the original proposer of the
method — Joseph Lowe, in 1822 — but has been neglected
by some modern writers. It would, therefore, be necessary
first to estimate the total quantities of each item con-
sumed in the kingdom in a year, which could be done
without much difficulty by experts, and then, representing
the smallest quantity of the whole series by one or ten, to
give all the others their due proportions. The prices of
these several commodities being ascertained on the average
of a number of years to be fixed upon, a table would be
formed, giving the money-value of the due proportion of
each of the commodities. Then, by adding up these values,
we should have a sum total which would represent with

ix PAPER MONEY AS A STANDARD OF VALUE 147

considerable accuracy the average cost of all the chief
necessaries of life in the proportions in which they are
consumed by the whole community.

But in order that money may retain the same purchas-
ing power, and thus constitute a real standard of value,
this same amount of money must always purchase the
same amounts on the average of all these commodities.
This can never be the case with gold or silver money, or
with the two combined, but I will now show that paper-
money may be so regulated as to have always the same
purchasing-power.

Prof. Jevons states the chief objections to inconvertible
paper-money as follows :

1. The great temptations which it offers to over-issue
and consequent depreciation.

2. The impossibility ofc varying its amount in accordance
with the requirements of trade.

The first of these objections does not arise when the
whole purpose of adopting a paper-currency is to secure
a permanent standard of value, and definite arrangements
are made to preserve that constancy. The second ob-
jection must have been stated without due consideration,
since nothing is more simple than to produce this " varia-
tion of amount ; " and when the variation is such as to keep
average prices steady, that steadiness will exist because the
quantity issued is in accordance with the requirements of
trade. This objection, which is stated at length under
the heading, " Want of Elasticity of Paper Money " (p. 237),
is really completely answered by the method of the tabu-
lar " Standard of Value " (p. 329), but the two things are
not brought together as parts of one system.

In order to show how Prof. Jevons's "impossibility"
may be easily overcome, let us suppose the transition
period to have been passed over : all gold coin having been
called in or having ceased to be a legal tender, and paper-
currency issued to the same amount. The Registrar of
Prices, having determined that during the preceding year
the purchasing power of this money is two or three per
cent, greater than that of the standard as determined by

L 2

148 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

his table of average values, and having had experience of
the effect produced by a given increase or diminution of
the currency, instructs the Mint to issue fresh money at a
given rate per week. This money is sent to the Treasury
and is at once brought into circulation by being paid away
in salaries, wages, purchase of materials, &c., in the various
Government departments. There is thus no difficulty
whatever in increasing the amount of the currency and
thus diminishing its purchasing power. The Registrar of
Prices carefully watches the effect upon the markets week
by week, and month by month, and when he sees that the
standard is very nearly attained he instructs the Mint to
stop further issues.

On the other hand, when prices are rising, owing to there
being rather more money in circulation than is necessary,
instructions are sent to the Treasury to cancel a certain
amount of the money paid in for taxes, stamps, &c., till the
balance is restored. But this will very seldom, perhaps
never, be necessary. The continuous increase of the
population requires a constant increase in the currency,
while another constant renewal is required to make good
the losses by fire, water, and other accidents. And as the
amount required to keep average prices steady would be
so carefully watched, the mere stoppage of the normal
issues would in most cases suffice to bring back average
prices when they showed any tendency to rise above the
standard rate.

The total gain to the country of such a currency would
be very great. All the additions required to keep up with
increase of population and to make up for accidental losses
would be clear gain, and would probably amount to a con-
siderable annual revenue ; while during the transition from
gold to paper an enormous amount of coin would be
accumulated by the Treasury which might be kept as a
reserve against foreign war expenses or might be supplied
to merchants as bullion of guaranteed quality for foreign
payments. Silver and bronze coins for payment of
wages and small transactions might be continued in
use, as they are both customary and convenient, but
their actual value in metal might be reduced, thus giving

ix PAPER MONEY AS A STANDARD OF VALUE 149

a larger profit to the Government on their issue than
there is now.

A convenient form for £1 and £5 notes would probably
lie very thin tough cards of the size of railway tickets, and
of different colours. They would thus be very portable
and easily distinguishable. They would constitute the
legal tender of the country, and would always purchase, on
the average, the same quantities of the chief necessaries of
life. They would thus constitute a permanent standard of
value — the ideal perfection of money ; and would have the
additional advantage of being a steady source of revenue to
the country.

CHAPTER X

LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS IN THE ADMINISTRATION
OF JUSTICE1

AMID the endless discussions that have taken place as
to the sphere and duties of Government, all parties are
agreed that there are two great and primary functions
which every efficient Government must perform if it
deserve the name : it must guard the country against
attack by foreign enemies ; and it must make such arrange-
ments for the administration of the laws, that every man
may obtain justice — as far as possible free and speedy
justice — against wilful evil-doers.

The fact that there is an absolute unanimity as to these
two important functions of a good Government, while
almost everything else that Governments do, or attempt to
do, has been denounced by great thinkers as beyond their
proper sphere of action, renders it probable that these are,
at all events, the primary and most important functions of
the State. It may not, perhaps, be easy to determine
which of these two is of the greatest importance ; for even
admitting that conquest by a foreign foe is an evil incalcul-
ably greater than any wrong which individuals may suffer,
yet the one is of so much more frequent occurrence —
every member of society being daily exposed to it, while
attempts at conquest occur only at distant and uncertain
intervals — that repetition in the one case may make up
for magnitude in the other. We are therefore pretty safe

1 This article appeared in the Contemporary Review of December,
1873. It is now considerably extended.

CHAP, x LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS 151

in assuming that they are of equal importance, and in
affirming that it is as much the duty of Government to
protect its individual subjects from wrong to person or
property committed by their fellows, as to protect the
entire community from foreign enemies.

But if we look around us to see how these primary
duties are performed, it becomes evident, either that
existing Governments do not consider these duties as
equally imperative upon them (even if they are not of
absolutely equal importance), or that the former duty is a
very much more difficult one than the latter. In every
country we find an enormous organization for the purpose
of national defence, which occupies a large portion of the
wealth, the skill, and the labour of the community. No
cost is too great, no preparations are too tedious, in order
to deter an enemy from venturing to attack us, or to
secure us the victory should he be so bold as to do so. For
this end we keep thousands of young and healthy men in
a state of unproductive activity, or idleness ; for this we
pile up mountains of debt, which continue to burthen the
country for successive generations. New ships, new
weapons, every invention that art or science can produce,
are at once taken advantage of, while the less perfect
appliances of a few years ago are thrown aside with hardly
a thought of the vast sums which they represent.

If we now turn to see how the other paramount duty
of the State is performed, we find a very different condition
of things. Here everything is antiquated, cumbrous, and
inefficient. The laws are an almost unintelligible mass of
patchwork which the professional study of a life is unable
to master ; and the mode of procedure, handed down from
the dark ages, is often circuitous and ineffective, notwith-
standing a number of modern improvements. It may be
admitted that in criminal cases tolerably sure, if not very
speedy, punishment falls on the aggressor ; but the
sufferer receives, in most cases, no compensation, and often
incurs great expense and much trouble in the prosecution.
He gets revenge, not justice. That relic of barbarism, the
fixed money fine, the same for the beggar and the millionaire,
though almost universally admitted to be unjust, is not yet

152 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

abolished. It is, however, in cases of civil wrong that
individuals find the greatest difficulty (often amounting
to an absolute impossibility) of obtaining justice. This
arises, not only from the enormously voluminous and
intricate mass of enactments and precedents, and the
tedious mode of procedure, involving grievous delay and
expense to every applicant for justice, but also to the vast
accumulation of cases which are allowed to come before the
courts, many of which are of such a complex nature as to
some extent to justify the strict forms of procedure which
bear so hardly on those who seek relief in much simpler
cases. The result is, that it is often better for a man to
put up with a palpable wrong than to endeavour to obtain
redress j and the assertion that in our happy country
there is "not one law for the rich and another for the
poor," though literally true, is practically the very opposite
of truth, since in a large number of cases the wealthy
alone can afford to pay for the means of obtaining justice.

How to Simplify the Law.

Our system of law is, in great part, the product of times
when the security of property was held to be of more
importance than protection to the person. The legislators
being almost always the great landowners, a large part of
the law was adapted to secure them the power of dealing
with the land (the most important of all property) in any
imaginable way ; and in their bungling attempts to do
this, they have produced a system of law of real estate of
almost unimaginable intricacy. To interpret and carry
out this and other branches of the law of property,
occupies a large and influential portion of the legal pro-
fession. Lawyers exist upon the complexity of the law.
It is not to their interest that we should be able to obtain
cheap and speedy justice ; nor is it their interest to reduce
the number of suitors at the courts. We cannot reason-
ably expect them to do either of these things, which are
yet of vital importance to us who are not lawyers. They
may, indeed, so modify, and to some extent simplify, pro-
cedure as to take away a portion of the terrors of " going

x LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS 153

to law " in the estimation of aggrieved parties, and so
induce a larger number than before to seek their aid
against oppression and wrong ; but they will never make
any radical reform, or attempt to do what every intelligent
suitor knows might be done. Our interests are directly
opposed to theirs, and it is mere madness to expect any
thorough simplification of the law from lawyers. Such a
reform requires the common sense of minds untrammelled
by legal technicalities or legai interests. The people must
be shown that such a reform is possible — nay, easy — and
they will then demand that this matter shall be taken
altogether out of the hands of lawyers. It is in the hope of
showing how one great branch of this much-needed reform
may be made, that the present writer ventures to
attack a problem generally considered far beyond the reach
of laymen.

A first step, and a very important one, towards rendering
cheap and speedy justice possible for every man is, so to
simplify the law of property as to free the courts from a
large proportion (perhaps one-half, perhaps much more
than one- half) of the cases which now occupy them. This
would not only render it far easier to dispose promptly of
the much simpler cases — which, however, are those which
are often of more real importance to the parties affected
—but it would allow of the whole method of procedure
being altered to suit those simpler cases which would then
form the bulk of the business of the courts. Now, this
great diminution of cases can be effected without denying
redress for any grievance, or a remedy for any wrong, by
simply putting out of court a host of matters which ought
never to have been taken cognizance of by the law. Here,
as in so many other instances, it will be found that reform
must begin by a " limitation of State functions ; " and
that it is because Governments have undertaken to do
much that is unnecessary and even injurious, that they are
not able to fulfil one of their first and plainest duties —
that of giving free, speedy, and substantial justice to the
.weakest and most indigent, as well as to the most powerful
and most wealthy, of their subjects.

UNIVERSITY
^£CALlFQfiSi>

154 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Trusts.

The first, and perhaps the largest, group of cases which
ought to be taken out of the cognizance of our courts of
law are those which may be comprised under the general
term of " trusts." At present any one may place property
in the hands of another, either during his own life or to
take effect after his death, for certain specified purposes,
and if these purposes are neither illegal nor positively
immoral, the law will compel the trustee to carry out
these purposes to the very letter. They may be trivial
or absurd, or even injurious, but the man who once gets a
trustee to accept a trust (and even this is not necessary
when it is created by a will) becomes thereby an absolute
potentate, who has at his command the whole power of a
great State employed to see that his most minute directions
are carried out. The number of cases of this kind is
enormous, including all those which involve the interpre-
tation and carrying into effect of the provisions of trust-
deeds, settlements, and wills ; so that a considerable por-
tion of our machinery for administering justice is devoted
to ascertaining arid giving effect to the whims of individuals
for years, and often for scores of years, after they are dead.
Under the same general head may be included the power
of determining by deed or will the contingent succession
to property, and of creating any number and kinds of
disqualifications with regard to it. The supposed necessity
for providing for every imaginable exercise of this power
has led to such endless complications in the law relating
to the transfer of land in all its forms and modes, that years
of study are required to comprehend them. They furnish
the materials for perhaps the majority of the cases that
come before our civil courts, and give occupation to a very
large section of the legal profession.

But in the whole group of cases here referred to there
is no question of administering justice. For a Govern-
ment not to carry out a man's wishes after his death is
not a wrong, but quite the reverse, since it may with much
reason be maintained that, for any Government to occupy

x LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS 155

itself with carrying out the whims of every man (whether
he be sage or fool) who may wish to make his relations
or successors subject to his orders in the application of
property no longer his, is a positive wrong to the com-
munity, inasmuch as it is incompatible with the perform-
ance of duties of a paramount nature. What the law
may do, and all that it should do, is, to recognize and
enforce gifts or transfers of property of all kinds, to living
individuals, absolutely. It should utterly refuse to recog-
nize any desires, whims, or fancies of individuals as to
the applications of the property, or any limitation to the
future owner's absolute possession of it. It should not
even recognize any alternative applications of the property
in the case of the death of the legatee before that of the
testator, who could in that case have altered his will, and
if he has not done so the legacy should pass to the legal
representatives of the legatee. Property should always
be considered by the law to be in the possession of some
person absolutely, who can transfer it to another person
absolutely, but cannot enforce any stipulations whatever
as to the use of it on the next owner. Life interests in
landed and other property, with all their attendant evils,
would thus never exist.

The wishes of the donor or testator of property , although
not a proper subject for the interference of the law, could
be in many cases carried out by means of what may be
termed a voluntary and amicable trust. The trustee (who
would be really the legatee) would be chosen on account
of friendship, integrity, and sympathy with the objects
and desires of the testator, and he would give just so
much effect to those desires as his reason and his conscience
impelled him to give. The law would consider him only
as the owner of the property, and would in no way
interfere with the manner in which he thought proper
to interpret the wishes of his friend. To provide for
children and minors, property might be either left
absolutely to their nearest relative or friend to stand to
them in loco parentis, or it might be left to themselves, in
which case an officer of the court would be their official
trustee, and would prevent any misappropriation of their

156 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

property by relations or guardians till they came of age.
We should in this way greatly simplify wills, and almost
abolish will-cases, while the courts would be relieved from
that great mass of causes of the most tedious kind, in
which trust-deeds, settlements, legal estates, shifting uses,
entails, and trustees bear a prominent part.

It has been so long and so universally the practice in
civilized countries for the law to recognize and enforce
the wishes of individuals as to applications of their
property other than the simple transfer of it to others,
that to many, perhaps to most persons, it will at first
seem to be a positive injustice to take away from them
the power to do so. Yet the law itself recognizes that
the practice is beset with evils, and from a very early
periojd legislative restrictions have been applied to it.
Hence the laws of mortmain, and the long series of
amendments, relaxations, or restrictions of those laws ;
as well as the limitation of the power of entailing estates
for any longer period than a life in being and twenty-one
years afterwards. These restrictions prove that the
unlimited power of disposition of property has been held
to be a law-given custom, not an inherent right ; for if
the latter, every restriction of its exercise must be a
wrong to the parties restricted, which it has never been
held to be. The whole question is, however, so very
important, and has so many and such wide applications,
that it deserves a somewhat fuller discussion.

The establishment of the Endowed Schools Commission
has struck the first real blow at the system of a perpetual
and blind submission to the wills of dead men ; but the
new principle, even in its limited application to endowed
schools and charities, often excites much opposition.
Many liberal and intelligent men still look upon the
" intentions " of those who in past ages endowed churches,
schools, hospitals, almshouses, and other institutions, as
something sacred, which it is almost impious to ignore,
and which it is our plainest duty to carry out with only
such slight modifications as the changed conditions of
society absolutely necessitate. But it is here contended
that this notion is not founded on any true conception,

x LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS 157

either of what is just or what is politic, but that it is,
on the contrary, altogether erroneous in principle and
mischievous in practice ; whence it follows that the
sooner it can be got rid of the better for society.

Let us, then, seriously ask, what sufficient reason can
be adduced why the State should interfere to carry into
effect the desires, whims, or superstitious fancies of any
man, for generations, or perhaps for centuries, after his
death ? Why should the more enlightened future be
bound by the behests of the less enlightened past ? Why
should we allow, and even encourage, men to hold and
administer property after they are dead ? For it really
comes to that. A man may, justly and usefully, be
allowed full liberty (within the bounds of law and order)
to use his property as he pleases during his life ; but
why should we go out of our way and make complex
arrangements enabling him to continue to do the same
after he is dead ? During a man's lifetime he can give
property to whom he thinks fit, or he can apply it to any
purpose that he has at heart, without the State's
interference ; but he absolutely requires the State's
assistance in order that his property may continue to be
applied precisely in accordance with his ideas of what is
best, after his death. The question is, why the State
should take any cognizance of the matter ? It is here
contended that this is one of those things quite beyond
the proper functions of a Government, and that it has
produced, as such excess of authority always does produce,
a vast amount of evil. When a man dies he generally
has what may be termed natural heirs, that is, children
or relatives dependent upon him for a provision in life.
For these he is morally bound first to provide, and any
surplus beyond their needs, and beyond what the law may
give to the State, he may rightly claim the power of
bequeathing to any living individuals ; and the State on
its part is bound to exercise that minimum of interference
necessary to secure the property to the respective persons
indicated by him. But on what grounds can the testator
claim the interference of the State for the purpose of
compelling the recipients of the property to do with it

158 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

what he pleases ? claim — that is — that he shall still be
considered to be the real owner of the property after he is
dead ? The thing is so intrinsically absurd, and perhaps
even immoral, that nothing but long and universal
custom could blind us to the absurdity of it.

What a man may do, and ought to be enabled to do,
either during his life or at his death, is to give property,
and recommend (not command) what use he wishes to be
made of it. If his morals and his intellect are both good
and his judgment sound, his chosen legatees will, at their
discretion, carry out his wishes. But to compel them to
do so absolutely is monstrous. It implies that the right
to property continues after death, and that when a man
can no longer use it himself he ought to be enabled
to restrict the freedom of others in the use of it. It
implies also that a man with much property to leave is
necessarily wise, so wise as to know what will be best for
people years after his death. A living agent can modify
or supplement his plans as occasions arise or as circum-
stances require, and he generally does see reason to modify
them after a few years' experience. Even acts of
parliament, the concentrated essence of the nation's
wisdom and foresight, one year, often require alteration in
the next. But that every man who chooses to do so
should be encouraged to make his little " act " before he
dies, minutely directing what shall be done with his
property for years after his death, and that this " act "
should be held to be a fixed law, against which there can
be no appeal, all changes of circumstances notwithstanding,
and should be enforced by the whole power and authority
of the State, is a circumstance which will one day be looked
back upon as an amazing anachronism, since it would
seem only fitted to exist in a country where the established
religion was the worship of ancestors.

We English are wisely jealous of too much government
interference in the details of our social life ; yet our rulers
are living men, imbued with all the ideas and habits and
feelings and passions of the age, and are often men of high
intellectual attainments, and far in advance of the average
of the community. Such a government interferes, at all

x LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS 159

events, with full command of the most recent knowledge,
and with open eyes ; yet we will not submit to such
interference. But, strange to say, we do submit, and
almost pride ourselves in submitting, to have various
important social matters determined for us by self-chosen
dead men, who are therefore necessarily behind the age,
and who were sometimes too ignorant, conceited, or
superstitious to be up to the intellectual level even of the
age in which they lived. It is by such blind guides that
we to this day submit to be, in great part, governed in
the all-important matters of religion, education, and the
administration of charity; and in submission to the
immutable laws of these dead rulers we have allowed vast
wealth to be misemployed or wasted in the hands of
irresponsible and antiquated corporations, which, well
bestowed, might have enlightened our people or beautified
our land. Who can doubt that the nation would have
greatly benefited had our churches and colleges, our
schools and charities, our guilds and companies, been free
to develop, from age to age, in accordance with the wants
and feelings of the living, untrammelled by any slavish
adherence to the expressed or implied wishes of the
dead?

From the considerations now adduced, it will be evident
that the cessation of State interference in the way here
objected to, would produce other beneficial results besides
that of facilitating the administration of justice. These
may be briefly summarized as follows : —

It would take away one of the existing inducements to
a life-long devotion to the pursuit of wealth, for if a man
could neither make use of it himself nor enjoy the sense
of power felt in directing absolutely how it should be
employed by others, he would pause in his career of
accumulation, and perhaps endeavour to do something
useful with it during his own lifetime, rather than run the
risk of having it all go entirely beyond his control.

It would have the effect of inducing many who now
leave their wealth for charitable and philanthropic purposes
at their death, to found such institutions as they wished
to have established, during their own life- time, in order to

160 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

see the working ot them, and so adapt them to the ful-
filment of an admitted good end as to ensure that they
would be preserved by future generations. This active
charity or philanthropy would have a most beneficial
effect on character, and would undoubtedly lead to more
good results than the mere passive bequeathing of money
to be employed in some fixed, but often ill-considered
and comparatively inefficient manner.

It would prevent the establishment of institutions not
adapted to the requirements of the age, and would thus
abolish a great bar to mental and moral progress. For
the notion of " sacredness " attached to the wishes and
commands of the founders of religious, educational, and
charitable institutions has done a vast amount of evil, in
confusing our notions of what is right and what is useful,
and in keeping up the obsolete ideas and practices of a
bygone age, long after they have become out of harmony
with a more advanced state of society.

There is no fear, as some may imagine, that under the
modification of the law here suggested, such institutions
would want stability and would be subject to constant
fundamental changes in accordance with the ideas of each
successive body of governors, for the conservative
tendencies of mankind in general, and especially of all
governing bodies, are very strong, and customs or
practices, even when pernicious or absurd, seldom get
changed till long after their hurtfulness or foolishness are
universally acknowledged. In proof of this we may
adduce the case of our own representative government,
which attaches no idea of sacredness to old laws, and is
subject to the powerful influence of public opinion ; yet
we do not find any dangerous instability in our legislation,
but rather a slow, many think far too slow, march onward
in a tolerably well-defined course of reform.

The change here advocated would also be beneficial, by
helping to rid us of the notion that a man can infallibly
prescribe what is good for his successors, or that even if
he could, he ought to be allowed so to prescribe ; for the
next generation will be quite as well able to attend to its
own affairs as the last was, and will certainly not be

V^TVERSIT

^CALI

LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS 1<>1

benefited by being debarred from the freest action. Once
this notion is abolished, our truest philanthropists would
be more willing than heretofore to devote their wealth
to public purposes, because they would feel confident of
its being permanently useful. They would know that
each succeeding generation wtuld watch its application
critically, and insist that no obsolete customs or erroneous
teachings should be perpetuated by means of it, — that it
should never become a drag on the wheels of progress, as
has been the case with many such institutions, but rather
resemble a powerful engine capable of helping on the
necessarily slow march of society towards a higher
civilization.

If the main principle here advocated — namely, that it
is intrinsically absurd and morally wrong that a dead
man's will or intention should have power to determine
the mode of application of property no longer his — be a
sound one, it will have a most important bearing on a
question that is now much discussed, as to how far .
endowments of the National Church by private in-
dividuals may be properly claimed by the State. Even
writers of very liberal views see in this a stumbling-block
to the complete disendowment of the Church of England,
because they cannot get rid of the notion that it is
something like a robbery to take property given for one
purpose and apply it to any other purpose. It is, there-
fore, a maxim with them, that when any change in the
application of such a fund is demanded by public policy,
it should still be kept as near as possible to the intentions
of the original donor. It is, however, to be remarked,
that when the property in question has already been
forcibly applied to other uses than those -originally
intended, the most scrupulous do not propose that it
should be brought back to its ancient use ; and this seems
to imply a doubt of the soundness of their principle. A
large part of the existing endowments of the Church of
England, for example, were certainly intended to maintain
the teaching and services of the Roman Catholic religion.
If the donor's intentions are " sacred," these should be
given back to the Roman Catholic Church. If it be said

VOL. n. M

162 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

that the intention was to maintain the religion of the
country, whatever that might be, then the revenues
should be fairly divided among all existing sects for the
time being, — but that is u concurrent endowment," and is
almost universally repudiated. The only consistent, and
it is maintained the only true, view, is, that dead men
should have no influence (beyond their personal influence
on their friends) other than what is due to the intrinsic
value of their opinions ; and that property cannot be left
in trust to carry out dead men's wishes, on the common-
sense ground that the living know better what is good
for themselves than the dead can do, and that the latter
have no just or reasonable claim to coerce a society to
which they no longer belong. To hold the contrary view
is, practically, to allow men to continue to be the
possessors of property after they are dead, and to give
more weight to the injunctions of those who had no
possible means of knowing what is best for us now, than
we give to the deliberate convictions of men who still live
among us and who have made our welfare their life-long
study.

The dead are not truly honoured by sacrificing the
interests of the living to their old-world schemes ; and if,
as we may reasonably suppose, the future state is one of
progress, at least as rapid as that which obtains on earth,
it may be that they are afflicted with unavailing regrets
at our blindness in insisting on being guided by the
feeble and uncertain light which they once had the
presumption to imagine would for ever be sufficient to
illuminate the world.

Debtor and Creditor.

Another group of property cases which occupy the time
of the courts even more largely than wills and trusts, are
those connected with the recovery of debts of various kinds,
culminating in the proceedings of the Bankruptcy Courts.
Here again, in by far the larger portion of the cases, there
is no necessity whatever for the law to intervene, while
it is not improbable that its total abstention would in

x LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS 163

various ways be beneficial to the whole community. Let
us consider a few of the more familiar cases which corne
before the courts.

First we have the gigantic system of trading on credit,
continually offering temptations to fraud and leading in so
many cases to bankruptcy. Repeated efforts have been
made to improve the law of bankruptcy, but with small
results, since, although there has been of late years some
diminution in the number of bankruptcies and amount
of bankrupts' liabilities, this is far more than compensated
by the enormous increase in the liquidations of Companies
under the Limited Liability Act, so that both the losses
of the public and the temptations to fraud have continu-
ally increased. The cost of the Bankruptcy department
paid for by the public is about £150,000 a year, besides
the legal costs paid by the estates of the bankrupts and by
their creditors. Now this vast system of credit, and all the
temptation to speculation and fraud that arises out of it,
is the creation of the law, and the interference of Govern-
ment is in no way necessary for the protection of
individuals. Instead of attempting to amend the law of
bankruptcy it should be abolished altogether, and no
claim for the value of goods sold on credit should be
recognized by the courts. The effect of this simple and
common-sense principle would be, that no credit would
be given to any individual until he had proved that he
was worthy of credit ; and even then it would be at the
creditor's risk. There cannot be the least doubt, that
this would be for the benefit of everybody concerned ;
since speculative trading would cease except by those who
chose to risk their own capital instead of that of other
persons. If a young man was known to be honest, sober,
industrious, and with some business capacity, he would be
sure to have friends who would advance money to start
him in life, on his personal security. If he did not possess
or had not exhibited these qualities it is better for himself
and his friends that he should not be able to speculate
with other people's property until he has acquired experi-
ence and given proofs of integrity. There is absolutely
no reason whatever for the Government to keep up a costly

M 'I

164 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

organization for the purpose of protecting people who
choose, with their eyes open, to lend money without
security. Let all business be on a cash basis, and if
persons who have confidence in a friend's honesty give
credit, let it be at the giver's own risk and responsibility.

In the case of shopkeepers it may be said that they would
be liable to loss by persons having goods sent home and
then refusing to pay for them. But this would be very
easily remedied by either having cash with the order or
declining to leave any goods at the house of an unknown
or imperfectly known customer, till paid for. The whole
thing would right itself in a few months or even weeks, if
the Government and the law did not undertake a supposed
duty which is wholly unnecessary, and which inevitably
tends to endless developments of speculation and fraud.

So far I have touched only on debts incurred without
security, but there are also many kinds of security which
the law should not recognize. Such are all those which
involve injury to others, and especially the loss or deterio-
ration of the family home. Bills of sale on furniture and
mortgages of the dwelling or homestead should therefore
be alike illegal and valueless. They are contrary to public
policy as well as to individual well-being, and there is no
more necessity for them than there is to allow a man to
pledge his wife or children for a debt. The home should
be as sacred from such profanation as the family itself.

For analogous reasons nothing in the nature of post
obits, or any agreement to pay money out of a future
expected inheritance, should have the slightest legal value.
By enforcing such agreements the law has been the direct
cause of an overwhelming flood of demoralization, and has
produced more vice and suffering than have been caused
by the most irrational customs of the lowest savages. And
there is not the slightest need for such interference. Why
should the Government of any country calling itself
civilized use its vast organized power to tempt young men
to borrow money on their future expectations, almost
always for purposes of the wildest extravagance, debauchery
and vice ? Let the law simply ignore all such debts and
claims, arid no one will lend money to persons in such a

x LIMITATION OF STATE FUNCTIONS 165

position, unless they are so well-known as to render
it certain that they will make a proper use of it. In
such a case some relative or personal friend will ad-
vance the money at his own risk, and the recipient
will consider it a debt of honour, to be repaid at the first
opportunity.

There would thus be only two modes of borrowing money
or goods — either from some personal friend who could
trust to the character of the borrower to repay him ; or by
giving in pledge some portable article of value to be
returned when the money was repaid, and in neither of
these cases would the law be called upon to interfere. In
all departments of genuine business between persons of
known integrity, bills and promissory notes would pass as
at present, the only difference being that they would
represent debts of honour only with which the law would
have nothing whatever to do.

So far as I can see, the interference of the law in all
money relations of individuals with each other is wholly
unnecessary and produces nothing but evil. In an endless
variety of ways it offers a premium on dishonesty, while
through all the ramifications of business it is the honest
buyers who pay ready money or punctually discharge their
obligations, that really have to pay the loss caused by the
great army of defaulters and swindlers, which the law itself,
under pretence of enforcing the execution of contracts and
the payment of debts, has really brought into existence.
Our law of property and of debtor and creditor is the
actual cause of almost all fraud and dishonesty, a very
small portion of the evils due to which it can ever succeed
in remedying; while by affording endless scope for the
rogues to satisfy their wants at the expense of the honest
men it is perhaps the greatest corrupter of morals that
now exists.

I am quite aware that in raising my voice against the
abuses of governmental action here touched upon, I am
one of a very small minority. Yet I feel sure that, short
of a complete reorganization of society either on socialistic
lines or on those of true individualism as indicated in the
last chapter of this volume, no more beneficial reforms

166 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL OHAP. x

could be effected than the strict limitation of the functions
of the State in the two directions I have here indicated.
Not only would it be an enormous saving of public and
private expenditure that is altogether useless, but by
making all success in business absolutely dependent on
consistent integrity it would become a great power in the
moral elevation of society.

CHAPTER XI

RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE

IT is usually said that the English are a practical
people ; that they prefer experience to theory, and will
seldom follow out admitted principles to their full logical
results. But this hardly represents them fairly, and
many facts in their history might lead an outside ob-
server to give them credit for exactly opposite qualities.
He might even say that the English race are more guided
by principles than any other, because, though it takes
them a long time to become satisfied of the truth of any
new principle, when they have once adopted it they follow
it out almost blindly, regardless of the contempt of their
neighbours, or of loss and injury to themselves. As one
example, he might point to the English race in America,
who, having at length seen that slavery was incompatible
with the principles of their own declaration of in-
dependence, not only made all the slaves free, but at once
raised the whole body of those slaves, degraded and
ignorant as they were, to perfect political equality with
themselves, allowing them not only to vote at parlia-
mentary elections but to sit as legislators, and to hold
any office under Government. In England itself he would
point to our action in the matter of education and free
trade. Till quite recently, public feeling was over-
whelmingly in favour of leaving education to private and
local enterprise ; it was maintained that to educate
children was a personal not a public duty, and that you
should not attempt to make people learned and wise by

168 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Act of Parliament. At length a change came. Public
opinion and the legislature alike agreed that to educate
the people was a national duty ; and so thoroughly was this
idea carried out that, till a few years ago, food for the mind
was looked upon asof more importance than food or clothing
for the body, and parents who could not earn sufficient to
keep their children in health were fined, or at all events
made to lose time, which was to them often the cost of a
meal, because they did not send their children to school,
and either themselves pay the school fees or become paupers.
An even more remarkable instance of devotion to a
principle might be adduced in our action with regard to
free trade. Till a generation ago we put heavy import
duties on food of all kinds, as well as on many other raw
products and manufactured articles. On this question of
the free import of food for the people, the battle of free
trade was fought, and, after a severe struggle, was won.
The result was that the principle of universal free trade
gradually became a fixed idea, as something supremely

food and constantly to be sought after for its own sake,
ts benefits were, theoretically, so clear and indisputable
to us, that we thought we had only to set the example
to other nations less wise than ourselves, who would be
sure to adopt it before long, and thus bring about a kind
of commercial millennium. We did set the example.
We threw open our ports, not only to food for our people,
but to the manufactured goods of all other nations, though
those goods often competed with our own productions, and
their unrestricted import sometimes produced immediate
misery and starvation among our manufacturing classes.
But, firm to a great principle, we continued our course,
and notwithstanding that after fifty years' trial other
nations have not followed our example, we still admit their
manufactures free, while they shut out ours by protective
duties.

These various instances do not support the view that
we are especially practical in our politics, but rather that
we are essentially conservative. We possess as a nation an
enormous vis inertice. A tremendous motive force is
required to set us going in any new direction, but when

RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 169

once in motion an equally great *brce is requisite in order
to stop or even to turn us. After spending so much
mental effort and so much national agitation in deciding
to adopt a new principle, we hate to have to review our
decision, to think we have done Wrong, or even that any
limitations or conditions are to be taken into account in
the application of it. This rigid conservatism is well
shown in the treatment of the demand of many of our
manufacturers and some of our politicians for a fresh in-
vestigation of the subject of free trade by the light of the
experience of the last fifty years. They put forward
" reciprocity " as the principle on which we should act,
and they are simply treated with derision or contempt.
They are spoken of as weak, or foolish, or ignorant people,
wanting in self-reliance, and seeking to bolster up home
productions by a return to protection ; and this is the tone
adopted by the press generally, and by all the chief
politicians, both Liberal and Conservative. Little argu-
ment is attempted ; the facts of increased imports and
diminished exports, and of widespread commercial distress,
are explained away, as all facts in such a complex question
can be, and the names of Adam Smith and Cobden are
quoted as having settled the question once and for ever.

Now this mode of treating an important subject which
affects the well being of the nation is not satisfactory. No
one believes more completely than myself in the benefits
of free trade, and the impolicy of restricting free intercourse
between nation and nation any more than between indi-
vidual and individual ; but, like most other principles, it
must be subject in its application to the conditions im-
posed upon us by the state of civilization and the mutual
relations of the independent countries with whom we have
dealings. Nobody advocates free trade in poisons, or
explosives, or even in alcoholic drinks ; and few believe
that we are bound to allow Zulus or Chinese to become
armed with breech-loaders and rifled cannons if we can
prevent it; and the mere fact that restriction in these
cases is admitted to be necessary should make us see that
no commercial principle, however good in itself, can be
of universal application in an imperfect human society.

170 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

The essence of free trade is its mutuality. Its especial
value depends upon the almost self-evident proposition,
that, if each country freely produces that which it can pro-
duce best and cheapest, and exchanges its surplus for the
similarly produced product 's of other countries, all will derive
benefit. As an argument against the old policy of bounties
and monopolies and prohibitory import duties, and the
idea that it was best for a country to produce everything
for itself and be independent of all its neighbours, this
was irresistible, and it did good work in its day. But
people were so impressed with its self-evident common-
sense (which it yet took them so many years of hard
struggle to force upon a reluctant and conservative popu-
lation) that having once got it, they set it up on high
and worshipped it, as if it were a moral truth, instead of a
mere maxim of expediency calculated to produce certain
economical effects if properly carried out. They have thus
been led to overlook two important aspects of the question,
which must be carefully studied and acted upon if we are
to obtain the full benefits to be derived from free trade.
The one is, that, even if universally adopted — that is, if
no artificial restrictions were imposed by any nation on the
trade of any other nation with it — there are yet many
conceivable cases in which its full application would
produce injurious results, morally, physically, and in-
tellectually, which might so overbalance the mere com-
mercial advantages it would bestow, as to justify a people
in voluntarily declining to act up to the principles it
enunciates. The other is, that even the commercial
advantages depend on the whole programme of free trade
being carried out, and that if the first half of it is
neglected — that is, if each country does not freely produce
that which it can naturally produce best and cheapest —
then it may be demonstrated that one entire section of
the benefits derivable from free trade, and perhaps the
most important section for the real well-being of a nation,
is destroyed. These two points are of such importance
that they deserve to be carefully considered.

xi RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 171

Some Limitations of Free Trade.

Admitting that free trade will necessarily benefit a
country materially, it does not follow that it will be best
for that country to adopt it. Man has an intellectual, a
moral, and an aesthetic nature ; and the exercise and
gratification of these various faculties is thought by
some people to be of as much importance as cheap cotton,
cheap silk, or cheap claret. We will suppose a small country
to be but moderately fertile, yet very beautiful, with
abundance of green fields, pleasant woodlands, picturesque
hills, and sparkling streams. The inhabitants live by
agriculture and by a few small manufactures, and obtain
some foreign necessaries and luxuries by means of their
surplus products. They have also abundance of coal and
of every kind of metallic ore, which pervade their whole
country, but which they have hitherto worked only on a
small scale for the supply of their own wants, They .are a
happy and a healthy people ; their towns and cities are
comparatively small ; their whole population enjoy pure
air and beautiful scenery, and a large proportion of them
are engaged in healthy outdoor occupations. But now the
doctrines of free trade are spread among them. They are
told that they are wasting their opportunities; that other
nations can supply them with various articles of food and
clothing far cheaper than they can supply themselves ;
while they, on the other hand, can supply half the world
with coal and iron, lead and copper, if they will but do
their duty as members of the great comity of nations,
and develop those resources which nature has so bounti-
fully given them. Visions of wealth and power float
before them ; they listen to the voice of the charmer ;
they devote themselves to the development of their
natural resources ; their hills and valleys become full of
furnaces and steam-engines ; their green meadows are
buried, beneath heaps of mine-refuse or are destroyed by
the fumes from copper-works ; their waving woods are cut
down for timber to supply their mines and collieries ;
their towns and cities increase in size, in dirt, and in
gloom ; the fish are killed in their rivers by mineral

172 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

solutions, and entire hill-sides are devastated by noxious
vapours ; their population is increased from ten millions
to twenty millions, but most of them live in " black
countries "b or in huge smoky towns, and, in default of
more innocent pleasures, take to drink ; the country as a
whole is more wealthy, but, owing to the large proportion
of the population depending upon the fluctuating demands
of foreign trade, there are periodically recurring epochs of
distress far beyond what was ever known in their former
condition.

With this example of the natural effects of carrying out
the essential principles of free trade, another people in
almost exactly similar circumstances determine that they
prefer less wealth and less population, rather than destroy
the natural beauty of their country and give up the simple,
healthful, and natural pleasures they now enjoy. They
accordingly, by the free choice of the people in Parliament
assembled, forbid by high duties the exportation of any
minerals, and even regulate the number of mines that
shall be worked, in order that their country shall not be
changed into a huge congeries of manufactories. A balance
is thus kept up between different industries, all of which
are allowed absolutely free development so long as they
do not interfere with the public enjoyment, or cause any
permanent deterioration to the water, the soil, or the
vegetation of the country. They are in fact protectionists,
for the purpose of preserving the beauty and enjoyability
of their native land for themselves and for their posterity.
Free trade under the guidance of capitalism would destroy
these, and give them instead cheaper wine and silk, stale
eggs instead of fresh, and butter ingeniously manufactured
from various refuse fats. They prefer nature to luxury.
They prefer intellectual and aesthetic pleasures, with fresh
air and pure water, to an endless variety of cheap manu-
factures. Are they morally or intellectually wrong in
doing so ?

Again : there may be, and probably are, countries which
produce nothing that some other country could not supply
them with at a cheaper rate. But as populations must work
to live, they have to contravene the essential principle of free

RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 173

trade and produce the necessaries of life dearly for them-
selves. Such people could hardly export anything. They
must necessarily be poor, and their surplus population must
emigrate ; but these very conditions might be highly
favourable to social and moral advancement and a not
inconsiderable share of happiness. Theoretically, such a
people ought not to exist, since they only produce what
can be produced with much less labour elsewhere ; yet con-
ditions approaching to these have led to the development
of one of the freest and most enviable people of Europe —
the Swiss.

It is indeed fortunate that most countries are so varied
as they are, and that none are so peculiar as to be adapted
for the economical practice of one industry only. For if
they were, the principles of free trade would in time lead
to the whole population being similarly employed ; they
would become parts of a great machine for the growth of
one product or the manufacture of one article. It surely
will be admitted that such a state of things would not be
desirable for any country ; and it thus seems as if nature
herself had taught us that the principle of each country
limiting its energies to the one or two kinds of industry it
can practise best and cheapest, though commercially sound,
cannot always be carried out without injury, and must
always be subordinated to considerations of social, moral,
and intellectual advantage. These arguments, which
certainly go to the very root of the matter, have so far as
I know, never been answered, never even been considered
by the advocates of absolute free trade.

The whole Programme.

We will now come to the other essential point - that the
whole programme of free trade must be carried out if its
advantages are not to be overbalanced by disadvantages.
That programme is, that each country shall freely produce
that which it can naturally produce best, and that all shall
freely exchange their surplus products. But after fifty
years' example on our part, no other country approaches to
this state of things. By means of protective duties they all
artificially foster certain industries, which could not long

174 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

survive under that open competition which is the essence
of free trade. In all the popular articles and discussions on
this subject which I have seen, the extreme free traders, with-
out exception, maintain that this makes no difference, and
that because the competition of such artificially supported
industries keeps down prices here, therefore it benefits us
and injures only the protectionist peoples. But this
argument entirely ignores the element of stability and
healthy growth, perhaps the most vital essential to the pros-
perity of all industrial pursuits, and of every manufacturing
or trading community. When a country is developing its
natural resources without the artificial stimulus of bounties
or protective duties, its progress may not be very rapid,
but it will be sure, and for long periods permanent. It
will depend upon the attraction of capital to the industries
in question, the training up of skilled workmen, the making
its way in foreign markets, and other similar causes ; and
under a system of general free trade, these will not be
subject to extreme fluctuations, and the industry in question
will be stable as well as prosperous. No one can doubt
• that such stability in the various industries of a country is
the very essence of true prosperity, leading to a steady
rate of wages and an assured return both to labour and
capital ; whereas the contrary condition of instability
arid fluctuation is the most disastrous and dishearten-
ing. But such instability is the necessary result of the
trade of one country being subject to the ever-changing
influences of the protectionist legislation of other countries.
When, after acquiring a natural supremacy in any industry,
we are suddenly shut out of a market by prohibitive duties,
and subjected to the competition which those duties bring
upon us, disturbance, loss, and suffering are sure ,to be
caused both to capitalist and workman. Here then we
are deprived of what is really the most important advantage
of free trade, by the action of other countries. Is there
either reason or justice in passively submitting to this
deprivation, and is there any mode of action by which
we can gain for ourselves the benefits of that system of
freedom which we have so long magnanimously offered to all
the world ? I venture to say that there is, and that by a

RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 175

consistent and clearly marked course of action we can, to a
considerable extent, prevent other nations from injuring
us by their various phases of protectionist policy, while
we retain whatever benefits free trade can give us ;
and further, that while thus ourselves carrying out the
essential spirit of a free-trade policy, we shall be in posses-
sion of the most powerful conceivable engine to convert
others to its adoption.

Before proceeding to explain my plan, let us see what
other schemes have been put forth by the advocates of
reciprocity. As far as I can make out, they are two only :
the one to put a small uniform ad valorem import duty on
all foreign-manufactured articles ; the other to arrange,
by treaties of commerce or otherwise, a scheme of re-
ciprocal import duties which shall be adjusted so as to
benefit both parties to the arrangement. The objection
to the first is, that it is giving up the whole principle of
free trade, and neither public opinion nor the legislature
would sanction it ; while the second is vague, and involves
innumerable questions of detail, and equally gives up the
principle of free trade with the first. To these objections
I add one of my own, that by neither plan could we secure
that stability and unchecked development of our resources
which is the most valuable of all the results of complete
free trade. We should not thereby prevent other nations
from influencing our industries prejudicially when with
changes of government come changes of policy. Bounties
might still be given or increased, import duties might be
raised or lowered, and the capital invested in some of our
industries in order to supply both a home and foreign
demand now, might be greatly depreciated or even
rendered worthless by the unexpected action of some
foreign protectionist minister a few years hence.

Hoping to get some further light on this subject, I
turned to Professor Fawcett's volume on Free Trade and
Protection, feeling sure that I should there find the
question fairly stated and the reasons against " reciprocity "
fully set forth. To my great astonishment, however, I
find that Mr. Fawcett's arguments are entirely directed,
not against " reciprocity " of import duties, as I understand

176 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

the term, but against two totally distinct things —
"retaliation" towards such foreign countries as tax our
products, and renewed " protection " of our domestic
industries — both of which are clearly proved by him, and
are freely admitted by me, to be useless or injurious to
ourselves. Thus at p. 63 he says: "If we desire to
retaliate with effect upon America for the injury which, by
her tariff, she inflicts on our commerce ; " — and on the
same page, " If, therefore, we desire to make the American
people suffer some of the same loss and inconvenience
which they inflict on our commerce ; " — and again, at p.
162, he speaks of the objection "against imposing a duty
on some article of French manufacture, with the view
of punishing the French for refusing to renew the Com-
mercial Treaty." Surely such expressions as these which
I have italicised, are unworthy of an argumentative work
on political economy and of Professor Fawcett's high
reputation. The desire of our manufacturers and work-
men to enjoy the legitimate benefits of free trade, and to
be guarded against the injury admitted to be done to
them by the arbitrary and uncertain departures from its
principle by other nations, is a very different thing from
"retaliation" or a revengeful wish to make others suffer.

The late Professor Fawcett further argued, as it appears
to me very unsoundly, that because the import of goods
which compete with our manufactures is often compara-
tively small, therefore the injury done or the distress
caused is proportionately of small amount. Surely he
must know that there is often a very narrow margin
between profit and loss in manufactures, and that the
importation of a comparatively small quantity may deter-
mine the price at which a much larger quantity must be
sold. It is a well known fact that the increased economy
in working to the full power of a factory is such that the
surplus so produced may be advantageously sold abroad at
less than the actual cost, owing to the increased profit on
the bulk of the goods manufactured at a lower average
cost. Foreign manufacturers, protected by import duties
against competition by us, enjoy practically a monopoly in
their own countries, and can secure such a profit on the

xi RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 177

bulk of their goods sold at home that they can afford to
undersell us with their surplus stocks. These vary of
course with variations of trade, and thus our manu-
facturers are at any time liable to great fluctuations of
prices owing to such importations. It is a weak and
miserable answer to say that the people benefit by the
low prices thus caused ; for the great mass of our people
are wage-earners and producers as well as consumers,
and almost every article we either produce or manufac-
ture is subject to the injurious effects of the influx of
surplus stocks from protected countries, by which wages
are lowered and numbers of men and women thrown out
of work. There is no comparison between the great loss
and suffering thus caused, and the small advantage to the
consumer in an almost infinitesimal and often temporary
lowering of the retail price of goods the majority of which
are not prime necessaries of life.

What Reciprocity means.

But there is a very simple mode by which we can obtain
that stability which general free trade would give us, and
which, as I have endeavoured to show, is its greatest
recommendation. It is to reply to protectionist countries
by putting the very same import duty on the very same
articles that they do, changing our duties as they change
theirs.

This will restore the balance, and, so far as we are con-
cerned, be almost equivalent to general free trade. It
may, perhaps, even be better for us, in some respects, for
we shall get some revenue from these duties ; but the
great thing is, that we shall obtain stability. Our
capitalists and workmen will alike feel that foreign
protectionist governments can no longer play upon our
industries as they please, for their own benefit. They will
know that they will be always free from unfair competition,
while neither asking nor receiving a shred of protection
from that fair competition of naturally developed industries
which is alone compatible with the principles of free trade.
There will then be every incentive to exertion in order to

VOL. II. v

178 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

bring our manufactures up to the highest standard, so
that they may compete with the best productions of other
nations, without any fear that when they have achieved
an honourable success they may be deprived of their
reward by an additional weight of protective duties against
them.

It is urged against the advocates of reciprocity that they
are vague in their suggested remedies, and, when asked to
specify their proposals, " escape in a cloud of generalities."
No one can make this charge against my proposal. It is
sufficiently clear and sufficiently definite. Neither are
Professor Fawcett's objections — that " a policy of reci-
procity is impracticable," and that, once embarked on it,
trade after trade would claim protection — at all more to
the point. Every trade and industry would be treated
alike. All would have a free field and no favour. And
as regards foreign countries we should strictly do as we
are done by and as we would be done by, and no more.
We should make no attempt to injure them or retaliate
on them, but should simply and exactly neutralise their in-
terference with free trade as between ourselves and them.

As I am here discussing an important question of
principle, to which, if it can be clearly established, our
practice should conform, I am spared the necessity of
adducing that array of statistics which is generally made
use of in arguments on this subject. It is well, however,
to give one or two illustrative cases. Professor Fawcett
has clearly proved, that the effect of the French sugar
bounties is, that sugar is sold in England under its cost
price in France, and that the only people who benefit by
it are the proprietors on whose land beet-root is grown,
and the people of this country who get sugar somewhat
cheaper. He admits, however, that "considerable injury
is, no doubt, inflicted on English sugar-refiners by the
French being bribed by their Government to sell sugar in
the English market at a price which, without a State
subvention, would not prove remunerative ; " but, he adds,
" if we embark on the policy of protecting a special trade
against the harm done to it by the unwise fiscal policy of
other countries, we shall become involved in a labyrinth of

RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 170

commercial restrictions," &c. Surely this is a very vague
and unsatisfactory reason why our home and colonial sugar
manufacture should be left at the mercy of a foreign
Power. For if the French Government at any time and
for any reason still further increase the sugar bounties,
they might completely ruin many of our manufacturers.
Then, some future Ministry might abolish these bounties
altogether, and later, when fresh capital had been drawn
to the manufacture in England, it might be again ruined.
Are we to submit to this, on account of the shibboleth of
what is miscalled " free trade/' when the imposition of an
import duty of the same amount as the bounty would
prevent all such fluctuations ? By this course we should
leave to France the full benefit of her natural sugar-
producing capacity, only taking away from her the power
to cause commercial distress in our country and our
colonies by a course of action which is liable to unforeseen
changes at the whim of a Minister or a political party.
Exactly the same arguments apply to our paper-
manufacture, which is injured in the same way by foreign
export duties on the raw material and import duties on
the manufactured article ; and, on the true principles of
free trade, it is entitled to have those duties neutralised,
until the countries which impose them think fit to abolish
them altogether.

In almost every civilized country, including our own
colonies, the people naturally wish to develop their own
resources to the utmost ; and we must all sympathize with
this desire. But as they have in the first instance to
struggle against old-established industries in other
countries, the difficulties and risk are too great to attract
the necessary capital, and they therefore endeavour to
restore the balance in their favour by means of protective
duties, professedly as a temporary resource till the new
industry is well established. But Professor Fawcett
assures us that, in the United States, in no single instance
has a protective duty when once imposed been voluntarily
relinquished, but, on the contrary, each case is made a
ground for seeking, and often obtaining, further protection ;
and for about a century American protective duties have

N 2

180 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

been constantly increasing. The same thing applies more
or less in the case of other civilized nations with whom we
have commercial intercourse, and thus all security for the
investment of capital in any manufacture is taken away
from our people. Whether in our mineral products or
our hardware, our cotton, paper, silk, or sugar, or any other
of the thousand industries on which the prosperity of our
producers and workers depends, all alike are subject to
periodical floods of the surplus stocks of other countries,
from whose markets we are shut out by protective and
generally prohibitive duties.

The advantage to foreign manufacturers, on the other
hand, of having an open market for their surplus goods,
while they are themselves protected from competition at
home, is so obvious and so great, that, instead of our
example having any tendency to make them follow in our
steps, it really becomes a premium to them to continue
their system of exclusion. They obtain all the advantages
of free trade, we all the disadvantages of protection.
Internal competition keeps down prices in a protected
country to a fair standard, and thus the consumers do not
greatly suffer ; while the free market we offer for surplus
stocks gives to the manufacturers the great advantage of
utilising their plant and machinery to its full extent, and
thus working with a maximum of economy. Our boasted
freedom of trade, on the other hand, consists in our being
at a great disadvantage in half the markets of the world,
and in being further handicapped by the irregular influx
of surplus stocks which foreign manufacturers .are (in the
words of Professor Fawcett) " bribed to sell us under cost
price ! " How differently do we act when there is a
suspicion of prison-manufactured goods competing with
those of regular traders ! The representations of those
traders are always listened to with respect by our Govern-
ment, and it is invariably admitted that they have a
genuine case of grievance. They are never told that the
people benefit, and therefore they must suffer ; that prison
mats and brooms can be sold at least a penny in the
shilling lower than the usual prices, and that the public
must not be deprived of this advantage, even though mat

xi RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 181

and broom makers starve.1 Yet this is the very argument
used (and almost the only argument) in favour of our
present system. The public (or a section of it) get iron
goods, and silk, and paper, and cotton, and sugar fraction-
ally cheaper, owing to the influx of foreign-manufactured
goods sold under cost price ; therefore our manufacturers
of all these things, and the large proportion of our popu-
lation who are engaged directly or indirectly in such
manufactures, must alike suffer. The weakness of this
argument has already been exposed, while its inconsistency,
cruelty, and selfishness are no less obvious.

I have now, as I believe, pointed out a mode of action
which we may, as free traders, consistently adopt ; which
will satisfy all the just claims of our manufacturers and
workmen ; which will give stability to our industries, and
inspire confidence in our capitalists ; and which, by neutra-
lising the effects of the protectionist policy of other
countries, will place us as nearly as possible in the position
we should occupy were they all to become free traders. I
have shown, that as long as we continue our present
course of action we really offer them the strongest
inducements to continue, or even to extend, their present
policy of protection ; while it is evident that if we simply
neutralize every step they take in this direction, they will
have no motive, so far as regards us, for continuing such a
system. Arguments in favour of free trade will then have
fair play, since they will not be rendered nugatory by the
bribe our policy now offers them to uphold protection.

Objections Answered.

The objections that I anticipate to my plan are : first,
that it is too complex, as it would compel us to adopt as
against each country its own tariff, however cumbersome ;
secondly, that it would not satisfy those who now ask for
another kind of reciprocity in the shape of special
protective duties ; thirdly, that it would diminish our

1 Of late years this ground has been taken against any restriction in
the import of foreign prison-made goods.

182 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

commerce ; and, fourthly, that it would be systematically
evaded, and is therefore impracticable.

As to its complexity, I reply that it would really be the
most simple of all tariffs, since it would be determined by
a single self-adjusting principle. The fact that the various
lists of duties imposed by foreign nations would be lengthy,
is really of no importance whatever. When alphabetically
arranged, it is not more difficult to find one item among a
thousand than it is among five hundred. It may also be
said that we could not ascertain in many cases what the
foreign duties really are, owing to the complications
introduced by bounties, drawbacks, and various kinds of
imposts distinct from the nominal import duty. But if
we could not precisely estimate the amount of protection
afforded in every case, we certainly could do so approxi-
mately ; and we might trust to our consuls and our custom-
house officials to arrive at a sufficiently accurate
estimate.

If my proposal should not at first satisfy the present
demand of our manufacturers for reciprocity, I am sorry
for it ; but that does not in the least affect the proposal
itself, which has to be judged by the rules of logic,
common sense, and expediency. I put it forward as being
strictly in accordance with the essential spirit of free
trade ; as a principle of action which has nothing in
common with protection in any form, since its W7h01e
purport and effect is to neutralise all attempts at a
protectionist policy by other countries. Argument and
example have alike failed to influence them, but a check-
mate of this kind may have a different result.

As to the third objection I maintain, that commerce
exists, or ought to exist, for the good of the nation, not
the nation for the good of commerce. If I have shown
that the system of strict and detailed reciprocity here
proposed would give us the most important of the benefits
and blessings of free trade, and would thus be for the
advantage of our entire industrial population, I need not
concern myself to show that a section of the community
which may have gained by the present false and one-sided
policy will suffer no inconvenience should that policy be

xi RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 183

changed ; for such arguments have always been put aside
as irrelevant when free-trade principles have been at
issue.

To the fourth objection, that our reciprocal duties would
be evaded by passing goods through countries where they
were allowed free entry, I reply, that the duty might be
levied on each article as being the product of a certain
country, from whatever port it was shipped to us. In most
cases our custom-house experts would at once be able to
say where the article was manufactured, and we might
further protect ourselves by requiring satisfactory proof
(such as a certificate from the manufacturer) that it was
really the product of the country from whose port it was
shipped, in order to be admitted duty-free. Even if we
should be occasionally cheated, I cannot see that this is a
valid objection against adopting a sound and beneficial
course of action.

A FEW WORDS IN REPLY TO MR. LowE.1

Although the subject of "Reciprocity" is not yet of
sufficient popular interest to be the subject of another
article in the Nineteenth Century, I beg to be allowed to
say a few words in reply to Mr. Lowe's very forcible, not
to say violent and contemptuous, article.

I have often been at once amused and disgusted at a
common practice in the House of Commons, of flatly deny-
ing facts which a previous speaker had alleged as being
undisputed, or had proved on good evidence ; but I hardly
expected that, in an article deliberately written and
published, so eminent a politician as Mr. Lowe would
condescend to similar tactics, and attempt to overthrow an
adversary by the mere force of his weighty ipse dixit.
Yet the most important part of his reply to me, that which
he thinks — " so complete and absolute that I am convinced,
had it occurred to Mr. Wallace, his article would never

1 This reply is printed here because no other criticism than
Mr. Lowe's has ever appeared, and because it well illustrates the
methods so often adopted by the popular advocates of free trade.

184 - STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

have been written " — consists in the assertion that my
proposal, even if carried out, would be quite inoperative,
because, when foreign countries protect any class of manu-
factures, they thereby acknowledge that they cannot
compete with us in our own or in any neutral markets,
and that " by the conditions of the problem it is impossible "
that they should do so.

But the fact that such protected goods are' imported
into this country, and do compete successfully with our
own, must surely be known to Mr. Lowe ; and I am afraid
the most charitable view we can take is, that his article
was written with some of that want of consideration which
he so confidently alleges against myself. What does he
say to the fact that the United States sent to this country
in 1877 manufactured goods to the value of £3,559,521,
including large quantities of cotton and iron goods, sugar,
and linseed oil-cake, although every one of these manu-
factures is protected by almost prohibitive duties ?
Again, we have paper imported to the value of more than
half a million a year, although the manufacture is heavily
protected in every country but our own ; and the competi-
tion of this protected foreign article, which, according to
Mr. Lowe, cannot compete with ours, has yet ruined many
of our paper manufacturers. So iron goods of all kinds are
heavily protected in France, Belgium, America, and some
other countries ; yet iron and steel in various forms were
imported in 1877 to the value of over £1.500,000. Our
total imports of manufactured goods (including metals) in
1877 amounted to £64,635,418 ; and almost the whole of
these goods are protected in the countries which export
them. Most of them, in fact, are sent to us because they
are protected, the manufacturers finding it to their advan-
tage to work to the full power of their plant and capital,
selling the larger portion of their output at a good profit
in the home market, and, with the surplus, underselling
us, which they are enabled to do because all the fixed charges
of the manufacture are already paid out of the profits of the
domestic trade.

Having thus disposed of Mr. Lowe's main attack, and
shown that what he declares to be " impossible " neverthe-

RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 185

less constantly occurs, I have only to notice his singular
attempt to put me in the wrong by giving a new and un-
justifiable meaning to one of the plainest words in the
English language. He says that I am quite mistaken in
considering u free trade " to be essentially mutual — to mean,
in fact, what the component words mean — free commerce,
free exchange, free buying and selling. On the contrary,
says Mr. Lowe, it means free buying only, though selling
may be ever so much restricted. But surely buying alone
is not " trade," but only one half of " trade." Just as imports
cannot exist without exports of equal value, so I have always
considered that buying cannot long go on without selling,
and that the two together constitute trade. Mr. Lowe,
however, says I am historically wrong, but he does not give
his authorities ; and without very conclusive proof I cannot
admit that the English language as well as the English
commercial system, was revolutionised by the free-trade
agitation.1

One of the most important of my arguments — that
reciprocal import duties are just and politic, in order to
secure" stability and healthy growth " to our manufactures
— Mr. Lowe, with more ingenuity than ingenuousness,
converts into a plea on my part for stagnation arid freedom
from competition ; and he maintains that the power of
foreign governments to alter their import duties and
bounties at pleasure, with the certainty that we shall take
no active steps to neutralise their policy, is a healthy in-
centive to activity and enterprise !

The remainder of Mr. Lowe's arguments and sarcasms
may pass for what they are worth ; but, while so many of
our manufacturers, and that large proportion of our popu-
lation wrho are dependent directly or indirectly on manu-
facturing industries, are suffering from the unfair compe-
tition brought upon them by foreign protection, the
allegation that these form an insignificant class, and may be
properly spoken of as " particular trades " whose prosperity
is of little importance to the rest of the community in

1 In Chambers's Dictionary Trade is defined as Buying and Setting,
commerce ; and this latter word as interchange of merchandise on a large
scale.

186 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

comparison with that summum bonum — cheap goods —
deserves a word of notice. I therefore beg leave to call
attention to Richard Cobden's opinion of the supreme
importance of these manufactures to England's welfare.
He says : —

"Upon the prosperity, then, of this interest [the manufacturing]
hangs our foreign commerce ; on which depends our external rank
as a maritime state ; our custom-duties, which are necessary to the
payment of the national debt ; and the supply of every foreign
article of domestic consumption — every pound of tea, sugar, coffee,
or rice, — and all the other commodities consumed by the entire
population of these realms. In a word, our national existence is
involved in the well-being of our manufacturers.

* ' If we are asked, To what are we indebted for this commerce ? we
answer, in the name of every manufacturer and merchant in the
kingdom, The cheapness alone of our manufactures. Are we asked,
How is this trade protected, and by what means is it enlarged ?
the reply still is, By the cheapness of our manufactures. Is it in-
quired how this mighty industry, upon which depend the comfort
and existence of the whole empire, can be torn from us ? we
rejoin, Only by the greater cheapness of the manufactures of another
country."1

In another passage in the same volume he says : —

" The French, whilst they are obliged to prohibit our fabrics from
their own market, because their manufacturers cannot, they say,
sustain a competition with us, even with a heavy protective duty,
never will become our rivals in third markets where both will
pay alike ; "

from which it appears that he never contemplated the state
of things that has actually come about, when, by means
of protective duties, and our open markets supplying
all the world with cheap coal, iron, and machinery,
other nations have been enabled to foster their manu-
factures till they have reached such a magnitude as
not only to supply themselves, but, with their surplus
goods, produced cheaply by means of protection, are
actually able to undersell us at home. That time has,
however, come ; and I feel sure that if Cobden were
now among us, his strong sense of justice and clear

1 Cobden's Political Writing*, vol. i. p. 221.

RECIPROCITY THE ESSENCE OF FREE TRADE 187

vision as to the true sources of our prosperity would lead
him to advocate some such course of action as I have pro-
posed, in order to bring about those benefits to the all-
important manufacturing interests of our country, which
the system of free imports — miscalled " free trade " — has
not procured for it.

CHAPTER XII

THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE, ITS CAUSES AND ITS REMEDIES1

FOR more than half a century both our Government and
our mercantile classes have acknowledged the importance
of political economy, or the science of the production of
wealth ; and they have made it their guide in trade, in
manufacture, in foreign commerce, and in legislation.
During the same period we have had advantages that
perhaps no nation in the world's history ever enjoyed before.
It is during that period that steam has been applied
to railways ; during that time the great gold discoveries
which added so much to our wealth, and gave such an
enormous impetus to our trade, took place. We, especially,
profited by these things, because we had as it were the
start of other nations in possessing enormous stores of coal
and iron, in the working of which we were pre-eminent.
While the railway system was being developed all over
the world, it was we who, to a large extent, supplied the
coal and iron, and also the skill and labour, used in making
these railways. During this same period, too, our colonies
have increased with phenomenal rapidity, and have
supplied us with customers for the commodities which we

1 This article is the substance of a lecture delivered at Edinburgh in
1886, and published as one of a series of Claims of Labour Lectures.
It is an abbreviation of my little book on Bad Times, and is reprinted
here because I believe it contains views which are as true and as
applicable now as they were then. I have not attempted to alter the
colloquial style of the lecture, nor have I brought up the figures and
statistics to the present time, because the argument it embodies is
a general one and will continue to be applicable so long as our political
financial, and social arrangements remain substantially unaltered.

THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 189

produced, while they also afforded a magnificent outlet for
our surplus population. With such advantages as these —
advantages which we shall in vain search through history
to find ever occurring before — it might be thought that we
should have got on very well, and must have had a period
of continuous prosperity even if we had had no infallible

?iide to teach us how to conduct our trade and commerce,
et after fifty years of these unexampled advantages,
after fifty years of following what was professed to be an
infallible guide, we yet find ourselves at the present day
(1886) in the terrible quagmire of commercial depression.
All over the country trade is, and for many years now has
been, dull ; everywhere there are willing workers who
cannot find employment. In all our great cities we have
stagnation of business, poverty, and even starvation.
Certainly, according to the doctrines of the political
economy which we have followed none of these things
ought to have happened; we ought to have had a
continuous and enduring course of success.

Now the need of a thorough inquiry into what are
really the causes of this commercial depression is very
great, because until we clearly perceive what has produced
it, we shall be virtually in the dark as to how .to find a
remedy for it. I consider, then, that a true conception of
the various causes which have brought about this state of
things, which, according to our professed teachers, ought
never to have occurred, will enable us to lay down more
surely what ought to be the radical programme of the
future.

In 1885, when the matter became the subject of ex-
tensive discussion in the press and in Parliament, we had
the most extraordinary chaos of opinion as to what was
the real cause. I noted at the time at least eight
different suggested causes. One great authority in
Parliament stated that there was no accounting for it, —
political economy did not explain it. Other great
authorities agreed in this view, and the result was the
appointment of a Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry.
Another suggestion was that it was all a fallacy, and
that there was really no depression at all. This was put

190 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

forward by an eminent member of Parliament who was
connected with money-making in the city. To this class
of people no doubt there was no depression ; money-making
and speculation of all kinds went on as briskly as ever.
Another suggestion — I am sorry to say the one adopted
by the Conference of Trades Unions of England-
was general over-production, an explanation which hardly
needs refutation, since it has been refuted so often.
Other suggestions were, that it was our free trade that
caused it ; and that it was due to the protection which still
existed in foreign countries. Then, again, a very general
view, and to some small extent a true one, is, that the
continuous succession, for three or four years at all events,
of bad harvests had something to do with it ; but then
there was another remarkable suggestion made, that the
rather good harvest we had some few years ago was the*
cause of the more recent depression. That was seriously
put forward in a pamphlet published under the authority
of the Cobden Club, for it was stated that this good harvest
rendered it unnecessary to import so much corn from
America, and thus led to a depression in the shipping
trade, and that affected all other trades. The last of this
series of explanations was, that it was all due to the
currency, — that it was due in fact to there having been an
appreciation of gold and a depreciation of silver, one or
both.

The Main Features of the Depression.

Now it appears to me that a little consideration of the
true character, extent, and duration of the depression,
will show us that none of these causes can possibly have
been the real and fundamental one, nor even all of them
combined. In the first place, the depression has lasted
almost continuously for twelve years. It commenced
suddenly at the end of the year 1874, and has extended
not only throughout this country but, more or less, to every
great commercial country in the world. I think, taking
into account this long continuance, that no such depres-
sion is on record, at all events during the present century.
Now the characteristic features of this depression are,

THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 191

as I have said, bad trade all over the country, both whole-
sale and retail, and in every department of industry, with
a few exceptions which I shall point out presently. What
is bad trade ? Bad trade simply means that there is a
deficiency of purchasers. Why is there a deficiency of pur-
chasers ? Simply because people who ought to be the
purchasers have not got the money to purchase with. It
is simply diminished consumption — universal diminished
consumption — and the only direct cause of universal
diminished consumption is poverty. Our purchasers,
both in foreign countries and at home, have been less
able to buy. There is not the slightest reason to be-
lieve that they have not been willing to buy, that they
did not want the goods, but it was simply that they were
not able to purchase them. This implies that whole
communities are poorer than they were. The home trade
suffering as well as the foreign trade show that the great
body of our own people are poorer. I do not mean to
say that the entire country is not more wealthy — I
believe it is — but nevertheless the masses, who are always
the chief support of our home trade and our staple manu-
factures, are poorer. The same thing is clear of our
customers in the different countries of the world, the
greater part of those that purchase from us are also
poorer. Curiously enough, just in the very height of
this depression, there appeared some authoritative pam-
phlets by Mr. Giffen, Mr. Mulhall, and Professor Leoni
Levi, proving exactly the reverse, demonstrating, in their
opinion, that the people were never so well off, and that
they were far richer than they ever were before ; and we
were told to believe this when at the same time it was
universally admitted that their purchasing power had
diminished to such an extent as to cause this widespread
diminution of trade !

This then, I say, is a statement of the immediate cause
of the depression — universal impoverishment. Now we
must endeavour to ascertain what is the cause of this
universal impoverishment. To illustrate more clearly the
period when the depression began, and what was its
nature, I have drawn out a diagram giving our imports

102

STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

1864
1865
I8G6
1867

IS7O
1871
1872
1873
1874
1875
I87G
1877
1878
1879
I88O
1881
1882
1883

K>

B

s

\

o

o

CO

2

E

o

and exports — the upper line showing our imports, and the
lower line our exports — from the year 1856 to 1884. If
you look at this you will see that our imports, with the
usual minor fluctuations, have gone on increasing steadily

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 193

from the beginning of the period to the end, but our
exports follow a totally different course. They went on
increasing pretty steadily and regularly, and then rather
suddenly, and especially suddenly from 1870 to 1872.
The years 1872 and 1873 marked the culminating points
of our commercial prosperity. Then there commenced —
what I think cannot be found in all the records of our
export trade — a rapid and remarkable decline, which
continued right on, without any break, down to the year
1879. From that time it began to rise again, and has
risen with fluctuations up to the present time ; but even
now (1885) it does not attain the culminating point it
reached in 1872, thirteen years before. But owing to
our increase of population and progressive increase of
total wealth, we ought to have had a continuous increase
of our exports much larger than that which has actually
occurred.

Another indication of the course of the depression is
afforded by the number of bankruptcies which took place
during that same period. I will state briefly what are
the facts. In the year 1870 — that is, during the period
of our prosperity — the annual bankruptcies were about
5,000, including bankruptcies and compositions with
creditors. Shortly after the depression had commenced
in 1875 they had reached 7,900. In the year 1879, when
the depression had reached its height, they had amounted
to no less than over 13,000. From that time they dim-
inished in number to 9,000 in 1882 and 8,500 in 1883 ;
and in 1884 — almost all whose affairs were in a bad way
having become bankrupt — they decreased to about 4,000.
These numbers illustrate and enforce the diagram of
exports, showing that the bankruptcies began to increase
just after the culmination of our commercial prosperity,
so that there is no doubt whatever that the real depression
commenced about the year 1873 or 1874. This is impor-
tant, because many writers insist upon leaving out of the
question altogether this long continuance of the depression,
and they treat it as a comparatively recent thing, which
has entirely come on in the last two or three years ; and,
in fact, one of the two prize essays which have been

VOL. II. 0

194 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

recently published by Messrs. Pears never said a word
about the depression having lasted ten or twelve years,
but treated it as if it had commenced within the last
three or four years.

True Causes of the Depression.

Now that we have got at what are, I think, the main
facts, let us consider how we ought to set about to find
what are the true causes. First, then, a cause to be worth
anything must be a demonstrable cause of poverty in
some large body of the people. Another essential point
is, that it must have begun to act, or at all events must
have acted with increased intensity, about the period
when the depression commenced. Another point is, that
it must have affected not ourselves alone, but several of
the great manufacturing countries of the world. Now
unless any alleged cause will answer to at least two out
of these three tests, I do not consider that we ought to
admit it to be a true cause ; and you will find, I think,
that none of those eight suggested causes which I sum-
marised at the beginning of my lecture will at all answer
to these conditions. After much consideration as to
what are the real causes which answer to these conditions,
and which are of sufficient importance and extent to
account for the whole phenomenon, I have arrived at the
conclusion that they are four in number. The first is, the
excessive amount of foreign loans that were made during
the period of prosperity ; then there is the enormous
increase of war expenditure by all the countries of Europe
that also occurred about the same period ; another cause
is, the vast increase of late years (of which I shall give
you proof) of speculation as a means of living, and the
consequent increase of millionaires in this country ; and
the last, and one of the most important of all the causes,
may be summarised in one of the results of our vicious
land-system — the depopulation of the rural districts and
the over-population of the towns,

THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 195

Foreign Loans.

Now let us take these four causes in succession, and
endeavour to see what was their extent, and how they
acted. First, then, as to the foreign loans, to the effects
of which very little attention has been paid. From the
year 1862 to 1872 there was a positive mania in this
country for foreign loans. The amount of these I endea-
vour to illustrate in this table by showing simply the new
debts — the increase of former great national debts —
created by Foreign powers between 1863 and 1875 : —

New Debts created 1863-1875.

France £500,000,000

Italy 200,000,000

Russia 400,000,000

Turkey 200,000,000

Egypt 80,000,000

Tunis 7,000,000

Central and South America 73,000,000

£1,460,000,000!

You will see that the total sum amounts to nearly
£1,500,000,000 sterling. Now a very large portion of
these loans was supplied by this country, and it is very-
important to consider what effect they had. First of all,
you must remember what these loans were for, and what
they were chiefly spent on. The greater part of them
were spent in war or preparation for war, or to supply
means for the reckless extravagance of foreign despots.
Now, as I have pointed out, we at that time were the pre-
eminent manufacturers in the world, and held the first
place much more completely than we do now ; so, as we
supplied a large part of this money and had extensive
commerce with all these countries, the natural result — at

1 England probably lent half of this amount ; and in five years only,
1870-75, we lent about £260,000,000 to foreign States, besides an enor-
mous sum for railways and other foreign investments or speculations,

o 2

196 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

all events, the actual result — was, that a large part of
this money was spent with us. Whether it was war
material or new railways that were wanted, or jewellery or
furniture or other luxuries required by the kings and
despots who got the loans, a large part of it was spent
with us. The consequence was that for a time everything
seemed flourishing. Our trade went on increasing, as Mr.
Gladstone said, " by leaps and bounds," and culminated
in that wonderful period of apparent prosperity in the two
years 1872 and 1873. About that time the money was
nearly all spent. What happened then ? Not only was
there a sudden diminution in the demand — that was natural
— but what was worse, there was a great diminution in the
normal demand which had previously existed in those
countries whose kings or despots had obtained these loans,
for this reason, that up to that time the interest on the
loans was paid out of capital, but when the money was
all gone the interest had to be paid out of taxation ; and
from that moment, by the increasing taxation and
oppression of these people whose governments had
obtained these enormous loans, they were all impoverished
to that extent, and therefore became worse customers to
us and to every other country.

Now this is a real, an important, an inevitable cause.
Perhaps some readers will understand it better, however,
if I illustrate it by supposing a simpler case. Let us
suppose, for instance, that there is a country town in
which the people are fairly well off', and where trade is
tolerably flourishing. There comes into this country town
a body of money-lenders, and they offer everybody loans,
on easy terms. Not only do traders and farmers and
others get these loans, but all kinds of spendthrifts and
idlers. Of course they spend the money the}' borrow, and
during the few years they are spending there is an
enormous amount of trade done in the place. Shopkeepers
think there is a kind of millennium coming, and increase
their stocks and expect to make fortunes. But after two
or three years the lenders see that no more money can be
safely lent, so they stop the supplies and immediately come
down upon those who had the money for their interest.

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 197

We supposed that a very large portion of the community
had borrowed money, and the consequence is they all
suddenly become poorer by the amount of the interest they
have to pay. Consequently not only do the shopkeepers
lose their temporary increase of trade, but they do less
trade than they did before that increase began. The last
state of these men is in fact much worse than the first.

Increased War Expenditure.

We will now consider the next real cause of the
depression, and that is the enormous increase of military
and naval expenditure, which also began about the same
time and has been continued almost up to the present
day. It is a curious thing that up to the year 1874 our
whole military expenditure had been for many years
stationary. It was stationary at about £24,000,000 —
some years it was a little more, some years a little less.
Then there commenced a sudden increase, corresponding
with that of all the other nations of Europe, though not to
so great an extent ; and from that time — from 1874 to the
present year (1885) it has increased rapidly till it is now
£29,000,000 or £30,000,000. But that is nothing to the
increase which has gone on with the other nations of Europe.
They also had previously a tolerably fixed amount of war
expenditure. But then two great events happened — one
the Franco-German war, and the other the wonderful and
continuous progress in the applications of science to war-
like inventions. Not only did iron-clad ships rapidly
increase in size, weight, and cost, but very soon steel
began to be used, and cannons were made larger
and larger in size. Every kind of projectile was improved
till they have become works of art of the most costly
description. The torpedo was invented, and in fact an
amount of skill and science was devoted to this one
destructive art perhaps greater than has been devoted to
any other art in the world. The result was that owing to
the dread of the increasing power of Germany, and the
necessity of rivalling her in the application of science to
destruction, the great military nations of Europe immedi-

198 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

ately commenced an enormous increase in war expenditure,
and a few figures will show how great this increase was.
I am speaking of the ten years 1874 to 1883. Austria
increased her expenditure from £7,000,000 to £13,500,000;
France, from £18,000,000 to £35,500,000, very nearly
double ; Germany herself, not so much, because she was
in a very fine position before, from £17,000,000 to
£20,000,000 ; Italy increased still more, from £9,000,000 a
year to £19,000,000 a year; Russia, from £20,000,000 to
£30,000,000 a year. The total of these shows that
whereas up to 1874 these six great nations spent
£96,000,000 a year on their warlike material and expen-
diture, in 1883 they spent £150,000,000. Here was an
increase of £54,000,000 sterling, all newly added to the
taxation of these countries, and, remember, the most
utterly unproductive taxation that it is possible to
conceive.

Evil Results of War Expenditure.

Now it is not generally considered how varied and
extensive are the evil results of such expenditure.
The losses involved by it may be summarised under
three heads. We have, first, the large number of men
employed unproductively ; secondly, the increase of
taxation ; and, thirdly, the vast destruction and waste in
war.

First, as to the unproductive men. I find that
the European armies have increased since 1870 by
630,000 men — more than half a million. The present
total is more that three and a-half millions of men,
and this is what they call a peace establishment.
Then it is not generally considered that this number
of men by no means represents the number of men
who are taken away altogether from productive work,
for in addition to those who do nothing but drill and
prepare for the purposes of destruction, you must have
another army of men who are employed in supplying
these with the materials for destruction ; and I believe,
if we could follow out all the war material to its source,
and thus arrive at the total number of the men employed

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 199

in preparing it and taken away from real production
which adds to the wealth of the community, it would be
found to constitute another army much larger than this
vast army of 3,500,000 men. For you must remember
that in one of our huge ironclads you do not merely have
the men engaged in its construction, but you must go
back to every ton of iron and coal used, to the men engaged
in extracting the ore from the earth and in making the
raw iron into its various forms, to the men engaged in
making the elaborate machinery connected with it — the
engines of war, and the wonderfully elaborate fittings so
complicated that one of these great vessels is almost like
a city — and if you follow all these back to their primary
beginnings in all parts of the world, you will find that
there must have been a large army of men employed in
the construction of a single iron-clad. Add to that the
wonderful machinery used in constructing our guns and
torpedoes, the munition, clothes, food, everything that
is used by these men ; and if we further consider that
armies waste perhaps more than they consume — taking
all this into consideration, you will find that it cannot be
less, but probably is much more, than another army of
3,500,000 men engaged in the service of the actual
army. So that we have a total of 7,000,000 men at
the present time entirely occupied in preparing for the
work of destruction. If, as is admitted, the great armies
of Europe have increased by 630,000 men, I think it
more than probable that the increase of these armies
which wait upon them have been proportionally much
greater, because the appliances they require— the weapons,
the ammunition, and the scientific paraphernalia of an
army in the field — are so immensely more elaborate than
they were forty or fifty years ago, so that it will be
necessary to add near a million of men employed in this
work, and we shall have an increase of about a million and
a half of men whose labour is utterly wasted, besides those
actually engaged in the destructive, wicked, and useless
purposes of war.

We have a very striking indication, and to some extent
a measure, of this enormous waste of human labour, in the

200 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

increase of the total fiscal expenditure of these six great
powers. Taking the different estimates of their annual
expenditure for government purposes from 1870 to 1884, I
find that these six great powers have increased their annual
expenditure by £266,000,000 sterling. That is the
increase of the six great powers of Europe, and that
increase is almost wholly due to this terrible war expen-
diture which I have been trying to put before you. That
£266,000,000 means, of course, £266,000,000 of additional
taxation beyond what there was before. Surely this is a
cause of the most terrible impoverishment, and sufficiently
accounts for people not being so well able to buy as they
were before. Then, again, we must remember that when-
ever this great engine is put to its destined use, there
comes another loss in the actual destruction of property
and life. In every country where war is carried on, as a
necessary result towns and houses are battered down,
vineyards and fields are rendered desolate, fruit trees are
destroyed, and consequently we have an overwhelming
amount of destruction of property whenever this war
machine is put into motion ; and here again is a cause of
poverty, and therefore one of the most direct and immediate
causes of the depression of trade.

Now this machine has been put into action almost
continuously, either in greater wars or lesser wars, and as
we supply goods to almost every nation in the world, it
does not matter where the war is, one thing is certain,
that a considerable number of our customers are killed
and a much larger number are impoverished. Just
consider; in 1872 we had the great Franco-German war;
in 1875, the Ashantee war; in 1878, the terrible Russo-
Turkish war ; in 1879 and 1880, the Transvaal and Zulu
wars; in 1881, the Afghan war; in 1883, the Egyptian
war ; in 1884-85, the Soudan war ; and since then the
French Tonquin war and then the Mahdi war. Now we
have the Burmese war, and the Soudan war is still going
on. Every one of these wars kills or impoverishes our
customers ; and consequently, not only by the cost of the
huge armaments, but by the vast destruction of life and
property they bring about, the war expenditure of Europe

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 201

is the cause, to an unknown but enormous and incalculable
extent, of the existing depression of our trade.

Now these two great causes — loans to foreign nations,
at first inflating and then necessarily depressing our trade
by the impoverishment of the people ; and the increase of
war-costs, which, as I have shown you, have been always
enormous, and have been of late years ever increasing —
these two may be considered to be the great external
factors which have caused the depression of trade, by im-
poverishing our customers all over the known world. The
effects of these two causes are clear as daylight ; the result
is an inevitable result ; and the amount of the evil is so
gigantic, that I think I am justified in placing them in the
front as the most important and inevitable causes of the
depression of trade. Yet, so far as I am aware, during
the many months that the Royal Commission has sat not
one word has been said about either of these causes ; and
I believe, when the final report of the Commission is
issued, that you will probably not find one word about
them.

The Increase of Millionaires as a Cause of Depression of

Trade.

I now come to another branch of the subject, that
which deals with our home trade — with the causes of the
depression in our home trade in addition to that pro-
duced in our foreign commerce. I have given the increase
of speculation and of huge fortunes made by speculation
as one of the chief causes, and I will first adduce a few
facts to prove that it is really the case that millionaires
have been recently increasing.

The sums paid for probate duty have been published,
and they show the amount of property on which probate
duty is paid, but this only covers what is called the
personal estate, it does not cover the landed estate ; conse-
quently, whatever the valuation is, it represents only a
portion, and sometimes only a small portion, of the whole
estate. To make it simple I have divided the results into
two periods — the ten years previous to the commencement
of the depression in 1874, and the ten years subsequent

202 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

to it. Between 1862 and 1873 I find that 162 persons
died with fortunes of over a quarter of a million. In the
next ten years they had increased to 208 persons who had
died with fortunes of over a quarter of a million. This is
an increase of over 29 per cent. The detailed figures
show still more remarkable results, because they show that
the increase was still more rapid in very great fortunes, in
fortunes over a million. In addition to that a very con-
siderable number of great landowners have died who paid
no probate duty, but whose capitalised fortunes have been
from one to five millions sterling each. We have not the
exact figures, but still we know that their fortunes have
been of late increasing, owing to the increase of our large
towns and the enormous increase of ground rents which
have arisen in them. The main result is, that a few, that
is comparatively few, have become much richer than they
ever were" before ; and it appears to me that it is a demon-
strable fact that, when those who are very rich suddenly
become more numerous and still richer, without any
increased power of wealth-creation independent of labour,
then, as a necessary result, those who are poor become
poorer.

This principle was laid down very clearly by Adam
Smith, strange to say, in the very first sentence of his
Wealth of Nations, but I do not know that much
attention has been paid to it. The sentence is this. He
says :

" The actual labour of every nation is the fund which originally
supplies it with all the necessaries and conveniences of life which it
actually consumes, and which consists always either in the immediate
produce of that labour or in what is purchased with that produce
from other nations. "

This lays down a proposition perfectly clear, that there is
no other source whatever of wealth in the country than
the produce of the labour of its people. Hence it follows
absolutely and indisputably, that if a larger proportion of
that wealth goes to the few, a smaller proportion must
remain with the many. As some people may not clearly
see the bearing of this statement of Adam Smith, let me
just illustrate it by a few particular cases. It is quite

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 203

evident that all the wealth of the country is produced by
labour, or by the use of labour and capital combined, and
everybody who gets wealth must get a portion of this
total amount. There is no other source from which he
can get it. Whether he obtains it in the form of rent or
from the taxes it comes exactly to the same thing, it can
only come out of the produce of labour. In the same
manner, whether he gets it in payment of wages or
remuneration for professional services, those who pay it
can only have got it, directly or indirectly, by labour.
Consequently the fact is indisputable, that the produce of
our labour measures the whole available wealth produced
by us in the country, and that wealth has to be distributed
by various methods among the whole community. Conse-
quently, if it is clearly proved, as I think it is — to prove
it in detail would require a much more complete examina-
tion of the statistics of the country, but I am sure it can
be proved — that the large body of the very rich have
been steadily growing richer, then it follows as a logical
result that the remaining body, or at least a portion of
the remaining body, must have been growing poorer in
proportion.

A Proof of Increasing Poverty.

Of course this has been denied over and over again, but
I have endeavoured to get some confirmation of it by
examining the information given in the census returns.

The full census report, as you are probably aware, gives
a great amount of detail as to the occupations of the
people at different times, and I have looked up the facts
as to the increase of the persons employed in particular
trades and manufactures for the purpose of seeing what
light it would throw upon this question, and I found that
it supported in a remarkable manner the statement which
I have laid down for your consideration, that is, that the
great masses of the people have been growing poorer
while the few have been growing richer. And it illustrates
it in this manner : — whenever we have a manufacture
which depends mainly on the consumption of the masses,
we find that there has been either a decrease of those

204 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

employed in it, or at all events that it has been stationary;
on the other hand, where we have a special business or
profession or trade which is supported wholly or mainly
by the wealthy, we find an increase, and sometimes an
enormous increase. When I use the word increase or
decrease, I always mean an increase or decrease in propor-
tion to the total population. Thus I find, taking the
increase of population into account, between the two
censuses of 1871 and 1881 (the last we had) the persons
engaged in the cotton manufactures of this country
diminished 20 per cent, in that period ; persons employed
in the linen and woollen trade diminished 15 per cent;
metal workers remained stationary; and drapers diminished
7 per cent. Now these are all businesses and manufactures
which certainly depend upon the consumption of the
masses. Now we come to those which more especially
depend upon the consumption of the wealthy. Milliners
increased 4 per cent., more than the whole population
increased ; carpet makers increased 9 per cent ; florists
and gardeners increased 10 per cent. ; musicians and
musical instrument makers increased 23 per cent. These
remarkable facts support my contention — and may almost
be said to prove it — that the rich have grown richer and
have been able to indulge in greater luxuries, while the
poor have grown poorer and have been obliged to do with
less of the bare necessaries of life.

The Increase of Speculation.

The census also gives some remarkable illustrations of
the increase of speculation as a business, — and this is
pre-eminently a non-productive business, and one that is
impoverishing to all but the few winners.

In the same ten years I find that persons registered as
bankers or bankers' clerks increased 21 per cent., and
accountants 6 per cent. ; and then there comes a most
extraordinary item, which the census authorities note and
say they are utterly unable to explain, and that is that
persons who call themselves insurance agents or brokers
have increased 300 per cent. I can only explain it by

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 205

supposing that there are an immense number of people
who live in the city by speculation who find it convenient
to call themselves insurance agents or brokers. I think,
as far as I can judge from advertisements in the news-
papers, that this mania for speculation has been going on
at an increasing rate ; that is, that within the last few
years it has increased more rapidly, and its effects there-
fore have been more injurious, than ever.

I now wish to point out to you another indication —
another field as it were — in which this speculative mania
has produced the most deplorable results, and has acted,
in combination with other causes, so as to increase the
poverty of one class and the wealth of another class, and
has thus, as I shall show you, tended directly to produce
depression of trade. Somewhat more than twenty years
ago an Act was passed which was considered by the whole
commercial world as one of the greatest boons ever given
to it ; this was the Limited Liability Act. This Act was
universally approved of ; was supported and praised by
such a great and thoughtful writer and friend of the
working classes as John Stuart Mill. But I do not think
he could possibly have foreseen what would come out of
it. About two years ago a short parliamentary paper
was published giving a kind of summary of the results of
this Act. It is a curious thing that this parliamentary
report seems to be totally unknown, for I inquired of
several friends in the city, particularly of one who is an
accountant in the city, and whose business largely
consists of winding up those companies, and he did not
know of its existence. The report gives us some very
startling facts. It covers a period of exactly twenty-one
years, and is thus easily divisible into three periods of
seven years each. In the first period I find that 4,782
companies were formed, being at the rate of about 700
per annum. In the next period the number increased to
6,900, and in the last seven years to 8,643. Out of this
total of about 20,000 distinct companies formed in
twenty-one years only 8,000 are now in existence, 12,000
having been wound up ! It is also stated in this parlia-
mentary report that the actual paid-up capital — not

206 STUDIES, SCMNTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP,

the nominal capital — of these 8,000 companies was
£475,000,000 ; that is about £55,000 each on an average
paid up, some of course very much more, and some very
much less. Now, not to take an extreme estimate,
suppose we reduce this average of £55,000 down to only
£10,000, and consider that each of the wound-up com-
panies involves a loss to its shareholders of £10,000, I
think everybody who knows anything about them will
think that absurdly low, and yet that would involve a
loss of £120,000,000 sterling to the unfortunate share-
holders.

Effect of Speculation in Depressing Trade.

Now let us think what is the effect of this continuous
loss— and in many cases absolute ruin, of a large number
of persons amounting to many hundreds of thousands — by
the failure of these companies ? I daresay there is not a
person who reads this chapter but knows one, and most
of you several, individuals who have been ruined by such
things. A great number don't like to speak about the
matter, and keep it secret, and therefore nothing is heard
of it ; but we have the absolute fact that thousands of
individuals, mostly persons with small means, deluded by
flattering prospectuses, were induced to invest their means
in these companies — persons of the middle class, very
often officers and widows and country clergymen,
scattered over the country. These have lost, at the very
least, £120,000,000, and much more likely three or four
hundred millions sterling. Now just think what is the
effect of the ever-increasing impoverishment of this large
body of the middle classes, and we will take it in
connection with the increasing mass of speculators who
have become millionaires from the losses of these men.
The one are counted by hundreds, and the other by tens
of thousands. Some people will perhaps say, " What
difference can it make to trade, if the money is there, and
the money is spent ? " But I want to show you that this
is a most delusive idea, and that it really makes all the
difference to trade. When you have a thousand families
of the middle classes impoverished, it means that you

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 207

reduce their outlay on all the staple manufactures of the
country. In clothing, furniture, and everything in fact
that makes life agreeable, they are obliged to economise,
simply because it is more easy to economise in these than
in absolute food. Therefore all over the country there is
a diminution in the demand for the staple products of the
country; but when this money is accumulated, and
goes into the hands of a few speculators, it is spent on
different things — on ornaments, entertainments, yachts,
horse-racing, foreign travel, and hundreds of other ways,
— it is spent on that which all economists tell us, and per-
fectly truly, is the most unproductive kind of expenditure.
Consequently the loss to the manufactures and trade of
the country by every million of money transferred from
the industrious working or middle classes to rich specu-
lators is enormous, and is thus a real cause of depression
of trade. I think I am therefore quite justified in main-
taining, that, although it is certain that the aggregate
wealth of the country has been steadily increasing all
these years, still that wealth has been becoming more
unequally distributed, and that inequality is the direct
cause of a large proportion of depression of trade.

Depression of Trade in America.

Now I did not mention it at first, but I may mention
now, that the reason is very clear why the depression
which affected us should affect all other great commercial
countries of Europe and America. It is because all the
causes which I enumerated as producing depression of
trade as regards our foreign commerce would affect all
those other countries just as well — that is, they have
produced a real impoverishment of the peoples who were
customers both of ourselves and other manufacturing
countries. Therefore the causes acted in the same way
on France, Germany, and America as they did with us,
to the extent that their manufactures went abroad to
other countries.

But there have been some special causes affecting
America which account for the remarkable fact that,

208 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

notwithstanding the advantages they possess in their
enormous territory, and the great energy and enterprise
of the Americans, they have still suffered from this
depression perhaps as much as we have done. The
reason is to be found in the fact that with them this last
evil of speculation is greater and far more gigantic than
even with us. Everybody has heard of the " corners " in
America, by which a lot of speculators get hold of the
whole trade of the country in a certain article, creating a
monopoly which they manipulate for their own purposes.
This has been applied to almost every industry. But
the most destructive cause of depression in America is
the successive railway manias which they have had. The
first was from 1867 to 1875. There was a continuous
railway mania during those years, — a mania for making
railways in America. In that period 40,000 miles of new
line were made, and in the one year 1872 no less than
7,000 miles of new railway were made. That coincides
with the culminating point of our prosperity, and a large
part of the iron for these lines was sent from England.
The greater part of these railways was made merely for
speculative purposes, and was very largely unproductive.
The shareholders were often ruined, and consequently the
exact effect was produced in America that was produced
in our country by the limited liability mania. This
railway mania, after a lull, broke out again in America a
few years ago, in 1880, and in 1882 no less than 11,500
miles of new railway were made. It has been estimated
by one of the most able statisticians in America, that
this increase of the railway system went on four times as
fast as the increase of the produce to be carried on the
railways. That clearly shows that most of these railways
have been failures — so much money thrown away, and
those who lost it must have been impoverished. Here
then you have a very widespread and enormous cause of
impoverishment, and therefore of depression of trade in
America. In fact, we hardly need to go further.

Then, again, as to millionaires in America, I do not
know that they are greater in number, but they exceed
us in the gigantic sums they possess. While our million-

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 209

aires seldom have more than two or three millions, the
American millionaires often possess ten and twenty millions.
And of course the result is still more clear. All this
money must have been obtained out of the purses of the
community, and to that extent the labourers who produced
it are so much worse off than if the money had gone into
their own pockets instead of into the pockets of the
millionaires.

There is yet another source of poverty in America which
we have not to so great an extent in this country, and
that is the "rings" that sometimes get possession of
municipalities in the States. We have all heard of that
wonderful " ring " in New York which got possession of the
municipality, and plundered the whole community. They
kept it up for years by wholesale bribery. That is a thing
we do not hear much of in this country, but we may be
sure that what was done so boldly in New York was imi-
tated in other towns, and the result may perhaps be seen
in the municipal debt piled up in America far beyond
what it is in this country. The municipal debts of this
country are held to be a great and growing evil, and help
to occasion depression of trade. But in America it is
worse. An estimate was given in an American paper
some time ago ; it may not be correct, but it gives per-
haps a fair approximation. It compared American with
English municipal debts. It compared the fourteen chief
cities in America with fourteen large English towns, leaving
out London, and it was found that the average taxation
per head in America was fourteen dollars, whereas in
England it was only seven dollars ; and that while the
municipal debt in America was forty-one dollars per
head, in England it was only twenty dollars. In addition
to that, it was stated that the area over which this muni-
cipal indebtedness extended was greater in America than
in England ; that small towns in America — the very
smallest towns in the country — are often burdened with
debt, to a much greater amount in proportion than the
large towns. It has often puzzled people why America
should have suffered from this depression, but I think the
few facts I have here given afford a sufficient clue to it.

VOL. II. P

210 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Depopulation of the Rural Districts.

I now come to what I consider to be by far the most
important part of our subject, because it is that with
which we are in the closest relation, and which is, I
believe, the most direct cause of widespread poverty-
rural depopulation. This rural depopulation has been
going on for probably a very long time, but it was not
seriously noticed till ten or twenty years ago. Before
that date many of the counties seemed to be stationary in
population, but in 1861 it was noticed that a few counties
had not increased, but rather diminished, during the pre-
ceding ten years, in 1871 seven or eight had decreased in
population, and in 1881 fifteen counties had decreased.
But besides this decrease in certain counties, the census
returns give very accurate and detailed information as
to where this depopulation occurs, and to some extent
how it occurs.

The whole of England is divided into registration dis-
tricts and registration sub-districts. These registration
sub-districts are about two thousand in number, and con-
sist of an aggregation of parishes, roughly speaking not
very unequal in size, and probably not very unequal in
population. In towns they are, of course, much smaller
in area. The increase or decrease of each of these regis-
tration sub-districts is given in the census, and I took the
trouble to go through the tables and take out all the cases
of decrease, and I found that there has been a decrease
over a very large number of these sub-districts. The
general result is, that over about half the area of England
and Wales there was actually less population in 1881
than in 1871. But you must remember that the popula-
tion of the country has been going on steadily increasing
all that time. In the ten years the population of the
whole country has increased fifteen per cent., and that is
exclusive of those who have emigrated, so that the actual
rate of increase of the population is somewhat more than
that. Then, again, it is perfectly well known that the
rate of increase — what we may call the natural increase

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 211

—of dwellers in the country is somewhat higher than
that of dwellers in the towns ; the birth-rate is higher,
and the death-rate lower.1 Therefore it is a very low esti-
mate to consider that what may be called the normal
increase of people dwelling in the country is seventeen per
cent. Therefore the area that is actually decreasing will
not represent the whole of the area from which people
have migrated into the towns ; they have also migrated
from all those areas in which the population has not in-
creased so much as it would normally have increased.
That is, if in any area there is less than seventeen per
cent, of increase of population since 1871, it is perfectly
certain some of the people must have gone out of that
area ; and if we add to those which have actually decreased
the areas in which the population must have migrated in
order to make the increase so little as it is, then we shall
find that in only about one-fourth of the whole country
has the population increased to its normal amount. This
increasing area consists almost wholly of the great towns
and the residential districts around them, while all the
rest of the country has been becoming more or less de-
populated. The amount of the decrease of rural popula-
tion is a distinct question. I find that the actual
depopulation that is the diminution of inhabitants for the
ten years in these decreasing sub-districts, amounts to
three hundred and eight thousand. Then I take the
amount the population of these areas ought to have in-
creased in ten years at seventeen per cent., and that
added to the actual decrease gives an effective diminution
of nearly a million from this decreasing area. Then
adding to this the emigration from the area of small
increase, I find that in the ten years the people who have
migrated out of the country districts into the town dis-
tricts, with their natural increase in the same period,
amounts to about one million and a quarter.

1 See Dr Stark, in Tenth Report on Births and Deaths in Scotland,
quoted by Darwin in his Descent of Man, p. 138.

p 2

212 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

The Effects of the Depopulation.

Now let us consider what are the results of this migra-
tion from the country into the towns. The greater part
of those people who have migrated are not necessarily
agricultural labourers. About one-third are agricultural
labourers, and the remainder are what you may call
villagers — people who carried on trades and occupations
of various kinds in villages and small towns. The causes
that led to the labourers migrating affected them also,
and they migrated to a still larger extent, and the result
is to be seen in a most striking fact which has been
brought forward among others to prove the prosperity of
the country, and that is the enormous increase in the
import of certain articles of food. Most of you know — at
all events it is a well known fact — that country labourers
and many other rural inhabitants are fond, when they
have the chance, of keeping pigs and poultry, growing
potatoes and other vegetables. Now it is a most singular
thing that if we compare the years 1870 and 1883 there
is an enormous difference in the imports of these articles
of food. It is so great that it seems almost impossible ;
but the figures are taken from official papers. In 1870
we imported less than a million — 860,000 — cwts. of bacon
and pork, whereas in 1883 it had risen to 5,000,000 cwts.
Of potatoes there were imported 127,000 cwts. in 1870,
and 4,000,000 cwts. in 1883; of eggs in 1870, 430,000,000,
and in 1883, 800,000,000. Now 1870 was in the midst
of our period of prosperity ; we were supposed to be all
well off; wages were high, and men were all in full
work. But 1883 is in our period of depression and dis-
tress, and it is actually maintained by Mr. Giffen and
other statisticians who put forward these figures to show
the prosperity of the country, that we consume enor-
mously more when our trade is depressed than we did
during the period when it was most prosperous ! It
appears to me, on the contrary, that these facts are due
to a decreased production of food, caused in part by the
continuous emigration of people out of the country into

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 213

the towns ; and that means a diminished production of
wealth for the country, and a great increase of pauperism
and misery in the towns where these people go.

Evidence of the Increase of Destitution.

It is very difficult to get direct evidence of this, but
there is one piece of indirect evidence — though it may be
almost called direct — which I adduced some years ago,
but can never find answered or explained in any way
consistent with that increase of prosperity of the masses
which is so persistently alleged. In the reports of the
Registrar-General for London — and he takes in an
enormous area called Greater London — he gives the deaths
in workhouses and hospitals each year. In order to arrive
pretty fairly at what may be called the destitute who die
in these institutions, I have taken the deaths in the
workhouses and one-half of the deaths in the hospitals.
In 1872 they amounted to 8,674, or 12'2 per cent, of the
total deaths ; in 1881 to 13132, or 16'2 per cent, of the
deaths. Now I want to know, if the masses of the people
of London and its suburbs were better off, or even as well
off, in 1881 as in 1872,1 why did 30 per cent., more of
them die in destitution ? If we take the proportion of
deaths to those living, we find this increase of 4,458
deaths of the destitute in these ten years means the
addition of 107,000 to the destitute poor of London !
Now all this, which shows a real and dreadful increase of
poverty, necessarily means depression of trade. If there
are 100,000 more destitute persons in London now than
there were ten years ago, there are so many less customers
for the staple products of the country. Then, again, if
we turn to another country — the sister country Ireland—
we find that still more remarkable and still more dis-
tressing events have occurred. There the population has
decreased half a million since 1870, and during the same
period the emigrants have amounted to 883,000, so that

1 The year 1872 is taken because 1871 was the year of the great
epidemic of smallpox, when the number who died in workhouses and
hospitals was abnormally large.

214 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

though the population has gone on slightly increasing, the
increase has been far more than counterbalanced by the
enormous number of emigrants ; and you must remember
that the emigrants are mostly men in the prime of life.
Those who are left behind are the women and children
and the old and the weak. We cannot wonder, therefore,
at the increase of poverty and pauperism in Ireland.
That increase is measured very well by the cost of poor
relief. In 1870 the relief cost £814,000 ; in 1880 it cost
£1,263,000 — an increase of 50 per cent, on the cost of the
poor, with a decreasing population ! There, again, is a
most tremendous cause of the depression of trade. You
have got a much smaller population in Ireland, and a
population very much poorer than it was, and that
necessarily results in a depression of trade, because we
supply Ireland with most of the manufactures she con-
sumes.

Causes of Rural Depopulation.

It is, however, not sufficient to know the facts of this
rural depopulation, but we must say a few words on its
causes. These causes have been pretty clearly made out
by little bits of evidence that have been found here and
there in the reports issued by the last Agricultural Com-
mission. We find it clearly stated by these official reporters
that a considerable body of the farmers of England have
been ruined by excessive rents. For many years past
they have been paying rent out of capital, hoping for
better times. Notwithstanding bad harvests and bad
seasons, they have kept struggling on as long as they
could by means of partial remissions from their landlords,
but a large number have been utterly broken down, and
have been obliged to give up their farms. The farms have
not found fresh tenants, because the landlords will not let
them, except on exorbitant terms and with the usual
onerous conditions, and consequently a large number of
landlords all over the country have been turning their
lands from arable into pasture. The reason they do this
is, that they can then obtain a return with a minimum of
outlay and risk. When they have turned arable land into

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 215

pasture, the annual produce is not above one-tenth of the
value that it was before, but it is obtained with consider-
ably less than one-tenth of the outlay. The consequejice
is that it means profit to the landlord ; but it also means
ruin to the country.1 It is one of the causes, perhaps
the chief cause, of the great exodus of population that I
have been pointing out to you. It is estimated that for
every hundred acres of land thus converted from arable
into pasture two labourers must be discharged ; and as at
least a million acres of land have been so converted
between 1873 to 1884, that means that 20,000 labourers
and their families were discharged for this one cause alone.
Along with them, of course, went numbers of tradesmen
who depended on them for their support ; and mechanics
and others who were employed by the farmers and in the
villages have also left, partly for the same reason, and
partly because it has become more and more the custom
for large farmers to get all their work done and machinery
repaired in manufacturing centres rather than in the
villages by the local workmen.

Now the amount of food lost to the country by this
change from arable to pasture is enormous. I have taken
the estimates made by two or three of the most
authoritative writers. They give the average produce of
arable land at £10 55. per acre, and they also give the
average produce of pasture land at £1 9s. per acre ;
consequently there was a' loss of £8 16s. on every acre
converted. That means nearly £9,000,000 of loss to the
country by this 1,000,000 acres that we know from official
returns have been changed from arable to pasture, and
the change is believed to be going on to this day far more
rapidly than ever.

But there is another cause of rural depopulation. Just
now the landlords are trying to persuade the country that
they are very glad to let poor men have land, but hitherto
it is notorious that they have always refused to let them

1 It is stated by Hume in his History of England, "that in the
year 1634 Sir Anthony Roper was fined £4,000 for depopulation, or
turning arable land into pasture land, under the provisions of a
law enacted in the reign of Henry VII." Cannot this most just law,
which has probably never been repealed, be put into operation now ?

216 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

have it on any reasonable terms. This is very well
known to be the rule, and to have been a chief cause of
this terrible exodus of labourers from the country to the
towns. In addition to this they will give no security to
the farmers for their improvements. They treat the
farmers in every respect exactly as they treat the
labourers. If they do offer the labourers land — as
they are doing now that there is a deal of excitement on
the subject — they never give it except on what are
prohibitory terms — that is, as yearly tenants, and with-
out any security whatever for their labour and im-
provements.

Now the report of the Agricultural Commission, to
which I have already referred, contains some remarkable
evidence as to the results obtained in those few cases
where landlords really do their duty, and treat the land as
a trust rather than as property only. There are two or
three landlords in the country who have done so, and in
every case where such landlords' estates are referred to in
these reports, it is invariably stated that there is no
depression in agriculture, that the farmers are well off, the
labourers are well off, and all are contented. That is re-
markably the case in parts of Cheshire and Suffolk on Lord
Tollemache's estates. Lord Tollemache is almost the only
landlord in the country who not only gives his farmers
voluntarily perfect security of tenure, but also gives
every labourer as much land as he can cultivate, at a
moderate rent, and on an equally secure tenure ; and, what
is more remarkable, he encourages outsiders of decent
character — anybody, in fact, who likes — to come and settle
on his estate. He offers land to build a house, and a few
acres in addition on which to keep a cow, at a low rent.
The result is that on his estate everybody is well off; the
farmers are contented, the labourers are contented and
prosperous. The farmers say they have the best of
labourers to work for them, utterly disproving the
common assertion that if you let a labourer have land he
will not work for the farmer. At the same time the
labourers and the farmers find customers in those persons
who have come to live on the land, and small communities

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 217

are thus formed which are to some extent self-sufficing.
When we get a community of that kind, consisting of
various classes, all living together, but scattered about on
the land, they all tend to support each other. Each one
finds employment or assistance from the other. There is
a market at hand, and we do not see that absurd system
of sending all the butter and poultry to a place a hundred
miles away, while a person who lives a mile from the
farmer is obliged to get his poultry and butter from the
town. That is what they call economy of production, but
it is certainly waste in distribution.

Results of Peasant Cultivation.

The amount of loss involved by this driving the
labourers from the country to the towns is also brought
out very strongly by the evidence of a Tory landlord, who
has repeated it several times, and I will take it therefore as
correct. In Buckinghamshire Lord Carrington has land
which he lets out in lots to labourers. He has about
eight hundred of these allotments already in the hands of
labourers and others, and he has stated publicly that of these
allotments the average produce is £33 an acre more than
the produce of the same land in farms. Therefore, as far as
these allotments are concerned, there is a positive gain to
the country on every acre of land to the extent of £33 a
year. Some years ago, in 1868, when produce was not
nearly so valuable as it is now, there was a Government
Commission on the employment of women and children
in agriculture, and it obtained evidence that the average
produce of such allotments all over the country was £14
an acre more than that of farms. Then, again, there is
a curious piece of evidence recently given by an English
clergyman (Rev. C. W. Stubbs), also living in Buck-
inghamshire, who has a large amount of glebe lands,
which he lets out to labourers in acre or half-acre
allotments, and it is a noticeable fact that, the land of the
district being pretty good wheat-land, the labourers all
grow wheat upon their allotments. They have been
doing so for nine- years, and Mr Stubbs has kept an

218 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

accurate account of the produce they get, and although it
is constantly asserted that it is impossible to grow wheat
on a small scale, yet these allotments produce £4 105.
more an acre than all the surrounding farms of Buck-
inghamshire. And what is more, he finds that the
labourers' produce per acre is higher than that of the best
scientific farmers in England ; so that actually the poor
labourer, working by himself on his own plot of land, can
produce for us more wheat per acre than the most
scientific farmer with all his skill.1 Take these estimates
together — £33 per acre, £14 per acre, and £4 10s. per
acre, and that gives an average of net gain to the country
of £17 for every acre of land cultivated by poor men in
small quantities compared with the same land cultivated
by farmers in large quantities. Now just think what a
gain that would be to the country if the people, instead
of being driven from the rural districts for want of land,
had been encouraged to remain and cultivate the land for
themselves. I have calculated the average gain at £17
an acre. But if, to avoid any exaggeration, we lower this,
and say only £10 per acre, and if we suppose that out
of the fifty millions of acres of cultivatable land — a con-
siderable part of which is now going out of cultivation
—only twenty millions of acres were cultivated by
poor men in this minute and careful manner, and that
they obtained £10 per acre of increased produce, that
would give us £200,000,000 a year of extra wealth
produced by poor men, and almost every penny of that
£200,000,000 would be spent on the manufactures of the
country.

Now that, in my opinion, indicates the method by
which we may finally get rid of this terrible depression of
trade, which is still increasing and is likely to increase,
because we have been hitherto falsely guided by the
political economists and by the great manufacturers, the
speculators, financiers, and others. We have always been
led to believe that our one line of business was manu-
facturing, that we were to be the manufacturers of the

1 See The Land and the Labourers, by Rev. C. W. Stubbs, 1884.
Swan Sonnenschein and Co.

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 219

world ; and while we have been going on in this line,
utterly neglecting agriculture and the land, forbidding
people to use it, and driving them into the towns so as
to increase the numbers of the unemployed and thus keep
down wages, other nations have not been standing still,
and are now competing with us in all the chief markets
of the world.

There is a great deal of talk about finding fresh
markets, but these would be open to all the competing
countries, and would not supply our increasing population
with fresh outlets for work; and therefore I maintain
that the only real and substantial mode of getting rid of
the depression of trade, is to utilise thoroughly that
enormous store of wealth which exists in our neglected
fields and our miserably cultivated soil.

Summary of the Argument.

I will now briefly summarise the points here brought
forward. First of all, the enormous foreign loans led
to an abnormal and unnatural increase of our trade, and
then to a depression which was exaggerated and increased
by the impoverishment of the people who had to pay the
interest on these loans, and it must be remembered that
they had to pay for millions which they never received,
that never came into their country but were absorbed by
the financiers in the cities — they had to pay and are
still paying all this with interest upon it. Then we have
the enormous increase of speculation in our cities,
favoured by every act of the legislature and by every
custom of the country, and as the result we have the
concentration of wealth into fewer and fewer hands, and
consequently a proportionate diminution of wealth that
ought to be distributed among the people. We have also
the dreadful increase of war expenditure ; and lastly, the
evils directly produced by the system of landlordism in
this country — a system which gives a comparatively
small body of men power to determine whether the land
shall be used or abused, well cultivated or producing

220 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

less than half of what it ought to produce and will pro-
duce— a system which drives the people away from
the country into the towns, and turns into paupers men
who would, if they were permitted freely to use the
land on fair terms, produce an enormous increase of food,
the prime necessity of a nation's existence, and by their
prosperity cause such a demand for our manufactures
as we have never known in this country before. And
this evil is caused, and this good prevented, by the
direct or indirect action of landlords under our vicious
land system.

I maintain, therefore, that these are the real funda-
mental causes of the depression of trade, because every one
of them, as I have shown, tends directly to the im-
poverishment of the great masses of the people, who are
our best customers. Every one of them can be shown
either to have begun about the period when the de-
pression showed itself, or to have become greatly in-
tensified about that period, and therefore as a whole they
have worked together to produce this enormous and long-
continued and increasing depression of trade.

Bemediesfor the Depression of Trade.

The remedies, of course, are some of them difficult,
some of them comparatively easy. If you see and under-
stand what I have endeavoured to make you see, that
anything like a system of foreign loans bolstered up
by the Government of this country is radically bad and
immoral, then you ought to urge upon your representa-
tives that in no way whatever should the Government
lend its power or its influence to compel the oppressed
populations to pay these loans or the interest upon
them.

Another step will be to stop all aggressive wars on any
pretence whatever. I consider in the present state of the
world that there is only one class of wars that are
justifiable or will be justifiable for us, and that will be a
war to help a weak nation when oppressed by a stronger
power. It is a singular thing that this is the only kind of

xii THE DEPRESSION OF TRADE 221

war likely to do us good even in our trade, for it would
protect for us our customers as well as bind them to us
by the bonds of gratitude ; but it is the kind of war that
we never in any circumstances have undertaken.

Then, again, if we see clearly and distinctly that
whatever facilitates the growth of abnormal wealth in the
few is bad for the rest of the community, we certainly
should favour all those steps which would render it more
difficult to accumulate such wealth. It would take too
much time now to go into all the measures which I think
would be advisable for that purpose. One thing, however,
would be certainly advantageous, though I am afraid it
will never be done, and that would be to repeal the
Limited Liability Act. I believe this Limited Liability
Act has been a greater curse to the country than any Act
of Parliament ever passed, because it as much as says,
with the authority and voice of the Government to the
people — You may enjoy the benefit and all the advan-
tages of commercial prosperity by simply subscribing
your money towards these companies. How are the
people at large to know which are good and which are
bad ? The mere fact that such an Act was passed was an
invitation to the people of the country. They accepted
the invitation, and for each one who has benefited by
doing so a score have suffered.

The last thing, and perhaps the most important of all,
is to abolish the monopoly of land in this country. I
believe no half measures will do any good here. The only
thing will be to declare by law that the whole of the land
shall revert to the State for the benefit of the people, but
that no individual so far as is possible shall suffer any loss
during his lifetime or during the lifetime of any of those
who have reasonable expectations from him. If that were
done no landowner would have a right to complain. He
would receive an income probably as great as he has now
for the rest of his lifetime and for the lives of all his children,
while the nation would have the use of the land, and by
allowing every man to have as much as he could cultivate,
at fair rents and with complete security, would lead to
the production of an amount of wealth probably two

222 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, xn

or three times greater than is now derived from it. This
increased wealth would be earned by men who are now
poor or pauperised ; and as it would almost all be spent
in home manufactures, it would in the most direct and
speedy manner restore the prosperity of the country and
abolish the Depression of Trade.

CHAPTER XIII

A REPRESENTATIVE HOUSE OF LORDS

A FEW years back, Mr. Labouchere introduced a Bill
into the House of Commons declaring that, after January 1,
1895, the House of Lords shall cease to exist. But it is
hardly possible that such a Bill can become law, either
in this Parliament or in any of its successors for the next
half century, since it would require that the Peers should
commit political suicide, and this they would hardly do
unless an almost unanimous public opinion compelled such
a course, and they considered it more dignified than sub-
mitting to actual expulsion. There is, also, as Mr.
Labouchere himself acknowledges, a preliminary difficulty,
in a very wide- spread impression, even among Liberals, that
a second chamber is necessary, combined with an extreme
diversity of opinion as to how the second chamber should
be constituted. It is evident, therefore, that the abolition
of the House of Lords would by no means solve the
problem, but would only lead to interminable discussions
on the more difficult part of the question — what kind of
chamber to substitute for it. The stoppage of all useful
reforms by any attempt to remodel our constitution in
such a revolutionary spirit would be exceedingly un-
popular; and would probably involve a longer struggle
and more expenditure of parliamentary energy than the
effort we recently made to give Ireland permission to
manage her own affairs. It may, therefore, be worth
while to consider whether there is not a method by which
a House of Lords may be retained in such a form as to

224 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

render it a truly representative Upper Chamber, thus
making it acceptable to most Liberals, and even to many
Radicals ; while, by preserving its ancient name and
prestige, and by giving it both greater dignity and a more
important part in legislation than it now possesses, the
proposed reform might be upheld as truly conservative,
and receive the support of the majority of the Conserva-
tive party.

It is clear that any such fundamental reform of the
British Constitution as is now advocated by advanced
Liberals should proceed on the lines of evolution rather
than on those of revolution. Instead of abolishing the
House of Lords \ve must modify, reform, and elevate it ;
and we must do this in such a manner as, on the one
hand, to bring it into general and permanent harmony
with the House of Commons ; while, on the other hand, it
is rendered so select, so dignified, so representative of all
that is best in the British Peerage, past, present, and to
come, that a seat in the Upper Chamber will become a
more coveted honour than the insignia of the Garter, a
higher dignity than a ducal coronet. It is, I think,
essential to the successful carrying out of any such great
reform that it should be initiated in the House of Lords
itself, and simply accepted or rejected by the House of
Commons. The discussion of its principles and methods
should take place in the country at large, rather than in
Parliament. The peers must be well informed as to the
character and amount of change that will satisfy the
people and bring about that substantial harmony between
the two branches of the Legislature that is essential to
good government ; and it is with the hope of contributing
towards the peaceful settlement of this great question
that I now propose to set forth what appear to me to be
the main principles on which such an important reform
should be founded.

The two great anomalies of the present House of Lords
are, first, its hereditary character; and, secondly, the
presence in it of the bishops of the Church of England,
who thus have a voice, and often a very important influ-
ence, in making or rejecting laws which affect the whole

xin A REPRESENTATIVE HOUSE OF LORDS 225

population. Both hereditary and ecclesiastical legislators
are now felt to be wholly out of place in the parliament of
a people which claims to possess both political and
religious freedom. They have, during the last half
century, been tolerated rather from the difficulty of getting
rid of them, than from any belief in the value of their
services ; and it has long been seen, by all but the most
bigoted Conservatives, that something must soon be done
to bring the Upper House into harmony with modern
ideals. In these concluding years of the nineteenth cen-
tury our hereditary House of Lords is an anachronism. It
may be said that our hereditary Sovereign is also an ana-
chronism ; but there is this great difference — that the
peers systematically use their power to prevent or delay
popular legislation, which the Sovereign, at the present
day, never attempts to do.

It is clear, then, that any real and effective reform of the
House of Lords must, in the first place, abolish the heredi-
tary right to legislate, and must also exclude the bishops,
as such, from any share in law-making. This, of course,
does not affect the hereditary succession to the peerage,
which may continue at all events for the present ; but it
would be most advisable to discontinue the creation of
new hereditary peerages. Instead of these, life-peers
should be created, but always as a mode of indicating dis-
tinguished merit, whether exhibited by services to the
country at large, by philanthropic labours, or by excep-
tional achievements in the fields of science, art, or litera-
ture. The object of creating these life-peers should be,
to raise the character and dignity of the peerage, and thus
to afford material for the selection of a new House of
Lords, which should be worthy of its historic fame and be
in every way fitted to take a leading part in legislating for
a free and civilised people.

Although all Liberals, and many Conservatives, will agree
that the mere fact of succession to a peerage does not
afford any sufficient guarantee of the possession of those
qualities which should characterise the legislator, yet most
of them will admit that the peerage as a whole does afford
some good material from which to choose legislators, and

VOL. II. Q

226 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

this material may be indefinitely increased, both in quan-
tity and quality, by the creation of life-peerages as above
suggested. A peer is, at all events, an English gentleman.
Many peers belong to families whose names are household
words in our history, and these may well be supposed to
have the real interests of their country at heart, and to be
influenced more or less profoundly by the good old aristo-
cratic maxim, Noblesse oblige. Most of them have had the
best education our universities can afford, and have added
thereto that wider education derived from foreign travel
and from association with men of eminence at home and
abroad. They have the means and the leisure to make
themselves personally acquainted with the results of
various forms of government, and especially with those of
our Colonies, where free institutions are working out the
solution of many political and social problems ; and if the
duty of legislation was conferred upon them, not as an
accident of birth but by the free choice of their countrymen,
and as an indication of popular confidence in their integrity
and their special acquirements, they would probably devote
themselves with ardour to the work. We know already
that they do not lack either intellectual power or the
special faculties of statesmen, and we could ill spare men
of such attainments as the Marquises of Ripon and Salis-
bury, the late Duke of Argyll or the Earl of Rosebery, from
the great council of the nation. Let us, then, briefly con-
sider on what principles the new House of Lords should
be constituted, what should be the qualification of its
members, and how they should be chosen.

Constitution of the Representative Upper Chamber.

The first point to be considered is — what should be the
constitution of the new House of Lords. And here it
seems to me to be important that this House should be
distinguished from the House of Commons, not only by
the preliminary qualification of its members as peers, but
by representing local areas considered as separate units,
and therefore without regard to the population of the
areas : just as the Senate of the United States represents

xiii A REPRESENTATIVE HOUSE OF LORDS 227

the component States of the Union as units, each State
returning two senators, irrespective of population. In our
counties or shires we possess a series of such areas which in
many respects correspond to these component States. Each
of them has a very ancient individuality ; many of them
were British, Celtic, or Saxon kingdoms ; and most of
them preserve to this day distinctive peculiarities of speech
or of customs. And the feeling of county unity or clan-
ship survives, as seen in the friendly rivalry of county
cricket and football clubs and of the volunteer forces ;
while birth or residence in the same county often consti-
tutes a bond of sympathy between strangers who meet
abroad. And this individuality of our counties is likely
to be increased rather than diminished by the further ex-
tension of local self-government, offering fields for social
experiment and for healthy rivalry in all matters involving
the interests and well-being of their populations. It must
always be remembered that our counties are not modern
arbitrary divisions, but extremely ancient territories, often
differing greatly in physical features, and, to a correspond-
ing degree, in the character, interests, and occupations of
their inhabitants. There is, therefore, ample reason for
treating them as equal units, and giving to each an equality
in choosing members of the Upper House.

The counties of the United Kingdom, reckoning the
three ridings of Yorkshire as separate counties, are almost
exactly a hundred in number ; and, giving to each two
representative peers, we should have a house of about two
hundred members — amply sufficient for all purposes of
legislation, but almost too large to be chosen from the
limited number of existing peers, who are a little over six
hundred. This difficulty, however, might be easily
obviated by making all knights and baronets of the
United Kingdom eligible for election to the House of
Lords, those elected to be thereupon created life-barons,
thus preserving the titular character of the House, while
offering a more ample field for the selection of men of
real eminence.

Provision might also be made for the admission of two
representatives of each of our self-governing Colonies,

Q 2

228 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP,

those chosen also receiving titular honours. The presence
of such Colonial lords would be of immense advantage,
both as initiating a legislative union of the Empire, and
in bringing to bear Colonial experience on our home
legislation. There would probably be less objection to
Colonial representation in the Lords than in the Commons ;
and when the time comes (if it ever comes) for a complete
federation of the British Empire, the process would be
greatly facilitated by this preliminary step towards a
closer union. This, however, is not essential to the con-
stitution of a new Upper House, although it presents
advantages which should ensure for the proposal a full and
careful consideration.

The next point to be considered is the preliminary
qualification for membership, and, on this point, I hold
very strong opinions. It has always seemed to me that
the adoption of the minimum legal age which qualifies a
person to hold property and to occupy the simplest public
offices, as being sufficient also to qualify for choosing the
national representatives or for being chosen as a legislator,
is a very great political blunder. With us, most men of
twenty-one have only just finished, and many have not
yet finished, their education, whether intellectual or
industrial ; while few persons at that age have given any
serious thought to politics, have made any study of the
duties and rights of citizens, or have had any real experi-
ence to guide them in forming an independent judgment
on the various political and social questions of the day.
In this respect, most savage and barbarous nations set us
a good example : with them, it is the elders who rule ; and
the very name of chief is often synonymous with <{ old
man." The most suitable age to be fixed as that of
political maturity should certainly not be below thirty,
while I myself consider forty to be preferable.

But in the case of members of the Upper House, who
are to represent the mature wisdom and experience of the
nation, there can, I think, be no doubt that forty should
be the minimum qualifying age. Some such limitation is
especially necessary in order that the conduct, the char-
acter, and the attainments of the candidates may have

xin A REPRESENTATIVE HOUSE OF LORDS 229

become known to the electors, and this can hardly be the
case at a much lower age than forty. By that time it will
be seen whether a man has made any effort to qualify
himself for so high a position, either by historical or legal
study, or by having devoted himself to a practical inquiry
into the results of the various political, economic, or social
systems of other civilized communities. No one would
wish to have such a House of Lords as is here suggested
degraded by the presence of men who make use of the
great opportunities they have inherited for mere selfish
purposes, and whose highest pleasures are luxury or sport ;
or of such as are imbued with the prejudices and vices,
rather than with the virtues and true nobility, of their
ancestors. Instead of these we should seek for men who
are able to show a good record of knowledge acquired or
work done, and whose ability and character are known to
be above the average.

Mode of Election.

Taking, then, the actual peerage, together with all knights
and baronets of the United Kingdom who shall have attained
the age of forty, as constituting the body from which the
new House of Lords is to be chosen, the next point to be
considered is the mode of selection. We may first set
aside the method of election by their fellow peers (as in
the case of the present representative peers of Scotland
and Ireland) as being quite inadmissible, since it would
perpetuate many of the evils to obviate which reform or
abolition is demanded. The election must be a popular
one, and the most obvious suggestion is that the existing
constituencies of each county should choose its represent-
ative peers. There are, however, many objections to this.
It would, in the first place, involve much of the expense
and excitement of another general election ; and, secondly,
it is doubtful whether the average elector would be in a
position to judge of the qualities and comparative merits
of the several candidates. It would, therefore, be advis-
able to limit the voters to a body better able to make a
wise and deliberate choice, and such a body will be found

230 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

in the members of the several Town and County Councils,
together with those of the District and Parish Councils
now in existence. The members of these four classes of
councils will constitute in each county an electoral body
which will be truly representative of the people, since it
will have been chosen on the widest and most liberal
franchise to which we have yet attained. It will be
sufficiently numerous and independent to avoid all sus-
picion of cliquism or wire-pulling, and it will be sufficiently
intelligent and sufficiently interested in public affairs to
make a sound and wise choice of members to sit in the
Upper Chamber of the Legislature. Of course, as a rule,
the representative peers for each county would be chosen
from among candidates owning property in the county and
residing in it, since these would be best known to the
voters. But as, in some few cases, none of the residents
qualified to be candidates might come up to the required
standard of eminence and ability, it would probably be
advisable to leave the choice of the electors entirely free.
A great advantage of such a mode of election as is here
proposed would be, that it could be carried out with the
minimum of trouble and expense, and without any of the
publicity and excitement of an ordinary election. The
clerks to the several councils would send the names and
addresses of the councillors to a central office ; each of them
would receive by post a voting paper, which they would
return in the same manner. No canvassing would be per-
mitted, since the acts and general conduct, rather than the
verbal promises, of the candidates would decide the elector's
choice. Such elections would offer an excellent opportun-
ity for a trial of the method of proportional representation
advocated by John Stuart Mill, and in a modified form by
Mr. Courtney and Lord Avebury. This system would
ensure that, where the two political parties are not very
unequally divided, the minority would obtain a represent-
ative. Each party in the county would, therefore, feel
itself to be fairly treated, and the House of Lords would
thereby acquire an amount of stability which would invest
it with that character of a regulating power which an
Upper House ought to possess.

xiir A REPRESENTATIVE HOUSE OF LORDS 231

Some persons may object to each county, however small,
electing the same number of representative peers, and may
urge that proportionate population should be the basis of
representation as in the case of the House of Commons.
But this is rather to mistake the purport of the mode of
election here suggested — which is, not that the elected
peers should be held to represent the counties in their local
interests, but as a means of selecting the best possible
Upper House, by the vote of an intelligent and popularly
chosen electorate spread over the whole country, and likely
to be personally acquainted with the merits or defects of
those local residents who are qualified to be chosen as
representative peers. For this purpose, the councillors
in a small or thinly populated county would be at no
disadvantage ; on the contrary, it is quite possible that
they might make a wiser choice than those which are
most densely populated.

Advantages of the Plan.

The scheme now very briefly set forth claims to be,
not only a good scheme in itself, but probably the best
compromise which, under existing conditions, is possible.
The more thoughtful and more influential among the
peerage must see that the people of the United Kingdom
will not much longer submit to a body of hereditary law-
givers which not only has the power to defeat legislation
earnestly desired by the majority of the voters, but which
often exercises that power. They must also feel that the
position of the present House of Lords is not a dignified
one, while its record of service to the country will make
but a sorry show in the pages of history. Almost every
great reform which has been effected in this century,
whether in ameliorating the severity of the criminal laws,
in removing disabilities attendant on religious belief, in
opening the universities to the people, or in the abolition
of protective duties on the necessaries of life, has been at
first strenuously opposed by the Lords, and ultimately
adopted under pressure of public opinion, or for the pur-
pose of forestalling political opponents. In very few

232 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

cases, on the other hand, has the Upper Chamber initiated
beneficent legislation or far-sighted policy, which has
been ultimately approved by the people and accepted by
the House of Commons. Yet in an Upper House which
really deserved the name we should naturally look for
guidance in the matter of those more important reforms
which are essential to real progress, especially such as
would tend to bring about a more equable distribution of
the constantly increasing wealth of the nation among the
masses of the people, thus diminishing and ultimately
destroying that seething mass of misery and starvation
which still persists among us, and which is the condemnation
of our boasted civilization. An assembly which truly
answered to its title of " noble " should be above the
personal interests and petty prejudices which influence
those who, in various ways, are engaged in the struggle for
wealth or for mere existence.

The House of Lords, as it now exists at the end of the
nineteenth century, is not only an anomaly but an utterly
indefensible anomaly, and one wholly opposed to the spirit
of the age. In the proposal now submitted to public con-
sideration, a means is indicated of bringing it into harmony
with modern ideas while preserving its historical contin-
uity and constituting it so that it may be an aid, instead
of a clog, to the wheels of progress. Will the Lords
recognize the critical nature of their position, accept reform
as inevitable and as the only alternative to destruction,
and themselves initiate that reform ? If they do so, in no
hesitating or niggardly spirit, but fully recognizing that
a body claiming power to legislate for Englishmen must
be representative, and must be elected either directly or
indirectly by the people, then it is probable that even the
ever-growing Radical party would willingly accept such a
reform. They would be wise to do so ; because they
would thus obtain a legislative chamber probably as good
as any that could be obtained after a lengthy and profitless
struggle; and, further, because a chamber such as is
here suggested is of a nature to admit of continual improve-
ment, and would necessarily develop as the nation devel-
oped, always keeping, as it should do, in the van of

xin A REPRESENTATIVE HOUSE OF LORDS 233

advancing civilization. When titles are given only for
life, and are bestowed exclusively as recognitions of merit
or of exceptional ability and integrity, there will grow
up among us a true aristocracy characterized by the high-
est intellectual and moral qualities, while the old aristocracy
of birth will be less and less esteemed, except in so far
as it possesses similar characteristics. Educated public
opinion will, from time to time, indicate the men who
should be made eligible for election to the Upper Chamber,
and no Ministry will then dare to advise the Sovereign to
bestow this honour on the unworthy, or as a reward for
mere political support, thus lowering the standard of
those who are eligible for election by the people's local
representatives. If, further, it was the rule that each
of the great political parties should give titular honours
to not more than a fixed number in each year, the balance
would be kept even, and at successive elections each
party would have an equal range of choice.

There are many matters of detail which it is not
necessary to discuss at present. Among these are — the
term for which the Lords should be elected ; whether
they should change with a change of Ministry, or by
a portion retiring at intervals ; whether the judges, when
they leave the bench, should be ex-officio members or
should be eligible for election. These are matters of
minor importance, which will be easily settled when the
main principles of the scheme of reform are decided on.
These more fundamental points may be summarized as
follows: (1) The limitation of the number of members
in the new House of Lords to about two hundred; (2)
The extension of the range of choice to knights and
baronets ; (3) All titular honours in future to be granted
for life and only in recognition of distinguished merit ;
(4) An age-qualification of about forty years ; (5) Kepre-
sentation of counties as units, by two members of each ;
(6) The constituency to consist of all the members of the
County, District, Town, and Parish Councils in each
county.

I now submit this scheme of reform, first, to the
leaders among the existing peers, to whom it offers an

234 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, xm

honourable mode of escape from a difficult position, not by
an ignominious surrender to popular demands after a long
struggle which they know must terminate in defeat, but
by voluntarily recognizing their anomalous character as
hereditary legislators in an otherwise representative
government, and by themselves initiating the reconstruc-
tion of the Constitution which at no distant date is
inevitable. By so doing they may preserve the
continuity of the aristocratic Upper Chamber, add
greatly to its dignity and power, and give to the world
the too rare example of a privileged class voluntarily
resigning such of its privileges as are inconsistent with
modern civilization. This I conceive to be true conserva-
tism.

To the Liberal and Radical parties — and I am myself
an extreme Radical — I submit my scheme as one that
will remove all the evils and anomalies of the present
House of Lords, transforming it into a representative
chamber of the very highest character, which must
always be in harmony with advanced public opinion as
expressed by the whole body of its freely elected local
representatives. Such a House of Lords would be really
capable of fulfilling what is supposed to be the special
function of an Upper Chamber — that of calm and judicial
consideration of such measures as were the result of
sudden waves of prejudice or passion, either in the popu-
lation at large or in the House of Commons. It would
thus appeal from Philip drunk to Philip sober, and would
give expression to deliberate and permanent, rather than
to hasty and temporary, public opinion. To secure a body
capable of doing this — and I cannot see how it could be
more effectually done than by some such method as I have
here suggested — would be, in my opinion, a measure of
radical, yet safe and judicious, reform.

CHAPTER XIV

DISESTABLISHMENT AND D1SENDOWMENT : WITH A PROPOSAL
FOR A REALLY NATIONAL CHURCH OF ENGLAND

THE wide-spread agitation for the disestablishment
and disendowment of the English Church calls for more
notice than it has hitherto received from those who, while
agreeing with the necessity for some such movement and
the abstract justice of its main object, do not look upon
the existing Established Church merely as a powerful sect
whose prestige and influence are to be diminished as soon
as possible and at almost any sacrifice.

At the various meetings in favour of disestablishment
(some twenty years back), little or nothing was said
as to the details of the proposed or desired legisla-
tion ; no scheme was formulated as to a practicable and
beneficial mode of applying the national property now
held by the Church, or of preserving and utilizing for
national objects the parish churches, cathedrals, and other
ecclesiastical buildings spread so thickly over our land,
and which constitute a picturesque and impressive record
of much of our social and religious history for nearly a
thousand years. The only thing we have to guide us as
to the aims and objects of these agitators is a constant
reference to recent legislation in the case of the Irish
Church, and we are therefore left to infer that some very
similar mode of dealing with the English Church, its
property and its buildings, is what these gentlemen have
in view. But if this be so, it is surely the duty of all who
have the social and moral advancement of their country at

236 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

heart, and are uninfluenced by sectarian rivalry, to protest
against any such scheme as in the highest degree
disastrous. It may be thought by many that this
agitation cannot possibly succeed in gaining its object for
a very long time, and that it is useless to discuss now what
shall be done at some indefinite and distant future. But
this may be altogether a mistake ; gross abuses do not
now live long, and when an agitation is started as power-
fully and influentially as this one, supported as it
will undoubtedly be by the great mass of the operative
class, and made a party cry at future elections, the end
may not be very far off. We may then find it too late to
introduce new ideas, or to persuade the Nonconformist
leaders of the movement to give up their special programme,
however injurious some portions of that programme may
be to the best interests of the country.

My object in this chapter is, therefore, to urge upon
all independent liberal thinkers to lose no time in taking
part in this movement, laying down at once certain
principles to be adopted as an essential condition of
securing their support ; and I propose, further, to show a
practicable mode of carrying out these principles so as to
produce results in the highest degree beneficial to the
whole community.

The main principle that should guide our action in this
matter, I conceive to be, that existing Church Property of
every kind is National Property, and that no portion of it
must, under any circumstances, be alienated, either for
the compensation of supposed or real vested interests, or
to the uses of any sectarian body ; and further, that the
parish churches and other ecclesiastical buildings must on
no account be given up, but be permanently retained, with
the Church property, for purposes analogous to those for
which they were primarily established — the moral and
social advancement of the whole community.

That the property now held by the Established Church
is national property, is generally admitted ; and also that
the Church, as represented by a body holding particular
religious opinions, can have no permanent vested interest
in that property, although the individuals of which it is

xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 237

composed may have life-interests ; and the case of the
Irish Church should be a warning to us to look far enough
ahead, and prepare for the inevitable change so much in
advance of any immediate political necessity for it that we
may allow all individual vested interests to expire naturally,
and so have no need to make special compensation for
them. In Ireland every kind of vested interest was
brought forward, and it was even claimed that, as every
clergyman had a chance of obtaining a better living, or
of becoming a bishop, he should be compensated ac-
cordingly ; and that every member of the Church had
an actual vested interest in its maintenance during his
life. It was because all legislation had been put off till it
could no longer be delayed, that these interests had to be
considered, and the result was, that a sectarian Church
was permanently endowed with a large amount of national
property. But any such necessity of compensation for
vested interests of individuals may be obviated by a little
foresight, and by legislating sufficiently early to allow
everyone to retain his rights and privileges in the Church
during his lifetime. All individual vested rights would
thus be satisfied,'and it is probable that they would not
interfere with the complete establishment of a new system
at a comparatively early period, because a transition state
is always an unsatisfactory and an unpleasant one, and
long before half the individual lives had expired, and
perhaps in the course of a very few years, the change
might be voluntarily effected.

While legislation was proceeding in the case of the
Irish Church, it was made sufficiently clear that it is
almost impossible suddenly to abolish any such great
national institution, and to find any suitable mode of
applying the surplus property without grievous waste, or
so as to be really beneficial to the community ; and it was
almost felt to be a means of getting out of a difficulty that
every shadow of a vested interest should be fully compen-
sated, and the inconveniently large amount to be disposed
of reduced to manageable proportions. I believe, however,
that in the case of England no such difficulty exists, and
that the whole of the Church revenues may be applied in

238 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

such a manner as, — Firstly, to retain all that is most
useful in the organization of the existing Church of
England ; secondly, to extend its sphere of usefulness
almost indefinitely ; thirdly, to remove all cause for the ill-
feeling with which it is viewed by Nonconformists, and by
the members of other religious bodies ; and lastly, to
create, without violent change, a great national institution,
which shall always be up to the highest intellectual level
of the age, and be a means by which the moral and social
advancement of the whole nation shall be permanently
helped forward. In order to show how these desirable
results may be obtained, it is necessary first to say a few
words as to the status of our existing clergy, and the
importance of the functions they fulfil.

The Church of England, as a religious body, owes much
of its power and influence in society to its venerable
antiquity ; to its intimate association with our great
Universities ; to its establishment by law and its position
in the Legislature ; and to its possession of the cathedrals
and parish churches, which from time immemorial have
been the visible embodiments of the religion of the country.
The clergy of the Church of England owe their chief
influence for good in their respective parishes to their
connection with these permanent and often venerable
buildings ; to their being the official representatives of a
law- established religion, to their being the recognized
heads, either officially or by courtesy, of many local
organizations for charitable purposes, for education, or for
self-government ; and, though last not least, to their social
position, their intellectual culture, refined manners, and
moral character. It must, I think, be admitted that an
institution which provides for the residence in every parish
of the kingdom of a permanent representative of the best
morality and culture of the age — a man whose first duty
it is to be the friend of all who are in trouble, who lives
an unselfish life, devoting himself to the moral and
physical improvement of the community, who is a welcome
visitor to every house, who keeps free from all party strife
and personal competition, and who, by his education and
training, can efficiently promote all sanitary measures and

xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 239

healthful amusements, and show by his example the beauty
of a true and virtuous life — that an institution which
should really do this, would constitute an educational
machinery whose influence on the true advancement of
society can hardly be exaggerated.

But in order that such an organization should produce all
the good of which it is capable, it is above all things essential
that it should keep itself free from sectarian teaching, and
from everything calculated to excite religious prejudices.
So long as there is but one religious creed in a country, or
if the dissentients form a small and uninfluential minority,
the ordinary clergy may possibly effect much of the good
here indicated ; but with us this has become impossible,
owing to the adoption of a fixed creed by the Established
Church, and to the multitude of opposing sects, equal in
political influence, and perhaps superior in the number
and enthusiasm of their adherents. The earnest Noncon-
formist cannot look with satisfaction on a man who is
unjustly paid by the nation to teach doctrines which he
firmly believes to be erroneous ; while the conscientious
and well-informed sceptic can hardly respect one who is
not only often inferior to himself in mental capacity as
well as in acquired knowledge, but who professes to believe
and continues to teach as fact much that modern science
has shown to be untrue. The clergyman, on the other
hand, too often considers that every dissenting chapel in
his parish is an evil, and looks upon every Nonconformist
minister as an opponent.

The time seems now to have come when we shall have
to get rid of the anomaly and the injustice of devoting
an elaborate organization and vast revenues to sectarian
religious teaching, while we loudly proclaim the principle
of religious freedom in all our legislation. In order to
get rid of an Established Church which is behind the
age, there are men who would not hesitate to break up
the whole institution, destroy or sell the churches, and
devote the revenues to support free schools or hospitals.

Such a step would, I believe, be an irreparable loss to
the nation ; and I propose now to consider what means
can be adopted to preserve this great organized establish-

240 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

ment, which has grown, with the nation's growth, and has
from time immemorial formed an essential part of the
body politic, and to separate from it everything that can
impair its efficiency or check its healthy development. I
claim for every Englishman a share in this great pro-
perty, devoted by our ancestors to the relief of distress,
the protection and advancement of the people, the
example of morality and virtue, the teaching of the
highest knowledge of the age, and the inculcation of
doctrines which were once universally accepted as abso-
lute truths of the first importance for the welfare of
mankind. I claim that it shall be preserved to our suc-
cessors for analogous purposes, and that it shall be freed
from association with all sectarian teaching, and from
everything that can impair its value. Let it be reformed,
not destroyed.

The Proposed National Church.

I will now proceed to show how it can be so reformed,
and how it may be made a means of national advancement
more efficient than all ordinary educational machinery,
because its sphere of action will be wider, and because it
will carry on a higher education than that imparted by
schools, not for a few years only, but throughout the en-
tire life of all who choose to profit by it. I will first
sketch out what I consider should be the status and
duties of the man who will take the place of the existing
clergyman as the head and representative in every parish
or district of the National Church.

First, as to his designation ; he might be termed the
Rector, a name to which we are already accustomed, and
which does not necessarily imply a religious teacher. He
should be chosen, primarily, for moral, intellectual, and
social qualities of a much higher character than are now
expected. Temper and disposition would be carefully
considered, as his usefulness would be greatly impaired if
he were not able to gain the confidence, sympathy, and
friendship of his parishioners. His moral character
should be unexceptionable. He should be specially
trained in the laws of health and their practical application,

xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 241

and in the principles of the most advanced political and
social economy. His religion should be quite free from
sectarian prejudices, and his private opinions on religious
matters would be no subject for inquiry. He should,
however, be of a religious frame of mind, so as to be
able to work sympathetically with the clergy of the
various religious bodies in his district, and excite in
them neither distrust nor antagonism. He must have a
fair knowledge of physiology, and of simple medicine and
surgery, of the rudiments of law and legal procedure, of
the principles of scientific agriculture, and of the natural-
history sciences, as well as of whatever is considered
essential to the education of a cultivated man.

He should not be allowed to undertake the care of a
parish till thirty years of age, and only after having
assisted some rector in parish duties for at least five
years.

The duties of the parish rector would comprise, among
others, all those of the existing clergyman, but he would
never conduct religious services of any kind. The parish
church, with its appurtenances, would however be under
his entire authority, in trust for the whole body of parish-
ioners, to be used for religious services by all or any duly
organized religious bodies, under such arrangements as he
might find to be most convenient for all. Any religious
body should be able to claim the use of the church as a
right (subject to the equal rights of other such bodies),
the only condition being that it should possess a perma-
nent organization, and that its ministers should be an
educated class of men, coming up to a certain standard
of intellectual culture and moral character. The State
might properly refuse the use of the churches to those
sects whose ministers are not specially trained or well-
educated men, on the ground that the public teaching of
religion among a civilized people is degraded by being
placed in the hands of the illiterate, and that such teachers
are likely to promote superstition and increase fanaticism.

The rector might himself lecture in the church on
moral, social, sanitary, historical, philosophical, or any
other topics which he judged most suitable to the cir-

VOL. II, R

242 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

cumstances of his parishioners. He would also allow
the church to be used during the week for any purpose not
inconsistent with the main objects of his position, but
always having regard to religious prejudices so long as
they existed, his first duty being to promote harmony and

food-will, and to gain any object he might think bene-
cial by persuasion rather than by an abrupt exercise of
authority. His knowledge of law, and his position as
ex-ojjicio magistrate, would enable him to settle almost all
the petty disputes among his parishioners, and so greatly
diminish law-suits. He would be an ex-ojficio member of
the School Board, and of the governing body of any other
public educational institution in his district. It would
be his duty to see that new legislative enactments were
brought to the notice of the persons they chiefly affected,
so that no one could offend through ignorance. He might,
if he pleased, visit the sick, if his services were asked
for, but this would be altogether voluntary. It would
be an essential part of his duty to be on good terms with
the ministers of all religious sects in his district, to
bring them into friendly relations with each other, and to
induce them to work harmoniously together for moral and
educational objects.

With a sphere of action such as is here sketched out,
the rector of a parish would have -far more influence for
good than the existing clergyman can possibly have. The
position would be one of weight and dignity, and would be,
I believe, in a high degree attractive to some of the best
men in the country. The choice of men to fill it would
be indefinitely wider than it is now, since no special
religious beliefs would be insisted on. The educational
qualifications being at once broad and high, and the
appointment offering a wide field for useful labour, a sphere
would be opened for a class of able men who, while they
are imbued with the purest spirit of philanthropy, are too
conscientious to teach religious doctrines they cannot
themselves accept.

Some years ago, a proposal for a nationalization of the
Church of England was made by Lord Amberley, in two
very striking articles in the Fortnightly Review, These

xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 243

attracted much attention at the time, but do not seem to
have produced any permanent impression. That proposal
contemplated, if I remember rightly, perfect freedom of
doctrine in the Church of England, and some power of
modifying the formularies, while retaining the duty of con-
ducting religious service and of preaching as at present.

It was probably felt that the difficulties of carrying
out any such scheme were insuperable, and the advantages
doubtful, since it involved some form of election or veto
by the majority of the parishioners, or some mode of getting
rid of a clergyman whose doctrines were greatly disliked.
The Church would thus remain as sectarian as ever, but it
would be a varying instead of a uniform sectarianism ; and
the necessary uncertainty of tenure would at once diminish
the clergyman's influence for good, and render it more
difficult to induce the best men to undertake the duties.

It seems to me to be an important and valuable feature
of my plan, that it renders the rector's tenure of office
for life almost certain, since the only causes (other than
voluntary retirement) for his displacement would be
immorality, or the fact of his making himself generally
disliked by his parishioners. But the careful education
and selection of the candidates, and the perfect freedom
in the choice of the profession, would render either of
these events of very rare occurrence.

No man, who held any special doctrinal tenets so
strongly as to make him intolerant of others, would choose
a profession in which he would be compelled to recognize
and work harmoniously with the clergy of all denomina-
tions ; nor would one who felt himself by nature unfitted
to associate familiarly with all classes, and make himself
their friend and counsellor, undertake an office in which it
would be his chief duty to do this. We may fairly
anticipate, then, that our rectors of the future would be
of as high a character as our judges are now, and that
there would be as little necessity for the retirement of the
one from his honourable duties as there is for that of the
other. This would induce better men to seek the office,
and would render them far more capable of effecting
Beneficial results than if they were mere temporary

R 2

244 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

occupants, liable to be ejected by the votes of a majority
of parochial schismatics.

How the New System may be Introduced.

If no hasty and irretrievable step is taken, there seems
no reason why the change from the existing state of
things to something like that here sketched out, might
not be gradually effected without any interference with
vested interests. The new rectors would take their places
wherever vacancies occurred, after the expiration of the
time allowed for the disestablished Church to reorganize
itself; and there need be no interference with the right
of presentation to livings, the desirability of which as
positions of social importance would be increased by the
new arrangements. Some official recognition of the ap-
pointment would be required, and the stringency of the
qualifications, both as to education and character, would
render any abuse of this kind of patronage impossible.
It seems highly probable that many clergymen who feel
their present position more or less irksome, owing to their
being obliged to read and teach much that they cannot
accept as truth would gladly resign their positions as
ministers of a disestablished Church in exchange for that
of rector in the National Church. Such men would be
quite at home in their new position, for the wider duties of
which many of them would be admirably qualified. Of
course there would have to be some high officers fulfilling
the duties of bishops, or inspectors over the rectors ; and
over the whole a Supreme Board, or a Minister of Public
Instruction ; but these are matters which would offer no
difficulty in an institution of which the main features
are so well marked out.

It has now, I trust, been shown that it would be
possible to remodel the framework and machinery of the
Church of England as by law established, so that it should
become, in connection with the various voluntary religious
bodies — which, while retaining their perfect freedom of
action would be to some extent associated with it — a real
and highly efficient National Church ; and further, that this

xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 245

could be done without infringing any existing right, while
it would, on the other hand, confer on every section of the
community the right, from which they have long been
debarred, of an equal share in the use of national buildings
and in all the benefits that may be derived from a proper
application of the national property. It now remains to
answer, in anticipation, a few of the more obvious
objections that may be made to this proposal; to discuss
briefly a few important details ; and to point out some of
the advantages that would almost certainly result from
its adoption.

Objections Answered.

The first objection that will probably occur is a
financial one. It will be asked how the existing endow-
ments of the Church can be increased so as to make the
position of Rector worth the acceptance of men of the re-
quired high standard of ability ? The answer to this is
to be found in the fact of the excessive inequality, both as
regards area and population, of our parishes. In the
north of England they are said to average six or seven
times the size of those in the south, and we shall find
that more than half of the parishes in England and
Wales are far too small to require the exclusive services
of a rector. A judicious system of union of small
parishes, and approximate equalization of endowments,
will entirely overcome the financial difficulty. A few facts
and figures will make this plain. Some thousand of
parishes have an area of from 5,000 to 12,000 acres,
and even the largest of these are not too extensive for
the supervision of an active and energetic man, while
those of 4,000 or 5,000 acres and an average rural popu-
lation would be comparatively easy work. But an
examination of about 200 parishes, taken alphabetically
in two series, shows that there are, as nearly as possible,
one half of our parishes which do not exceed 2,000 acres
and have less than 1,000 population, the average population
of these being less than 400 by the last census. Of the
thirteen thousand parishes or places in England and
Wales which form distinct ecclesiastical benefices, no less

246 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

than 62 or 63 per cent, have under a thousand inhabit-
ants. The average value of all the benefices is about
£307 a year, but this value is by no means in proportion
to area or population, for the average of those parishes
whose population is under 1,000 is still about £275 a year.

A careful examination of the circumstances of these
parishes, as regards area, means of communication, and
increasing or decreasing population, would enable us to
combine them, so that the number of rectors required
would be little more than one-half that of the
existing incumbents. About one-fourth of the parishes
whose population is less than a thousand could most
likely be attached to others with a population somewhat
exceeding that number, while the remainder might be
formed into groups of two, three, or four parishes. This
would result in a total reduction of about 45 per cent. A
further reduction might be made in towns, where three or
four parish churches might almost always be placed under
the control of one rector, because, although the population
might be large, many of the duties he would have to
fulfil in rural districts would be performed by existing
establishments, such as corporations, mechanics' and
other institutions, and ministers of religion ; and his
chief duties would be to protect and preserve the churches
for the use of the various religious bodies, and to promote
harmonious action among them. The average endowment
might thus be nearly doubled, and in addition there would
be the vacant parsonages and glebes, the rents of
which might form part of the income of the rector
of two or more combined parishes. We thus arrive at a
nominal average endowment of about £600 a year, while
the actual inequalities are enormous ; and we have to deal
with a large number of advowsons which are private
property fully recognized by the law. But this need not
interfere with an approximate equalization of livings.
Just as in other cases of far less momentous reforms, land
or house property has to be given up for public uses, the
owners receiving just compensation, so must the owners
of advowsons be dealt with.

In cases of the union of parishes, the several patrons

xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 247

might either exercise their right of nomination jointly or
alternately, or one might pay a sum to the other for
exclusive possession. If they failed to agree to either of
these alternatives, the joint advowson must be sold by
public auction and the proceeds equitably divided between
them. Equalisations of endowments might be treated on
a similar principle. In every case they might be effected
by taking a definite sum, say £100 per annum, from one
living and adding the same amount to another. The
owner of the advowson which is increased in value might
either pay a sum to be determined by arbitrators, to the
owner of that which is diminished, or the advowson which
is increased must be sold, and the proceeds divided equitably
as before. It would be advisable to leave some inequalities
in the value of rectories, and while none should be under
£300 or £400 a year, a few might remain as high as
£1,000, in important districts, to which men of special
abilities would alone be appointed. The revenues now
devoted to episcopal and cathedral establishments have
not been reckoned as sources of increased rectorial
incomes, although, whatever system of supervision might
be adopted, it is probable that a considerable surplus from
these revenues would remain. It may, perhaps, be
further objected, that the country could not supply six or
seven thousand men of the requisite ability and character,
in addition to the clergy of the disestablished Church,
who would continue in existence as an independent body.
But we must consider that the new men would be only
required in gradual succession as livings became vacant ;
and, as it is almost certain that no voluntary establish-
ment would be able to appoint resident clergy in the
thousands of small parishes with a very scanty population,
the total number of men required for the service of the
national and the disestablished Churches would not
perhaps be very much greater than at present.

Although the power of nominating rectors now possessed
by private persons is not proposed to be interfered with,
candidates would have to pass a much more rigid examin-
ation, and to furnish much better evidence of temper and
moral character, than is now required ; and they would

248 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

have to submit to the probation of five years' service under
a rector, which would sufficiently test their capacity and
suitability for the office. All livings now in the gift of
Government or of public bodies should be thrown open to
public competition by annual examinations, the details of
which need not now be considered.

It will doubtless be further objected, that the scheme
now advocated is Utopian, and aims at an ideal perfection
which could not be realized even were public opinion ripe
for any such revolution ; and also, that it will be repulsive
to the feelings of a large number of persons by placing
religion and religious teachers in a subordinate position.
To this I would reply, that a few years ago, before the
Irish Church had been disestablished, and when household
suffrage and the ballot were still ideal propositions which
our Parliament would hardly seriously discuss, any such
proposal as the present one would have been thoroughly
Utopian : but I cannot admit that it is so now. The
body which has set up the cry for disestablishment and
disendowment of the Church of England is a more
powerful and a more united one than that which inaugur-
ated any of the other great reforms ; and the probabilities
seem to me to be great that they will attain their object
in less than half a century. If so, it is not Utopian
to discuss the subject in all its bearings ; and although
my scheme may aim at an ideal perfection which it is
not in existing human nature perfectly to attain, the
question to be considered is whether this ideal is a just, a
true, and a noble one ; if it is so, we shall assuredly do well
to keep it in view and so legislate as not to prevent our
successors from ever attaining it. Neither do I believe
that such a scheme can be in any way degrading to
religion ; it will, on the contrary, keep up a connection
between religious teaching and the State, and by dealing
out equal justice to all creeds, will go far to do away with
that sectarian animosity which more than anything else
really degrades religion. As knowledge and true civiliza-
tion spread more widely, it is to be expected that religion
will become more and more a personal matter, without
necessarily losing any of its influence on the human mind ;

xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND D1SENDOWMENT 249

and an organization which provides for the diffusion of
those moral and social teachings which are the highest
products of the age, must necessarily aid in the develop-
ment of that religion which is the truest reflex of man's
higher nature.

Advantages of the Scheme.

It now remains only to point out a few of the advant-
ages which would result from the adoption of the scheme
here advocated.

It will be generally admitted that, were the English
Church to be disestablished and disendowed, the Church
buildings to be devoted to sectarian or secular uses, and
the Church property applied in almost any way that can
be suggested (other than that here proposed), a void
would be left in the social organization of the country that
could not be easily filled up. The clergy of rival sects,
all equal and equally without authority in the eye of the
law, could not possibly fulfil the various social and moral
functions even of the present established Church, still
less could they ever attain the standard of usefulness which
could be easily reached by men in the position I have
indicated in the Church of the future. What that
standard might soon become it is not only difficult to
exaggerate, but difficult even adequately to realize,
because no institution equally well adapted to produce
great results has ever before existed. If we were to say
that its beneficial influence upon society would be equal
to that produced by the whole of our best literature,
many would at first think it an exaggerated estimate.
But a little consideration would, I think, convince them
that it is on the contrary far too low. For literature only
reaches certain defined and very limited classes, consisting
largely of men who least require the lesson it conveys,
while the great mass of the population know no literature,
or only that of the cheap newspaper ; and the teachings
of modern science and philosophy, as well as the instruc-
tion to be derived from history and biography, would be
to many of them as startling as the revelation of an
unknown world. Most of these would be reached by the

250 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

National Rectors, whose duty and pleasure it would be to
convey to the minds of their parishioners, in interesting
and instructive series of lectures, some idea of the
beauties of literature, of the marvels of science, and of
the instruction to be derived from the example of great
and good men. Is it possible to foresee the ultimate
effects of such teaching, as a supplement to our new
system of National Education, carried out systematically,
not in our great towns only, but in every country parish,
not by the occasional visits of itinerant superficial
lecturers, but continued week by week, year by year, and
from one generation to another, by a body of the best
educated, the most earnest, and the most practical teachers
the country can produce.

Men of this stamp would be able to influence all classes
for good; they would aid in introducing the best methods
of agriculture and of household economy ; they would be
the men to see that sanitary inspectors and School Boards
did their duty ; they would take care that in their district
no common lands were wrongfully enclosed, no public
paths stopped up, and generally no injustice done to those
who did not know, or could not enforce, their legal rights.
Not coming into competition with any class of men, and
not exciting any sectarian or religious animosity, the
National Rectors might be in our age all that the monks and
abbots were in the best monastic days — and much more —
respected by the rich, loved by the poor, feared by the
evil-doer, centres of culture and of morality throughout
the land ; by their example their teaching and their
assistance helping on the higher civilization, and thus
fulfilling the noblest function that can fall to the lot of any
body of men.

But besides these direct benefits to society, which such
an institution would be naturally expected to produce,
there are others of hardly less value which would incident-
ally flow from it, and a few of these I should wish to
touch upon. One of the results of the extreme competi-
tive activity of modern life, and of the somewhat com-
mercial character of our institutions, is, that there are
exceedingly few positions open to men of high intellectual

xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 251

culture and scientific or literary tastes, such as will leave
them sufficient leisure to devote themselves to original
research in their favourite pursuits. But the position of a
National Parish Rector would supply this want in the most
complete manner. From their liberal education and
special training, and the high intellectual standard
required for the appointment, a large proportion of them
would be men of exceptionally active and powerful minds.
They would have a good elementary knowledge of modern
science and philosophy. Their duties, though numerous,
and in the highest degree important, would not, as a rule,
be laborious, and would leave them a considerable amount
of leisure — and leisure with such men necessarily
implies occupation. Some would devote themselves to
science, some to experimental agriculture or horticulture,
some to history, philosophy, or other branches of literature ;
and we may fairly conclude, that from the body of six or
seven thousand National Church Rectors, we should have
a very large accession to our original thinkers and general
workers — a class of men who not only reflect glory on
their country, but more than any others help on the work
of human progress.

It has been already suggested that the rectors would
be able to see that Sanitary Inspectors and School Boards
did their duty ; but I think we may go further, and say,
that over a large portion of the rural districts no sanitary
or educational legislation will be efficiently carried out till
some such body of men is called into existence. Their
value, too, can hardly be exaggerated as a means of
obtaining trustworthy information on the working of any
new law affecting our social relations, and especially those
connected with pauperism. The narrow education, im-
perfect training, and sectarian prejudices of so many of
the clergy of the Established Church, prevent their
opinions having much weight, either with the public at
large or with the Government. But the National Rectors
would be in a very different position. Their education
and special training would render them well fitted to
consider such questions in all their bearings, and their
perfect independence would give weight to their opinions ;

252 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

while their means of obtaining accurate information would
be much greater than that of any visiting inspector, who
can seldom detect abuses which can be temporarily
concealed, or which only occasionally become prominent.

These are some of the incidental advantages (and many
others might be adduced) that would follow the establish-
ment throughout the country of such a body of men as
has been indicated ; but I lay no stress upon these as
arguments for the proposed change, compared with the
direct and unparalleled advantage of establishing a truly
National Church, in which every Englishman, whatever
be his religious opinions, shall have an equal share ; and
of abolishing for ever, so far as it is possible to do so, all
causes of religious animosity. I would also claim a
favourable consideration for this proposal, because it is a
settlement of the question that would adapt itself to any
possible future change in the religious beliefs of the
community, and would therefore be permanent. Whether
sects increased or diminished in number, and whether
religion or secularism should ultimately prevail, an
institution that should provide for the teaching of the best
morality of the age to those most in need of such teaching,
and that should aid in producing harmony and good-will
among all classes of society, would never become obsolete.

In conclusion, I would most earnestly press upon all
unprejudiced thinkers to consider the essential conditions
of this great problem, not my imperfect exposition of it.
Let them reflect that they are actually in possession of
an elaborate organization, and an ample property, handed
down to us by our forefathers, with whom it did at one
time fulfil many of the high functions which I wish to
restore to it. We have suffered it to remain in the hands
of a narrow religious corporation, which in no sufficient
degree represents either the most cultivated intelligence
or the highest morality of our age, and which, by its
dogmatic theology and resistance to progress, has become
out of harmony both with the best and the least educated
portion of the community. The question that now presses
upon us is, shall we suffer this grand institution and these
noble revenues to be irrevocably destroyed, or shall we

xiv DISESTABLISHMENT AND DISENDOWMENT 253

bring them back to the fundamental purposes they were
originally intended to fulfil, and which the conditions of
modern society — its terrible contrasts of profuse wealth
and grinding poverty, of the noblest intellectual achieve-
ments with the most degrading ignorance, of the most
pure and elevated morality with the lowest depths of vice
— render perhaps of more vital importance to our national
well-being than at any previous epoch of our history ?

Shall we preserve and re-create, in accordance with the
principle of religious liberty, or shall we utterly abolish
our great historic National Church ?

CHAPTER XV

INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS AND UNJUST

4 ' The millionaire is, and as long as he is allowed to exist,
always will be, a useful member of society ; because he
produces more wealth in comparison to the amount that
he exhausts than any other member of society. . . . The
richer a man is, the greater is the proportion of his savings
to his income. Take a man with a fortune of £20,000,000,
and an income of £1,000,000, of which he could not very
well spend more than £100,000 a year. Now if this
fortune was owned by 10,000 persons instead of one, they
would have £100 a year each, of which they would
probably spend £90. Therefore, their savings would
amount in the aggregate to £100,000, while the multi-
millionaire's savings from the same capital would be
£900,000. Therefore the community which had the
multi-millionaire would grow richer at the rate of £800,000
a year, at compound interest over the community that
had divided his property up." — (Bradley Martin, jim., in
Nineteenth Century, "Is the Lavish Expenditure of
Wealth Justifiable?" p. 1029, Dec., 1898.)

THE passage quoted at the head of this chapter shows
such an extraordinary misconception as to the real nature
of wealth that I propose to devote a few pages to a
discussion that will, I think, show the fact to be the very
reverse of that maintained by Mr. Bradley Martin, jun.
He confounds money with wealth ; the increase of money,
or its equivalent — claims on the earnings of other people
— as increase of wealth. I maintain on the contrary that
the result of numbers of rich men saving a large portion
of their incomes every year, instead of making a
community or a nation richer makes it poorer — makes it
a smaller producer of real wealth — causes the bulk of its
people to work harder and fare worse. Those who will
read the following pages carefully, will, I think, admit

CH. xv INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS 255

that my conclusion is correct, and that it is by moving in
the very opposite direction, so as to bring about the
diminution rather than the increase of great individual
money-wealth that the real wealth and well-being of the
whole community is to be attained.

Interest-bearing Fiinds a Danger to the Community.

The evil effects of wealth-accumulation, as now under-
stood, are by no means limited to those cases where it is
accumulated in abnormally large amounts by in-
dividuals, but are not less real or less important when
more widely distributed and devoted, as it so often is, to
supporting a considerable section of the population in
idleness and luxury during their whole lives. For this
class of persons are not only, so far as they are idle, an
incubus on the community, but, so far as they are
luxurious, they become a far greater source of evil in
withdrawing large bodies of labourers from the production
of useful wealth and keeping them employed in useless or
even injurious work. The thousands and tens of thousands
whose lives are spent in the manufacture and sale of
luxuries, ornaments, nick-knacks, and worthless toys,
as well as the majority of those permanently occupied as
domestic servants to the wealthy, or in connexion with
horse-racing, yachting, and other amusements of the upper
classes, represent not only so much lost productive power
but are themselves a heavy burthen, since they are all
supported by the productive labour of others.

In an ideal social state no one would live idly and
luxuriously on wealth produced by another. No one would
be able to obtain surplus wealth, and no children would
be brought up to a life of idleness, but would be taught
that they are debtors to society for all that they receive
and must therefore perform their fair share of useful work.

In order to make true social progress we must always
keep some such ideal in view ; and this brings me to
what I consider to be at the very root of the question —
the evil of all institutions which permit or favour the
paying of (nominally) perpetual interest, income, or
profits, on any invested capital

256 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Real and Fictitious Wealth.

Nothing is more certain than that wealth — real wealth
— is continually used up and destroyed, and as continually
reproduced by fresh labour. All articles of food, of
clothing, of furniture, and even tools, machines, dwellings,
books, works of art, and ornaments, are either wholly or
partly used up day by day or year by year, and as
continually reproduced ; and it is those which are most
continually consumed and reproduced which are,
pre-eminently, beneficial wealth. If, then, a man acquires
a large surplus of this real wealth beyond what he can
consume himself, it must be either profitably consumed
by others or be wasted by natural decay. In either case
it soon ceases to exist. But our fiscal and legislative
arrangements enable a man to change this perishable
wealth into securities which bring him a permanent income
— an income supposed to be perpetual, but at all events
lasting long after the wealth of which it is the symbol,
and which is supposed to produce it, has totally
disappeared. Incomes thus derived constitute a tax or
tribute on the community, for which it receives nothing
in return, and may truly be termed fictitious wealth.

To show that this is so, and at the same time to exhibit
clearly not only the evil but the inherent absurdity of
these arrangements, let us consider a few indisputable
facts. Every year much surplus wealth is accumulated
by individuals and is invested as reproductive capital.
This invested capital goes on producing an income which,
it is supposed, is and ought to be permanent ; and as more
and more surplus wealth is continually produced and
invested, it is evident that the permanent incomes thus
derived will continually increase, and thus in each suc-
cessive generation a larger and larger number of persons
will be enabled to live in idleness on incomes derived
from this invested capital. But this is a state of things
that evidently carries with it its own destruction, since a
time must come when the number of idle persons living
on " independent incomes," and the aggregate of those

INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS 257

incomes, will be so great, that the working portion of the
population will be ground down to penury in the attempt
to pay them, and this will more quickly come about from
the tendency of a large idle and luxurious class to with-
draw labour from beneficial work to the production of
useless luxuries. The end will inevitably be the worst
kind of revolution, brought about by the determination of
the labouring poor no longer to support the burthen of an
ever-increasing class of idle rich.

How to Abolish Fictitious Wealth.

The only cure for this state of things (to which we are
steadily drifting) is for our Legislature to acknowledge the
principle and act on it, that all capital expenditure must
be repaid (if at all) by means of terminable rentals or
annuities (including interest and repayment of capital),
in a limited term, such term never much to exceed the
average duration of one generation — say 30 to 40 years ;
while all permanent works of general utility, such as
railways, harbours, docks, canals, gas and water- works &c.,
shall, when the capital is thus repaid, revert to the State,
to the Municipalities, or to other freely elected local
authorities, and be thenceforth administered for the public
benefit. By this measure alone a considerable portion of
the permanent investments, which now enable wealth-
producers to provide for the support of the next genera-
tion in idleness, would be abolished ; but there would
remain the largest and the least defensible of all — the
national debts of civilized nations. It is now generally
admitted to be wrong for one generation, or even for one
government, to borrow money for its own purposes (gene-
rally for the most wasteful and injurious of all purposes —
war) and leave the debt as a burthen on its successors.

How to Extinguish National and other DM.

Confining ourselves to our own National Debt, I main-
tain that it is an unmixed evil, as well as a cruel injustice
to the present generation of workers ; and I further

VOL. II R

258 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

maintain, that the least injurious mode of abolishing it
would be to declare, that after a fixed date the Govern-
ment will not allow transfers of Stock (except in cases of
inheritance) but will pay the dividends to the holders at
that date for their lives and for the lives of any direct
heirs living at the time they make their will or die, after
which all payments will cease, and the community will at
length be released from the oppressive and unjust burthen
of taxation it has so long borne.

Of course this proposal will be met by the cry of con-
fiscation, repudiation, and other ugly terms ; but let us
look at it a little closer before we decide as to its justice
and inadmissibility. It will hardly be denied that the
Legislature may, on grounds of public policy, and after
ample notice to allow of any desired sales and transfers,
limit the payment of the interest or principal of its debt
to the then representatives of its original creditors.
Having gone so far we have to inquire further what
injury will be done to the holders of stock, if this income
is limited to their lives and that of their living heirs. It
is admitted that the unborn can have no claims to a
special provision, while the fundholder can have no
affection for, or interest in hypothetical beings who may
never exist. It is evident, therefore, that the supposed
injury is purely imaginary, and could not be estimated at
the value of the smallest coin of the realm ; whereas, the
payment of the debt in full, supposed to be the only
honest course, would appreciably injure the fundholders
themselves, as well as the whole nation.

For, let us suppose it to be determined that the National
Debt shall be paid off within, say, thirty years, and that
increased taxation to the necessary amount is thereupon
raised annually. The immediate effect would be to raise
the price of consols, which would soon rise very much
above par owing to their affording the only safe and easily
realizable temporary investments for great capitalists,
financiers, &c., so that all persons whose stock was paid
off would have to buy in again at a loss in order to secure
a safe income, which would be then permanently diminished.
If we add to this loss the heavy burthen of taxation, of

INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS 259

which they would have to bear their share, the fund-
holders (who we suppose had rejected the scheme of ter-
minable annuities), would find out their mistake, and
begin to ask themselves why they should suffer in order
that certain unborn individuals might live in idleness at
the expense of the nation. The supposed honest plan of
going on paying interest for ever, is really dishonest,
because it perpetuates a heavy burthen on the whole
community, not for any real benefit to any existing portion
of the community, but for the injurious and immoral
purpose of providing that even in unborn generations
certain selected individuals shall be able to live idle lives
at the expense of their fellows. The alleged confiscation,
on the other hand, is really the honest course, because,
while providing that no living individual shall suffer either
in purse or vicariously by the suffering of those dear to
them, it provides for the abolition of an unjust burthen
which we have inherited from evil times, but which
will become still more unjust and harder to bear the
longer it exists.

How to Deal with the Land.

Having thus, we- will suppose, got rid of all such
permanent means of investment as railway-stocks, gas
shares and the public funds, there would remain only
the land of the country. But this, as I show in the four
succeeding chapters of this volume, is the most injurious
to the community of all forms of permanent investment
of capital, since it secures to the capitalist not only the
general power due to wealth, but enables him to absorb
in the form of increased rents a large portion of the
nation's surplus wealth-production, and gives him also
direct power over the health, the happiness, and the lives
of his fellow citizens, who must live upon the land on his
terms so long as he is allowed to possess it and deal with
it as he pleases. For these reasons alone, all possession of
land except in limited quantities for personal occupation,
should be prevented, and then the last remaining means
by which a permanent and ever increasing income can be

s 2

260 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

obtained from accumulated wealth which is, in its very
nature, transitory and perishable, would have been taken
away, and the result would, I maintain, be wholly beneficial
to the community.

Some Objections Answered.

Among the objections that will be made to this proposed
reform it will no doubt be said that on the system of short
terminable payments to cover interest and repayment of
principle, capitalists would not lend money and consequently
no good national or local work would be effected. But the
fact is that they could be much better effected without
borrowing money, whenever the proposed works were such
as would be remunerative, while all other necessary works
could be done in the same way, but of course would have
to be paid for by some kind of public or private contribu-
tions. The following experiment shows how easily this may
be done.

In the island of Guernsey some years ago a market-

Elace was much wanted, and the Government of the island
aving determined to build it, issued notes, inscribed
" Guernsey Market Notes," for £1 each, and numbered
from one to four thousand, £4,000 being the estimated
cost of the market. With these notes the Government
paid the contractor, the contractor paid his men, and the
men bought all the necessaries they required, as the notes
were a legal tender in the island. They were used to pay
rent, to pay taxes, and for all other purposes. When the
market was finished, it immediately produced a revenue,
and this revenue was applied to redeem the notes ; and in
ten years all were redeemed, and henceforth to the present
time the market returns a considerable revenue to the
Government of the island, which goes to reduce taxation ;
and all this was done without borrowing any money or
paying any interest.

Now here is a principle, applied on a small scale by a
small self-governing community, which is capable of a
very extensive application. All remunerative public
works could be executed by some such method ; while if
it is urged that some works, like sanitary improvements,

INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS 261

are not directly remunerative, it may be replied that this
is usually because the benefit of such works is allowed to
be absorbed by individuals instead of accruing to the
community. This is because individuals possess the land
in our towns and cities, and every sanitary improvement
effected at the public expense increases the value of this
land. In fact, no public improvement of any kind can be
made in a city without increasing the value of the land,
so that there is a double motive in urging on costly, and,
perhaps, unnecessary improvements — jobs are effected by
financiers and contractors, while the owners of land know
that, however much the ratepayers may suffer, they are
sure to be benefited. Here is surely another indication
that the land of every municipality, or other local com-
munity, which grows in value owing to the increase and
the expenditure of the whole population, should belong to
the community and not to private individuals.

The subject, however, which we were more particularly
considering was the doing away with those funds and
investments by which money is made to produce a
perpetual income. Now, when, as in Guernsey, there
was no permanent debt created and no interest paid, there
was no " stock " to speculate in and no income derivable
from it. Here, then, we have a double advantage over the
usual mode of creating interest- bearing debts, which
indicates that we have discovered an important principle
which is applicable to almost every case of public
improvement. Let us take the case of railways, for
example. These are usually constructed under legislative
acts, empowering a company to take the necessary land to
build the line and to work it for the profit of the -share-
holders. This plan has led to the greatest possible
amount of mischief. Lines have been made where not
wanted ; speculation to an enormous extent has been
encouraged ; huge monopolies have been created ; share-
holders by thousands have been ruined ; while the thing
least considered has been the general interest. During
the last great American railway mania it has been
estimated by Mr. Atkinson that railway-construction went
on four times as fast as the increase of produce to be

262 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

carried by the railways, thousands of miles of railways
being made long before they would be wanted, involving
loss in a great variety of ways, and being, in fact, one of
the causes of recurring depression of trade.

If, on the other hand, no such power had been given to
companies, but, when public opinion in any State or
country demanded a particular line of railway it had
been constructed by means of Railway Bonds created for
the purpose, bearing no interest and serving as legal
currency within the State till they were all redeemed and
paid off out of the profits of the line, then no speculation
would have been possible. It would have been no one's
interest to build unnecessary and unprofitable lines,
because so soon as this was done the bonds of the
particular line would have little chance of being
redeemed ; and as they would be a legal tender, they
would soon be all paid in as taxes, and the Government —
that is, all the taxpayers— would have to bear the loss.
This would check further railway-making for a time, and
thus prevent useless expenditure in the interest of
speculators and contractors.

On the other hand, every railway that returned any
profits at all would steadily redeem its bonds, and then
the whole of the future profits would go to reduce taxation
or to make railway travelling free. It would thus be the
interest of every one that no railways should be made
that were likely to be worked at a loss, because that
would lead to a depreciation of the bonds, and thus be a
loss to the whole community. But it would be equally
every one's interest that all really useful and necessary
lines should be made, because, besides the direct benefit,
the bonds would be quickly redeemed and the profits of
the line would enable the general taxation to be reduced.
Water-works, gas-works, public parks, new streets, and all
similar improvements could be executed on a similar
principle, the only safeguard required being that no large
improvement should be undertaken in any town or
district till the preceding one had been completed and
had begun to redeem its bonds out of its genuine profits
or proceeds.

xv INTEREST-BEARING FUNDS INJURIOUS 263

It has now, I think, been made clear how all public
works and public improvements may be effected by public
credit, properly so called, instead of by public debt,
involving far less risk of loss, no permanent charge on the
community, but leading, on the contrary, to a continuous
reduction of taxation, and cutting away the very
foundations of the system by which the financier and
speculator are now enabled to plunder the working
people.

Concluding Observations.

Returning to our main subject, some may think that by
thus checking great accumulations of capital by individuals
the country would be impoverished ; but the fact would
be exactly the reverse, since the accumulation of real
capital would be greatly facilitated. For that large class
which now makes its wealth by financial operations and
speculations — a mere form of gambling — would find its
occupation gone, and would be forced to turn its
attention to genuine industrial pursuits. Instead of
money being used, as it so largely is now, as a mere
instrument to make more money by pure speculation, it
would have to be invested in true reproductive wealth —
machines, tools, buildings, roads, bridges, ships, &c., and
thus the whole country would be enriched and benefited.

When the changes here indicated had been effected,
capital could be profitably invested only in some form of
agriculture, manufacture, or commerce ; and, while the
wealth of the community would thus be indefinitely
increased, the accumulation of excessive wealth by
individuals would become almost impossible, since, there
is a limit to the number of industrial concerns that can
be profitably managed by one man. As the race of
hereditary idlers would no longer exist, the total
production of wealth would be much increased from this
cause, while the free use of land in small quantities by a
large proportion of the population would render labourers
less dependent on capitalists than now, and thus lead to a
more equable distribution of wealth than now prevails.

My object in this brief chapter has been to call

2(34 STUDIED, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

attention to a principle of great importance which appears
to have been overlooked by political economists and
ignored by legislators, namely,— that the system which
enables a permanent and sometimes an increasing revenue
to be derived from nominal wealth long after the real
wealth it is supposed to represent has ceased to exist, is
wrong in itself; and that, like all wrongs, it inevitably
leads to suffering. One of the evil results of this system
is that it affords the main, if not the only, support to
millionnaires and to hereditary plutocrats.

I have further endeavoured to show that we may
remove all the sources whence vast revenues can be
derived by individuals without any productive exertion on
their part, not only without injury but with the most
beneficial results to the community. Lastly, I believe,
that it is in some such view as to the economic error and
moral wrong of deriving permanent incomes from
perishable wealth, that we shall find the true solution of
the problem of the antagonism between capitalists and
labourers now everywhere agitating the civilized world.

CHAPTER XVI

HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND: A RADICAL SOLUTION
OF THE IRISH LAND PROBLEM1

* * Land is not and cannot be property in the sense that
movable things are property. Every human being born
into this planet must live upon the land if he lives at all.
The land in any country is really the property of the
nation that occupies it ; and the tenure of it by individuals
is ordered differently in different places, according to the
habits of the people and the general convenience.

"To treat land, with the present privileges attached to
the possession of it, as an article of sale, to be passed
from hand to hand in the market like other commodities,
is an arrangement not likely to be permanent either
in Ireland or elsewhere." — J. A. FROUDE, in the Nineteenth
Century, September 1880, pp. 362, 369.

THE Irish Land League proposed that the Government
should buy out the Irish landlords (at an estimated cost
of two hundred and seventy millions), and convert the
tenants into a peasant proprietary who were to redeem
their holdings by payments extending over thirty-five
years. That a scheme so impracticable as this — and even
if practicable so unsound and worthless — should be put
forth by a body of educated men, who had, presumably,

1 This article appeared in the Contemporary Review, November 1880,
and it is reprinted here because the principle of separating the inherent
value of the land from the improvements, as a means of obviating the
need for any "management" by the State or Municipality, was I believe
first enunciated in it, and led in the following year to the formation
of the Land Nationalisation Society, which, with its offshoot, the Land
Restoration League, have done much to spread correct views as to the
fundamental importance of its proposed solution of the Land question.
The article has therefore, in some degree, an historical value.

266 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

studied the subject, is a noteworthy fact, and one which
shows the importance of a thorough and fearless discussion
of all questions relating to the tenure of the land, in order
that we may arrive at some fundamental principles on
which to base our practical legislation.

The total neglect of the study of this most important
subject is further illustrated by the way in which the
daily press widely promulgated, either without criticism or
with expressed approval, an objection to the Land
League's proposal which is more absurd than that
proposal itself, inasmuch as it involves and rests upon an
oversight so gross as almost to constitute a true " Irish
bull." Mr. W. J. O'Neill Daunt, an old colleague of
O'Connell, was the author of this remarkable piece of
criticism, the most important part of which, and that
which has been quoted as so especially crushing, is as
follows :

" There are, roughly speaking, about half a million of tenants in
Ireland. But there are about five and a half millions of people in
the country. Suppose the half million of tenants are established as
peasant proprietors, what is to be done with the claims of the re-
maining five millions ? Have they not a right to say to the peasant
landocracy, ' You are only one-eleventh of the nation. Why should
one-eleventh grasp all the land ? Our right to the land is as good as
yours. We will not permit your monopoly. We insist on getting
our share of your estates. ' "

But neither Mr. O'Neill Daunt himself, nor the writers
who approvingly characterized his letter as " remarkable,"
and his criticism as " pertinent," can have given five
minutes' real thought to the matter, or they must have
seen the absurdity of their remarks. For surely the half
million of tenants have wives and families, and reckoning
the children at three and a half per family (which is
rather higher than the average for the whole country), we
arrive at a tenant population of two and three-quarter
millions, or about half the total inhabitants of the island.
And what will the other half consist of ? There are the
landlords, the clergy, and other professional men, the
army and navy, the members of the court and officials,
the manufacturers, the merchants, and all the mechanics

HOW TO NATION A LIZ K THE LAND 267

and shopkeepers of the towns. What then becomes of the
u five millions " who would cry out against the " half
million " monopolizing the land ? Would the wives and
the children of the new peasant proprietors cry out
against their husbands and fathers ? Would the manu-
facturers of Belfast or the shopkeepers of Dublin suddenly
want to turn farmers, merely because the same people
who now cultivate the land as tenants then cultivate it as
owners, or prospective owners, having paid its full value ?
The whole objection thus vanishes, as a mere " Irish bull,"
which the English press adopted and circulated as if it
had been sound logic and good political argument !

Some other objections stated by Mr. Daunt are,
however, more valid. The whole rental of the land
during the thirty-five years would necessarily go to the
London Treasury, and as it would be the repayment of a
loan, distress and eviction must follow non-payment of
rent, just as it does now. More important, however, is
the consideration that so soon as the new proprietors had
acquired the fee simple of the land (or even before), the
buying of land by the more wealthy, and the selling of it
by the poorer, will, inevitably, begin again. The land
will be mortgaged by the poor or improvident, and the
wealthy will again accumulate large estates. Then,
absentee landlords and discontented tenants, rack-rents,
agents, middlemen, evictions and agrarian outrages will
all arise as before, till some future Government will again
be asked to advance money to buy out the new landlords,
and transfer the land to those who will at that time be
the tenants. It is evident then that no such proposal as
that of the Land League would be more than a temporary
palliative applied at an enormous cost, and that we must
seek in a different direction if we would effect a radical
cure. That direction, is, I believe, indicated by the
remarks of Mr. Froude placed at the head of this article,
and which fairly represent the views of many advanced
thinkers. Hitherto, no practical mode of carrying such
ideas into effect has been hit upon, and they have
accordingly been relegated to the limbo of " unpractical
politics." But this defect is not inherent in the views

268 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

themselves ; and I now propose to show in some detail
how all the difficulties in their application may be over-
come, and the land of Ireland, or that of any other
country may be gradually, but surely and permanently,
restored to the great mass of the people who desire to
cultivate it, without injustice to any of the present land-
owners, although the operation will be effected entirely
without cost. This is undoubtedly a bold statement, but,
before rejecting it as absurd or impracticable, I beg for
the reader's careful and unprejudiced consideration of the
propositions I shall endeavour to establish, and the
definite scheme that will be set forth.

A General Principle of Legislation.

My proposal is mainly founded upon a very simple
proposition, which I think will be admitted, and which, if
not capable of logical demonstration can yet hardly be
disproved. This proposition is, that whatever acts may
be done by an individual without injustice or without
infringing any rights which others possess or are entitled
to claim in law or equity, then acts of a similar nature
may be done by the State, also without injustice. In
judging of the validity of this proposition, we must
remember, that an individual may be actuated by purely
personal motives ; may be influenced by passion, by pride,
or even by revenge, and yet may not go beyond what
always has been admitted to be his right ; while the
State will, presumably, be guided in its action by a desire
for the public welfare, and cannot possibly, in the
particular cases here contemplated, be influenced by those
lower motives which often affect the individual, and yet
have never been held to impair either his legal or his
moral rights.

The proposition here generally stated appears to me to
be so nearly in the nature of a political axiom as to require
no attempt at a formal demonstration. It will be time
enough to defend it when good, or at least plausible,
reasons have been given why it should not be accepted. I
will now proceed to its application in the present inquiry.

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 269

The right to transfer land (or other property) by will,
to any successor not insane or criminal, has been allowed
by most civilized nations to some extent, and by ourselves
with hardly any limitations. A British landowner may
leave his property to be divided among his family, or to
any single member of his family. If he has no family he
may leave it to any relation or to any friend; and he
is not said to be unjust if he passes over many of his
relatives and bequeaths his land either to a personal
friend, or to some man of eminence, or to benefit some
public institution or charity, or for any analogous purpose.
Even his own immediate family — his sons and daughters,
his parents, or his brothers — have no legal claim on his
land, if he chooses to leave it to a more distant relation,
or to a friend, or to a charity ; but public opinion does, in
such a case, condemn his action as more or less unjust.
But whenever the choice is between remote relations and
some public purpose or even personal friendship, public
opinion rather applauds his freedom of choice, and it is
never allowed that the more or less distant relatives who
may be passed over have any right to complain of injury
or robbery because the land was not left to them, even if
they were the actual heirs-at-law and would have received
it had the owner died intestate.

Now comes the first application of my above-stated
proposition or axiom. If the personal owner of land does
not rob or injure a distant relative (even if he be the
heir-at-law) by making a will and otherwise disposing of
his land, neither can the State be justly said to rob or
injure any one if, for public purposes, it alters the
law of inheritance so as to prevent the transfer of the
land of intestates to any persons who are not near blood
relations of the deceased. The exact degree of relation-
ship that may be fixed upon is not of importance to the
principle, except that it must not be so narrowly limited
as to interfere with what Bentham termed "just expec-
tation." A son or a brother certainly has such just
expectations, while the expectations of a third cousin or a
great-grand-nephew can hardly be so termed. For the
sake of illustrating the principle, let us suppose that the

270 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

limit of inheritance to the land of an intestate is fixed at
what may be termed the second degree, that is, that it
shall not pass to any more remote relative than an uncle,
first-cousin, or grandchild, but when none of these exist
shall devolve to the State for public purposes. No one
can deny that the State could justly make such a law,
when laws which disinherit acknowledged children because
they are illegitimate, as well as all a man's legitimate
daughters and other female relatives, have been long
upheld as both just and expedient !

Before going further I may as well state, that for the
purpose of the argument in this paper I assume that
settlements by which land can be tied up and life interests
created for several generations, as well as the law of
succession to the eldest son or nearest male heir, do not
exist, as it seems pretty certain that they will be abolished
long before any such radical reform as that proposed in this
chapter will come on for discussion in the Legislature.

It may, however, be objected, that if the law of inheri-
tance were altered as above suggested it would produce
little effect, because it would afford an additional incentive
to the owners of land to dispose of it by will. But it is a
fact that much stronger incentives — such as the fear of
leaving daughters destitute — has not prevented men from
dying intestate ; and it may be argued on the other side,
that in those cases in which a landowner had no near
relatives, and all power of entailing an estate had ceased, the
inducement to make a will at the earliest possible period
would be very weak indeed, and thus a certain number of
estates would continually lapse to the Government.

Application of the Principle.

It must be admitted, however, that the quantity of land
thus annually acquired by the State would be inconsider-
able, and would not be sufficient to produce any important
amelioration of the condition of the country. We must,
therefore, proceed to the second and far more important
application of our general principle, to which what has
hitherto been proposed is merely the introduction.

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 271

The interest of a landowner in his property is of two
kinds, commercial and sentimental, and these together
constitute its value to him. He claims, and possesses, the
right to deal with it as he pleases during his life, and to
bequeath it to any successor at his death. For the State
to interfere with either of these rights would be an injury
for which he should be compensated. The British land-
owner has, however, been allowed to extend his senti-
mental interests to an indefinite extent, by leaving his
property in trust for certain purposes, which trust the law
has enforced for generations, or even for centuries, after
his decease. It is now very generally admitted that this
is impolitic and unjust in the case of any property, and
especially so as regards land. It is felt that each genera-
tion should have absolute possession of the land and
goods that have descended to it, and should not be
hampered in the use of them by the dictates of the dead
who cannot possibly be able to judge what is best for a new
and, in many respects, differently circumstanced population.
This question is far too extensive to be discussed here, and
I refer my readers to Sir Arthur Hobhouse's volume,
The Dead Hand, in which they will find abundance of facts
and arguments demonstrating the absurdity and the evil
consequences of allowing the dead still to hold property ;
while the enormous mischief produced by entails and
other life-interests in landed estates, has been fully exposed
in Mr. J. Boyd Kinnear's useful work, The Principles of
Property in Land. I accept it, then, as an established
principle, that the present owner of land should be allowed
to bequeath it to any successor he may choose, but that
he should have no power to restrict that successor in his
use of it. He may recommend, or make known his wishes
as to the use of it ; but the State is unjust to the
living if it allows the dead to command, and then enforces
their commands on posterity.1

Having thus established the only right of transmission
from one generation to another which ought to be recog-
nized by the State, we see that the " expectation " or

1 The subject of ''Trusts" has been discussed in chapter X. of
he present volume.

272 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

" sentiment " of a landowner, as to the continued possession
of his estate by his descendants, is so liable to be traversed
by his successors that he can hardly be said to have any
right or property in it beyond the first or second generation.
It is true that in many cases the estates have passed from
father to son for centuries ; but this is a rare exception,
and has probably only been secured by the law of primo-
geniture and the power of entail. When these are
abolished, and no man can influence the succession of his
land beyond one generation, it is clear that the value
of this " sentimental possession " in land will rapidly
become a vanishing quantity as we pass beyond the first
few generations. For each successive possessor will be free
to sell or bequeath it as he pleases, and this freedom will
certainly lead to the breaking up of estates, and render all
calculations or expectations as to their possible owners
three or four generations hence altogether futile.

It may be admitted, however, that the desire to transmit
property to the second or third generation, or to the
families of any living person in whom the owner may be
interested, is a legitimate sentiment which, though not
proper to be forcibly carried into effect by the Government,
should yet not be checked, or its realization be rendered
altogether impossible, by any act of the Legislature, except
to obtain important benefits for the whole people. The more
limited desire or sentiment, that a personally occupied
estate, such as an ancestral house, farm, or grounds, should
long continue in the family, is decidedly one to be encour-
aged and aided in its realization, as keeping up the love
of home and country, and having a generally good
moral and social tendency ; and, as will be seen further
on, this is fully recognized in the scheme we are here
developing.

But the power of unlimited transmission of land, in a
fixed line, not as a home to be occupied and personally
enjoyed, but solely as a source of wealth and social in-
fluence, has been shown to be contrary to public policy ;
and here, therefore, our main principle will come into
operation — namely, that whatever may be done legally
and equitably by individuals, may also be done by the

HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 273

State. Now, any individual owner has the power of
diverting the transmission of land into another direction
than that desired by the previous owner. He may do
this in accordance with his personal wishes, his necessities,
or even as impelled by his vices, and no person has a
right to claim compensation for any supposed injury or
injustice in consequence of his not inheriting it. The
State, then, may properly claim and exercise a like power
for important public purposes; but in order that "just
expectations " may not be interfered with, nothing should
be done to prevent an estate from descending in due
course, at least as far as the grand-children of any existing
owner ; and, if we go one step further and say that the
law shall not be altered so as to affect even his great-
grand-children, we certainly extend the principle as far
as any one can reasonably claim on the ground that his
" sentimental interests " ought to be respected. It is,
therefore, proposed that a law shall be enacted by which
all landed property in Ireland shall legally descend for
three generations beyond the existing owner and then pass
to the State. It has been already shown that this will
not infringe any individual right or privilege that ought
to be permitted to landowners, or even any sentimental
interest that they really possess ; neither, as will be shown
further on, will it, in all probability, appreciably dimmish
the market value of their property during the lifetime of
any existing owner or heir-at-law.

In all those cases in which land does not pass from
father to son or daughter, but collaterally to brothers,
uncles, cousins, or other persons, as well as in all cases in
which it is sold or given away, each separate transfer is to
be counted as equivalent to one succession in the direct
line of descent — the general statement of the new law
being, that land will be allowed to pass to three successive
owners other than the actual owner at the time of the
passing of the Act, and will, on the decease of the last owner,
become the property of the State.1

1 This was a first tentative application of a great principle which I
have considerably extended since, especially in Chapter XXVIII. of
this volume.

VOL. II. T

274 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAV.

Before considering how the land so acquired should be
dealt with in order to realize the greatest good to the
community, and avoid all the evils that result directly
and indirectly from absolute individual ownership, I would
call attention to the advantage of the very gradual acqui-
sition of the land which the mode here advocated would
ensure, so that the necessary machinery for dealing with
it might be adequately tested, and much valuable experi-
ence gained, before the bulk of the land became national
property. By means of the law of intestacy, as already
explained, a few estates would at once drop in ; while
from the law which limited the future transfers of land
to three in number, other estates would lapse in the course
of a very few years, and afterwards in gradually increasing
numbers, just as the more perfect State and local organi-
zation and modified habits of the people became better
adapted to utilize the changed conditions of tenure.

Proposed Land-tenure.

I will now proceed to explain in detail the exact manner
in which the land so acquired should be held by the people,
in accordance with the general principles already laid
down ; and in doing so, I shall endeavour to show that it
is possible to give full satisfaction to every just sentiment
of ownership of the land, to every desire for family per-
manence, to every home feeling and local attachment,
which it should be a primary object of Government to
maintain and restore. The encouragement and extension
of such sentiments and influences is of the highest im-
portance to the real well-being of the community, and it
is one of the greatest objections to the present system of
land-tenure that, by leading to vast accumulations of land
in the hands of comparatively few individuals, it has
more and more destroyed these beneficial influences, by
condemning the bulk of the population to the mere tem-
porary occupation of house and land, and has thus made
us what an earnest and talented writer has well termed
" A Dishorned Nation."1

1 See Rev. F. Braham Zincke, in Contemporary Review, August 1880.

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 275

My proposal will best be understood, and its numerous
advantages explained, by taking an illustrative case, and
showing exactly how it would work. Let us suppose, then,
that owing to a rapid succession of deaths a gentleman
has come in unexpectedly as the third successor to an
estate, and therefore having only a life interest in the
land. The estate consists, perhaps, of a house and ex-
tensive pleasure grounds, of a home farm, and of, say, a
dozen surrounding farms. This gentleman has a family
of sons and daughters, and he wishes his eldest son to
continue to live on the estate, which, we will suppose, has
been long connected with his family. At the death of
this last freeholder the whole land of the estate becomes
public property ; but anything on the land or which has
been added to its value by the preceding three owners,
remains the property of the heirs, and every future holder
of the land will have an indefeasible tenant-right to
everything they may acquire, besides the land itself, and
also to every addition or improvement of whatever kind-
they themselves make to it.

Soon after the passing of the law we have here advo-
cated, a general valuation of all the land of Ireland will
have been made, every separate field, plot, or holding
being estimated according to its inherent comparative value
as dependent on soil, subsoil, aspect, climate, elevation
above the sea, vicinity to towns or markets, means of com-
munication, and all other facts and conditions, not given to
it ~by any preceding owner, but dependent either on natural
qualities and surroundings or on the general development
of the country. The annual value thus estimated will be
the State " ground-rent " or " quit-rent ; " and, as may be
decided on from time to time, either the whole or some
fixed portion of this ground-rent will be payable by every
holder of land which has ceased to be private property.
This "ground rent" will, of course, be very much lower
than the lowest rent ever paid by a tenant to a landlord
on the old system ; but even this will probably never have
to be paid in full, except in the earlier stage of the tran-
sition from public to private ownership ; and whatever
proportion of it is decided on by the Government to be

T 2

276 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

payable will be uniform over the whole country, and will
only be raised or lowered for State purposes, or as a sub-
stitute for oppressive or injudicious taxation, so that it
will be impossible that any favouritism should be shown to
particular individuals or particular localities.

So much being premised, we will return to our
illustrative case of the estate whose last private owner
has just died. In due course the heirs will come into
possession of so much of the land as the last owner
personally occupied, at the " ground rent " determined by
the general valuation, which will be open to inspection in
every parish, and whose amount will thus have been long
known to the heir. If he decide to continue to reside in
the house and occupy the home farm he may do so, with
the same certainty and security as if he were still the
freeholder and the " ground rent " were merely an
enlarged land-tax ; and he will also be able to transfer
the occupation to his son or successor, or to sell his
" tenant-right " to any one so as to obtain the market
value of any improvements he may make in the estate.
He may, if he likes, pull down houses or fences, cut down
trees, plant or remodel in any way he pleases ; for in
doing this he is only improving or injuring his own
saleable or transferable property. One thing, however, he
must not do, and that is to sublet or mortgage the land
or tenant-right, it being a principle of State policy
(carried into effect by the Act already referred to) that
no one must hold land except from the Government
direct, and must not, except under certain defined
conditions, subject it to any claims which would destroy
or interfere with the security for the ground-rent payable
to the Government. This is the very essence of the
proposed system of land-tenure ; since, if it were not
adopted, the same accumulation of land in the possession
of individuals that now prevails might again occur ; tenants
would again be subject to prohibitory stipulations ; and
that perfect freedom and unfettered ownership essential
to the full development, both of the capacities of the soil and
of those good moral and social effects which such owner-
ship is calculated to produce, would be again destroyed.

HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 277

j, however, that the heir or heirs did not wish
to occupy the estate, but wanced to realize and divide
their property, they could freely sell the tenant-right,
including everything that was upon the land, either by
private contract or public auction, and the purchaser
would at once become the holder of the land under the
State.

As regards the other farms, which had been rented out
by the last owner, each tenant in actual occupation at the
time of his death would have the right to continue
undisturbed in his holding, thenceforth paying the fixed
ground-rent to Government, and purchasing the tenant-
right from the heirs of the last owner of the land. If a
private agreement could not be arranged between the
parties, owing to exhorbitant demands by the owners of
the tenant-right, the tenant should be empowered to
claim that the amount' payable should be determined by
an official valuer, who should take as a basis of his
valuation the difference between the " ground-rent " and
the average net rent actually paid for the preceding five
years, calculated at a moderate number of years' purchase,
dependent on the state of repair of the premises and
general condition of the farm.

Should the tenant not be able to pay this amount, author-
ized public associations of the nature of our building
societies or, failing these, the Go vernment or the municipality
might advance a certain proportion of it on security of the
tenant-right, repayment to be made by equal installments
for a limited period. This, of course, refers only to these
cases in which the tenant does not already possess the
tenant-right. But when all the buildings and
improvements on the farm have been made by the
tenant, or have become his by purchase or in any other
legal or equitable way, then he will have nothing to pay
to the last owner of the land, but will at once become a
holder under the State, at a very greatly reduced rent,
with absolute certainty of tenure for himself and his
heirs, and with perfect security as to the possession of
whatever further improvements he may make upon the
land.

278 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAV.

It may here be objected that, as in the scheme of the
Land League, the country would be impoverished by the
whole rental of the land being paid to the English
Treasury, and thus leaving the country. But this need
not be so, because there is a radical difference between
the two cases. In the Land League scheme the tenants
would be paying interest and repaying part of the
principal of a loan, and the money so paid would not, of
course, be again available for any local purpose ; but in
the case we are now considering, the ground-rent paid by
the tenant would be so much clear gain to the State, and
should therefore be applied to the remission of local and
general taxation in equitable proportions. But, for some
considerable time after the scheme came into operation,
large funds would be required, to be employed, by way of
loan or otherwise, to enable the poorer class of tenants to
build themslves decent houses, to make roads and fences,
to stock the farms, and generally to bring the holdings
into a reasonably good state of cultivation and
improvement, which has been altogether impossible under
the system of absentee landlords, middlemen, and
exorbitant rents. It must be claimed as a special merit
of this scheme of land reform, that it would provide ample
funds for such a truly national purpose as the raising of a
whole people from a chronic state of pauperism, only
relieved by emigration or by the depopulation caused by
famine and disease ; and we may be sure that whenever
the Legislature becomes sufficiently liberal and far-seeing
to enact such a law as is here advocated, it will be

gBnerous enough to empower the National Land
ommission (or whatever body may be created to carry
the law into effect) to apply the funds at their command
in any way that may best further the great object of
raising the peasantry of Ireland into a condition of
independence and well-being.

Aid of this kind would of course be strictly limited to
repairing the obvious physical evils which the old system
had brought about. When once the lowest class of
tenants were placed in such a condition as to enable them
to cultivate and improve their holdings with a Mr

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 279

prospect of success, the rest must be left to the influence
of a sense of secure ownership, and the possession of a
tenant-right under far more favourable conditions than
was ever asked for or thought possible, even in Ireland.
Of course there will always be a few men so utterly
thriftless, idle, or incompetent, as, under the most
favourable conditions, to come to ruin. For such there is no
help, and they must be left to sink to the condition of un-
skilled day-labourers.1 But there is no reason to think that
men of this stamp will be much more numerous in
Ireland than elsewhere ; and we may fairly expect that
under such extremely favourable conditions of tenure as
this scheme would give them, the Irish agriculturist, on
whatever scale, would work with the same devotion and
energy as in any other country where there is complete
security that the result of every hour's additional labour
will be to increase the permanent value of his own property,
and thus add to the well-being of himself and his family.
It has often been urged that no system of State-owner-
ship of the land ought to be adopted, even if practicable,
because it would be impossible to avoid jobbery and
favouritism by the officials who would have the power of
letting the Government lands; and the objection has been
thought to be very serious, even by those who see all the
evils inherent in unrestricted personal property in land.
But it will be evident that no such objection applies to
the plan here advocated, because no State official, or
Government officer whatever, would have anything to do
with letting the land, and could not possibly favour one
person more than another even if he were disposed to do
so. This arises from the fact, that in all enclosed and
cultivated lands, the " tenant-right," or that portion of
the land's value which has been given to it by preceding
holders, will have a personal owner By virtue of this
ownership of the " tenant-right," he has an indefeasible
title to hold the land, subject only to the payment of the
National " ground-rent ; " and as this " tenant-right " will
be a marketable commodity, and one without the posses-

1 In Chapter XXV. it is shown that even this class might be ren-
dered industrious and self-supporting.

280 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAI>.

sion of which the land itself cannot be held, it follows
that no enclosed land will ever be given up till the actual
holder finds a purchaser for his " tenant-right," when that
purchaser at once becomes the new holder, and as such
becomes liable for the ground-rent, just as the new tenant
of a house becomes liable for the " house-tax." So far, then,
as regards the transfer of land from holder to holder,
Government or Government officials would have no more to
do with it than they have in the transfer of land or hoiises
now, though the new owner or tenant now becomes respon-
sible for the land-tax or the house-tax to the Government.

Even in cases of intestacy, with no relatives within the
degree required by the law, it would only be the land
itself that it is proposed should pass to the State, the
houses or other property upon it, and generally the
" tenant-right " of it, being treated as personal property,
which would follow the other property of the deceased.
In most such cases the value of this tenant-right would
have to be realized for division among the heirs. It
would, therefore, be put up to auction and sold to the
highest bidder, and the purchaser of it would thenceforth
be liable for the State ground-rent. Under no circum-
stances, then, would Government have anything to do
with letting the land, except in the case of default of
payment of rent. Should this remain unpaid for a
certain fixed period, the tenant-right would have to be
sold to defray it. The purchaser would become the new
holder, and the balance of the purchase money, after
paying the arrears of rent, would be handed over to the
ejected tenant.

The only cases in which Government would have the
unfettered disposal of the whole of the land would be in
the case of commons, moors, and unenclosed tracts
generally as well as land which had been kept unculti-
vated and used for sporting only. Along with other
landed property, this would of course fall in to the State in
due course, and would have to be dealt with in a variety
of ways, depending upon special local conditions. Some
might, and probably would, be kept as common land in
perpetuity, for the use of the surrounding occupiers and the

HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 281

enjoyment of the public generally. Where extensive
tracts of moor, bog, and mountain prevail, as in many
parts of Ireland, the reclamation of some of this might be
encouraged by granting definite portions rent-free for a
certain term of years, and at a low ground-rent afterwards,
on condition of enclosure and cultivation ; but in all these
cases the letting should be public — by auction or tender,
and such as to allow of no chance for jobbery or favouritism.

The question of private dwelling-houses in towns
remains for consideration, and would have to be decided
in accordance with the same general principles as govern
the occupation of land generally — namely, that the
occupier or holder of any land from the State, should
reside on or near it, and be the real owner of the
fixed property upon it. Everything would therefore be
done, as town and village lands fell in, to facilitate the
acquisition of houses by all classes of the community.
Ground-rents would be fixed at a low rate, proportioned
somewhat to the character and density of the population ;
while the first acquisition of the houses would be rendered
easy to the purchaser of the tenant-right by fixing the
official valuation (to come in action on the failure of
private agreement with the heir of the last owner), at a
small number of years' purchase of the average rental or
rateable value. Legalized companies might also be
allowed to advance money for such purchases ; but in all
such cases a sufficient margin would have to be left to cover
the possibility of loss if the tenant were ejected and the
house sold for payment of ground-rent, which would
always be a first charge on the property.

There would, however, remain a considerable number of
persons who require temporary abodes, and these might
be accommodated in two ways. There would, first, be
large buildings let out in lodgings either in flats or other-
wise; while in localities where numerous small houses
already existed, persons specially licensed might be allowed
to hold the land on which a number of these stood, on
condition that they personally superintended and managed
them, were responsible for their repair and sanitary
condition, and made the letting and supervision of house

282 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

property their personal business. If no house owner of
this kind was allowed to employ agents (except tempor-
arily) in the entire management of such property (just as
the holder of a farm would not be allowed to live at a
distance, and manage it entirely by deputy), the wants of
the public would be adequately supplied, while the evils
now arising from the occupation of temporary houses, the
operations of speculative builders, and the system of
building leases, would be reduced to a minimum.

Probable Results of Land Nationalization.

Having thus sketched the main features of the system
of the Nationalization of the Land here advocated, let us
endeavour to trace out some of its probable effects,
both while the operation was in progress, as well as after
its completion ; and in doing so we shall be able to
consider some of the objections that will inevitably be
brought against it.

And first, as to the effect of such a scheme on the value
of land. It will no doubt be alleged that the passing of
the Act here proposed would immediately lower the value
of all landed property, and thus do a direct injury to
existing landowners. As, however, anticipations of the
effect of certain changes of legislation on the value of land
have almost always been falsified by the result, we may
well refuse to put much faith in similar prophecies now.
If the change here advocated should come into effect, any
purchaser of land before the Act passes will be sure of
absolute possession for three generations; while, if he
purchases after the Act has passed, his prospective
possession will extend to only two generations, the pur-
chase itself forming one transfer. Now, as such a measure
will only be passed, after long discussion and agitation and
repeated failures, till at last it is seen to be inevitable, it
is probable that there will, towards the last, be a kind of
rush to get land before the law is changed ; and this might
enhance its value considerably, and compensate for any
slight subsequent fall. Then, after the Act has
passed, estates will very soon begin to drop in, and these

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 283

will be altogether withdrawn from the land market so far
as investment is concerned. This will diminish the supply
of saleable land, and will thus tend to keep up the high
prices previously attained. Again, we must remember
that to the majority of purchasers of land absolute
possession for two generations (or two transfers) after
themselves would be practically the same as a theoretical
perpetuity of ownership ; for the present perpetuity of
ownership of freehold land is, in most cases, imaginary, as
no man can possibly tell what will become of it in the
third generation after his decease ; or, at all events, he will
not be able to do so when entails are abolished, and this
abolition of entails is always taken for granted as having
occurred before the present scheme comes into operation.
Another important consideration is, that all the land of
the country will be equally affected ; and it is a great
question whether any such change of the law could lower
in value all the land of the country, while its population
continued to increase. If some districts were excepted
and retained their land as freehold, while others came
under the operation of the new law, no doubt there would
be some difference of value produced, though even then it
would not be much ; but as all land would be at first on an
equality in this respect, and the alteration of tenure
would be so remote that its effect would be more senti-
mental than real, it is a question whether the continually
diminishing supply of land would not for a considerable
time keep up its full market value. When we pass on to
the second or third generation after the new law had come
into operation, the question becomes still more complicated,
and it is not easy to say whether there would be even
then any important fall in value. For by that time so
much of the land of the country would have gone entirely
out of the market as a possible investment (being held by
personal occupiers under the State), that all other classes
of securities, such as railway debentures, tramroad and
telegraph shares, colonial and municipal bonds, and
Government stocks, would be in great demand, and, there-
fore, increase in value. This would certainly react upon
land ; and as this could still be purchased for one life,

284 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

with the option of continuation at the very moderate
State ground-rent, it is possible that the demand for the
poorer classes of land for occupation and improvement,
and for more favourable sites as residences, might still
keep it up to nearly the full value it had when freehold.
Even if there were a considerable depreciation, this would
be to a large extent, compensated by the diminution of local
and general taxation that would by this time have been
effected by means of the ground rents which had already
fallen in to the Government ; and it is not at all improbable
that, with a nominally lower value of their land, the
landowners who remained in Ireland might, owing to
the peace and general prosperity of the country, and the
diminished taxation, be really better off than they are at
the present day.

Evils of Free Trade in Land.

Let us now pass on to another question. It is a favourite
dogma of some reformers that all the evils of the present
system would be got rid of by what they term " free- trade
in land." They seem to think that, if all obstacles to the
sale and purchase of land were abolished, if entails of all
kinds were forbidden, and the conveyance of land made as
cheap and expeditious as it might easily be, the chief
obstacle that now exists to the growth of a body of peasant
proprietors would be got rid of. This notion appears to
me to be one of the greatest of all delusions. The real
obstacle to peasant proprietorship or small yeoman farmers
in this country is the land-hunger of the rich, who are
constantly seeking to extend their possessions, partly
because land is considered the securest of all investments,
and which, though paying a small average interest, affords
many chances of great profits, but mainly on account of
the political power, the exercise of authority, and wide-
spread social influence it carries with it. The number of
individuals of great wealth in this country is enormous,
and, owing to the diminution of the more reckless forms
of extravagance, many of them live far below their in-
comes and employ the surplus in extending their estates.

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 285

The probabilities are that men of this stamp are increasing,
and will increase, and the system of free-trade in land
would serve chiefly to afford them the means of an
unlimited gratification of their great passion. With such
men for competitors in the market, who will ever be able
to buy land for personal occupation and cultivation as a
business? Such a course will become more and more
impossible ; and nothing seems more likely to check and
render difficult the growth of a peasant proprietary than
free-trade in land, with the unlimited power of accumula-
tion by wealthy individuals which such free-trade will
render still easier than before. This increased accumula-
tion will inevitably exaggerate the numerous evils of
absentee proprietorship, such as management by agents,
restriction of agricultural processes, discouragement of
improvements, the preservation of game, the system of
short* building leases,1 and a pauperized class of agricultural
labourers ; and thus, although the abolition of restrictions
on the transfer of land is a valuable reform, and receives
my hearty support, it is yet utterly powerless to ameliorate
the evils inherent in the unlimited possession of the soil
of the country by individual owners, either as a money
investment or as a source of political and social power.

The advocates of the views here opposed seem to have
overlooked two fundamental facts — that the land of a
country is the great essential of human existence ; and,
that, being fixed in quantity and incapable of increase,
absolute freedom to buy and sell it must result in a
monopoly, and in giving absolute power to the rich who
possess it over the poor who do not — a power which, in
civilized countries, is checked by public opinion and by
special legislation, but is nevertheless always incompatible
with the well-being of a free people.2

1 I am informed that some landowners will now only let their land
on building leases for eighty or even sixty instead of the usual ninety-
nine years, and when they have the monopoly of fine sites land is
actually largely taken on these onerous terms.

2 In Mr. Froude's remarkable paper on Ireland, in the Nineteenth
Century for September last, he gives the following case of (probably
ignorant) abuse of power, apparently from personal knowledge. He
says: — "Not a mile from the place where I am now writing, an
estate on the coast of Devonshire came into the hands of an English

286 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

The scheme I have here developed destroys the monopoly
of the land — the very life-blood of the nation — by any
class, while it allows for the freest interchange and the
most unrestricted use of the land, and for the most

duke. There was a primitive village upon it occupied by sailors, pilots,
and fishermen, which is described in Domesday Book, and was in-
habited at the Conquest by the actual forefathers of the late tenants,
whose names may be read there. The houses were out of repair. The
duke's predecessors had laid out nothing upon them for a century,
and had been contented with exacting the rents. When the present
owner entered into possession, it was represented to him that if the
village was to continue it must be rebuilt, but that to rebuild it would
be a needless expense ; for the people, living as they did on their
wages as fishermen and seamen, would not cultivate his land and were
useless to him. The houses were therefore simply torn down, and
nearly half the population was driven out into the world to find new
homes. A few more such instances of tyranny might provoke a
dangerous crisis."

This is a sufficiently striking case of the evils of landlordism which
gives a rich man the power to tear the poor man away from his
ancestral home. Can we really boast of our freedom when even
centuries of occupation give these poor seamen no right to live on
their native soil ? But even this, bad as it is, is as nothing compared
with the wholesale misery we have caused by forcing our land-system
upon a large portion of India. This is what a Bengal civilian (quoted
in the Statesman for September 1879, p. 329) states to be the present
condition of the unhappy peasants of Bengal: "The zemindar and
ryot are as monarch and subject. What the zemindar asks the ryot
will give ; what the zemindar orders, the ryot will obey. The
landlord will tax his tenant for every extravagance that avarice,
ambition, pride, vanity, or other intemperance may suggest. He will
tax him for the salary of his ameen, for the payment of his income tax,
for the purchase of an elephant for his own use, for the cost of the
stationery of his establishment, for the payment of his expenses to
fight the neighbouring indigo-planter, for the payment of his fine when
he has been convicted of an offence by the magistrate. The milkman
gives his milk, the oilman his oil, the weaver his cloths, the con-
fectioner his sweetmeats, the fishermen his fish. The zemindar fines
his ryots for a festival, for a birth, for a funeral, for a marriage. He
levies black mail on them when an affray is committed. He establishes
his private pound, and realizes five annas for every head of cattle that

is caught trespassing on the ryot's crops These cesses pervade

the whole zemindari system. In every zemindari there is a naib
(deputy), under the naib there are gumashtas (agents), under the
gumashta there are piyadas (bailiffs). The naib exacts a perquisite
for adjusting accounts annually. The naib and gumashtas take their
share in the regular cesses ; they have other cesses of their own. The
piyadas when they are sent to summon defaulting ryots, exact from
them four or five annas a day. It is in evidence before the Indigo
Commission that in one year a zemindari naib, in the district of
Nuddea, extorted ten thousand rupees from his master's ryots

HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 287

perfect free-trade in land compatible with the liberty, the
progress,and the free development of the whole community.
There can be no conceivable use of the land for which it
would not be available under the new regime. The
absolute freedom of sale of tenant-right to intending
occupiers of land would provide for experimental cultiva-
tion in any direction. The capitalist who wished to
devote himself to farming on a large scale would first
purchase the tenant-right of some large farm, and gradu-
ally add to it the surrounding farms as they came into the
market, or as he could persuade their owners to sell them
by liberal offers. Farms would often be broken up, and
the tenant-right to single fields or small plots sold
separately whenever there was a demand for such lots,
and thus the industrious labourer or the retired tradesman
would be able to obtain portions suited to their respective
wants. Spade husbandry on small peasant properties,
and huge machine-cultivated farms like those of Western
America, would have an equal chance of trial ; each district
would gradually merge into that style of husbandry which
suited it best, and in no case would there be any hampering
restrictions to check its progress. This would be real
free-trade in land as opposed to its present monopoly by
the rich, and would lead to the freest and most perfect
development of the agricultural resources of the country.

This system of cesses has eaten, like an incurable disease, into the
social organization of the country. An energetic Government might
have grappled with the question, and succeeded in abolishing a system
which, though forbidden by law, yet flourishes in undisturbed
luxuriance ; yet no one raises a hand on behalf of the ryots, no

one speaks a word in their interest It seems almost as though

they were doomed never to be emancipated from their present degrad-
ing life."

The result is that the ryots exist always on the verge of starvation.
They were once, it must be remembered, direct holders of their land
under the Government. But Lord Cornwallis and the then Home
Government of India handed them over to a body of tax collectors (the
zemindars) as tenants, thinking that our English landlord system,
perfect in the eyes of a landlord Government, must be best for all
the world. The result has been, that, "under British rule, the soil
of India has either passed or is fast passing into the power of land
speculators and money-lenders, while the ancient landowners have been
converted into half-starved, poverty-stricken serfs on the fields which
were once their own."

288 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Effect of Free Access to Land on the Well-being of the

People.

It is very difficult to foresee, and perhaps impossible to
exaggerate, the influence of such a state of things on
the real well-being of the community. Judging from
what is known to be the effect of extended land-ownership
in other countries, in stimulating industry, in diminishing
crime, and in abolishing pauperism, and knowing the love
of country people for their home and its associations, we
may surely anticipate that the land would soon exhibit the
effects of such favourable conditions of life in well-culti-
vated fields and gardens, comfortable houses, and a well-
clothed, well-fed, and contented population.1

But, it will be said, what is now proposed is a revolution,
and a revolution more portentous than any the world
has yet seen, since it would inevitably lead to the complete
extinction of the territorial aristocracy, a class which has
hitherto formed an important — perhaps the most impor-
tant— part of every community raised above the savage or
nomad condition.

This is very true. The change proposed is indeed a
great and a fundamental one. But the question before us
is, not its greatness or its radical character, but simply
whether it would be beneficial to the community as a
whole, and, if beneficial, whether it could be effected with-

1 Mr J. Boyd Kinnear in the work already referred to says : — " Who
does not see how much happier England will be when, instead of one
great mansion surrounded by miles beyond miles of one huge property,
farmed by the tenants at will of one landlord, tilled by the mere
labourers, whose youth and manhood know no relaxation from rough
mechanical toil, whose old age sees no home but the chance of charity
or the certainty of the workhouse, there shall be a thousand estates
of varying size, where each owner shall work for himself and his
children, where the sense of independence shall lighten the burden of
daily toil, where education shall give resources, and the labour of
youth shall suffice for the support of age. Changes like these cannot,
indeed, be created ; they must grow. But our business ought at least
to be to permit their growth." Mr. Kinnear thinks that free trade
in land will permit their growth. I have already shown how extremely
improbable this is, while it might even exaggerate many of the existing
evils : whereas the plan here proposed necessarily brings about the state
of things which is allowed to be so highly beneficial.

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 289

out injustice and without danger. I think I may claim
to have shown that the last question may be answered in
the affirmative, On the plan here sketched out, the change
might be effected, either without injury to any individual
other than a possible, but by no means certain, deprecia-
tion of his property — arid if such a depreciation did occur,
and could be valued, there would be ample available funds
to award compensation.1 Moreover, there is no finality
advocated for the actual proposals here made, but only
for the general principle. If it should be estimated that
the termination of absolute property in land after three
generations would be really injurious to existing land-
owners to any appreciable extent, then a higher number
might be fixed upon. But, on the other, hand a smaller
number would give the existing generation a greater interest
in passing such a law.

To many it will no doubt be almost impossible to realize
a state of society in which there were no great landowners,
no country gentlemen living wholly or mainly on the
rent of land. They will picture to themselves the country
relapsing into a state of semi-barbarism, the parks turned

1 In taking such extreme precautions against any interference
even with the "sentimental interests" of existing landowners, I have
been actuated by a desire to deal fairly with every class, and to give
the least possible offence to a powerful vested interest. That I have
gone even further in this direction than is required by simple justice, in
a case where the sentimental interests of individuals conflict with those of
the community, is shown by the following remarkable statement on this
very point, by the late Nassau W. Senior, a writer who will certainly
not be accused of being an extreme Radical. In his Essays on
Ireland (vol. i. p. 3) he says: — "Nor can any interest, however
lawful, be considered property as against the public, unless it be
capable of valuation. And for this reason : if incapable of valuation it
must be incapable of compensation, and therefore, if inviolable, would
be an insurmountable barrier to any improvement inconsistent with its
existence. If a house is to be pulled down, and its site employed for
public purposes, the owner receives full compensation for any advantage
connected with it which can be estimated. But he obtains no pretium
affectionis. He is not paid a larger indemnity because it was the seat of
his ancestors, or endeared to him by any peculiar associations. His
claim on any such grounds for compensation is rejected, because, as the
subject-matter is incapable of valuation, to allow it would open a door
to an indefinite amount of fraud and extortion ; nor is he allowed
to refuse the bargain offered to him by the public, because such a refusal
would be inconsistent with the general interest of the community."

VOL. II. U

290 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

into sheep farms, the mansions into farmhouses, and the
noble pleasure-grounds into market-gardens. But they
entirely overlook the fact that the real wealth of the coun-
try will certainly be greater than ever, and that every
mansion now existing, and many additional ones, will still
be occupied, possibly with less of display and magnificence,
but often with more of taste and high cultivation. The
mere fact that thousands of educated men who now live
comparatively idle live on the rents of their ancestral
estates will be converted into workers of one kind or
another, must surely be a source of additional wealth and
power to the nation. During the transition state (all
checks in the way of entail having been abolished) the
surplus revenues from the land, or the proceeds of its sale,
will be gradually invested in other ways. Some of it
will go into genuine industrial enterprises of various kinds ;
while it is not improbable that the personal management
and improvement of a great agricultural estate (of which
a park and mansion may still form the central part) will
come to be considered as the proper and most honourable
occupation for the descendants of the landed aristocracy.
The great landowner and country gentleman of that day,
with an estate of many thousand acres, employing hun-
dreds of labourers and supporting thousands of cattle,
using the best machinery and manures, developing in
every possible way the productive capacity of the soil,
and as proud of the health, comfort, and well-being of his
men as of the breed and condition of his horses and his
oxen, would certainly not be an unworthy successor of
the great landowner of to-day, who receives his rents
from half-a-dozen counties, and possesses mansions which
he never inhabits and estates which he never visits but for
purposes of sport.

The impossibility of having any land except for personal
occupation would render it necessary that agriculture
should be studied as a part of every gentleman's education,
in order that whatever land he had around his country-
house, whether park or home farm, might be not only a
source of pleasure but of profit ; and this wide extension
of agricultural knowledge would certainly become a source

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 291

of wealth to the country which it is impossible to
estimate.

Although sporting will necessarily be a far less import-
ant feature in country life than it is now, there is no
reason to think it would altogether cease. The wealthy
could devote as much land as they pleased to the
preservation of game for their own or their friends'
amusement, or sporting might take other forms more
suited to the altered state of the rural population, in
which both wealth and intelligence would be more
widely distributed than at present. Even if the present
land-system were to continue unaltered, we could hardly
anticipate that the growth in population and changed
habits and ideas of two centuries hence would leave the
customs of the country, as regards field sports, what they
are now; and it is therefore quite unnecessary to con-
jecture further what might happen to them under such
extremely changed conditions as are here anticipated.

Although the legislature and the press may alike ignore
it, there is undoubtedly growing up among the more
intelligent of the working classes, as well as among a
large body of independent thinkers, a profound dissatis-
faction with the actual state of things as regards private
property in land. They see that its possession or
enjoyment by any but the wealthy is yearly becoming
more and more difficult, and that its accumulation in the
hands of a few owners is opposed in many ways to the
public welfare. They see wide areas of common lands
enclosed, to the pauperization of the needy labourer, and
the further enrichment of the wealthy landowner ; while
a system of obsolete laws framed by, or in the interests of,
the so-called "lords of the soil," are now being everywhere
strained against any free and adequate enjoyment of their
native land by the great mass of the people. They find
themselves often shut out from the downs and moors and
picturesque mountains, almost all of which are said to
have private owners who may, and often do, enclose them ;
while the very rivers and streams, which ought to be
as free for the enjoyment of all as the winds of heaven or
the light of the sun, are everywhere being monopolized

u 2

292 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

for the exclusive pleasures of the rich. Even the beautiful
country lanes, with their wide margins of grass, and
banks often shaded with trees and adorned with wild flowers
— lanes which afford the purest delight to the constantly
increasing population of our towns and villages, and
which are often the only examples of picturesque Nature
within their reach, are now constantly being stolen from
them by the owners of the adjacent fields who (regardless
of decisions in our highest courts) fence in the narrow
roadway in order to add a few perches to their land ;
while everywhere we find what were once pleasant foot-
paths either stopped altogether or shut in by obstructive
fences. This land-monopoly of the rich pursues the mass of
the people even to their homes, since they are obliged to
live in crowded, badly built, and often unhealthy houses,
because so many landowners will only grant land on
building-leases and at high ground-rents, in order to
enrich their unborn, and perhaps unworthy successors, at
the expense of the health, the comfort, and the freedom of
the present generation. And, lastly, they see that these
great landowners are, as a class, the opponents of all
progress, the upholders of cruel and obsolete game laws,
and that they possess legal powers and privileges virtually
giving them a command over others which in a free
country no class of citizens ought to possess. This wide-
spread feeling of discontent manifests itself in Ireland in
land-leagues and tenant-right associations, and in other
more destructive forms ; while in England there is a very
general but as yet undefined belief that the true remedy
for the evil is to be found in the Nationalization of the
Land.1 The danger is, that all reform should be opposed

1 Proposals for the nationalization of the land have received compara-
tively little attention by modern writers, because it has been assumed
that present owners must be paid its full value, and this was clearly
impossible. Thus in the recently published work of Mr. J. Boyd
Kinnear, in a chapter on this subject, we find such statements as the
following: — "Under the broader form of the proposal the first step is
that the State shall purchase the land from its present oivners, either
compulsorilv or by agreement, but in either case paying its full value"
(p. 106). And again : — "There is, of course, no objection in principle
to the State taking possession of all the land in the realm, on the
understanding, which is always included in the proposal, that it shall

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 293

too long, and the people, in whose hands political power
now rests, should at last insist upon some hasty and ill-
considered remedy which, while bringing ruin on many,
should only afford a temporary and imperfect cure of the
disease.

The present writer had his attention forcibly drawn
to this great question about forty years ago, by the
perusal of Herbert Spencer's demonstration (in his Social
Statics) of the immorality and impolicy of private
property in land, and since that time he has endeavoured
to make himself acquainted with what has been written
on the subject, and by means of constant thought and
discussion to arrive at the true solution of the problem.
This he believes he has at length done. The difficulties
that surrounded the subject were many and great. It
was necessary, firstly, to find a means of transferring the
ownership of the land from individuals to the State with-
out taking anything away from existing owners, or
infringing any right, real or sentimental, which they
actually possess ; secondly, to devise a new tenure of the
land which should combine all the incalculable advantages
of safe possession and transmissible ownership, together
with the full benefit of every improvement and increase
of its value, while guarding against the recurrence of
unlimited landed estates, absentee landlords, life-interests,
subletting, building leases, restriction on improvements,
and all the other evils which accompany our present
system ; thirdly, to avoid the dangers which have been
hitherto believed to be inherent in State-Landlordism —
jobbery, favouritism, waste, and the creation of a vast
addition to State patronage ; and, lastly, to render the land

compensate the present owners." These quotations from one of the
latest and best informed writers on the land question sufficiently prove
that previous writers have not seen how the land may became State
property without paying for it and yet without injury to any one ;
and this is the very essence of the question which determines its
practicability. My plan not only does this, but it also, as already
shown, completely removes the difficulty of State-Landlordism by
retaining the tenant-right as saleable and heritable property — a system
which has been in actual operation on Lord Portsmouth's estates
in Ireland for more than half a century, and with the most beneficial
results.

294 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

a productive and practically inexhaustible source of
national income, and to bring all these changes about in a
gradual and almost imperceptible manner, by the action of
a few simple principles embodied in law, so that society
may have ample time to adapt itself to the new condi-
tions ; while, during the process of adaptation, successive
generations may grow up to whom they will bear the
aspect of being as natural, as orderly, and as beneficial, as
private ownership does to most of the present generation.1
All these essential conditions of a true system of land-
reform are embodied in the scheme now briefly explained.
Although not really injurious to existing landowners, it is
not expected that it will meet with any support from
them, since it has not been framed in their exclusive
interest, but with a view to the well-being of the entire
population. It will, no doubt, be said that the title of
this chapter is misleading, since the arguments I have used
are equally applicable to England as to Ireland. This is

1 Although any change of the nature here proposed will no doubt be
fiercely opposed by most landowners, and will perhaps not be admitted
to discussion in Parliament for many years, yet changes more directly
affecting vested interest in land have been made in the present century.
Mr. Nassau Senior tells us in the work already referred to (Ireland, p. 8),
that — "Until January, 1834, no person could inherit the freehold
property of his lineal descendants. On the death of a person possessed
of such property, intestate and without issue, leaving a father or
mother, or more remote lineal ancestor, it went over to his collateral
relatives. In 1833 this law was totally altered. In such cases the
property now goes to the father or mother, or remoter lineal ancestor,
in preference to the collaterals. The brothers, uncles, nephews, and
cousins, of lunaties, or of minors in such state of health as to be very
unlikely to reach the age at which they could make a will had, until
the 3rd and 4th Will. IV. cap. 106, was passed, prospects of succession
so definite, that in many cases they would have sold for considerable
prices. All these interests, though lawful and capable of valuation,
have been swept away without compensation. And it was necessary
that this should be done ; the old law was obviously inconvenient,
and to have attempted to compensate all those who, if the principle
of compensation had been admitted, must have been entitled to it,
would have involved such an expense as to have rendered the alteration
of the law impracticable." This precedent is very valuable, because no
such calculable vested interests occur in the present case, while the
political and social importance of the change, and its beneficial effects
on the bulk of the community, are vastly greater. The discussion,
therefore, becomes limited to the question whether the proposed
change would be a beneficial one.

xvi HOW TO NATIONALIZE THE LAND 295

quite true. The principles laid down are of universal
application, but the time and the mode of applying such
principles are matters of expediency. The land-question
in Ireland is a burning one. It is a source of chronic
discontent and disaffection, and is likely to be so in spite
of all the patchwork remedies that may be applied to it.
More than anything else it maintains the antagonism of
the Irish representatives in the British Parliament, an
antagonism which has unhappily too much justification,
and which, so long as it exists, will be a drag on the wheels
of the legislative machine, and thus be directly injurious
to every British subject. The solution of the Irish land-
question is, therefore, urgent. It is of importance to every
one that it should be settled on a sound and permanent
basis, and this can never be the case unless the true
principles of land-tenure are discovered and acted upon.
The present scheme is, therefore, proposed to be applied,
in the first instance, to Ireland alone. It is claimed that
its very gradual operation — which to some will appear an
objection — renders it far safer and more likely to be
effective than more heroic measures, while its discussion
need not interfere with any remedial legislation which
successive Parliaments are willing to enact. It is further
claimed that it is founded on principles of abstract justice,
and that, while respecting all existing rights and
possessions, it will ultimately abolish that system of
unlimited property in land which was founded originally
by conquest, oppression, or rapine, and which, although
perhaps useful in a transition stage of civilization, is
incompatible with our national well-being, or with the
general happiness and advancement of the community.

To the independent Liberals of Great Britain and to
the long-suffering Irish nation I now submit my pro-
posals, asking only for a careful perusal, an unprejudiced
consideration, and a searching criticism.

CHAPTER XVII

THE " WHY " AND " HOW " OF LAND NATIONALIZATION l

IN Macmillaris Magazine (for July, 1883) an article
appeared on " State Socialism and the Nationalization of
the Land," from the pen of the late Professor Fawcett, in
which he referred to two books as having more especially
drawn attention to this question — one of these being my
own volume on Land Nationalization, the other, Mr. Henry
George's well-known Progress and Poverty. In con-
sequence of the wide circulation of the latter work,
Professor Fawcett thinks it important to examine
carefully the proposals there advocated, and he proceeds
to do so, though, as it seems to me, far from " carefully,"
since he starts many difficulties which would never arise
under Mr. George's proposals, and entirely ignores the
vast mass of fact, argument, and illustration, by means of
which the radical injustice of private property in land,
and its enormous and widespread evil results, are set forth
and demonstrated. With the treatment of Mr. George,
however, I do not here propose further to meddle ; but as
Professor Fawcett has quoted the title of my book as one
of those which have drawn attention to the subject, while
he deliberately ignores every fact, argument, and proposal
contained in it ; and as the press has very widely noticed

1 This article first appeared in Macmillan's Magazine (August and
September, 1883). It is now reprinted, because it discusses and replies
to many of the popular objections against Land Nationalization which
are still used, and explains details which are not touched upon in
the preceding chapter. A few verbal alterations have been made
in order to make it more intelligible at the present day.

CH. xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 297

and praised this article as demonstrating the futility and
impracticability of land nationalization, I gladly seize the
opportunity afforded me of stating the other side of the
question. This is the more necessary because the readers
of Professor Fawcett's article will certainly carry away the
impression that my proposals are substantially the same
as those of Mr. George, and that a criticism of the one
will apply equally to the other ; whereas not only are they
absolutely distinct and unlike, but those first advanced
by myself have commended themselves to a considerable
number of advanced thinkers who previously held
nationalization to be impracticable, and have led to the
formation of a Land Nationalization Society, which has
now been twenty years l in existence, and is gradually but
surely aiding in the formation of a distinctively English
school of land reformers. These facts, to which Professor
Fawcett's attention has been specially directed, surely
required that some notice, however brief, should be given
to them in an article written expressly to instruct the
public on this great question.

In order to place this problem fairly before my readers
within the limits here assigned to me, it will be necessary
to omit the consideration of some of its aspects altogether,
and to treat others very briefly. The fundamental
question undoubtedly is, the right or the wrong, the
justice or the injustice, of private property in land. And
then follows the question of results; right and justice
lead to good results — to happiness and general well-
being; wrong and injustice as surely lead to bad results,
and their fruits are moral evil and physical suffering.
We have to inquire, then, what are the actual results of
modern landlordism ? and thus confirm or modify the
conclusions we have reached from general principles.
Finally, we have to consider how we can best carry into
effect right and just principles so as most certainly to reap
the reward of moral and physical well-being. This really
exhausts the subject. The historical inquiry — how
private property in land arose, what changes it has under-

1 Founded in March, 1881.

298 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

gone, the results of legislation by landlords, and
usurpation by kings, the story of royal grants, con-
fiscations, and inclosures, are all exceedingly interesting,
and will be found to support and strengthen at every
point the argument from principle and from results ; but it
is not essential to a comprehension of the main question,
and we shall therefore omit it here, referring our readers
to such works as Mr. Joseph Fisher's History of Land-
holding in England ; Thorold Rogers' Six Centuries of
Work and Wages ; Our Old Nobility (originally published
in the Echo newspaper) ; and Dr. W. A. Hunter's lecture
on " The Land Question " (Mark Lane Express, January
8th, 1883), for condensed information on this branch of
the subject.

First, then, we have to inquire whether private property
in land is just and right; and here we find ourselves at
once in conflict with the great body of Liberals and land-
law reformers, who advocate, as their sole panacea, free
trade in land. For the foundation of their doctrine is,
that land should be treated as merchandise; that it is
right for individuals to own it absolutely and in any
quantity ; that it is good for great capitalists to add farm
to farm, and to build up great estates ; that land should
be bought and sold as easily as iron or railway shares.
We nationalizes, on the other hand, say that all this is
fundamentally wrong. We maintain that land should
not be treated as merchandise, for the following
reasons : —

1. Because it is absolutely essential for all produc-
tive industry, while it is the first necessity of human
existence; therefore those who own it will, as a whole,
possess absolute power over the happiness, the freedom of
action, and the very lives of the rest of the community.

2. Because it is limited in quantity, and tends there-
fore to become the monopoly of the rich — a monopoly
which will surely be intensified by free trade, which will
render it easier than now to accumulate large estates, and
will thus make the landless people still more surely than
they are now the virtual slaves of the landlords.

xvn LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 299

As Professor Fawcett and Mr. Shaw-Lefevre have both
shown, the land hunger of the rich is insatiable ; and, as
is well put by the Edinburgh Review — " It stands to
reason that if the sale and purchase of land were
perfectly easy and free, those persons would buy most
land and give the best price for it who had most money
to buy it with."

The Right or Wrong of Landlordism.

To determine whether private property in land is right
and just, and compatible with the well-being of the
whole community, it will be well to glance briefly at the
true foundations of property, and the admitted rights of a
free man. Property is, primarily, that which is obtained
or produced by the exertion of labour or the exercise of
skill. In this a man has a right of property, to use, to
give away, or to exchange. This is a universally admitted
right which forms part of the very foundations of society,
and many eminent writers maintain that it is the only
way in which private property can justly arise. Property
is, however, usually admitted in any natural product
found by an individual and obtained without labour ; but
this kind of property has never the absolute character of
the former kind, since if the thing found is not abundant
and is essential to life or well-being, the individual right
to its exclusive possession is not admitted. The single
good spring of water on an island, a single group of fruit
or other useful trees, a single pond or stream containing
abundance of fish, are not allowed to be appropriated by
the first discoverer to the exclusion of his fellow men.

Property in the results of a man's labour has no such
limitations ; it is usually hurtful to no one, and with free
access to natural agencies and products, and freedom of
exchange between man and man, is beneficial to all.
There is no other natural and universal source of private
property but this — that every man has a right to the
produce of his own labour; and hence, as land is not
produced by man and is essential to man's life and
happiness, it cannot equitably become private property.

300 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Let us next look at the question from the point of view
of the rights of individuals, as members of a society which
upholds freedom as a fundamental principle of its
existence. In such a society it will surely be admitted
that every man has an equal right to live. Not, be it
observed, a right to be kept alive by others ; not a right
to claim any part of the produce of others' labour, but,
simply, freedom to support himself by labour, freedom
from all obstructions by his fellow-men of his own
freedom to labour. Not to have this freedom of action
is to be a slave : and to this extent at least it will be
admitted that all men are, or should be, equal.

But man cannot live without access to the natural
products which are essential to life — to air, to water, to
food, to clothing, to fire. If the means of getting these
are monopolized by some, then the rest are denied their
most elementary right — the right to support themselves
by their own labour. But neither pure air, nor water,
neither food, clothing, nor fire, can be obtained without
land. A free use of land is, therefore, the absolute first
condition of freedom to live ; and it follows that the
monopoly of land by some must be wrong, because it
necessarily implies the right of some to prevent others
from obtaining the necessaries of life.

Another consideration which shows the private owner-
ship of land to be unjust is the fact (admitted by all
economists), that the whole commercial value of land is
the creation of society, increasing just as population and
civilization increase. If one man had a grant of an un-
inhabited island or country, the size of Britain, the value
per acre of all the land which he did not use himself
would be nil. Rather than live alone he would give land
to any one who would settle near him. And when others
came he would sell them land, as it is sold in all new
countries, for a mere trifle, while he could never enforce
his rights over those who took possession of remote parts
of his territory. But, just as the population increased
the land would rise in value ; till, when towns and cities
had sprung up, and all the arts of civilized life were
practised, and communications were established with every

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION-WHY ? AND HOW ? 301

part of the world, a single acre might sell for £1,000 or
£10,000. Who created this value? Not the original
settler, but society. And this shows the absurdity of
comparing, as some do, the occasional increase in the
value of other property with that of land. In the case of
everything which is the product of human labour, the
tendency is for it to become cheaper as population
increases and civilization advances. When the reverse
occurs it is usually owing to exceptional conditions, or to
the influence of some kind of monopoly, and it never
applies to the necessaries of life. But with land the
increase of value is universally coincident with and due
to the growth of society, and the only fluctuations in this
constant rise are owing either to monopoly and specu-
lation forcing the price at a certain epoch above its
natural value, or to restrictions on its free use by the
people. Here again we bring out a broad distinction
between the products of a man's labour which are and
should be private property, and land, the gift of nature
to man and the first condition of his existence, which
should ever remain the possession of society at large, and
be held in trust for the equal benefit of all.

One other consideration remains, and perhaps the most
important of all as affording a demonstration of the
necessarily evil results of unrestricted private property in
land. If a portion of the community is allowed to appro-
priate the whole of the land for its private use and benefit,
this appropriation necessarily carries with it the right and
the power to appropriate the bulk of the products of the
labour of the rest of the community, while it keeps down
wages to a minimum rate just sufficient to maintain
physical existence. Carlyle recognized this truth when he
speaks of the poor widow boiling nettles for her only food,
and the perfumed lord at Paris extracting from her every
third nettle as rent. The late Professor Cairnes in many
of his writings dwelt upon this consequence of landlordism.
In one of his essays in the Fortnightly Review, he says : —

"The soil is, over the greater portion of the inhabited globe,
cultivated by very humble men, with very little disposable wealth,
and whose career is practically marked out for them by irresistible

302 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

circumstances, as tillers of the ground. In a contest between vast
bodies of people so circumstanced, and the owners of the soil —
between the purchasers without reserve, constantly increasing in
numbers, of an indispensable commodity — the negotiation could
have but one issue, that of transferring to the owners of the soil
the whole produce, minus what was sufficient to maintain in the
lowest state of existence the race of cultivators."

But this result has been most clearly and forcibly
demonstrated by Mr. Henry George, who makes it the
very key-note of his book, and demonstrates it by a wealth
of illustration and a force of argument which must be
carefully studied to be appreciated. I can here only find
space for an abstract of one of his illustrations.

Imagine an island, with no external communications,
and but moderately peopled, in which the land was equally
divided among all the inhabitants ; and let us suppose
that there was free trade in land as in everything else,
just as desired by our most advanced politicians. After
fifty or a hundred years let us look again at this island,
and we shall certainly find the land most unequally
divided ; some will be very rich and have large landed
estates, many will be very poor and have sold or otherwise
parted with all their land. We may suppose there to be
no wars, a pure government, few taxes, no state church,
no hereditary nobility ; yet inequality in ownership of
land will have caused pauperism and virtual slavery.
For, all must live on the land, and from the products of
the land ; therefore those who do not own land can only
have the use of it or obtain its products on the terms of
those who do own it. They are really slaves ; for, in order
to live, they must accept the landlord's terms and do as
he bids them.

If landlords are rather numerous it will not seem like
slavery, because the forms of free contract will be observed.
But there can really be no free contract, because the land-
owners can wait, the landless cannot. They must work on
the landowner's terms or starve. And thus, just in pro-
portion as population increases, and the competition for
land and its products, especially for bare food, becomes
keener, the landowners will obtain a larger and larger
share of the products of the soil — in other words, rents

xvn LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 303

will rise, and wages will fall or remain stationary. Now
let us introduce a fresh element — labour-saving
machinery. This will enable more wealth to be produced
with the same labour or with less ; but it will not decrease
the dependence of labour upon land. All the increased
production of wealth will go to the wealthy — the landlords
and capitalists, the landless remaining as poor as before.
As the climax of this argument, Mr. George supposes the
case of labour-saving machinery to be brought to absolute
perfection so that all wealth will be produced by various
forms of automata, without human labour. Then all
wealth will belong to the landowners, for even standing
room for houses and machinery cannot be obtained ex-
cept on their terms, and the landless multitude must
necessarily starve in the midst of plenty, or live as
servile dependents on the landlord's bounty. Thus,
private property in land — even were all other social
and political evils removed — necessarily makes the many
poor that the few may be rich ; for it prevents free
access to those natural elements without which man
cannot live, and thus directly causes poverty and pauper-
ism, and the long train of miseries and crimes that spring
therefrom.1

By this preliminary inquiry we have shown —

(1) That private property in land can never justly arise,
because land is not a product of human labour.

(2) That the monopoly of the land by a class is incon-
sistent with the fundamental rights of individuals in a
professedly free country.

(3) That the whole commercial value of land is the
creation of society, not of landlords and tenants, and should
therefore belong to the community.

(4) That private property in land necessarily leads to
the poverty and subjection of the many for the benefit of
the few.

I therefore claim to have completely answered the

1 If we trace the social condition of the United States from
the early part of the nineteenth century to the present time, we
see that all these changes have taken place as a result of increasing
land -monopoly.

304 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

fundamental question with which I started, and to have
demonstrated that, as a matter of principle, our present
land-system is absolutely wrong, cruelly and perniciously
unjust. Before proceeding to consider how far this con-
clusion is supported by the facts and results of modern
landlordism, I cannot but remark on the absolute silence of
Professor Fawcett on the whole question of right or wrong.
He knows that this aspect of the subject is treated with
wonderful force and most convincing illustration in Mr.
George's book ; he knows that nearly a hundred thousand
copies of that book have been circulated among English
readers ; and yet he confines himself exclusively to Mr.
George's practical proposals which have really nothing to do
with the main question. Are we to suppose that he upholds
the convenient doctrine that whatever is is right; that
ethics need have no place in political teaching ; and that
the happiness or misery of millions is as nothing compared
with the maintenance of the usurped rights and
privileges of British landlords ? He can surely not
imagine that such a mode of treating this great subject
can have the slightest effect as an antidote to Mr. George's
teachings.

The Effects of Landlordism.

We now come to the important practical question, What
is the outcome of modern landlordism ? We have seen
that, from various points of view, it is wrong in principle ;
the works we have referred to on the history of the subject
show that it had its origin in force, and has since been
largely maintained by confiscation and by unjust legislation ;
but we are so practical a people, that, if it can be shown
that its results are good we should care little about
principles or about history, but would be quite content
to maintain a system which works tolerably well. And
people actually do say that it works well. Press and
Parliament are never tired of exclaiming — " See how
rich we are ! What a trade we do with all the world !
Our system, which produces such results, must be all
right ! " But along with our great riches we have a
mass of terrible poverty, and it is the opinion of disin-

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 305

terested writers that we are the most pauperised country
on the globe.1

Our public men continually assure us that pauperism is
diminishing ; or that at the worst it is stationary, while
our population is increasing rapidly, and that it is therefore
proportionally diminishing ; and they base their statements
on the official statistics of pauperism. I shall show; however,
that these are not trustworthy guides, and that there is good
reason to believe that, during the very periods in which our
aggregate wealth has increased most rapidly, pauperism has
increased also in positive amount, and perhaps even in
greater proportion than the increase of population.

If we take the official statistics of pau perism in England
and Wales for the last thirty years, we find great fluctua-
tions, but nothing like a regular diminution. Between
1849 and 1880 the numbers were lowest in the years 1853
and 1876-78, while they were highest from 1862 to 1873.
The only years in which the numbers rose above a million
were 1863-64 and 1868-71, and this was the very period
when our commerce was increasing so rapidly as to excite
the enthusiasm of our legislators, and when our prosperity
was supposed to be greatest. The extremely irregular
fluctuations of official pauperism render it possible
almost always to choose some year, twenty, thirty, or forty
years back, when it was higher than now, and thus show
an apparent decrease of numbers ; but if we take the
whole period from 1849 to 1880 as one during which our
commerce and wealth increased enormously, and all the
industrial arts and means of communication made the most
rapid strides, and take the average pauperism of the first
twelve and last twelve of these years we find them almost
exactly the same, thus — 1849 — 1860, average paupers,
863,338 ; 1869—1880, average paupers, 864,398. Between

1 As this has been denied without proof of its inaccuracy it will be
well to quote the words of Mr. Joseph Kay, Q.C., author of Free
Trade in Land, who says: "The French, the Dutch, the Germans,
and the Swiss look with wonder at the enormous fortunes and at the
enormous mass of pauperism which accumulate in England side by side.
They have little of either extreme." And again he speaks of the
astonishment of foreigners at "the frightful amount of absolute
pauperism amongst the lowest classes."

VOL. II. X

306 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the middle points of these two periods (1854 to 1874) the
population increased about 23 per cent., and thus the pro-
portional pauperism appears to have decreased considerably,
though not at all in proportion to the increase of our
aggregate wealth, which was at least doubled during the
same period.

Several causes have, however, been in operation during
this period which have led to the numbers of officially
recorded paupers forming a less and less adequate indication
of the total mass of pauperism in the country, so that even
the small comfort derived from its supposed decrease in
proportion to population may be denied us. In the first
place there can be no doubt that the extent and efficiency
of private charity all over the country have been steadily
increasing, and that by its generous aid, large numbers
have been saved from becoming paupers. Not only have
old charities been better administered, but many societies
have been formed for the systematization of private
charity ; while all over the country the clergy, and an ever
increasing army of lady visitors, have aided the poor with
advice and timely relief. It is impossible to estimate the
amount of these various agencies, but it seems not im-
possible that they may have relieved the ratepayers from
an amount equal to that due to increase of population
during the same period ; and this is the more probable
when we consider the enormous increase of the wealthy
middle class, and the increasing fe eling that the poor have
some moral claim upon the rich, lead ing to more and more
liberality in every case of undeserved misfortune.1

But yet more powerful agencies have been at work tend-
ing to decrease the numbers of official paupers without any
corresponding decrease of poverty and pauperism. For
many years there has been a growing disposition to diminish
out-door relief, and apply more generally the " workhouse
test " which is the fundamental principle of our poor law.
It is well known that there is such a wide-spread dislike
and dread of the workhouse among the more respectable
poor that many will rather starve that enter it, and as a

1 Some of the evidence on this point has been given in Chapter XII.
page 213), but more fully in my Wonderful Century, Chapter XX.

xvn LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 307

matter of fact many do starve who might have been well fed
within its walls. Now, in the Daily News of April 18th,
1883, there was a remarkable article giving an account
of the results of this change of system in some London
parishes. It states that, ten years earlier, a severe reduc-
tion of out-door relief was commenced in Whitechapel and
other parishes, till at the time of writing there was no out-
door relief given in that parish, nor in Stepney and St.
George's in the East, while the same process was going on
in Marylebone and other parts of London, and to a less
extent all over the kingdom. The article in question states
the remarkable fact that this great change had produced
practically no increase of indoor paupers. In Stepney, for
example, out-door relief had been reduced by 7,000 in the
preceding ten years, and there was no increase whatever of
indoor paupers, the reason being (as expressly stated) that
organized pri'vaU charity had taken the place of out-door relief.
Now, if there has been a reduction of 7,000 official paupers
in one London parish without any proof of a corresponding
decrease of real want and destitution, how utterly un-
meaning and even misleading becomes the quotation of
these official statistics as showing any real decrease of our
pauperism. If we take as our guide the fact, that, in one of
the worst and most poverty-stricken districts of the metro-
polis, organized private charity has been able to take the
place of the relieving officer when a total cessation of out-
door relief has been effected, we may be sure that it has
been found quite equal to the much easier task of relieving
those thrown on its hands by a very partial application of
the same methods of dealing with the poor in other parts
of the country. We may, therefore, fairly assume that the
diminution of out-door paupers over the whole country
during the last thirty years has been largely due to the
stricter application of the workhouse test, and that those
thus refused relief by the guardians have been aided and
kept alive by more extensive and better organised
private charity. If this is the case, the only official test
of pauperism as actually increasing or decreasing will be
found in the records of indoor relief, and these show
numbers steadily increasing at a much greater rate than

x 2

308 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

population ! Thus in the thirty years from 1852 to 1882 the
number of indoor paupers in England and Wales has con-
tinuously increased, from 106,413 in the former year to
188,433 in the latter, an increase of 83 per cent., while in
the same period population only increased 45 per cent.
The plain inference is, that confirmed pauperism — that
which includes all the most degraded and the most hopeless
of our poor — had been steadily increasing at a greater rate
than our population, during a period in which our aggre-
gate wealth had been doubled, and our commerce, of which
we are so proud, had increased three-fold.

Before quitting this subject, it is well to point out that
the way in which the number of paupers is estimated is
most misleading, and gives no adequate idea of the real
numbers. The tables show only the numbers relieved on
the 1st January in each year, but it is estimated that the
actual number of persons receiving relief during the year
is nearly two and a half times this number, or about an
average of two millions1 for England and Wales, or two
and a half millions for the United Kingdom. If we add
to this latter number those who receive relief in the casual
wards (which are not included in the official tables), and
the very large numbers who depend wholly or partially on
private charity for 'support, we shall perhaps bring the
figures up to three and a half millions. But beyond this
number of actual paupers loom a vast host of the poor
who ever live on the verge of pauperism, and from whom
the ranks of the actual paupers are constantly recruited,
including whole populations, like the cottiers of the west
of Ireland, and the crofters of the Highlands and Islands
of Scotland, living in such a condition of perennial want
that it only requires that most certain of periodical events
— a bad season — to produce actual famine. If we add
only one million for all these, we bring up the number of
actual or potential paupers in this civilized, Christian and
pre-eminently wealthy country to about four millions and
a half, or about one in seven of the whole population !

This dreadful failure to distribute among our workers

1 For details of this estimate see the present writer's Land National-
ization, its Necessity and its Aims, p. 3.

xvn LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 309

with any approach to fairness the enormous wealth which
they alone produce, is rendered more disgraceful when we
take account of the vast extension of labour-saving
machinery during the epoch we are considering.

It is calculated that we now possess steam-engines of
about ten million horse power, equal to a hundred million
men always working for us. Reckoning six million families
in the United Kingdom, we may say that every family has
the equivalent of sixteen hard-working slaves, who are never
idle and can always do a full day's work. What ought to be
the result of all this labour, in addition to the grinding
toil of all our working men and women? Should we
not expect abundance of food and clothing for all, and
ample leisure for the cultivation of the mind, and the
enjoyment of the beauties of nature and of art ? Instead
of this, we have wide-spread, ever-present pauperism ;
crowded cities reeking with squalor, filth, drunkenness,
and vice ; a depopulated country ; and, as a direct conse-
quence of these two factors — streams polluted with wasted
fertilising matter, destroying at once natural beauty,
valuable fish-food, and human life. Everywhere we find
wealthy people enjoying all the luxuries and refinements
of a high civilization ; but amidst them we also find
masses of human beings living more degraded lives than
most savages, and working harder and more continuously
than most slaves.

In our preliminary inquiry we have shown that some
such result as this must arise from absolute private
property in land. It is surely a remarkable coincidence
(if it be only a coincidence) that these results should
actually occur, in such extreme and painful development,
in the country where land is concentrated in the fewest
hands, where the legal rights of landlords are the most
absolute, and where, owing to the enormous aggregation
of wealth, the divorce between those who own and those
who cultivate the soil is the most complete. Let us
endeavour to throw further light upon this question by
an examination of the effects of our system in the special
cases of Ireland and Scotland, in which the facts are both
undisputed and easily accessible,

310 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Landlordism in Ireland.

In Ireland we have the spectacle of landlords doing
what they like with their own for three centuries, backed
up by a landlord parliament which made any laws they
thought necessary ; and the result has been a country
in continual rebellion and a people ever on the verge
of starvation.

This chronic starvation has been imputed to any and
every cause but the real one — to over-population, to idle-
ness, to potatoes ; the real and all-sufficient cause being
that the mass of the population are crowded on small and
utterly insufficient holdings of the worst lands at extrava-
gantly high rents, which means that everything they
raise besides enough potatoes to support life goes as tribute
to the landlords.

Under such conditions, no population however limited,
no industry however great, no agriculture however perfect,
no soil however fertile, could save a people from poverty
and recurring famines.

As Mr. De Courcy Atkins well puts it :

" Less than 2,000 persons own two-thirds of the land in Ireland,
and out of its five or six million inhabitants there is no man of those
who have tilled it and given it all its present value who owns one
sod of its soil. For the land owned by these two thousand
persons, many of whom are absentees, five hundred thousand
families are competing, as the sole stay between them and starva-
tion." (The Case of Ireland Stated. 1880.)

The Devon Commission, published in 1847, declared
authoritatively that in Ireland everything on the land
which gives it value — houses, buildings, fences, gates,
drains, &c., had been made by the tenants, and were
undoubtedly their own property ; yet from that day on-
ward for many years our Parliament allowed and even
encouraged the Irish landlords to rob the tenants of this
property by forms of law, and thousands and tens of
thousands of Irish tenants were robbed accordingly!
Yet more. In the four years succeeding the great famine,
there were over two hundred thousand evictions ; whole
town-lands were depopulated, and their human inhabitants
driven off to make room for cattle and sheep — houses,

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 311

schools, churches, everything being destroyed. The
results of this are still to be seen over a large part of
Ireland, where the traveller seems to be passing through
a land bereft of human inhabitants, but marked by
abundant ruins. The Daily News special commissioner,
writing from Mayo, in October, 1880, said :

4 ' Tradesmen, farmers, and all the less wealthy part of the
community still speak sorely of the evictions of thirty or forty years
ago, and point out the grave-yards which alone mark the sites of
thickly populated hamlets abolished by the crowbar."

The lands thus cleared were let in blocks of several
square miles each to English or Scotch farmers for grazing
farms, in order, as he tells us, that landlords " might get
their rents more easily and more securely," even though
they were sometimes less than those paid by the former
inhabitants. And what became of these inhabitants?
Let the Devon Commission, appointed by Parliament, and
consisting mostly of landlords, answer the question : —
" It would be impossible for language to convey an idea of
the state of distress to which the ejected tenantry have
been reduced, and of the disease, misery, and even vice,
which they propagated in the towns wherein they have
settled ; so that riot only they who have been ejected have
been rendered miserable, but they have carried with them
and propagated that misery. They have increased the
stock of labour, they have rendered the habitations of
those who received them more crowded, they have given
occasion to the dissemination of disease, they have been
obliged to resort to theft and all manner of vice and
iniquity to procure subsistence ; but what is perhaps the
most painful of all, a vast number of them have perished
of want." l Now, consider these horrible results produced
in four years to a million of people ; consider further,
that the same kind of eviction, with its consequent misery
and vice, has been going on in Ireland in varying degrees
down to our own times, and that all this untold wretched-
ness, this cruel, heart-rending wrong, this vice, and crime,
and pauperism, this disease and death, have been caused
— not in a great war between nations struggling for
1 Parl. Rep. 1845, vol. xix., p. 19.

312 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

supremacy, not to maintain any great principle of religious
or civil liberty, but, " in order that landlords may get
their rents more securely and more easily ! " And now,
whenever the people of Ireland, crowded into towns arid
on the poorest lands of the west coast, are again starving,
the only remedy our landlord-legislators can propose is to
ship them off by thousands to other countries, and thus
increase and intensify that widespread hatred of English
rule which is the natural and just punishment we are
receiving for persistent injustice. These deserted villages
are not to be again repeopled ; the cattle and sheep must
be still allowed to displace Irishmen ; the " easy collection "
of the landlords' rents must on no account be endangered ;
let everything go on as before, and when our consciences
or our fears are aroused by the cry of too many starving
Irishmen, let subscriptions be got up, and let the English
people be taxed to ship off a few thousands of surplus
paupers to Canada or Australia, and all will be well !

Here we see pure landlordism having its own way, and
working out its natural and inevitable results, in the
extreme case of ownership of the soil of the country for
the most part by absentees and by aliens in race and
religion. About this there can be no dispute. And if the
absurd and totally unfounded cry of over-population is
always to be followed by more emigration, there can be no
end to the process. For even were the population reduced
to one million of Irish peasant cultivators, that million
would continue in exactly the same condition of misery
and destitution as the present population, if they were
confined to limited areas and were subjected to the
extortions of the agents of absentee or alien landlords.
Even before the famine the exorbitant rents and high
taxes were paid chiefly by means of exported food, showing
that the land of Ireland was able to support many more
than the eight millions which then inhabited it. Yet
now, when the population has been reduced to less than
five millions, the same cry of over-population is raised
— as it was a century ago when there were only two
millions ; and whether there be two or five or eight
millions in the country, there will certainly be starvation

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 313

and local over-population if the people are forbidden the
free use of their native land, are confined to the least
productive districts and to insufficient holdings, and if
all the surplus produce above a bare supply of potatoes
in average years is exported to pay rent ! That more
starving Irishmen should be expatriated while millions
of acres which they once tilled are given up to cattle
and sheep, is the condemnation of landlord government.
That the chronic famine which has prevailed in Ireland
for a century should still devastate it, is the condemna-
tion of landlordism itself.

Landlordism in Scotland.

Let us now turn to another country, where the landlord
power has had complete sway for a century, unfettered
by any of the difficulties which are often alleged as the
reason for its terrible failure in Ireland. In the Highlands
of Scotland there has been no religious difficulty, and
there has been no antipathy of race ; the people have
not depended wholly upon potatoes, and the country
has certainly never been over-populated. Neither has
there been any rebellion against authority ; but the uni-
versal testimony of all who know them best is, that in
the whole British dominions there exists no more intelli-
gent, religious, peaceable and industrious people than the
Highland peasantry. Yet here too, under the most
favourable conditions, we find perennial destitution and
famine, and a series of Koyal Commissions seeking out that
which is plain as the sun at noonday — the causes of want
and misery among the tenantry of an enormously wealthy,
and in their own territories almost omnipotent, body of
landlords. The causes are, simply, that the native in-
habitants have been driven from the inland valleys to
the sea-coast to make room for sheep and deer. The
terrible history of the Highland clearances is too long to
go into in this place. Suffice it to state that more than
two millions of acres once inhabited by human beings are
now devoted to deer only, from which the noble Highland
chieftains or their successors get much sport or large
rentals. Seventy men at this day own half Scotland, and

314 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

if they choose to complete what they have begun, and
turn more fields and meadows into hunting-grounds, our
existing law permits them to do so ; while no amendment
of the law as yet proposed by Liberal politicians would
place the slightest check upon this iniquitous power.

The reader who wishes to know how the brave
Highlanders have been treated by those who owe every-
thing to them, and who should have been their protectors
— their hereditary chieftains — should read Mr. Alexander
Mackenzie's interesting work The History of the, Highland
Clearances, or the outline of the main facts in my own
work Land Nationalization. Let us now see what are the
conditions under which the Highlanders live, and consider
whether under such conditions anything but poverty,
discontent, and famine is possible. We learn from the
various reports that have appeared in the daily papers,
confirming the testimony of all previous impartial writers,
that the Highland crofters are confined to miserably small
holdings — the largest croft in Skye, for example, being
seven acres ; that the land is poor and the rent very high ;
that the landlords have continually encroached on the
commons and mountains the use of which for grazing is
essential to the crofter's existence. These have been
usually taken from them, without compensation, to make
either large sheep-farms or deer-forests ; and in many
cases they suffer without redress from the incursions of the
deer which eat their crops, while they are not allowed to
keep dogs to mind their own sheep (when they have any)
for fear of disturbing these sacred deer, whose well-being
and due increase are carefully attended to, even though
it entails starvation on men and women.

Then, again, these great estates, often as large as con-
tinental kingdoms or dukedoms, are managed by agents
and factors who represent an unknown and unseen
landlord, and who are really despotic rulers, carrying out
their own decrees under the penalty of eviction — a
penalty as severe as that imposed by the law of England
on hardened criminals. It was stated in the Daily News,
a paper which is celebrated for the careful accuracy of its
information, that on one estate (a generation back) a

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 315

whole body of crofters were removed because they had
good land which the factor wanted : and this is the more
credible because many other cases are recorded in which the
factors take farms from which the former holders have been
evicted. Under the rule of the factors the people may
be oppressed and pauperized, even with the most benevo-
lent of landlords. Take the case of the late Sir James
Matheson, who, in the year 1844, bought the extensive
island of Lewis (as large as an average English county)
and who is universally admitted to have been personally
most benevolent and liberal. Yet under his paternal
government tenants were ejected at the will of the factor,
and extensive tracts turned into sheep farms and deer
forests, and such cruel injustice was perpetrated for years
that the people at length rebelled, and then only did
their landlord know they had anything to complain of.
The Quarterly Review declared that Sir James Matheson
made wonderful improvements in Lewis, " pouring out
money like water," and spending over £100,000 there,
besides giving largely in charity ; and the result was that
soon after his death there was famine in Lewis, and the
representatives of this wealthy and benevolent landlord
were obliged to beg for subscriptions in the city of London
to save the people from starvation ! Nothing is said about
the sheep and deer of the island ; no doubt they were fat
and flourishing and gave handsome returns, whereas men
and women were encumbrances and had to be kept alive
by charity ! What a cruel satire is this. An enormously
rich country, which taxes its people heavily under the
pretence that it dispenses justice and gives protection to
all ; which is highly civilised and highly religious ; and
which yet upholds a system under which large masses of
its subjects have no right to live but by the permission of
landlords and their irresponsible agents !

I cannot here go further into this distressing subject,
but must again refer my readers to the easily accessible
sources of information I have quoted. I will only give
one passage from a writer of full knowledge and authority,
Dr. D. G. F. Macdonald, to show that my conclusions are
not the result of prejudice or imperfect knowledge :

316 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

' ' 1 know a glen, now inhabited by two shepherds and two game-
keepers, which at one time sent out its thousand fighting men. And
this is but one out of many that may be cited to show how the
Highlands have been depopulated. Loyal, peaceable, high-spirited
peasantry have been driven from their native land — as the Jews
were expelled from Spain and the Huguenots from France — to make
room for grouse, sheep, and deer. A portly volume would be
needed to contain the records of oppression and cruelty perpetrated
by many landlords, who are a scourge to the unfortunate
tenants, blighting their lives, poisoning their happiness, and
robbing them of their improvements, filling their wretched
homes with sorrow, and breaking their hearts with the weight
of despair." (The Highland Crofters of Scotland. 1878.)

Here, then, we have reviewed the results of our land
system. Persistent pauperism in the midst of boundless
wealth in England — largely due to the great farm system
so dear to English landlords and agents, to the consequent
driving of labourers to the towns to seek a subsistence, to
the utter divorce of the labourer from any right in his
native soil, and to land and building speculation, making
it the interest of landlords and speculators that people
should be driven to live crowded together in towns rather
than be scattered naturally and beneficially over the
country.

In Ireland we see agrarian war, chronic famine, arid
a degraded population, while by the cruel evictions and
forced emigration, and the long-continued robbery of the
Irish peasant's improvements, a deadly enemy to our
country has been established in the United States.

In Scotland, a religious, patient, educated peasantry have
been forcibly driven from their native soil, while those
which remain are pauperised, discontented, and famine-
stricken.

Beneficial Results of Small Holdings.

In the preceding pages I have given a brief outline
of the effects of landlord rule in England, Ireland, and
Scotland, and I cannot but express my amazement that
a writer like Professor Fawcett, who must have been fully
acquainted with the whole of the terrible facts I have here
only been able to hint at — who nearly twenty years earlier
wrote so strongly on the pitiable condition of the British

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW? 317

labourer — a condition afterwards changed if anything for
the worse, since he had become more than ever divorced
from the soil and was tending to a nomadic life — and who
has depicted so forcibly the land-hunger of the rich, should
yet, in his latest teaching, have no other remedy to
propose for the evils due to unrestricted private property
in the first essential of human existence, the soil, on
and by which alone men can live, than to make that
property still more easily acquired by the wealthy and
still more absolute, by means of complete free trade
in land !

It has repeatedly been said, and will no doubt be said
again, that many of the admitted evils here pointed out
are not due to our system of landlordism, but to various
other causes, such as improvidence, over-population, and
idleness. To this I reply, that even where these causes
do exist they are but secondary causes, and are themselves
due to the landlord system. Improvidence is the
inevitable result of insecurity for the produce of a man's
labour ; over-population is always local, and is produced
by men being forcibly crowded together and not allowed
freely to occupy and cultivate the soil ; while idleness is
the last accusation that should be made against any of
the inhabitants of these islands, whose fault rather is a
too great eagerness for work whenever they can work for
fair wages or with full security that they will reap the
produce of their labour. I reply, further, that the close
correspondence between the theoretical and the actual
results, between deduction and induction, must not be
ignored. An irresistible logic assures us that the
possession of the soil by a few must make those who have
to live by cultivating the soil virtual slaves ; that it must
keep down wages and enable the landlords to absorb all
the surplus wealth produced by the labourer beyond what
is necessary for a bare subsistence ; while it indisputably
prevents all who are not landowners from any use or
enjoyment of their native soil except at the landowner's
pleasure — a fact everywhere visible in the unnatural mode
of growth of our towns and villages, where, with ample
land suitable for pleasant and healthy homes all round

318 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

them, people are forced to live in close-packed houses
with the view of nature's beauties shut out and much of
the discomfort and insalubrity of large towns carried into
the country. The best way, however, to prove that these
and many other evils are directly due to landlordism is to
show by actual examples how constantly they disappear
whenever the land belongs to those who cultivate it.
This is the case in many parts of Europe ; and although
climate, race, laws, and the character and habits of the
people may widely differ, we always find an amount of
contentment and well-being strikingly contrasted with
what prevails under the system of landlordism.

As regards Switzerland, Sismondi, in his Studies of
Political Economy, gives full information. He declares
that here we see the beneficial results of agriculture
practised by the very people who enjoy its fruits, in "the
great comfort of a numerous population, a great independ-
ence of character arising from independence of position, and
a great consumption of goods the result of the easy cir-
cumstances of all the inhabitants." Many other writers
confirm the accuracy of these statements. The observant
English traveller, Inglis, speaks of the wonderful industry
of the Swiss, the loving care with which they tend their
fields and fruit-trees, and the complete way in which all
the peasants' wants are supplied from the land ; while, as
a rule, pauperism and even poverty is unknown in the
rural districts where peasant or communal properties
prevail. The common objection that small proprietors
cannot use machinery or execute any improvements
requiring co-operation, is answered by the examples of
Norway and of Saxony. In the former country, Mr. Laing
tell us how extensively irrigation is carried on by miles of
wooden troughing along the mountain sides, executed in
concert and kept up for the common benefit. The roads
and bridges are also kept in excellent repair without tolls ;
and he considers this to be done because the people
" feel as proprietors who receive the advantage of their
exertions."

Mr. Kay, a most unimpeachable witness, tells us that
there is no farming in all Europe comparable with that of

xvn LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 31

the valleys of Saxon Switzerland. After giving a picture
of the perfect condition of the crops, the excessive care of
manure, and other details, he adds :

' ' The peasants endeavour to outstrip one another in the quality
and quantity of the produce, in the preparation of the ground, and in
the general cultivation of their respective portions. All the little
proprietors are eager to find out how to farm so as to produce the
greatest results ; they diligently seek after improvements ; they
send their children to agricultural schools in order to fit them to
assist their fathers ; and each proprietor soon adopts a new improve-
ment introduced by any of his neighbours."

The late William Howitt, writing on the rural and
domestic life of Germany, says :

" The peasants are not, as with us, for the most part totally cut
off from the soil they cultivate — they are themselves the proprietors.
It is, perhaps, from this cause that they are probably the most indus-
trious peasantry in the world. They labour early and late, because
they feel that they are labouring for themselves. The German
peasants work hard, but they have no actual want. f . . The
English peasant is so cut off from the idea of property that he comes
habitually to look upon it as a thing from which he is warned by
the laws of the large proprietors, and becomes, in consequence,
spiritless and purposeless. . . . The German Bauer, on the contrary,
looks on the country as made for him and his fellow-men. No man
can threaten him with ejection or the workhouse so long as he is
active and economical. He walks, therefore, with a bold step ;
he looks you in the face with the air of a free man, but a respectful
air."

And Mr. Baring Gould, although showing how poor
the peasant of North Germany often is, owing to the
miserable system of each farm being cut up into scores
or hundreds of disconnected plots, and his cruel sub-
jection to Jew money-lenders, nevertheless thus compares
him with the journeyman mechanic :

44 The artisan is restless and dissatisfied. He is mechanised.
He finds no interest in his work, and his soul frets at the routine.
He is miserable and he knows not why. But the man who toils on
his own plot of ground is morally and physically healthy. He is a
freeman ; the sense he has of independence gives him his upright
carriage, his fearless brow, and his joyous laugh."

In Belgium, the most highly cultivated part of the
country is that which consists of peasant properties

320 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

and even M'Culloch, the advocate of large farms, admits
that —

uin the minute attention to the qualities of the soil, in the
management and application of manures of different kinds,
in the judicious succession of crops, and especially in the economy
of land, so that every part of it shall be in a constant state of pro-
duction, we have still something to learn from the Flemings."

In France, though the farming may not be what we
call good, the industry and economy of the peasant-pro-
prietors is remarkable, while their well-being is sufficiently
indicated by the wonderful amount of hoarded wealth
always forthcoming when the Government requires a loan.
The connection of peasant-cultivation with well-being is
apparent throughout France. Sir Henry Bulwer remarks
that by far the greatest number of the indigent is to be
found in the northern departments, where land is less
divided than elsewhere, and cultivated with larger
capitals. Mr. Birkbeck, noticing that in one district the
poor appeared less comfortable, found, on inquiry, that few
of the peasants thereabouts were proprietors ; while in
Anjou and Touraine, Mr. Le Quesne noticed that the
houses of the country people were remarkable for their
neatness, indicative of the ease and comfort of their
possessors, and on inquiry as to the cause, was told that
the land was there divided into small properties. So when
the celebrated agriculturist and traveller, Arthur Young,
noticed exceptional improvement in irrigation and cultiva-
tion, he is so sure of the explanation of the fact that he
remarks :

1 1 It would be a disgrace to common sense to ask the cause ; the
enjoyment of property must have done it. Give a man secure pos-
session of a bleak rock and he will turn it into a garden ; give
him a nine years' lease of a garden and he will convert it into a
desert."1

It hardly needs to adduce more evidence to prove the
intimate connection of the sense of secure possession with
industry, well-being, and content. But we must briefly
notice one more example at our very doors, and under our

1 For these and many other examples see Thornton's Plea for Peasant
Proprietors.

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 321

rule — the case of the Channel Islands. The testimony of
all observers is unanimous as to the happy condition of
these islands, and to its cause in the almost total absence
of landlordism as it exists with us. The Hon. G. C.
Brodrick, in his English Land and English Landlords,
says :

" If we judge of success in cultivation by the produce, we find
that a much larger quantity of human food is raised in Jersey than is
raised on an equal area, by the same number of cultivators, in any
part of the United Kingdom. Not only does it support its own
crowded population in much greater comfort than that enjoyed by the
mass of Englishmen, but it supplies the London market out of its
surplus production with shiploads of vegetables, fruit, butter, and
cattle for breeding. Even wheat, for the growth of which the climate
is not very suitable, is so cultivated that it yields much heavier crops
per acre than in England ; and the number of live stock kept on a
given area astonishes travellers accustomed only to English farming.
Nor are these only the results of spade -husbandry, for machinery is
largely employed by the yeomen and peasant proprietors of the
Channel Islands, who have no difficulty in arranging among them-
selves to hire it by turns."

Mr. Brodrick, like every one else, attributes this wonder-
ful success to the land system of the country.

Lest it be now said that there is something in the
climate or soil of these various localities, or in the character
or habits of the people to which these favourable results
are to be imputed, I must refer to a few crucial examples
in which every other cause but difference of land tenure is
eliminated, and which therefore complete the demonstration
to which this whole argument tends. The first of these is
afforded by Italy, over large portions of which there are
still, as in the time of the Romans, latifundia or large
estates farmed by middlemen, and cultivated by labourers
or tenants at will, In his volume on Primitive Property
the great economist, M. de Laveleye, speaks of the

1 ' naked and desolate fields, where the cultivator dies of famine
in the fairest climate and most fertile soil ; such is the result of the
latifundia. Economists, who defend the system of huge properties,
visit the interior of the Basilicata and Sicily if you want to see the
degree of misery to which your huge properties reduce the earth and
its habitants."

VOL. ii. y

322 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Yet in the same country and under the same laws,
wherever fixity of tenure or peasant properties exist, the
utmost prosperity prevails. Again, let us hear M. de
Laveleye :

' ' I know of no more striking lesson in political economy than is
taught at Capri. Whence come the perfection of cultivation and the
comfort of the population 'I Certainly not from the fertility of the
soil, which is an arid rock. . . . Before obtaining the crops, it was
necessary, so to speak, to create the soil. It is the magic of owner-
ship which has produced this prodigy."

Now let us come back to our own country, where we
shall find that exactly similar results are produced by
similar causes. On the Annandale Estate in Dumfriesshire,
plots of from two to six acres were granted to labourers on
a lease of twenty-one years. They built their own cottages,
having timber and stone supplied by the landlord, and
these little farms' were all cultivated by the labourer's
family, and in his own spare hours. Now note the result.
Among these peasant- farmers pauperism soon ceased to
exist, and it was especially noticed that habits of
marketing, and the constant demands on thrift and fore-
thought brought out new powers and virtues in the wives.
In fact, the moral effects of the system in fostering
industry, sobriety, and contentment, were described as no
less satisfactory than its economical success.

Again, on Lord Tollemache's estate in Cheshire, plots of
land from two-and-a-half to three-and-a-half acres are let
with each cottage at an ordinary farm rent, and the results
have been eminentlybeneficial. It is remarked here too that
the habits of thrift and forethought encouraged by cow-
keeping and dairying, on however small a scale, constitute
a moral advantage of great importance.

One more example must be given to show that even in
Ireland the laws of human nature do act the same as else-
where. Mr. Jonathan Pirn, in his Condition and Prospects
of Ireland, gives an account of how the rugged, bleak, and
sterile mountain of Forth, in Wexford, is sprinkled with
little patches of land, many of them on the highest part of
the mountain, reclaimed and enclosed at a vast expense of
labour by the peasant-proprietors, who have been induced

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 323

to overcome extraordinary difficulties in the hope of at
length making a little spot of land their own.

' ' The surface was thickly covered with large masses of rock of
various sizes, and intersected by the gullies formed by winter
torrents. These rocks have been broken, buried, rolled away, or
heaped into the form of fences. The land when thus cleared has
been carefully enriched with soil, manured, and tilled. These little
holdings vary from half an acre to ten or fifteen acres. The occupiers
hold by the right of possession ; they are generally poor ; but they are
peaceable, well-conducted, independent, and industrious; and the
district is absolutely free from agrarian outrage."

A volume might be filled with similar cases, but more
are unnecessary here, for the evidence already adduced or
referred to is absolutely conclusive. Wherever there are
great estates let on an insecure tenure, we find in varying
degrees the evils here pointed out. On the other hand,
wherever we find men cultivating their own lands, or
lands held on a permanent tenure at fixed rents, we find
comparative- comfort, no pauperism, and little crime. And
as this is exactly what a consideration of the immutable
laws of human nature and economic science has demon-
strated must be the inevitable result, we have fact and
reasoning, induction and deduction supporting each
other.

The Remedy.

Having now cleared the ground by an inquiry into
principles and a survey of the facts, we come to the
practical question — Can any adequate remedy be found
for these widespread and gigantic evils ?

The common panacea of the Liberal party, " Free-trade
in land," must surely now appear to my readers to be
ridiculously inadequate. It was tried in Ireland by the
Encumbered Estates Act, and it so aggravated the disease
that a Liberal Government has now been forced to stop
free-trade in land altogether in Ireland, and fix rents by
act of parliament ! It has always prevailed in America,
yet many of the evils of land monopoly are very great
even there. It exists in Italy, yet great estates prevail,
and the tiller of the soil starves in the midst of abundance
as with us. It will do nothing for the poor evicted crofters

Y 2

324 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

or the famine-stricken cottiers of Ireland. It will not
cause the tracts now occupied by sheep and deer to be
given up again for the use of men and women ; but it will
allow rich men, more easily than now, to make more deer-
forests and sheep-farms if they choose. It will not help
the labourer, the mechanic, or the shopkeeper, to a plot of
land where he requires it. It will not give back the land
to the use of the people who want it most, and who, as
the universal experience of Europe shows, are always bene-
fited by it both physically and morally. Let us then
appeal to first principles and simply follow their teaching.

We have seen (1) that private property in land cannot
justly arise at all ; and (2) that its results, except where
small portions are personally occupied and tilled, are
always evil. Hence we conclude that the land of a country
should be the property of the State and be free for the
use and enjoyment of the inhabitants on equal terms. In
order that every one may feel that sense of property in the
land he cultivates which is the best incentive to industry,
absolute security of tenure is necessary. This given, a
man becomes virtually the owner of the land he holds
from the State, and can deal with it like a freehold, only
that it remains subject to such ground-rents and such
general conditions as may from time to time be held to be
for the good of the community. Another important
principle is, that sub-letting must be absolutely prohibited ;
for if this were allowed the evils of landlordism would
again arise, as middlemen would monopolize large
quantities of land which they would let out at advanced
rents and under onerous conditions, so that the actual
cultivators might be no better off than under the present
landlord system.

Recurring again to first principles we find, that although
land itself cannot justly become private property, yet
everything added to the land by human labour is truly
and properly so ; and this leads to the important sub-
division of landed property into two parts (as is so common
in Ireland), the one represented by the landlord's rent for
the use of the bare land, the other the tenant-right,
consisting of the houses, fences, gates, plantations, drains,

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 325

and other permanent and tangible improvements which
are there always made by the tenants. Now these
improvements, which for purposes of sale or transfer may
here also be conveniently termed tenant-right, should
always be the absolute property of the occupier of any
plot of land, the State or municipality being the owner of
the bare land only ; and by this simple and logical division
it will be seen that all necessity for State management,
with the long train of evils which Professor Fawcett so
properly emphasizes, is absolutely done away with, and
the cultivator may be left perfectly free to treat his estate
as he pleases. For everything on the land which can be
deteriorated by bad farming or wilful neglect is his
private property, and its preservation may safely be left to
the influence of self-interest ; while the land, which is the
property of the State, is practically incapable of dete-
rioration ; for its value depends on such natural causes as
geological formation, arterial drainage, aspect, rainfall, and
latitude, and on such social conditions as density of
population, nearness to towns, to seaports, to railroads, or
canals, the vicinity of manufactures, &c., none of which
can be changed by the action of the tenant. The State,
therefore, will have nothing whatever to manage, but need
only collect its ground-rent as it now collects the land-tax
or house-tax, leaving every land-holder perfectly free to do
as he pleases, and only interfering with him by means of
general enactments applicable to all holders alike. All
arrangements that may be necessary for facilitating the
acquisition of land by those who need it, should be in
the hands of Local Land Courts, acting on principles
determined by general enactment.

Having thus given the main outlines of a just and
beneficial system of land tenure, let us consider briefly
how to bring it into practical operation. And, first, we
will explain how existing landlords may be equitably
dealt with, as this is considered by many to be the real
difficulty in the way of Land Nationalization.

In Mr. Gladstone's proposed scheme for buying out the
Irish landlords the principle was laid down, and never
controverted, that the landlords were entitled to com-

326 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

pensation for the net incomes they derived from the land,
and that the amount of government land-bonds given
them in payment, at 20 or 25 years' purchase, was to be
estimated on this net income, not on the judicial rental
payable by the tenants. The difference between these
consists of cost of agency, law expenses, and bad debts,
and is estimated at from 20 to 30 per cent, of the judicial
rents. It was this large margin which enabled Mr.
Gladstone to offer the tenants the means of purchasing
their farms by means of terminable rentals actually lower
than the present judicial rents, which should yet leave a
considerable surplus after paying the interest on the land-
lord's bonds, by means of which these bonds might be
extinguished before the terminable rentals came to an end.
This same principle is applicable in Great Britain, for the
recent reports of the Agricultural Commission show that
large English Estates cost from 15 to 30 per cent, for
management, while as much more is often laid out for
improvements. The net revenue will therefore be, in
every case, very much below the gross rental of the farms.
But according to our proposals, all these costs of
management will be saved when the State takes the lands,
because we insist that the tenants must always become
the owners of the buildings, fences, roads, drains, &c. — all
in fact which can be destroyed, removed, or deteriorated,
while he remains a tenant of the State for the bare land.
This bare unimproved land will want no " management ; "
the tenant will be left perfectly free to do what he likes
with it, so long as he pays the rent punctually into the
proper office : and he will be sure to do this because, if he
fails he will he liable to ejectment, and to have the house
and improvements, which are his own property, sold. The
improvements will therefore be a security for the payment
of the rent, just as the house and premises in a town are
a security for the payment of the ground rent. It is thus
clear that, even in the case of agricultural land, the State
could safely pay the landlord a fair price for his bare land
(the tenants paying the landlord for any improvements
made by him) and could still, with the surplus rent
received from the tenant, redeem a number of the land-

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 327

bonds every year. Taking the difference between the fair
rental payable by the tenant and the net rental received
by the landlord at 20 per cent., this difference will serve to
pay off the whole purchase-money in 56 years, even
if there is no increase whatever in the value of the land.
But as large quantities of agricultural land are required
every year for extension of towns and villages, for manu-
facturing purposes, for market gardens, &c., the much
higher rents obtained for this portion of the land will
render the transaction a still more secure one, and the
period of repayment shorter.

With regard to town and building lands the conditions
are much more advantageous, because they show a con-
tinuous rise in value, even in times of depression, owing
to increase of population. It is calculated that this
increase for the last forty years has been at the average
rate of 2 per cent, per annum for all the land of the king-
dom, agricultural and urban, and as we have allowed for
no increase in the value of agricultural land we may fairly
take the increase of the urban land, at 3 per cent. But
an increase of only 2 per cent, per annum will suffice to
pay off the whole of the ground rents in 40 years, while if
the increase were 3 per cent, the repayment would be
effected in a much shorter period.

When this was done, the whole of the revenues derived
from the land of the country would be available in lieu of
taxation, and would probably suffice for all the legitmate
purposes of the community, both imperial and local ; but
there is no reason why this great boon should be reserved
for our successors alone . The fair plan would be to devote
one half of the surplus rents to relief of taxation, the other
half to repayment of purchase money by extinguishing a
portion of the land-bonds. This plan would have the
double advantage of immediately reducing taxation, and
effecting this by moderate steps annually so as not to cause
too great a disturbance to trade.1

1 This is an alternative proposal to that formulated in Chap. XVI.
It is here suggested because the principle has been adopted in Ireland,
but the present writer holds that the former proposal is the most sound,
and would be the most beneficial,

328 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

How the Land is to ~be Distributed.

Having thus shown how the land may be acquired by
the State for the use of the community without cost or
risk, we may proceed to consider how it may best be used
for the benefit of all ; and here we shall be able to answer
Professor Fawcett's questions (which he seemed to think
unanswerable) — " What principles are to regulate the
rents to be charged ? Who is to decide the particular
plots of land that should be allotted to those who apply
for them ? " The answer to both is easy. Rents will be
fixed in the first place by official valuation, following the
precedent of the Irish Land Act ; afterwards, probably, by
free competition. As to who is to have land, and what
particular plots of land, it is essential that there should be
the greatest freedom of choice compatible with the just
rights of existing occupiers. How these two important
matters may be settled I will now briefly indicate.

It will first be necessary to determine the value of the
improvements on the land as distinguished from that of
the land itself, and to facilitate subdivision or rearrange-
ment of farms or holdings. This should be done for each
separate inclosure shown on the large-scale ordnance
maps. Some general principles being laid down for the
guidance of the valuers there will be no real difficulty in
making the separation. An old pasture field in which
the hedges and gates have been constantly repaired by
successive tenants may be considered to be, so far as the
landlord is concerned, in an unimproved state. Here the
whole value will be land value. From this as a datum
the separation of improvements will take place where the
landlord has recently put new gates or has drained, or has
built sheds, bridges, or farm buildings. The valuation,
when complete, will show the annual value of the land for
the State ground-rent, the present annual value of the
improvements, and the present purchase value of the
improvements to a tenant calculated on a scale
determined by their quality and probable duration.

This official valuation being made, it would be only fair
that the existing occupier of any farm or other land

xvii LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 329

should have the first offer of it under the new conditions ;
these being that he should become the owner of the
improvements and agree to pay the State ground-rent. If
he has capital he can purchase the improvements by a
cash payment, but if not he should be entitled to
purchase them by means of a terminable rental, as in the
case of purchases under the Irish Church Act. ^This
would be done through the Land Courts, which would
decide on the annual payments to be made and the period
for which they are to run, so as to meet the views of both
parties. It is the opinion of good authorities that most
farmers now hold too much land in proportion to their
capital, and that with perfect security of tenure and
absolute freedom of action they would reduce their
holdings in order to farm more highly and to be able to
effect permanent improvements. Some farms would
therefore be divided, and remote fields be detached from
others, and these would afford land for small holdings or
for gardens and fields for labourers.

But much more than this is needed. The crofters and
cottiers who have been ejected from their homes, the
labourers who have been driven into towns, and all who
have been robbed of their ancient rights by the inclosure
of commons, require immediate redress. We have seen
what beneficial results invariably follow the grant of
small plots of land at fair rents and on a secure tenure,
and Nationalization would not deserve the name did it
not place this boon within the reach of all who desire it.
There is no privilege so beneficial to all the members of a
community as to have ample space of land on which to
live. Surround the poorest cottage with a spacious
vegetable garden, with fruit and shade trees, with room
for keeping pigs and poultry, or cows, and the result
invariably is untiring industry and thrift, which soon raise
the occupiers above poverty, and diminish, if they do not
abolish, drunkenness and crime. Every mechanic and
tradesman should also be able to obtain this great benefit
whenever he desired it ; and this is far too important a
matter for the whole community to be left to the chance
of land being offered for sale when and where wanted. It

UNIVERSITY I

330 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

is not sufficiently recognized that the use of land for the
creation of healthy and happy homes is far higher than its
use as a mere wealth-producing agent, in which latter
aspect alone it has hitherto been chiefly viewed. To get
the greatest benefit from the land of a country it is
essential that every inhabitant should be, as far as
possible, free to live where he pleases ; and to attain this
end the right to hold land for profit should always be
subordinate to the right to occupy it as a home.

To carry these principles into effect, and to allow
population to spread freely over the whole country, it is
essential that all who desire a permanent home should have
a right of free selection (once in their lives) of a plot of
land for this purpose. A limit might be placed to the
quantity so taken in proportion to the density of the
population — near towns perhaps half an acre, in the country
an acre or more. Such choice should of course be limited to
agricultural or waste land, and, at first, to such land as
borders public roads. Other limitations might be, that
not more than a fixed proportion of any one farm should
be so taken, and that a plot should never be chosen so near
the farmer's house as to be an annoyance to him — questions
to be decided by the Local Land Courts. Of course this
land would be subject to the usual payment of ground-
rent to the State according to the official valuation, which
should always be a low one, while the improvements would
have to be purchased from the farmer with some small
addition as compensation for disturbance.

The effects of such freedom of choice in fixing upon a
permanent residence would be gradually to check the
increase of towns and to re -populate the country districts.
Rural villages would begin a natural course of healthy
growth, and if the minimum of land to be taken for one
house were fixed at an acre (the maximum being four or
five acres) these could never grow into crowded towns, but
would always retain their rural character, picturesque
surroundings, and sanitary advantages. The labourer
would choose his acre of land near the farmer who gave
him the most constant employment and treated him with
most consideration ; and besides those who would continu§

xvn LAND NATIONALIZATION— WHY ? AND HOW ? 331

to work regularly at agricultural labour, there would be
many with larger holdings or with other means of living,
who would be ready to earn good wages during hay or
harvest time. With a million of agricultural labourers,
each holding an acre or more of land, and at least another
million of mechanics doing the same thing, and all perma-
nently attached to the soil by its secure possession, that
scandal to our country, the scarcity of milk and the
importation of poultry, eggs and butter from the Continent
would come to an end, while the vast sums we now pay
for this produce would go to increase the well-being, not
only of the labourers themselves, but of all the retail and
wholesale dealers who supply their wants. Our most
important customers are, or should be, those at home, and
there is no more certain cure for the almost chronic
depression of trade than a system which would at once
largely increase the purchasing power of the bulk of the
community.

Before concluding this chapter, I would wish to point
out how easily the principles of land tenure here advocated
may be tried on a small scale without interfering with
any private rights or interests ; and so convinced am I of
the soundness of these principles, that I would venture to
stake the whole question of the practicability of land
nationalization on the result of such a trial. I would
suggest, then, that all Crown lands in any degree suitable
for cultivation should be thrown freely open to applicants
in small holdings for personal occupation, on the tenure
which I have just explained ; and I would earnestly press
some Liberal member of Parliament to urge this trial on
the Government by means of an annual motion. The
result would certainly be a large increase of revenue
from these lands, since all expenses of management would
be saved ; while it is equally certain that the localities
would be benefited by the increased well-being of the
inhabitants.

In view of such a trial being made and its further exten-
sion being desirable, a resolution should be passed declaring
it inexpedient to sell any Crown lands or rights over
commons ; and the next step should be to stop entirely

332 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, xvn

the further inclosure of common lands for the benefit of
landlords, a proceeding which the Liberal portion of the
community has long condemned as legalised robbery of the
people. Many of the more extensive commons and heaths
far removed from dense centres of populations offer the
means for a further trial of this system of land-tenure, thus
creating a considerable body of virtual peasant-proprietors
of the best type. For this purpose all manorial rights of
individuals should be declared to be (as they certainly
are) injurious to the public, and should be at once
acquired by the State. Their present owners might
either be repaid the purchase-money if they had them-
selves bought them, or be compensated by means of
terminable annuities of amounts equal to the actual
average net incomes derived from the several manors.
Thus would be offered ample means for a great social
experiment, the result of which, if fairly tried, cannot be
doubtful.

CHAPTER XVIII

HERBERT SPENCER ON THE LAND QUESTION :
A CRITICISM

ALL my readers know the name of our great philosophic
thinker and writer, Herbert Spencer, but they are perhaps
not aware that to him is primarily due the formation of the
Land Nationalization Society. In 1853, soon after I
returned from my travels in the Amazon Valley, I read his
book on Social Statics, and from it first derived the con-
ception of the radical injustice of private property in land.
His irresistible logic convinced me once for all, and I have
never since had the slightest doubt upon the subject. He
taught me, that " to deprive others of their rights to the
use of the earth is to commit a crime inferior only in
wickedness to the crime of taking away their lives or
their personal liberties ; " and when he added, that how-
ever difficult it might be to find a practical means of re-
storing the land to the people, yet " justice sternly com-
mands it to be done," a seed was sown in my mind which
long afterwards developed into that principle of the
separation of the inherent value of land from the improve-
ments effected in or upon it, which was the foundation of
the proposals in my article " How to Nationalize the Land "
(see Chapter XVI.), and this article led to my association
with Mr. Swinton, Dr. Clark, M.P., and other friends in
the formation of the Land Nationalization Society. In
one of his latest works, however, entitled Justice, and
forming part of his Principles of Ethics, Mr. Spencer repu-
diates his legitimate offspring — Land Nationalization —

334 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

and for various stated reasons arrives at the conclusion
that, though it may be, and is, right in principle, there
are insuperable difficulties in putting it into practice, and
that therefore " individual ownership subject to State-
suzerainty should be maintained." This, of course, will be
seized upon by our opponents as a great triumph for the
cause of landlordism, though as yet they seem hardly to
have realized that a Daniel has come to judgment in
their behalf. But we must always remember that they
mostly belong to what has been termed " the silly party,"
and that they cannot therefore be expected to read
works on high philosophy. Land Nationalizers, however,
who have long quoted, and will continue to quote, from
Social Statics — not because the book was written by
Herbert Spencer, but because it was among the earliest and
the most forcible of the arguments against private property
in land — are bound to show that the philosopher has not
refuted his own work, and that it is his later and not his
earlier writings that are illogical, and are even inconsistent
with the main principles of his own philosophy.

And first let us see what he still admits. After showing
how land-ownership has been derived from conquest or
usurpation, and that all the land originally belonged to
the Crown as representing the whole nation, he says : —

1 ' If the representative body has practically inherited the
governmental powers which in past times vested in the king, it has
at the same time inherited that ultimate proprietorship of the soil
which in past times vested in him. And since the representative
body is but the agent of the community, this ultimate proprietorship
now vests in the community."1

And he then remarks that even the Liberty and Pro-
perty Defence League admit this, saying in their Report
of 1889 that :

* ' The land can of course be resumed on payment of full compen-
sation, and managed by the people if they so will it."

In another place Mr. Spencer states, as proving the

1 Jtistice, p. 92.

xviii H. SPENCER ON THE LAND QUESTION 335

spread of more correct ideas of justice, that the truth has
now come to be recognized, that —

" private ownership of land is subject to the supreme ownership of
the community, and that therefore each citizen has a latent claim to
participate in the use of the earth."1

So far, then, Mr. Spencer and the Liberty and Property
Defence League are perfectly in accord with us; but
thenceforth we diverge. They believe and maintain that
this latent claim of the people to the full and equal use
of their native soil shall and will remain latent. We, on
the other hand, believe and are determined that it shall
now become an active claim, and very soon a realized
possession.

Now let us see what are Mr. Spencer's grounds for
believing that land must, at all events in the immediate
future, remain private property. It is as follows :

' ' All which can be claimed for the community is the surface of the
country in its original unsubdued state. To all that value given to
it by clearing, fencing, draining, making roads, farm-buildings, &c. ,
constituting nearly all its value the community has no claim. . . .
All this value, artificially given, vests in existing owners and cannot
without a gigantic robbery be taken from them. If, during the many
transactions which have brought about existing landownership, there
have been much violence and much fraud, these have been small
compared with the violence and frauds which the community
would be guilty of did it take possession without paying for it, of
that artificial value which the labour of nearly two thousand years
has given to the land."2

This is all that Mr. Spencer has to say on the question
in the body of the work, and before going on to consider
his further discussion of it in an appendix, we must just
notice the gigantic and almost incredible misstatement,
that the improvements such as he specifies, made upon
the land by human labour, constitute " nearly all its
value ! " Setting aside houses, fences and things of like
character, which we have always recognized as being
personal property to be purchased at fair value by the
new occupiers, how much is the soil of England on the
whole better for agricultural purposes than it was one

1 Justice, p. 152. 2 Justice, p. 92.

336 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand years ago ? In
all probability it is not ten per cent, bett er, because, though
limited areas have been greatly improved, very large
areas remain quite unimproved, and other large areas
have been decidedly made worse. More than half the
whole area of the country is permanent pasture which has
been mown or grazed from time immemorial, and is
probably no better and no worse than it was a hundred
or five hundred years ago. But every one with an
observant eye may notice all over the country poor weedy
pastures bearing the ridge marks of former cultivation.
These were once old pastures, broken up when wheat and
rents were high, and afterwards left to return as they
could to the poor weedy land we now see. This land has
been positively deteriorated; and besides this, much of
our farming is still so bad under yearly tenancies that a
large part of the arable land is partially worn out, and is
probably no better if it is not worse than five hundred
years ago when we not only grew all the wheat we
required but exported to the Continent.

But Mr. Spencer's chief error consists in the latent as-
sumption that increased value of land implies improvement
in the soil, ignoring altogether that this increase is almost
wholly due to the growth of population and improved
means of communication. Let us take as an illustration
the land around London. The late J. C. London, the
celebrated gardener and agriculturist, came to London
from Scotland about the year 1804, and found the land to
the west of the city — now occupied by the suburbs or by
market gardens — let in small farms at 10s. or 12s. an acre.
Now, probably, the lowest rent is as many pounds as it
was then shillings, while much that is built over brings a
hundred times the rent it did then ; but that is not owing
to any improvement of the soil itself, but wholly, or
almost wholly, to railroads and to the consequent growth
of London. Again, portions of the New Forest have
remained wholly unimproved since the time of the
Norman kings, yet if any of this unimproved land were
for sale it would probably fetch a higher price than the
best agricultural land in the kingdom if situated in a

H. SPENCER ON THE LAND QUESTION 337

worse or less attractive locality. But neither these well-
known facts, nor the other fact that, whatever improve-
ment there is in the land itself has mostly been effected,
not by the landlords but by successive generations of
tenants, are much to the purpose ; because, as Mr. Spencer
truly states, all the value, by whomsoever created, now
vests in the landlords. This has been recognized, and is
still recognized, by the law, and by a large preponderance
of public opinion, and therefore, I admit, as I think do
most land-nationalizers, that it must not be taken from
existing owners without reasonable and equitable compen-
sation ; and as Mr. Spencer thinks such a vast transaction
to be financially impossible, he concludes that " individual
ownership must be maintained."

Before showing how superficial, illogical, and unjust is
such a conclusion, we have to note the extraordinary
argument set forth in his Appendix B. He there says : —

' * Even supposing that the English as a race gained possession of
the land equitably, which they did not ; and even supposing that
existing landowners are the posterity of those who spoiled their
fellows, which in large part they are not ; and even supposing that
the existing landless are the posterity of the despoiled, which in
large part they are not ; there would still have to be recognized a
transaction that goes far to prevent rectification of injustices." 1

And what do you think this " transaction " is ? I
would give every one of my readers who is not familiar
with the work we are discussing half-a-dozen guesses
each, and probably not one person would hit upon this
stupendous "transaction" which, apparently, in Mr.
Spencer's opinion, settles the land question, and forbids
all future generations of Englishmen from possessing
their native land, the soil of which is to remain the
absolute property of existing landlords — their heirs, ad-
ministrators, or assigns, as the lawyers say — for ever. In
no other way can I interpret the terrible dictum that it
"goes far to prevent the rectification of injustices." This
momentous transaction is nothing but our old and too
familiar friend, the Poor-rate !

Now for the solution of the problem, Mr. Spencer
1 Justice, p. 268,

VOL. II, Z

338 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

gives elaborate figures to show that the amount of that
portion of the poor-rate contributed by the land during
the last two-and-a-half centuries amounts to about 500
millions, and this he thinks is more than the " prairie-
value " of the whole of the land ! He says :

4 'Thus, even if we ignore the fact that this amount, gradually
contributed, would, if otherwise gradually invested, have yielded in
returns of one kind or another a far larger sum, it is manifest that
against the claim of the landless may be set off a large claim of the
landed — perhaps a larger claim."

Here is a turning of the tables with a vengeance ! If
this is the true state of the case we had better at once
present a humble petition to the landlords, praying that
they will let us off whatever balance may be due to them,
on our undertaking to pay all the poor-rates for the future.
For, if Mr. Spencer's reasoning is sound, this is what, in
his own words, " Equity sternly commands should be
done." But, first, let us look a little closer at this " new
way to pay old debts." Mr. Spencer says, that " if we are
to go back upon the past at all, we must go back upon
the past wholly." These are his own words. Let us then
do so, and what shall we find ? We find that the land-
lords have, century by century, continuously evaded or
thrown off the burdens and duties which appertained to
their original tenure of the land. The whole costs of the
maintenance of the crown, of the army and navy, of the
church, and of the poor, were payable by the landlords or
by the proceeds of land which they have stolen from the
church and from the people. We find also that the
tenants on their estates had originally rights of possession
similar to their own, on performance of specified duties.
We find that in the time of the Tudors, they themselves
created the very pauperism that has been handed down
to us, by over-riding those rights. They carried out
wholesale evictions of the cultivators of the soil, because
the high price of wool rendered the turning of arable
land into pasture profitable to them.1 Again we find

1 See Mr. Joseph Fisher's History of Landowning in England for
authentic records of these cruel evictions and their consequences. Also
Greene's Short History of the English People, p. 320.

xvin H. SPENCER ON THE LAND QUESTION 339

that the vast estates of the abbeys and monasteries whose
inmates had educated the people and relieved the poor,
were absorbed by them, often for no services at all, often
for disgraceful services. We find a little later, in 1692,
that the remnant of their feudal duties was, with their
own consent, commuted into " a tax of 4s. in the pound
on a rack-rent without abatement for any charges what-
ever ; " and we find that the valuation made at that date,
which we may be sure was a low one even then, has been
fraudulently maintained by a landlord parliament to this
day, notwithstanding the increase of land-values to many-
fold its amount at that date. Yet again we find that even
during the past century about three millions of acres of
common lands have been most inequitably enclosed and
divided among the landlords, thus robbing the people of
the last remnant of their rights to their native soil, and
creating more pauperism. And lastly, it must be remem-
bered that pauperism itself has been a direct benefit to
the landlords, inasmuch as the poor-rates were once openly,
and are still actually, " relief in aid of low wages " paid
by all classes of the community, and which enabled, and
still enable, farmers to get cheap labour and landlords
higher rents. Under these circumstances, and remembering
all these iniquities of the past, even landlord assurance
will probably recoil before making the claim Mr. Spencer
suggests, that payment of poor-rates since 1630 is really a
re-purchase of the land from the people !

But in all this discussion and in much more of a like
kind that I have neither time nor inclination to notice, Mr.
Spencer misses the real point at issue. It matters not
to us, now, whether existing landlords or their ancestors
got possession of the land equitably or fraudulently, or
whether all landlords (as some have done) bought the land
at full value with hard-earned money. It matters not
whether the ancestors of the present landless class were
serfs or nobles, whether they never had land, or whether
they sold or gambled away their inheritance. All this
has nothing whatever to do with the main question, which
is, the essential wrong to the community of private pro-
perty in land ; whether to deprive others of the use of

z 2

340 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the earth, now and for future generations, is or is not, in
Herbert Spencer's own words, " a crime inferior only in
wickedness to the crime of taking away their lives or
personal liberties." If Mr. Spencer had taken the trouble
to study the Programme of the Land Nationalization
Society, which it would have been a natural and proper
thing for him to have done before arguing against the
possibility of such nationalization — he would have found
that, among the eight reasons we give for holding private
ownership of land to be wrong, the mode in which it has
been acquired either by past or present generations of
landlords finds no place. We ground our claim on con-
siderations of absolute justice as well as of practical ex-
pediency, and as against us, all the good or evil deeds of
landlords or their ancestors are wholly beside the question.
We maintain, that, when a great wrong has been done in
the past, a wrong which still produces and must ever pro-
duce evil results, a wrong which is the fundamental cause
of the wide-spread pauperism and misery that pervades
our land — it is our primary duty to find a means of abo-
lishing that wrong. And when the great philosopher who
first taught us how enormous was this wrong, goes back
on his own words, declares that he sees no way out of the
difficulty, and that the huge injustice to the living and to
the unborn must go on indefinitely — then we refuse to
accept the teachings of such a helpless guide, who sets
before us this most impotent conclusion under the holy
name of JUSTICE.

Let us now turn for a while to consider the fundamental
principles of Mr. Spencer's Social -philosophy — principles
which are altogether excellent, and which, if he had boldly
and logically followed them out, would have shown him
how this great wrong — this wicked crime of land-monopoly
may be easily and equitably abolished.

In the second paragraph of his Chapter entitled HUMAN
JUSTICE (as distinguished from animal and sub-human
justice previously discussed), Mr. Spencer thus lays down
the ethical correlative of the law of survival of the fittest
in the animal world : — " Each individual ought to receive

xvin H. SPENCER ON THE LAND QUESTION 341

the benefits and the evils of his own nature and consequent
conduct : neither being prevented from having whatever
good his actions normally bring to him, nor allowed to
shoulder off on to other persons whatever ill is brought to
him by his actions." This law is appealed to again and
again throughout the book, as being a decisive test of the
right or wrong, the usefulness or the hurtfulness of
certain social or governmental agencies. It is generally
given under a shorter form of words, such as — " Each adult
shall receive the results of his own nature and consequent
actions" — or still more briefly — " Each shall receive the
benefits and evils due to his own nature and conduct/'
This is the fundamental principle of social development
according to the Spencerian philosophy ; and from it is
derived the formula of JUSTICE — " Every man is free to do
that which he wills, provided he infringes not the equal
freedom of any other man," or briefly " The liberty of each
limited only by the like liberty of all."

From these principles Mr. Spencer deduces many
important results as to personal and social rights — among
others the right of property, the right of free industry, and
the right of gift and bequest. Under this latter heading
he makes an important qualification, as follows : — " One
who holds land subject to that supreme ownership of the
Community which both ethics and law assert, cannot
rightly have such power of willing the application of it as
involves permanent alienation from the community."1
With this rather vague statement he leaves the subject,
and afterwards affirms those extraordinary propositions I
have already quoted as to the permanence of private
property in land, and the extinguishment of the people's
right through payment of two centuries of poor-rates !

But if we logically follow out the Spencerian principles
we shall find that the right of bequest has far more
extensive limitations than the author gives it, limitations
which render it easy for the State, that is the people,
equitably to regain possession of their own land. For, if
the law that — " each shall receive the good or evil results
of his own nature and actions " be a true guide to social

1 Justice, p. 124.

342 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

development, then the correlative of it must also be true,
that no one shall receive throughout life, that which is
not the result of his own nature and actions ; and this
will absolutely forbid such bequests to children or others
as will render them independent of all personal exertion,
enabling them to live idle lives on the labour of others,
and thus neutralize the operation of that beneficent law
which gives to each the results of " his own nature and
acts." To permit unlimited bequest is, in fact, doubly
injurious. It is a positive injury to the recipient when-
ever it enables him to live a life of idleness and pleasure —
to be a mere drone in the human hive. And it is also a
gross injustice to the rest of the community, for when such
parasites abound they become a burden on the industrious
who necessarily support these idlers by their labour. We
must further consider, that, so long as landlordism
continues, this idle and generally useless portion of the
community may increase almost indefinitely, because
savings can be made by all large landlords, on which
savings a larger and ever larger number of succeeding
generations may live without exertion, and thus render the
lot of the workers harder in proportion.

It is strange that Mr. Spencer did not perceive that if
this law of the connection between individual actions and
their results is to be allowed free play, some social
arrangement must be made by which all may start in life
with an approach to equality of opportunities. While,
as now, some are brought up from childhood among low
and degrading surroundings — material, intellectual, and
moral — and have to struggle amid fierce competition for
the bare necessaries of life, it is absurd to maintain that
they receive the legitimate results of their own nature
and actions only ; both of which may be and often are far
superior to those of thousands whose early years are
surrounded by all the refinements of a higher social life,
and who find a place provided for them in which with
little effort on their part they can provide for all their
wants, their comforts, and their pleasures. Such a law as
Mr. Spencer has formulated becomes a mockery and a
delusion, unless each individual is given a fair start in life,

xvm H. SPENCER ON THE LAND QUESTION 343

and this can never be the case under a system of land-
lordism and unlimited bequest.

Mr. Spencer's fundamental principle of social justice,
therefore, logically implies that the power of free gift and
bequest should be placed under strict limitations, the State
taking to itself all above the amount which may be judged
necessary for providing each heir with such ample
education and endowment as may give him or her a
favourable start in life — after which they must be left to
receive the results of their own nature and actions ; while
the surplus property thus accumulated will form a fund
out of which to endow in like manner all those whose
parents are not able to provide for them. This branch of
the subject however does not directly concern us here
except in so far as it leads us to consider the application
of the Spencerian principles of JUSTICE to the land
question.1

We are told distinctly that no landowner should be
allowed to leave his land in such a way as to permanently
alienate it from the community to which it rightly belongs.
But to concede the right of unlimited gift or bequest does
so alienate it; therefore no such right should exist.
There is another principle, which was asserted by the
great jurist Jeremy Bentham, and which is of some
importance as a guide : — That laws should never be such
as to disappoint "just expectations" — expectations which
people had been brought up to consider both legal and
equitable. Such an expectation, in our country, is that
of succeeding to one's father's property. But no one can
have such an expectation till he is born, nor even for some
few years afterwards. We may therefore, from every
point of view, equitably enact that, from the date of the
law, no land shall descend to any person then unborn.
We may also rightly add that it shall descend only in the
direct line — that is to children and children's children
living at the time of passing the Act, because no collateral
relatives have any just or reasonable claim or expectation
of succeeding to the land.

1 This problem is more fully treated in chapter xxviii. of this
volume.

344 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, xvm

Here then, by this simple and perfectly equitable
principle, we have found a means of transferring the
people's land back to the people, by a gradual process
which would rob nobody and cost nothing ; and thus the
whole huge mountain of difficulty which has induced Mr.
Spencer to look upon the restoration of the land as a
moral and financial impossibility crumbles into dust.
The mode of acquiring the land now suggested was
advocated in my first article on Land Nationalization
(see Chap. XVI.), and I myself, and many of my friends,
still think it to be the best. Of course we may and do
also advocate the power of compulsory purchase by local
authorities to supply the immediate wants of the people.
But while this was being done, wherever needed, land
would be continually accruing to the State by the dying
out of the direct heirs of landlords; and land thus acquired,
always administered by the local authority and the
proceeds of the rents equitably divided between the State
and the locality, would continually reduce the weight of
both imperial and local taxation.

This concludes all that needs now be said of Mr.
Spencer's new work. There are some other points I
should have liked to touch upon, but they are of less
importance from our present point of view. I hope that
I have shown with sufficient clearness the fallacies that
underlie his recent utterances, and have thereby enabled
all land reformers to continue with a good conscience to
quote the burning and logical denunciation of landlordism
to be found in Social Statics, notwithstanding the author's
recent attempt to minimize the effect of them.

CHAPTER XIX

SOME OBJECTIONS TO LAND NATIONALIZATION ANSWERED.

IN the present chapter I deal with a few of the most
frequent of the objections of those who oppose Land Nation-
alization, and also discuss a few of the difficulties which are
often felt even by those who are fully in sympathy with
the principle.

State-tenants versus Freeholders.

When Nationalization of the Land is advocated, a great
many people reply, " I don't see the good of Nationaliza-
tion, I prefer freeholders to State-tenants." Let us
therefore see what are the comparative advantages of the
two modes of tenure.

In order that the greatest number of people may
become freeholders, many Liberals advocate the abolition
of all restrictions on the sale and transfer of land. They
say, make every man who owns land an absolute owner,
with power to sell, or divide, or bequeath as he pleases,
and plenty of land will come into the market. Then, every
one who wants land can buy it, if able to do so ; and if
the mode of transfer is also made simple and cheap every
thing will have been done that need be done. We shall
then have free trade in land ; there will be no limited or
encumbered estates ; and capital will flow to land and
develop its resources.

But people who talk thus forget that we have already
had two great experiments of this nature, both supported

346 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

by these very arguments, and that both have utterly failed.
About forty years ago the dreadful condition of the Irish
peasantry was imputed bo the prevalence of entailed and
encumbered estates the owners of which had no money to
spend on improvements, and a most radical measure was
passed by which all these estates were brought into the
market and sold to the highest bidder. But the result was
not as expected. Capital flowed into the country, but with
no benefit to any one but the capitalist. English manu-
facturers and speculators became owners of Irish land, and
sometimes laid out money on it ; but they were harder land-
lords than those whom they replaced ; they looked upon the
land they had bought merely as a means of making money,
and utterly ignored the equitable or customary rights of the
unhappy tenants. Irish distress was not in the least degree
ameliorated by this drastic measure from which so much
was expected, and it is now rarely spoken of, while legis-
lation on totally different lines has been found necessary.
The second example of the utter uselessness of pouring
capital into a country so long as the people are denied
any right to the use of land is afforded by Scotland. In
the early part of this century, the great demand for wool
made sheep-farming profitable, and many of the highland
landlords were persuaded that they could double their
incomes by establishing great sheep- farms on their vast
estates. They did so. Many thousands of valuable sheep
were introduced ; much money was spent in fencing and in
building new farmhouses for the lowland farmers, while
the rights of the hereditary dwellers on the soil were utterly
ignored, and, by a series of barbarous evictions, these poor
people were banished to the sea-shore, or forced to
emigrate. The result was, for a time, beneficial to the
landlords, who proclaimed the scheme a great success ; but
it was most disastrous to the people, who, ever since, have
been kept in a state of serf-like subjection and pauperism.
The present condition of the Highlands is a direct con-
sequence of the application of capital to the land by
landlords while the rights of the people were ignored ;
and the result of these two great experiments in Ireland
and Scotland should teach us that any similar experiment

xix SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 347

in England cannot possibly lead to good results. It is
true the conditions of society in England are different.
There are here more capitalists ever competing for the
possession of land ; but " free trade " would simply enable
those wealthy capitalists who desire land to obtain it more
easily. What chance would the poor man have against
such competitors ? With population and wealth and
manufactures ever increasing, as they are in England, the
poor man will have less and less chance of getting land,
so long as it is to be obtained solely by purchase, and
there is neither compulsion to sell, nor right to buy at
equitable prices.

Effects of Land Monopoly.

As land is ever getting scarcer in proportion to popula-
tion, and in private hands must necessarily be a monopoly, it
offers the greatest temptation to speculators, who even
now frequently buy up estates offered for sale and resell
them in small plots at competition prices which no poor
man can afford to give ; and this will continue to be the
case so long as land is treated as a commodity to be
bought and sold for profit. We maintain that this is a
monstrous wrong and should never be permitted. Land is
the first necessary of life, the source of food and of all
kinds of wealth, and a sufficiency for health and enjoyment
is absolutely needed by every one. It is a political crime
to permit land to be monopolized by a few, to allow the
wealthy to employ it for mere sport or aggrandisement,
while thousands live in misery and have to suffer disease
and want because they are denied the right to live and
labour upon it.

In order that all may have equal rights to use and
enjoy the land of their birth, it must become, not
theoretically only, but actually, the property of the State
or Local authority in trust for all ; and for all to derive
equal advantages from it, those who occupy it must pay a
rental to the State for its use. This is the only way to
equalise the advantages derived by the several occupiers
of land of different qualities and in different situations

348 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

—the only way to enable the whole community to benefit
by the increased value which the community itself gives
to land.

The use of land is twofold. Its chief and primary use
is to supply to every household in the kingdom, the
conditions for healthy existence, and, whenever possible,
some portion at least of their daily food. When all are
thus supplied with the land necessary for a healthy home,
the remainder should be devoted to cultivation in such
a way as to produce the maximum of food, and at the
same time to support and bring up the maximum number
of healthy and happy food-producers. All experience
shows that these two things go together, and that in any
country the maximum of food is produced when the
greatest possible population live upon and by the land. At
one extreme we have the great farms of S. Australia and
California, cultivated with the minimum of human labour
and producing a net return of about ten bushels of wheat
per acre, and at the other extreme the allotments of our
farm labourers producing food to the value of £40 per acre.

But in order that our labourers and mechanics may
each be enabled to have, say, an acre of land to live on,
and an acre or two more to cultivate, if they require it, with
the power of getting a small farm of, from ten to forty
acres whenever they have obtained money enough to
stock it, the land must be let, not sold to them. For at
first a man wants all his little capital to enable him to
cultivate even the smallest plot of land, and if he has to
buy it, even by the easiest instalments, he is to that
extent crippled. Moreover it is a bad thing for him to own
the land absolutely, because he is then open to the tempta-
tions of the money-lender. Instead of economizing and
pinching in bad seasons, he borrows money and mortgages
his land, and thus falls under a tyranny as bad as that of
the hardest landlord. In every part of the world the small
freeholder falls a victim to the money-lender.

As a State-tenant the occupier would have all the
essential rights and advantages of a freeholder. His
tenure would be practically perpetual. He would have
the right to sell or bequeath his holding, or any part of it,

xix SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 349

just as freely. His rent would never be raised on account
of any improvement made by himself, but only on account
of increased value of the ground-rent, due to the growth
of population or other general causes, which would affect
all the land around as well as his. He would therefore
enjoy all the rights, all the privileges, and all the security
which a freeholder enjoys. But he would have this great
advantage over the freeholder, that he need not sink one
penny of his capital in the purchase of the soil ; and thus,
for one man who could save money enough to acquire
a farm or a homestead by purchase, two or three would
be able to become State-tenants, with money in their
pockets to stock their land or build their house, and
to live upon till their first crops were gathered. Those
who maintain the superiority of freeholds, therefore,
speak without knowledge; the superiority is all the
other way.

There is one more point to be considered, which is of
great importance, that under a general system of small
freeholders, one half of these would very soon be ruined by
the other half — would be obliged to sell their farms to
money-lenders or lawyers, and thus great estates would
again monopolize the land. The way this would necessarily
come about (as it always has come about) is as follows.
Suppose there are a body of peasant proprietors all over
the country. Their land necessarily varies in quality and
position, and, therefore, in value from fifteen or twenty
shillings an acre up to two, three, or four pounds an acre ;
and, all being freeholders, none of them pay rent. But the
owner of the better land can afford to sell his produce of
all kinds at a lower rate than the owner of the inferior
land, because prices which will enable the former to live
and save money will be starvation to the latter. Hence
an unequal competition will arise between the two classes
in which the one must necessarily starve out the* other.
The payment of rent in proportion to the inherent value of
the land equalises the position of all. The occupier of poor
land at a low rent can fairly compete with the occupier of
rich land at a high rent ; and thus while a system of small
proprietors is sure to fail, a system of small occupiers,

350 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

under the State, combines all the essential elements ot
stability.1

Thus far we have considered the question solely from
the economical and practical point of view, but the great
superiority of State tenants over freeholders is equally
apparent when we treat it as a question of justice. Land
necessarily increases in value as population and civilization
increase, and that increase being the creation of the com-
munity at large is justly the property of the community.
By a system of State tenants we shall obtain this increase
for the benefit of all, by means of a periodical reassessment
of the ground rents payable to the State ; but if we create
a body of small freeholders we shall perpetuate injustice
and inequality. A. and B. may acquire two farms at the
same cost and may bestow the same labour and skill in the
cultivation of them. But in thirty or forty years the value
of the two may be very different. Minerals may be dis-
covered or some new industry may spring up causing the farm
of A. to become the site of a populous town, while that of
B. remains in a secluded agricultural district ; so that, while
the children of the one are earning their living by honest-
labour the children of the other may be all living in
idleness by means of wealth which they have not created
and to which they have no equitable claim, and to the
same extent the community at large is robbed of its due.
If on the other hand we establish a system of State-tenancy
over the whole country, the natural increase of land-value
by social development will produce an ever increasing
revenue even if existing landlords continue to be paid the
incomes they now receive from land, so that in addition to
all the other advantages of the system we shall acquire the
means of bringing about a steady diminution of taxation,
by which all alike will benefit.

Briefly to sum up the argument : SMALL FREEHOLDS

ARE BAD BECAUSE —

1. Money must be sunk in the purchase which can be
better invested in the cultivation of the soil.

1 This danger has been attempted to be obviated on the Continent by
the farms consisting of scores or hundreds of scattered patches of land
of different qualities. But this system renders economical cultivation
impossible, and the remedy is worse than the disease.

xix SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 351

2. The number of men who can advantageously acquire
small farms is therefore greatly reduced.

3. The unearned increment of the land is taken from
the community who create it and is given to individuals.

4. The inheritors of these small farms of different
qualities of land will compete unequally with each other,
and those holding the poorer land must sooner or later sell
their farms or fall into the hands of the money-lender.

The system therefore contains within itself the elements
of decay and failure.

In all these respects State-tenancy is greatly to be pre-
ferred to small-freeholding, and a general system of State-
tenancy can only be secured by a complete Nationalization
of the Land.

Land Taxation — Who will Pay it ?

One of the most important points of difference between
the followers of Henry George and Land-Nationalizers
is on the question whether the landlord can throw the
burden of a heavy land-tax upon the tenant. This
question has been the subject of much discussion for some
years past, and the proposal to tax land-values, especially
in large cities and wherever land is held by the owners in
expectation of a great rise in value for building purposes,
has been generally adopted by the more advanced section
of the Liberal party. It therefore becomes very im-
portant to ascertain whether such a tax will really fall
upon the landlord, or whether it will not, in the course of
a few years at furthest, be shifted to the tenant, who will
thus be no better off than before.

The one strong point of the advocates of land- taxation
is the appeal to authority. Adam Smith says :

1 1 A tax upon ground rents would not raise the rents of houses.
It would fall altogether upon the owner of the ground rent, who
acts always as a monopolist, and exacts the greatest rent which can
be got for his ground."

Ricardo says :

•

"A tax on rent would fall wholly on the landlords, and could
not be shifted to any class of consumers. ... It would leave

352 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

unaltered the difference between the produce obtained from the
least productive land in cultivation and that obtained from land of
every other quality."

John Stuart Mill says :

" A tax on rent falls wholly on the landlords. There are no means
by which he can shift the burden upon any one else."

Professor Thorold Rogers and most other writers on
political economy have followed these great authorities, re-
peating their statement in slightly modified words ; and in
many recent articles as well as in discussion in the County
Council, either these authorities are accepted as con-
clusive, or if any attempt is made to prove that the same
results would follow the imposition of a 4s. or higher land
tax, the logic is at fault, and the attempted proof utterly
breaks down. This I shall hope to show in a very few
words.

The whole essence of the question at issue is contained
in the concluding words I have quoted from Adam Smith,
that the landlord " always acts as a monopolist, and exacts
the highest rent which can be got for his land." It
follows, therefore, that however much you tax him,
however much you impoverish him, you do not, by that
act alone, enable him to extract more rent from the tenant,
who is not benefited by the landlord's tax. Now this was
the only kind of tax contemplated by the early writers.
Governments were always in want of money, always
seeking to impose new taxes ; and having taxed the poor as
much as they could bear, if they put a special tax on land
the landlord must pay it, since the tenant was already
rented and taxed up to the hilt. He could bear no more.
Adam Smith, and Ricardo, and Mill never contemplated
the case of a landlord-government taxing land, not to
supply its own dire necessities, but to relieve the
tenant. Such a thing was inconceivable to them, was
beyond the range of their practical politics, and therefore
they did not deal with it. But this is the very essence of
the modern proposal. The 4s. tax is not to be a war- tax,
or, what is much the same thing, the money obtained is
not to be thrown into the sea. It is not proposed to tax

xix SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 353

the landlords in order to ruin them without benefiting
the rest of the community, who are all tenants. That
would be pure " cussedness," as our American friends
would say. But the tax on landlords is for the express
purpose of relieving tenants. Just as the landlords are
made poorer by it, the tenants are to be made richer,
taxes are to be transferred from tenants to landlords, and
would be exactly equivalent to a reduction of rent.
What then would happen — the landlord, as Adam Smith
says, acting " always as a monopolist and exacting the
greatest rent which can be got for his ground ? " Is it
not absolutely certain that, he being poorer and the
tenant richer, he would raise the rent and thus get back
the tax he had just paid ? Mr. Fletcher Moulton says
this is a fallacy. He urges, that.

1 ' under the proposed system the ground value will represent the
full rental value that the landowner can obtain for the use of his
land, unburdened by any rates. This is a sum which will be deter-
mined by considerations relating to the land itself, and by these alone .
In ascertaining the rental which he can afford to give for the free
use of the land, the proposed tenant will not be affected by the
question, what portion of that rent will be retained by the landlord,
and what proportion will be paid over in rates ? "

Of course he would not ; nobody has ever suggested that
he would. But Mr. Moulton has slipped in the words,
" unburdened by any rates," and thereafter ignores them.
Are tenants now " unburdened by any rates?'' And if
their rates are removed and put on the landlord, does not
this affect the tenant's power of paying more rent, and
the landlord's power, " acting always as a monopolist," to
obtain more rent ? Surely the " simple fallacy " is on
Mr. Moulton's part, not on ours.

A writer in the Democrat also trusts mainly to the
authorities, and in his arguments also misses the main
point. He says :

" A tax upon land value, or economic rent, would not raise prices,
but would simply transfer to the State a portion or the whole of
that premium paid for the use of better land which now constitutes
the unearned incomes of the landlords."

Here, " transferring to the State " is spoken of as if it

VOL. II. A A

354 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

were a foreign State, or a private individual who would
spend the money on himself. But the State in this case
is the community, consisting almost wholly of tenants who
are to benefit directly by reduction of rates and taxes.
They would therefore be able to pay higher rents, and the
landlord, " acting always as a monopolist," would exact
those higher rents so as to bring back the respective
position of landlord and tenant to what it was before the
tax was imposed.

The only other argument used — that if it would have
the effect we urge the landlords would not object to it, is
hardly worth answering. Landlords are not a specially
intellectual body of men, and why should they not be
blinded by the alleged " authorities " as well as the
followers of Mr. George ? Besides, there would be some
loss to the landlords, especially to those who had granted
leases. All we urge is that in a very few years the
landlords would necessarily recoup themselves under the
inevitable laws of supply and demand, they being left in
possession of a monopoly of what is essential to all men.
In his " Scheme for the Abolition of Landlordism," in the
Westminster Review for May, 1890, Mr. Charles Wicksteed
hit the nail on the head by his suggestion that all receipts
for taxes on land should be applied in the purchase of
land, not in relieving tenants of rates and taxes, and
thus prevent the landlords from recouping themselves by
raising rents. This simple proposal has satisfied one
member of the Land Restoration League that the im-
position of the 4s. or any other tax, to be applied in relief
of other taxation, would be useless, and would ultimately
leave the landlords as much masters of the situation as
they are now. It is to be hoped that others will be
equally convinced and equally candid in acknowledging it,
and thereafter retire from an untenable position.

The Conditions Essential to the Success of Small Holdings.

As there seems to be considerable difference of opinion
on this question, and as success or failure in the first
steps towards obtaining free access to land for all who

xix SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 355

desire it is a matter of vital importance, it will be useful
to set forth for the consideration of Land -re formers what
seem to be the principles which should guide us in this
matter.

I begin with the proposition, wrhich will probably be
generally accepted, that the primary object of giving the
people free access to land is, to enable as many as possible
to obtain either the whole or a portion of their living by
its cultivation, and, by thus withdrawing some of them
altogether from competition with wage-earners ; while by
giving others a temporary alternative to wage labour, we
shall raise the rate of wages of the less remunerative kinds
of work all over the country. And as secondary benefits,
we shall have, in the first place, an enormous increase in
the production of food, displacing much that is now im-
ported from abroad ; secondly, an increased consumption
of manufactured goods by these self-supporting workers ;
thirdly, a diminution in the poors' rate from the dis-
appearance of paupers and out-of-works; and, lastly, a
public revenue arising from the continuous increase in the
value of land owing to the growth and increased well-being
of the population. These various benefits I conceive to be
important, somewhat in the order in which I have given
them ; at all events the first is undoubtedly the most im-
portant, while the last — the money profit — is the least
important. It is a valuable incidental result, but is not
to be sought after as one of the chief ends in itself in
depreciation of the other kinds of benefit.

Now in order that the various good results above enu
merated shall be, in their due order, most certainly obtained
it is of the highest importance that the workers who gain
access to the soil shall be able, not only to live upon it,
but to live well and thrive upon it. We do not want
them merely to earn a living as long as they can work,
and go to the poor-house in their old age or during sick-
ness ; neither do we want them to be ruined by the first
bad season, or by any of the chances and misfortunes to
which agriculture is especially liable. On the contrary,
it is of the highest importance to the whole community
that the land-cultivators should be in such a position that

A A 2

356 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

even in bad years they should not lose, while in average
years they should obtain such profits, that, either by
increase of the size of their holding or the amount of their
stock, their condition should steadily improve, and thus
ensure them against poverty in old age. If land-national-
ization is to be the success we hope it will be, some such
result as this must be aimed at, and we must be sure that
we do nothing to prevent its attainment.

In order to bring about this result two things are
especially required — first, a certain amount of knowledge,
of experience, of prudence, and of industry in those who
obtain these small holdings ; in the second place, such very
moderate rents and such favourable conditions of tenure
as to give them not only a chance but almost a certainty
of success. Nothing, in my opinion, is more likely to
bring about the failure of the first, and therefore the most
important experiments in this direction than the methods
usually suggested by politicians, and more or less implied
in the various Acts of Parliament, whether already passed
or proposed, dealing with this matter. It is, for example,
almost always proposed or taken for granted, that before
the men can have the land a large cost must be incurred
in preparing it for them. We hear of road-making,
fencing, draining, and house-building, as if these were
absolute necessities ; and in addition to all this, it is
generally thought that it will be necessary to advance
capital to the proposed tenants to enable them to stock and
crop their holdings, and support themselves till they get
a return from the land. Now I can hardly imagine a more
certain way of bringing discredit on the whole system of
small holdings — and with it of land-nationalization — than
such a method. In the first place, this work of " laying
out " and " improvement," when it is not done by the
occupiers themselves, but for them, by persons who have
no interest in doing the work economically but often the
reverse, and who have besides no personal knowledge of
what these small cultivators really require, will often be
unnecessary work and will always be done in an un-
necessarily costly way, and will thus add to the rent of the
land, without proportionately increasing its value. Then

xix SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 357

again, the advance of money on loan to men who have
never, perhaps, had ten pounds to spend at once in their
lives, will in many cases lead to its injudicious expendi-
ture, and be antagonistic to that prudence, thrift, and
industry, which are vital to success.

There is yet another, and a very important objection to
such methods as these. All this expenditure of public
money by other people than those who are to directly
benefit by it, will certainly lead to wastefulness and
jobbery, since they constitute that very " management of
land by public officials," the evils of which form one of
the chief objections to land-nationalization, and which all
our proposals and methods have been calculated to avoid.
We must therefore never cease to urge that such man-
agement is not only unnecessary, but is calculated to
defeat the very purpose for which free access to land is
required.

If we consult the reports of the various Royal Com-
missions on Agriculture we shall find numerous cases of
labourers, miners, mechanics, and others, who have become
successful cultivators of small holdings and sometimes of
considerable farms, often having begun with a lease of
waste land which they enclosed, improved, and built houses
on, entirely on their own resources and through their own
industry ; and whenever we find a successful small farmer
he has usually worked his way up by some such method.
It is an extraordinary thing that whenever it is proposed
to allow men to obtain small holdings in England, there
is always this talk of "improvements" and "house-
building," in addition to giving the land at a fair rent
and on a secure tenure; while over a large part of
Scotland and Ireland all improvements and all buildings
have been done by the tenants themselves, with no
security of tenure whatever, so that whenever a misfortune
prevents payment of rent — usually rent on the tenants'
own improvements — the landlord ejects the poor tenant
and confiscates his improvements. The Irish cottar and
the Highland crofter ask nothing better than a sufficiency
of land at a moderate rent and on a secure tenure. All
the perennial misery and often-recurring famine of these

358 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

two countries have arisen from a denial of this very
moderate instalment of bare justice; and if we give this
easy access to the land to our English workers, they too
will ask for nothing else, and will be far more likely to
succeed without any attempt to do for them what they
will do much better and more economically themselves.

But we do undoubtedly require some process of selection
of the best men for this great experiment in the regenera-
tion of our country ; and the natural, self-acting, and
therefore best mode of selection, will arise from the fact
that no man can take a holding unless he has saved
money to stock and crop it, or has such a character for
industry, sobriety, and capacity as to induce some friend
to advance him the money ; while the certainty that he is
risking the loss of his own savings if he fail, will be the
best guarantee that he will have some amount of
intelligence and some agricultural experience. No arti-
ficial mode of selection will compare with this. A man
may get testimonials to character, but no testimonials
can show that he will spend borrowed money prudently,
or be able to make a profit on land burdened with un-
necessary and costly improvements, which, for his purpose,
will often be no improvements at all.

How to fix the Eent.

We have now to consider the second great essential of
success, which is, the rental to be paid for the land and
the conditions of tenure. Many of our fellow-workers
maintain that the competition-rent offered for land is
the best, and in fact the only certain way, of determining
its value, and therefore what should be paid for it. From
a landlord's or speculator's point of view — considering the
money income to be got from the land to be everything,
the well-being of the tenants nothing — this is un-
doubtedly the case ; but, from our point of view — looking
at the cultivation of the land as leading primarily to the
well-being and progressive advancement of the cultivator,
and through him the similar advancement of all other
manual labourers — it seems to me to be the very worst

xix SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 359

mode possible. Let us therefore consider it a little in
detail.

At the present time, wherever there are allotments to
let, there we find it to be the rule that agricultural
labourers willingly hire them at a rental per acre,
sometimes double, sometimes four or five times as much
as is paid by farmers for the same quality of land ; and
there can be no doubt that if arable land were now offered
for allotments and small holdings almost anywhere in
England, and the quantity thus offered was not in excess
of the demand at the time, it would, if let by auction,
realize somewhat similar rentals. Many agricultural
labourers, as well as village tradesmen, and mechanics,
find it advantageous to them to have land even at these
high rents, and there is sufficient land thus held all
over the country to afford a guide to the prices at which
such land would let by auction, even in quantities of from
one to five acres. Now the reason such high rents have
been, and are paid, is, simply, that the labourers' wages
have been always so low and his condition so miserable,
that anything by which he could add two or three
shillings a week to his earnings by means of overtime work
and the assistance of his wife and family, was eagerly
accepted. It was his low standard of living that rendered
him willing to pay a rent which left him a mere trifle of
profit on his labour ; and if he were now offered a small
holding on which to live he would be willing (if he could
not get it cheaper) to pay a rent which would enable
him to live in about the same way as he had hitherto
done, but with the chance of occasional better luck and
with the satisfaction of being his own master. We see this
result very prevalent on the Continent, especially in
Belgium and in parts of France, where the price of land,
and consequently its rental, is very much higher than
with us, and as a consequence the small holders often
work harder and live as near the starvation line as our
poorly paid agricultural labourers or our rack-rented Irish
cottars. It will be said, no doubt, that this arises from
the demand for land being greater than the supply, and
that if land were offered in larger quantities, competition.

360 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

would be less keen and prices lower. But is it at all
likely that for a long time the supply of land will be
greater than the demand, except quite locally, and tem-
porarily ? Is it not, on the contrary, almost certain that
the demand will, at first and for a long time to come,
perhaps always, be greater than the supply ? Is it not
our contention that the depression of agriculture and the
deplorable condition of so many of our workers is due to
the denial of access to land, and that when that access is
freely given it will bring about the well-being, first of
those who cultivate it, and afterwards of all other wage-
earners ? There will therefore be a constant and ever
increasing demand for land ; but unless we take care that
those who apply for it have it on such terms that they
can not only make a good living from it, but also provide
for a comfortable old age, the benefits we anticipate will
not arise. It is to avoid any such failure, to prevent the
recurrence of the miserable spectacle of men being ejected
from their holdings for non-payment of high rents ; to
secure for them something better than a struggle ending
in dependence on charity in old age, that I urge the fixing
of rents by valution, taking always the amount paid by
prosperous farmers in the same district, rather than that
of allotment-holders, as the standard of value. The land
when purchased by the local authorities, will be purchased
at the farm value, and it can be let at that value at first
without loss to the community.

The above sketch of the reasons why I object to the
system of competition-rents sufficiently exhibits the
principle on which, in my opinion, our dealings with the
land should be founded. But there is also a practical
objection to that system — that it would be very unequal
in its results, and also that it can hardly be carried out
unless based on a preliminary valuation. I presume the
advocates of competition-rents do not propose that land
should always be let to the highest bidder, without any
reserve whatever. For, if so, whenever the intending
tenants were less numerous than the lots to be offered,
these lots might be let at much less than agricultural
rents. No doubt it will be said there must be a reserved

xix SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 361

price for each lot, or group of lots of the same kind of
land ; but such a reserve cannot be fixed without a careful
valuation by an expert ; so that we should require two
processes both involving some expense, first the valuation
then the auction. The result would be, that in some cases,
where there happened to be little competition, the land
would be let at the reserved rent, while in other cases —
perhaps a few months later, and in the same place— similar
land would be run up by competition to much higher
rents; and this would inevitably lead to dissatisfaction
and inequality in the prosperity of the tenants — a dis-
satisfaction which would compel the authorities to adopt
the plan of letting all land at the reserved rent, that is
at that fair but low rent which should have been adopted
at first.

I maintain, therefore, that it is essential to adopt from
the first the only just and equal method, which is, the
valuation of the lots by an expert, founded on what would
be fair rents of similar land to a large tenant farmer.
These lots, with the rents thus determined, would then be
open to selection, either on the system of " first come first
served," or if thought fairer, of a ballot for the order of
choice on certain fixed days. By either of these two
methods, supposing the valuation to be fairly made, there
would be no inequality of opportunities, no feeling that
either by chance or through any other cause, some of the
tenants were paying higher rents than others.

Another point of some importance is, that men should
be allowed to have as much land as they wished, up to a
certain limit — say five or ten acres according to circum-
stances ; and also that the land first let should always be
that abutting upon roads or lanes, the inner portion of the
farms thus let being reserved for some years, so that any
man wishing to add to his holding could have it extended
by taking a plot or field behind it, thus avoiding the great
inconvenience and loss arising from the separation of plots
under one holding. In the meantime this central portion
of the farm could be let by the year to any adjacent farmer.

One other point arises in connection with this question
— the vital importance of security to the occupier and

362 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

cultivator of land. We want men to be able to form and
keep a HOME ; to be practically as secure in that home, so
long as they pay the moderate ground-rent for the land, as
if they were the actual owners of the freehold, subject
only to the payment of a tax. We want the new tenants
under land-nationalization to be really free-holders in the
old sense — free men holding land from the community,
never to be interfered with so long as they continued to
pay the moderate dues and to be law-abiding citizens. To
give this full security all the rights of bequest or sale now
appertaining to freehold land should appertain to these
State tenancies.

It is, I believe, only by some such process as that which
1 have here indicated that we can possibly obtain the full
benefit of land- nationalization or of the first steps which
we may be able to make towards it. We must always
remember that the community will be benefited just in
proportion to the well-being of the cultivators and of those
who obtain access to land. If we rack-rent them so that
they just make a living out of the land, they will have
little influence in raising the wages of other workers or
in enabling them to make a successful bargain with
capitalist employers. But if, on the other hand, we
allow all occupiers of land to have it on such terms and
conditions that they are able to make a good living,
provide well for their families, and enjoy an old age of
secure repose in their own homesteads, this state of well-
being will serve to establish a standard of living which
will react on the whole working population, and lead to
a corresponding rise in the rate of wages throughout
the whole industrial world. There appears to me to be
no proposition in the domain of political and social
science more certain than this. On the other hand, no
mistake can be more fatal than to think that the
community would be benefited by screwing from twenty
to fifty per cent, more rental from the occupiers of land,
thus reducing their profits, rendering their position less
secure, lowering their standard of living, and with it that
of the whole working population, and often creating a
body of prospective paupers.

xix SOME OBJECTIONS ANSWERED 363

In conclusion, therefore, I would, urge most strongly,
that in all arrangements or proposals with regard to the
land, we should throw aside altogether the idea of getting
the highest possible rents, but should always aim at the
maximum of well-being for the cultivators. By thus
acting we shall best secure the equal well-being of the
whole of the industrial community, and shall initiate that
progressive improvement, with the diminution and ultimate
abolition both of enforced idleness and of undeserved
poverty, which is the whole aim and object of Land
Nationa lization.

CHAPTER XX

A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION FOR SABBATARIANS1

ALMOST all the Christian Churches of Great Britain
have adopted the Sabbath of the Jewish lawgiver as a
divin'e institution, only changing the day from Saturday to
Sunday, though many of the Nonconformists retain the
Jewish term, Sabbath. Many, perhaps most, religious
persons hold that to work on Sunday is an actual sin
comparable in gravity with most other acts forbidden in
the Ten Commandments ; and the strong condemnation of
Sabbath-breaking in religious tracts and Sunday-school
teaching is a sufficient proof of the importance attached to
a due observance of the day.

An impartial onlooker is, however, somewhat puzzled by
the circumstance that, notwithstanding this general uni-
formity of precept, the practice, even of the teachers, is
exceedingly lax, since there is hardly a Christian family in
the whole country, not excluding those of the clergy of the
various denominations, where the Sabbath is not broken
fifty-two times in every year. Now the fourth command-
ment, as read every Sunday in oar churches, is either binding
on Christians or it is not. In the latter case breaking it is no
sin, and any observance of a seventh day of rest is merely a
matter of expediency or of human law. It is, however,
nearly certain that the majority of Protestant clergy do not
accept this latter view, and I therefore propose to discuss
the question — how Sunday may be most consistently and

1 This article appeared in the Nineteenth Century (October, 1894)
under the editor's title " A Suggestion to Sabbath Keepers."

CHAP, xx A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 365

beneficially observed by those who believe it to be a divine
institution ; and my argument will apply equally to those
who maintain that we are only bound by the spirit of the
commandment, not by the letter, still less by the special
interpretation of it adopted by the Jews.

Let us then first inquire what is the spirit and purport of
the law ; and in this there can be little difficulty, because
it is more fully explained than any other of the command-
ments, so that its whole meaning and purpose cannot pos-
sibly be misunderstood. This command is not given briefly,
as so many others are ; not merely " thou shalt not work on
the Sabbath," as in " thou shalt not kill," or " thou shalt not
steal ; " but with full and impressive reiteration and detail.

First, we are told, " Six days shalt thou labour and do all
thy work ; " then, on the Sabbath, " thou shalt not do any
work ; " and then, to show how wide and complete is the
law, there is added, " thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter,
thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor
the stranger that is within thy gates." If ever there were
plain words with a plain meaning these are such. They
mean, as clearly as words can convey meaning, that each
one's work during the week, that work which is the duty of
our lives, and by which we maintain ourselves, is to cease
on the Sabbath ; and that the law is especially to apply to
all servants of every kind, and to all beasts of burden, which
are included under the generic term " cattle."

This being the commandment, how is it obeyed by those
who uphold the sanctity of the law ; by those who are con-
tinually urging others to keep the Sabbath ; by those who
take every opportunity of putting in force human laws
against Sabbath-breakers? Are not manservants and
maidservants all at work on Sunday ? Are not servants and
horses employed by the thousand to take people to church
on Sunday ? Many persons, if asked why they go to church
or chapel, will say that it is to save their souls or to please
God, and yet they seem to think that they may break what
they believe is God's own commandment week after week,
without any chance of displeasing Him or of losing the
souls they are so anxious to save.

What makes the matter worse is that, while they are

366 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

thus disobeying the scriptural commandment in the most
flagrant manner, they are salving their consciences by
abstaining, and trying to force others to abstain, from
things which are not forbidden by the commandment, and
which are not in any way opposed to its spirit. To walk
for health or pleasure, to row in a boat, to play at cricket,
or at chess, to whistle, or sing, to read amusing books, to
look at great pictures in art galleries, or to admire the
beauties and wonders of nature in museums or gardens —
all these things have been, and many of them are still
considered by the more strictly religious to be " breaking
the Sabbath," and are denounced as such in many a tract
and sermon. And the good people who hold these views
seem quite unconscious that they themselves are far
greater sinners than the people they denounce as " Sabbath
breakers ; " for to direct Sabbath-breaking they add the
sin of pharisaism, inasmuch as they condemn in others
what is, at the worst, a far less offence than their own, and
are guilty of impious presumption in venturing to add to and
improve upon the divine commandment, while constantly
and knowingly disobeying the commandment itself. Do
not the words of Christ exactly apply to such, when
He rebuked the Pharisees from the mouth of Esaias ? —
" But in vain they do worship me, teaching for doctrines
the commandments of men."

And when we inquire the reason for this strange and
inconsistent conduct, we find only a series of excuses. They
say, that the requirements of health and decency render a
certain amount of work necessary on Sunday ; that we keep
a Christian and not a Jewish Sabbath ; that we reduce the
work of our labourers as much as possible ; and that we only
recognize works of necessity and of mercy as permissible on
the holy day. It is true that Christ justified deeds of
charity and of mercy to both man and beast on the Sabbath,
but He nowhere abrogates the law of rest for each labourer;
whether man or beast, from his six days' work. To tend
the sick and supply the wants of the animals which serve
us in various ways is not to break the Sabbath ; but all
these things and much more may be done without infring-
ing even the letter of the Commandment, if we choose to

xx A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 367

seek out the right way of doing them. Christ clearly
emphasized the spirit of the law when He declared that
the Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath ;
by which we are taught, that the essential principle of rest
on the seventh day for all who have laboured during six
days is what we must seek to preserve. How we may
preserve this, and yet have everything done that is neces-
sary for health, comfort, and refreshment of mind and body,
I now propose to show.

The whole essence of the Sabbath-question rests upon
giving the proper meaning to the words " labour/' " work,"
" thy work," as used in the fourth commandment. These
words, as the context shows, do not refer to any particular
acts, but to the work done by each one of us in the business
or profession by which we live. To the summer tourist in
the Alps the ascent of a mountain or the passage of a
glacier is pleasure and health-giving recreation; to the
guides who accompany him it is their work. A hired
gardener works for his living in a garden ; but though
I do many of the same things as he does, to me they are
not my work, but my recreation. So, a domestic servant's
work is to cook or to prepare a meal, or to wait at table ;
but when a party go out for a picnic, light a fire, make tea,
roast potatoes, arrange the meal, and help the guests, they
are certainly not working but pleasuring. When a doctor
attends the sick in a hospital, or the wounded on a battle-
field, he is doing the work of his life ; but if any one of us
nurses a sick person or binds up a wound, we may be doing
acts of mercy or of charity, but we are not doing " our
work." Even if we take upon ourselves some of the work
of others, carry a heavy load for a weary woman, or do an
hour's stone-breaking to help an old rheumatic labourer,
what we do ceases to be work in the true meaning of the
term but is transformed into a deed of love or mercy ; and
such deeds are not only permissible, but even commendable,
on whatever day they are done.

We have here the clue to a method by which all that
needs doing for health, for enjoyment, or for charity, may
be done on Sunday without any one breaking the fourth
commandment. Almost all this necessary work is now

368 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

done by various classes of hired servants who, are em-
ployed on similar work for six days every week, and who
also have not much less to do on the seventh day. To keep
the Sabbath, both in the letter and the spirit, these work-
ers must be allowed full and complete rest ; they must do
none of their special work on that day. All that portion
of their weekly duties which is necessary for the well-being
of their employers, and for the rational enjoyment of their
lives, must be done by those other members of the house-
hold who have spent the week largely in idleness or in
pleasure, or if in work, in work of a quite different
character from that of their servants. In doing this work ;
in helping each other ; in sharing among themselves the
various household occupations which during all the week
have been undertaken by others ; and in doing all this in
order that those others may enjoy the full and unbroken
rest which their six days' continuous labour requires and
deserves, each member of the family will be doing deeds of
self-sacrifice and of charity (in however small a degree),
and such deeds do not constitute the " work " which is so
strictly forbidden on the Sabbath day.

In the ordinary middle-class household, where there are
si»x or eight in family and two or three servants, all that
is necessary may be easily done, and allow every member
of the family to go to church or chapel once or oftener. In
other cases there will, no doubt, be difficulties, but none
which may not be overcome by a little arrangement and
mutual helpfulness. Where a household consists only of
aged or elderly people to whom the needful operations of
housework would be painful or even impossible, there are
always younger relatives or friends, or even acquaintances,
who could, either regularly or occasionally, spend the
Sunday with such old people ; and there is probably not a
single difficulty of this kind which could not be overcome
by two or more households combining for the Sunday in
such a way as to divide the work and thus render it as
little irksome as possible. If it were once really felt that
the thing must be done, that on no account must the com-
mandment be broken by servants doing any of their usual
work on Sunday, and that the truest and most divine

xx A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 369

" service " would thus be " performed/' all difficulties
would vanish, and the day would become, not in name
only but truly, a holy one, inasmuch as it would witness
in every household deeds of true charity and mercy,
because in every case they would involve some amount of
personal effort and self-sacrifice.

In the larger establishments of the higher classes there
would be no greater difficulty, since it would be easy to
effect such a division of labour as to render the work light
for each. The son or other relative who was fondest of
horses and dogs would of course see after their wants on
Sunday ; another might undertake the fire-lighting ; while
the young ladies would prepare the meals and do all other
really necessary domestic work. And as all visitors would
be acquisitions, almost the whole of the lodging- and
boarding-houses would be emptied, their occupants
becoming guests at the houses of their friends and taking
their share of the Sabbath day's duties. Of course the
greater part of the servants thus released from their
regular work would also visit their friends, and by giving
some little voluntary assistance would take their part in
the great altruistic movement that would characterize the
day.

Among the more important of these deeds of mercy
would be the relief of the nurses in hospitals and asylums,
and of the attendants in workhouses and prisons. When
the great principle of rest for each individual from the
weary monotony of his or her daily work was once
thoroughly accepted, volunteers by thousands would be
found to take part in every duty of the kind ; and it would
probably not be necessary for any one to undertake the
more repulsive duties more frequently than once a month,
or perhaps three or four times a year. This would of
course imply some general instruction of the young in the
principles and practice of nursing, which is much to be
desired on other grounds.

In the same way all the national treasures of art and
nature in our galleries and museums, our libraries and
gardens, might be thrown open to the great body of toilers
who can enjoy them at no other time, the place of the

VOL. II. B B

370 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

week-day guardians of these treasures being taken by
volunteers from among the more leisured classes, or from
the higher ranks of workmen. Thus would be remedied
the great injustice, that these grand institutions, for the
support of which all alike pay, are yet closed at the only
time when those who contribute most toward them would
be able to benefit by them. Of course the police would
also be relieved by a body of special constables who would
volunteer for the service. This occupation might be re-
stricted to the Volunteer force, whose recognisable uniform
and military organization would render them admirably
fitted for the purpose. Further details on this part of the
subject are unnecessary, since it is evident that by an
extension of the same principle it would be possible to
relieve every one whose week-day labour is now extended
over some portion of Sunday also.

And now, having briefly set forth the arguments and
suggestions which seem to me needful for illustrating my
views as to the consistent observance of the day of rest
by all who look upon it as a divine institution, I will
state with equal brevity the good effects which such an
observance of it would produce. The substance of the
present chapter had been in my mind for twenty years
before it was written, and I made it public because many
circumstances seemed to render it less likely to give
offence and also more likely to do good than at an earlier
period, on account of the ever-growing strength of the
altruistic movement with the principles of which it
so well harmonises. For, the latter part of the nine-
teenth century will be characterized in history by the
awakening of the cultured classes to the terrible failure of
our civilization to provide even the barest necessaries and
decencies of life for thousands and tens of thousands of
those by means of whose work they live in luxury ; and
also by their strenuous effort no longer to rely on mere
almsgiving, but to devote themselves to a sympathetic
study of the condition and needs of the poorest among the
workers, and to helping them with personal advice and
assistance. Toynbee Hall and Dr. Barnardo's homes,

xx A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 371

missions innumerable and General Booth's slum-lasses,
serve to indicate a few of the many ways in which this
great movement is now making itself felt.

And it has begun none too soon if society is to be saved
from a great catastrophe. Nearly sixty years ago Thomas
Hood caused a spasmodic excitement among the well-to-do
by the pictures of hopeless misery he set before them in his
Song of the Shirt and Bridge of Sighs. Nearly half a
century passed away ; England's wealth had increased to
an unprecedented extent, when society was again startled
by the Bitter Cry of Outcast London, showing that the utter
and hopeless misery of the earlier period was still with us,
but increased and multiplied in quantity, just as the great
city which produced it had increased and multiplied in
size and riches. Then came official inquiries ; and the
" Commissions " on the Housing of the Poor and on the
Sweating System, revealed horrors so terrible that it is
simply impossible for men and women to live in a lower
condition of want and misery and continue to exist. And
during all this period there has been an ever-increasing
growth of charitable institutions, trying in vain to cope with
the ever-renewed crop of human misery; yet, notwith-
standing all this effort, in each recurring winter the only
difference of opinion seems to be whether the distress is
worse than ever or only as great as it has been for years
past. How bad it is may be inferred from the constant
records in the daily press of suicide from hopeless misery,
and death from want of food, fire, and clothing.

On the other hand, a change is now taking place in the
attitude of the sufferers. They are no longer like the dumb
beasts which perish uncomplainingly. They ask for work
in order to live, and will no longer silently submit to be
driven back to their cellars and slums by the police. They
march by thousands into the churches, and listen to the
platitudes of the preacher with murmurs of dissent. Many
of them are now educated, and are quite as well able as
their social superiors to reason on their condition. They
begin to ask why it is that multitudes are enabled to live
their whole lives idly and in luxury, while they themselves
cannot obtain the poor privilege of constant work in order

B 2

372 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

to provide the scantiest necessaries for their families.
They now possess an amount of political power sufficient
to overturn governments which do not satisfy them, and
year by year they are becoming more able to make
effectual use of that power ; and it becomes more and more
evident that, unless some real and great improvement
in their condition is soon effected, very drastic, and per-
haps dangerous, attempts at reform will be made.

To those who watch the growing enlightenment of the
workers, it is clear that they will not much longer be
satisfied with mere administrative reforms, or with petty
palliatives which in no way touch the real causes of their
unhappy condition. Many of them have learnt enough of
political economy to know that the whole of the wealth
annually consumed by the nation is the annual product of
the labour, physical and mental, of the working classes ;
and that, j ust in proportion to the number of the non-
producers and to the extent that labour is expended on
the useless luxuries of pleasure, pomp, and fashion, to that
extent are they deprived of the product of their labour
and have to live in comparative penury. They begin to
see clearly that hereditary wealth of all kinds, and especially
the possession of land, enabling millions to live luxurious
and idle lives, is the fundamental cause of the poverty of
the workers, and the time will soon come when they will
determine that this state of things must cease. They do
not wish to rob any one of what he has been allowed by law
and custom to consider his own, but they will not consent
to the indefinite continuance of hereditary idlers any more
than of hereditary legislators. They will probably say, as
they will be perfectly justified in saying, " We recognize
no rights in any portion of the next generation to live
upon the labour of others. No child born after the passing
of this Act shall inherit land, nor any greater amount of
wealth than is necessary for a thorough education and such
an endowment as to give him a fair start in life."

Such radical opinions as these are common among the
workers, but they are also spreading beyond them, owing
to the efforts of many talented and energetic thinkers,
who expound analogous views with eloquence in the lecture

A COUNSEL OF PERFECTION 373

hall, and with argumentative power and literary skill in
numerous books and periodicals. The effect of this teach-
ing is manifested in the growing opinion among the more
thoughtful even of the wealthy and leisured classes, that
a life spent in ease and idleness and the pursuit of pleasure
is not the admirable and desirable thing it was once
thought to be. The vices and frivolity, the extravagance
and the barrenness of modern society are now felt, and
are being fully exposed by its own members ; and one of
these modern prophets, Lady Lyttelton Gell, ably urged,
in the Nineteenth Century of November, 1892, "that
definite work of some sort should be the law, not merely
the accessory of every girl's life," and that it should be
the means of bringing about more union between the
classes, and a real friendship between the highest and
the lowest.

Now, I venture to think that nothing would tend more
to bring about these desirable results than a method of
observing Sunday in some way resembling that here
advocated, while the beneficial effect on all concerned
would be very great. The upper classes would learn,
many of them for the first time, how great and how
fatiguing is the labour daily expended in securing them the
unvarying comfort and aesthetic enjoyment of their
surroundings, and how often they cause unnecessary work
by their thoughtlessness or extravagance. The need they
would have, at first, of learning the duties of the par-
ticular department they were going to undertake, would
bring them into friendly and intimate relations with their
servants; and, in seeing how much care was often
required to secure the comfort of the family, they might
begin to appreciate that " dignity of labour " which is
so often preached to the poor but so seldom practised by
the rich. To many this " Sunday service " in their own
families, or in that of some of their friends, would be
the introduction to some serious occupation for their week-
day lives, and thus inaugurate the great reform which
the more thoughtful leaders of society see to be of
imperative necessity.

On the whole body of the workers the effect would be

374 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, xx

great indeed, since it would at once bring about better
relations with the wealthy classes, and especially with
those who teach or profess religion. They would see,
what they had hitherto doubted or denied, that the
religion of the upper classes had some real influence
on their lives, by leading them, not merely to give away
a portion of their surplus wealth in charity, or to take
part in the public proceedings of charitable institutions,
but really to sacrifice something which they have hitherto
considered necessary to their comfort in order to obey
the laws of that religion. They would further see,
everywhere, men and women of culture voluntarily
undertaking various public and private duties, in order
to allow all kinds of workers to enjoy repose and
recreation on one day in seven ; and this great object-
lesson in brotherhood and sympathy would lead to a
general good feeling between all classes. The har-
monious relations which would be thus produced might
be of inestimable value when the time comes for those
radical reforms in our social organization which are more
and more clearly seen to be inevitable in the not distant
future.

It is, perhaps, too much to expect that the " counsel of
perfection " here set forth for the consideration of the reli-
gious world by an outsider, will have much effect on conduct.
But even if it should influence a few here and there to
alter their mode of life on the day they hold to be divinely
instituted as a period of complete rest for all servants
and beasts of burden, and if it should render others less
severe in their judgment of those they term " Sabbath-
breakers," but who often less deserve that name than do their
accusers — and if it thus helps, in however small a degree,
to lower the barriers which now divide class from class,
and to remove one of the causes which lead many of the
workers to look upon the religion of the rich as little
better than hypocrisy, the object with which it was written
will have been fulfilled.

CHAPTER XXI

WHY LIVE A MORAL LIFE ? l

TAKING morality in its ordinary meaning, as including
all actions for personal ends which are not knowingly
injurious or painful to others, the question asked is, What
are the sanctions of morality to the pure Rationalist — to
the person who does not actively believe in a future state
of existence ? Can such a person give clear and logical
reasons of sufficient cogency to induce him, even under
the stress of temptation, and when any detection or evil
results to himself appear out of the question, yet to act
with strict conformity to moral principles ?

In existing society the abstention from immoral actions
by individuals is usually due to one or more of the
following causes : — (1) A natural upright and sympathetic
disposition, to which any act hurtful or disagreeable to
others is repugnant, and is, therefore avoided. (2) The
fear of punishment, or of the condemnation of public
opinion, leading to ostracism by the society in which they
live. (3) The influence of religious belief, which declares
certain acts to be offensive to the Deity, and to lead to
punishment in a future life. (4) The belief expressed in
the saying, " Honesty is the best policy," which may be
expanded into the general principle that the moral life is,
emphatically, the happiest life.

With the first cause, on which, probably, the largest
proportion of moral action depends, we have here nothing
to do, since it does not involve any process of reason — of
why we should act in one way rather than in another —

1 This article formed part of a Symposium on the above question
which appeared in the Agnostic Annual, 1895.

376 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

but rests entirely on feeling, due to natural disposition.
It is, however, the greater or less proportion of such
persons in any community that determines the action of
the next most powerful incentive to morality — public
opinion ; since dread of the criminal law is not so much
dread of the punishment itself as of the disgrace attending
it. To the great majority of educated people this is
undoubtedly the most powerful incentive to abstain from
immoral conduct ; while the correlative approval of society
has a large share in producing actively moral conduct,
especially under conditions when such conduct is more or
less open to public notice.

The other two causes enumerated above have, com-
paratively, very little influence on conduct. Innumerable
examples show that the firmest belief in the doctrine of
future rewards and punishments has hardly any influence
on conduct in cases where it is not enforced by the
approval or disapproval of public opinion. It is now
generally admitted that the believer in religious dogma is,
on the average, neither more honest nor more moral than
the Agnostic or the Atheist. No doubt, in exceptional
cases, religious enthusiasm acts upon character and con-
duct in a very powerful degree. We are, however, concerned
here, not with exceptional cases, but with the average
individual, and it has not been shown by any statistical
inquiry that belief in the system of future rewards and
punishments leads to exceptionally moral conduct. The
same may be said of the believers in the essential reason-
ableness of a moral life as the best guarantee of
permanent happiness. It is doubtful whether such a belief,
however firmly held, really influences any one in time of
temptation, or leads to any change of conduct which
society does not condemn, but which is yet fundamentally
immoral. It was, and is held by great numbers of persons,
both religious and sceptical, that slavery was absolutely
immoral; yet, probably, not one in a thousand followed
the Quakers in refusing to purchase slave-grown sugar.
Neither will it be maintained that any belief in the
abstract principle of the beneficial results of morality would
restrain a poor, selfish, and naturally unsympathetic man

xxi WHY LIVE A MORAL LIFE ? 377

from pressing the electric button which would at once
destroy some unknown millionaire and make the agent of
his destruction the honoured inheritor of his wealth.

It is under circumstances analogous to the last-
mentioned case that we can alone have a real test of the
efficiency of any alleged sanction for morality. When a
man can greatly benefit himself by an act which he believes
can never be known, and which will, perhaps, only slightly
injure others — as by destroying a will of whose existence
no other person is aware — no belief in the general
principle that honesty is the best policy can be depended
on to secure a strictly moral line of conduct. Why, in
fact, should a man give up what he knows will ensure
freedom from anxiety, and from a constant and laborious
struggle for bare existence, and afford him the means of
living a pleasurable and luxurious life — the only life in
which he has any belief — and all for the sake of a general
principle which the society around him does not, as a rule,
act upon ? Why should he thus inj ure himself and his
own family in order to benefit strangers of whom he knows
nothing ? Of course there are many men, without either
religion or any formulated ethical principles, who would
not hesitate a moment in such a case, because their
natural sentiments of right and justice, enforced by
constant association with men of honour and morality,
would render the strict line of moral action natural and
easy to them ; but with such men we have, so far as the
present discussion is concerned, nothing to do.

For these reasons, it seems to me that the Rationalist
or Agnostic has no adequate motive for living a moral life,
except so far as he is influenced by public opinion and by
a belief that, generally, it pays best to do so. But neither
of these influences is of the least value, either in ex-
ceptional cases of temptation, or in those very common
circumstances when the usual actions of the society in
which a man lives are not justified by morality; as in the
innumerable adulterations, falsehoods, and deceptions so
common in trade that it has been even asserted that no
thoroughly honest manufacturer or tradesman can make a
living.

378 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Religious belief would, on the other hand, furnish an
adequate incentive to morality, if it were so firmly held
and fully realized as to be constantly present to the mind
in all its dread reality. But, as a matter of fact, it
produces little effect of the kind, and we must impute
this, not to any shadow of doubt as to the reality of future
rewards and punishments, but rather to the undue
importance attached to belief, to prayer, to church-going,
and to repentance, which are often held to be sufficient to
ensure salvation, notwithstanding repeated lapses from
morality during an otherwise religious life. The existence
of such a possible escape from the consequences of
immoral acts is quite sufficient to explain why the most
sincere religious belief of the ordinary kind is no adequate
guarantee against vice or crime under the stress of
temptation.

There is, however, one form of religious belief which, if
it were to become general, would, I believe, afford a better
sanction for a moral life than can now be found either in
rationalism or in religion. It is to be found in the
teachings of Modern Spiritualism, which, though they
were to some extent anticipated by a few spiritual and
poetical natures, have never been so fully and authorita-
tively set forth as through those exceptionally gifted in-
dividuals termed mediums. We have here nothing to do
with the evidence for the truth of Spiritualistic
phenomena, which the present writer has discussed else-
where,1 but only with the question whether its teachings
do really afford the required sanction for a moral life. Let
us then see what these teachings are.

The uniform and consistent statements, obtained through
various forms of alleged spiritual communications during
the last fifty years, declare that we are, all of us, in every
act and thought of our lives, helping to build up a mental
fabric which will be and constitute ourselves in the future
life, even more completely than now. Just in proportion
as we have developed our higher intellectual and moral
nature, or starved it by disuse, shall we be well or ill fitted

1 See Miracles and Modern Spiritualism (Triibner and Co.) ; and the
article "Spiritualism," in the new edition of Chambers' 's Encyclopaedia.

xxi WHY LIVE A MORAL LIFE ? 379

for the new life we shall enter on. The Spiritualist who,
by repeated experiences, becomes convinced of the absolute
reality and the complete reasonableness of these facts
regarding the future state — who knows that, just in pro-
portion as he indulges in passion, or selfishness or the
reckless pursuit of wealth, and neglects to cultivate his
moral and intellectual nature, so does he inevitably pre-
pare for himself misery in a world in which there are no
physical wants to be provided for, no struggle to maintain
mere existence, no sensual enjoyments except those directly
associated with sympathy and affection, no occupations
but those having for their object social, moral, and
intellectual progress — is impelled towards a pure and
moral life by motives far stronger than any which either
philosophy or religion can supply. He dreads to give
way to passion or to falsehood, to selfishness, or to a life of
mere luxurious physical enjoyment, because he knows that
the natural and inevitable consequences of such a life are
future misery. He will be deterred from crime by the
knowledge that its unforeseen consequences may cause
him ages of remorse ; while the bad passions which it
encourages will be a long-enduring torment to himself in a
state of being in which mental emotions cannot be put
aside and forgotten amid the fierce struggles and sensual
excitements of a physical existence.

Again, the Spiritualist not only believes, but often
obtains direct evidence of the fact, that his dearest friends
and relations, who have gone to the higher life, are
anxiously watching his career, and themselves suffer when-
ever he gives way to temptation. An American Spirit-
ualist writes :

* ' To the son or daughter that has been deprived of parents' care,
and perhaps has strayed from the paths of rectitude and purity, will
not the knowledge that loving hearts are cognisant of every depart-
ure from the right way be an incentive for them to retrace their
steps, to strive to so live as to deserve the approval of the angelic
ministers ?. . . The knowledge that the loving eyes of a mother or
father, a beloved child or companion, are watching us with tender
solicitude will be a restraining influence from evil courses, and
an incentive to a higher and purer life, when all other influences
fail."

380 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Some of the highest teachings of Modern Spiritualism
have been given through the automatic writings of the late
Mr. Stainton Moses, and are to be found in his work en-
titled Spirit Teachings. His perfect integrity is guaran-
teed by Mr. F. W. H. Myers, and there is the very strongest
internal evidence that the substance of the writings
emanated from some intelligence other than his own.
But, however this may be, these teachings are perfectly
consistent with those of Spiritualism generally, and the
following short extracts will illustrate their bearing on the
question we are here discussing:

"As the soul lives in the earth -life, so it goes to the spirit-
life. . . The soul's character has been a daily, hourly growth. It has
not been an overlaying of the soul with that which can be thrown
off ; rather it has been a weaving into the nature of the spirit that
which becomes part of itself, identified with its nature, inseparable
from its character."

And again :

1 1 We know of no hell save that within the soul — a hell which is
fed by the flame of unpurified and untamed lust and passion, which
is kept alive by remorse and agony of sorrow, which is fraught with
the pangs that spring unbidden from the results of past misdeeds,
and from which the only escape lies in retracing the steps and culti-
vating the qualities which bear fruit in love and knowledge of God."

And, as a final epitome of this spiritual teaching, we
have the following :

" We may sum up man's highest duty as a spiritual entity in the
word ' Progress ' — in knowledge of himself, and of all that makes
for spiritual development. The duty of man, considered as an
intellectual being possessed of mind and intelligence, is summed up
in the word ' Culture ' in all its infinite ramifications, not in one
direction only, but in all ; not for earthly aims alone, but for the
grand purpose of developing the faculties which are to be perpetuated
in endless development. Man's duty to himself, as a spirit
incarnated in a body of flesh, is purity in thought, word, and act.
In these three words, ' Progress/ ' Culture,' l Purity,' we roughly
sum up man's duty to himself as a spiritual, an intellectual, and a
corporeal being."

The same teaching is embodied in the following lines,
forming part of a long poem purporting to come from the
late Edgar Allen Poe :

xxi WHY LIVE A MORAL LIFE ? 381

" Sons of earth, where'er ye dwell,
Shun temptation's magic spell,
TRUTH is HEAVEN, and falsehood, HELL,
Lawless lust a demon fell."

The general answer I would now give to the question,
" Why live a moral life ? " is — from the purely Rationalistic
point of view — first, that we shall thereby generally secure
the good opinion of the world at large, and more especially
of the society among which we live ; and that this good
opinion counts for much, both as a factor in our happiness
and in our material success. Secondly, that, in the long
run, morality pays best; that it conduces to health, to
peace of mind, to social advancement ; and at the same
time, avoids all those risks to which immoral conduct,
especially if it goes so far as criminality, renders us liable.

It must be conceded that both these reasons, which
are really but one, are of a somewhat low character ;
yet it seems to me they are all which the Agnostic can,
logically, rely upon. It will also be evident that they will
be of little value in cases of great temptation, or in those
more frequent cases in every-day life where the standard
of morality is already low. To raise this standard, and
thus increase the force of public opinion as an incen-
tive to morality, we require to increase the proportionate
number of the naturally moral, and we have at present no
way of doing that.

There remains only one other answer, which, at present,
is only applicable among that section of the community
which has obtained conviction of the reality of a future life
through Modern Spiritualism, and is, therefore, influenced
by the teachings as to the nature of that life of which I
have sketched the barest outlines. Some of my readers
may object that Modern Spiritualism is not Rationalism,
and is, therefore, outside this discussion ; to which I reply
—Why not ? It is founded on a personal and critical obser-
vation of facts. Is not that rational ? Is it more rational to
refuse to investigate these facts, or to deny them without
investigation ? I myself had been for nearly thirty years
an Agnostic when I began to investigate these phenomena,
and found them, against all my prepossessions, to be

382 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP

realities. Is it rational to ignore or deny phenomena
which have been demonstrated to the satisfaction of such
men as Robert Chambers, Professor De Morgan, Dr. Lock-
hart Robertson, William Crookes, and scores of other great
thinkers, and has drawn from the ranks of English
Secularists Robert Owen, George Sexton, and Annie
Besant ? But, it may be said, admitting the facts,
the theory is irrational. Here, again, I ask, who can
judge better of the correctness of the theory — those who
have personally investigated the facts, or those who have
not ? But really, it is not a question of theory, since,
when the whole facts are known to be realities, no
other conclusion is possible or rational than that of the
Spiritualists.

It has been shown, and will, I am sure, be admitted by
all unprejudiced readers, that we have derived from
Spiritualism a conception of a future state and of its
connection with our life here very different from, and far
superior to, the ordinary religious teaching which formerly
prevailed. That teaching has now been partly modified
through the influence of Spiritualistic ideas ; but by the
religious preacher it is taught dogmatically, not as it comes
to the Spiritualist with all the force of personal communi-
cation with those called dead, but who, again and again,
tell us they are far more alive than ever they were here.
This Spiritualistic teaching as to another life enforces
upon us, that our condition and happiness in the future
life depends, by the action of strictly natural law, on
our life and conduct here. There is no reward or
punishment meted out to us by superior beings ; but, just
as surely as cleanliness and exercise and wholesome food
and air produce health of body, so surely does a moral life
here produce health and happiness in the spirit-world.
Every well-informed Spiritualist realises that, by
every thought and word and deed of his daily earth-life,
he is actually and inevitably determining his own
happiness or misery in a future life which is continuous
with this — that he has the power of creating for himself
his own heaven or hell. The Spiritualists alone, therefore,
or those who accept with equal confidence the Spiritual-

WHY LIVE A MORAL LIFE ? 383

istic teachings in this respect, can give fully adequate
reasons why they should live a moral life. These reasons
are in no way dependent on public opinion, or on any
relation to success or happiness here, and are, therefore,
calculated to influence conduct under the most extreme
conditions of temptation or secrecy. Hence the only
Rationalistic and adequate incentive to morality— the only
full and complete affirmative answer to the question, " Why
live a moral life ? " — is that which is based upon the concep-
tion of a future state of existence systematically taught by
Modern Spiritualism.

CHAPTER XXII

THE CAUSES OF WAR, AND THE REMEDIES

IN response to a request from the Editor ofL'HumaniM
Nouvelle, I give my views, briefly, on the questions sub-
mitted to me.1

(1) Under the existing conditions of society in all
civilized communities, and as a consequence of the
principles and methods of government which prevail in
them, war cannot cease to be more or less prevalent
among them.

The conditions which almost inevitably lead to war are
the existence of specialized ruling and military classes, to
whom the possession of power and the excitements and
rewards of successful war are the great interests of life.
So long as the people permit these distinct and indepen-
dent classes to exist, and — more than this — continue to
look up to them as superiors and as necessary for the
proper government of the country and for the effective
protection of individual and national freedom, so long will
these rulers continue to make wars.

1 These questions were as follows : —

1. Is war among civilized nations still necessary on the grounds of

history, right, and progress ?

2. What are the effects of militarism — intellectual, moral, physical,

economic, and political ?

3. What is the best solution of the problems of war and militarism

in the interests of the future civilization of the world ?

4. What is the most rapid means of arriving at this solution ?

A French translation of the larger part of this article appeared in the
special supplementary number of L'Humanite Nouvelle for May, 1899,
which contains replies by more than 130 writers, including Tolstoy and
seven English authors.

< ii. xxn THE CAUSES OF WAR, AND THE REMEDIES 385

All civilized governments, whatever may be their pro-
fessions, ad on the principle that extension of territory and
the absorption of adjacent or remote lands, so as to increase
both the extent of country and the population over which
they have sway, is a good in itself, quite irrespective of
the consent of the peoples so absorbed and governed, and
even when the peoples are alien in race, in language, and
in religion. Although they may not openly avow their
acceptance of this doctrine, yet they invariably act upon
it, though in some cases they think it necessary to make
excuses for their action. They declare that such conquest
and absorption is necessary for the national safety, for the
increase of trade, and for many other reasons. The
majority of the workers, and of educated people who do
not belong to the ruling or the military classes, however,
do not accept this principle. They more or less decisively
hold the opinion that governments can only justly derive
their power from the consent of the governed, and that all
wars for territory and all conquests of alien peoples are
wrong.

The reason of this difference of opinion is very simple.
Every addition of territory, every fresh conquest even of
barbarous nations or of savages, provides outlets and
additional places of power and profit for the ever-in-
creasing numbers of the ruling classes, while it also
provides employment and advancement for an in-
creased military class, in first subduing and then co-
ercing the subject populations, and in preparing for the
inevitable frontier disputes and the resulting further
extensions of territory. Wars and conquests and ever-
expanding territories are thus found to be essential to
their existence and continued power as superior classes.
But the people outside these classes derive little, if any,
benefit from such extensions, while they invariably suffer
from increased taxation, either temporarily or permanently,
due to increased armaments which the protection of the
enlarged territory requires. Almost without exception
every war of modern times has been a dynastic war — a war
conceived and carried out in the interests of the two great
governing classes, but having no relation whatever to the

VOL. II C C

386 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

well-being of the peoples who have been forced to fight
each other. In every case the people suffer by the loss or
disablement of sons, husbands, and fathers, by the
destruction of crops, houses, arid other property, and by
increased taxation, due to the increase of armaments that
always follows such wars even in the case of the victors.
Hence the material and moral interests of the mass of the
people of every country are wholly opposed to war, except
in the one case of defending their country against invasion
and conquest. They are therefore more open to the in-
fluence of moral and humane considerations, while they
alone feel the full force of the numberless evils which war
brings upon them. Except in very rare cases, a plebiscite
fairly taken would decide against any other than a de-
fensive war.

(2) To discuss the effects of militarism under the
various heads suggested in the question would require
much space and some special knowledge which I do not
possess. That these effects have both good and evil
aspects may be admitted. The evil effects have been
often set forth and are sufficiently known, both in their
vast extent and far-reaching consequences, while the
greatest of them — the perpetuation of war and the desire
for military glory — has already been alluded to. I will,
therefore, confine my remarks to the partial good that
undoubtedly exists in this fundamentally evil thing,
chiefly for the purpose of showing that whatever good
there is in it may be obtained in other ways which are as
essentially humane, moral, and beneficial as war is essen-
tially cruel, immoral, and hurtful.

The good that results from militarism arises wholly from
the perfection of its organisation, of its training, of the
habits of order, cleanliness, and obedience which the
soldier soon learns are essentials to efficiency ; from the
' social and brotherly life of the soldier, whether in camp
or in the field ; from the esprit de corps which grows out
of its systematic organisation and companionship, leading
to generous rivalry and to those deeds of heroism and
self-sacrifice which are universally admired. And, further,
every soldier learns by experience the marvellous power

xxn THE CAUSES OF WAR, AND THE REMEDIES 387

of organized labour under skilled direction to overcome
what to the ordinary man seem insurmountable difficulties.
He sees how foaming torrents or broad rivers can be
rapidly bridged ; how roads can be made over morasses or
across mountains ; how the most formidable and apparently
impregnable defences are attacked and taken ; and how a
few bold men in a " forlorn hope," by the sacrifice of their
lives, often ensure the success of the army to which they
belong. Many of the finest qualities of our nature are
thus called into action by the soldier's training and during
his struggle against the enemy ; and so greatly has hu-
manity developed among us that it may be fairly argued
that these good effects more than balance the evil passions
of cruelty, lust, and plunder which even now are to some
extent manifested in every great war, though to a far less
degree than even fifty years back.

But every one of these good results of militarism could
certainly be obtained by any equally extensive and
equally skilful organization for wholly beneficial purposes.
If labour, where organized for military ends, is so
effective in results and so beneficial as a training, it
would be equally effective and equally beneficial when
devoted to overcoming the obstacles to man's progress
presented by nature ; to the production of the necessaries
of civil life ; to sanitary works for the preservation of
health ; and to everything that facilitates communication
and benefits humanity. If the same amount of knowledge,
the same amount of energy, and the same lavish
expenditure where absolutely required, were devoted to
the training of great industrial armies, to their
maintenance in the most perfect health and efficiency,
and to their employment in that great war which man is
ever waging against Nature, subduing her myriad forces
to his service, guarding against those sudden attacks by
storm and flood, by avalanche and earthquake, which he
cannot altogether avoid, and in the production of all the
essentials of human life and of a true and beneficent
civilization, the good effects on character would surely
be as much greater than those produced by mere military
training, as the objects aimed at and the results achieved

c c 2

388 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

would be more beneficial and more calculated to promote
the higher interests of man. And if these industrial
armies were allowed to reap the full advantages, material
as well as moral, which they created, the results would be
so striking that almost the entire population, male and
female alike, would claim to be so trained and organized
for their own physical, moral, and economic benefit. And
the enjoyment of life under such a system of voluntary
organized labour would be so enhanced that few indeed
would wish to escape from it. Labour in companionship
for the common good almost ceases to be labour at all.
Friendly emulation takes the place of unfriendly
competition, and esprit de corps urges each local organ-
isation to surpass other local organizations in efficiency.
In such a grand industrial organization, with equal
opportunities of education and training for all, there
would necessarily be numbers of inventors and students
whose aim and delight would be to so improve the
machinery and the methods of work as to continually
diminish all the less pleasant forms of labour, and thus
proportionately increase the amount of leisure and the
higher enjoyments of social life.

It has been objected to all such proposals for the
organization of industry that it would deteriorate
character by destroying individuality; but no such
objection is made to the military organization, while
under its best forms the reverse is found to occur. In
point of fact, all organization is beneficial to character
just in proportion as it rises above slavery. And when it
shall have reached the point of being the organization of
social equals for the equal benefit of all, it will attain to
its most beneficial influence. Then, character and merit
will alone give authority, and the highest and best will
inevitably rise to the highest positions. And, just in
proportion as the rank and file became educated, and felt
the inspiring influences of comradeship and emulation,
they could be left more and more to their own initiative ;
each one's individuality would have the fullest play,
controlled only by the influence and opinion of his
immediate fellow- workers, and the whole great organiza-

xxn THE CAUSES OF WAR, AND THE REMEDIES 389

tion would become almost automatic in its harmonious
operation.

Such is found to be the case in the best military
organizations, in which the intelligence and individual
action of both commissioned and non-commissioned
officers, arid even of privates, is cultivated, and becomes
of the greatest value, giving to the army in which it most
generally exists an undoubted superiority. In any army
thus intelligently and sympathetically trained and or-
ganized none of the results so dreaded in industrial
organization are found to occur. Men are not brought to
a dull level of mediocrity ; interest in the work they have
to do is not lost ; skulkers, malingerers, and deserters do
not abound in any appreciable or hurtful proportion ; nor
is there any indication that men of superior abilities
refuse to exercise their talents for the common good
because the money rewards of such ability are small as
compared with those often obtained in civil life ; and,
lastly, the fact that all are provided with food and
clothing, and are thus removed from the influence of
economic competition, is not found to have any injurious
effect on their effectiveness as workers, fighters, or
organizers. And that these effects are not caused by
compulsion and the severe penalties of military law is
shown by the fact that during the civil war in America,
where compulsion and punishment were rarely used, the
whole of the opposing armies being practically volunteers
cheerfully submitting to military drill and organization
for the common good, these high qualities were equally
manifested.

Yet objections of this class are held to be fatal to any
proposal for national industrial organization for the
benefit of all, and the very system of training and
co-operation which in the one case is admitted to have
beneficial effects on character, and is undoubtedly, even
under very unfavourable conditions, attractive in its
comradeship and freedom from care, is condemned as
being injurious and unworkable when applied industrially.
Oh ! that some great ruler of men would arise to benefit
humanity by organizing industrial armies, leading to the

390 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

elevation and happiness of a whole people, and thus
proving that peace may have its victories far greater and
more glorious than those of war !

(3-4) The two last questions — as to the solution of the
problems of war and militarism, and the means of
arriving as rapidly as possible at such a solution — have
already been partly answered in the preceding dis-
cussion of the problem itself, but a few words may here
be added.

It is, I think, clear that no hope of a complete
solution, hardly even of amelioration — is to be expected
from the ruling classes, urged on as they are on the
one hand by those who are ever seeking for place and
power or for official appointments in newly-acquired
territories, and on the other hand by the military
classes, who ever seek to justify their existence and
the enormous burden they are to the nation by obtaining
for it extensions of territory or military glory, and with
either of these an extension of their own influence. It is,
therefore, the people, and the people alone, that must be
relied upon to banish militarism and war, and for this
end every possible effort must be made to educate and
enlighten them, not only as to the horrors and iniquity
of war, but as to the utter inadequacy and worthlessness
of almost all the causes for which wars are waged. They
must be shown that all modern wars are dynastic; that
they are caused by the ambition, the interests, the
jealousies, and the insatiable greed of power of their
rulers, or of the wealthy mercantile and financial classes
which have the greatest influence over their rulers ; and
that the results of war are never good for the people who
yet bear all its burthens.

In the course of this education of the people there are
certain points that should be specially advocated. For
example, nothing is more inconsistent, more foolish, and
more wicked than the universal practice of civilized and
Christian nations in selling all the most improved
weapons and instruments of destruction to semi-civilized,
barbarous, or savage rulers, thereby rendering it more
difficult — more costly in blood and treasure — to deal with

xxn THE CAUSES OF WAR, AND THE REMEDIES 391

such rulers when their crimes against their own peoples
or against humanity becomes too great to be borne. This
practice also renders it ever more and more difficult for
advanced nations to disarm, and thus gives to militarism
an additional reason for its existence. From every point
of view, whether of Christianity, humanity, or human
progress, the supply of modern instruments of war to
barbarous rulers, for the coercion of their own subjects,
and as a standing menace to civilization, should be
absolutely forbidden. For this purpose, and in order that
legal enactments to this end may be effective, we must
try and create a sentiment of horror against those who
continue thus to betray the cause of civilization, as being
not only traitors to their country but enemies to the human
race. In my opinion, men who, after due notice and in
spite of its declared illegality, continue to supply these
weapons to the possible enemies of their country should
be declared outlaws in every Christian or civilized
community.

Hardly less foolish and wicked is the free trade in these
instruments and armaments of war, so that directly one
or more of the civilized nations are preparing for war
the workshops of all the other civilized nations are at
once engaged in supplying every kind of destructive
appliance, even though they may in a year or two be
used against themselves. The time will surely soon
come when this conduct will be looked upon as the very
culminating point of combined folly and wickedness
that the world has seen. The only rational mode of
procedure would be to forbid altogether ,the private
manufacture or sale of war material. War is a national
act, and so long as it exists all preparation for it should
be kept strictly in the hands of national governments.

This supply of the implements of war is the work of
capitalists in their own interests ; but even worse, if that
be possible, is the action of the great civilized govern-
ments themselves in allowing their trained officers to
engage in the organization of the armies of semi -barbarous
rulers, thus rendering it more difficult to coerce these
rulers in the interests of civilization, and indirectly, yet

392 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

most certainly, leading to a vast extension of the horrors
of war. The entire absence of ethical principle created
by militarism is especially shown in the fact that no
effective protest has been raised against this most
pernicious and suicidal practice. Here, again, the people
alone can take effective action, and the people want
educating. Common justice, common humanity, even
common sense, alike demand that this practice be abso-
lutely forbidden, and that any officer engaging in the
organization of the armies of semi-barbarous or alien
rulers should be declared an outlaw by the Government
in whose army he was trained, be demanded from the
employing government as a traitor to his country,
and the refusal to give him up be followed by an in-
stant declaration of war from all the civilized govern-
ments.

Yet another point on which the people should be
educated is, that they should claim and exercise the right
to refuse, as soldiers, to act against their fellow-countrymen
or against other countries with whose people they have no
quarrel. Accepting the principle that the only just rights
of governments rest upon the consent of the governed,
what is termed rebellion is not a crime, but is usually the
just demand of a community for self-government, a
demand which, instead of being repressed by force, should
be tested by a plebiscite. And smaller disturbances,
termed riots, always arise from some injustice or supposed
injustice, and are not proper subjects for massacre by
armed soldiers. To use fire-arms against a crowd, and kill
or maim innocent persons, women and children, as almost
always happens, is to authorize murder. Whenever it
may be necessary to prevent violence by a mob, and the
available force of police is not sufficient, special constables
should be enrolled. But a far better plan would be to
organize the fire-brigades as coadjutors of the police, since
it is certain that no unarmed (or even armed) mob can
stand against the jet of a fire-engine or of several fire-
engines. The mob would instantly disperse, and be
rendered ridiculous without endangering life.

Of course, any proposed system of arbitration to settle

XXTI THE CAUSES OF WAR, AND THE REMEDIES 393

disputes between nations should be strongly supported ;
but the existing condition of all the great civilized
governments renders it certain that, so long as the ruling
and military classes exist, and are allowed to possess the
almost absolute powers they now exercise, war, as the
ultimate mode of settling national disputes, will not
cease.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE AND THE WAY OUT OF IT1

I. THE FARMERS

IN the early years of the century, English readers
enjoyed the perusal of many American works of fiction
dealing with the rural life of the Eastern States in those
almost forgotten days when railways and telegraphs were
unknown, when all beyond the Mississippi was " the far
west," when California and Texas were foreign countries,
and when millionaires, tramps, and paupers were alike
unknown. They introduced us to an almost idyllic life, so
far as rude abundance, varied occupations, and mutual help
and friendliness among neighbours constitute such a state
of existence. Almost all the necessaries and many of the
comforts of life were obtained by the farmer from his own
land. He had abundance of bread, meat, and poultry, with
occasional game. Of butter, cheese, fruit, and vegetables
there was no lack. He made his own sugar from his
maple trees, and soap from refuse fat and wood ashes ;
while his clothes were the produce of his own flocks, spun,
and often dyed, woven, and made at home. His land con-
tained timber, not only for firing, but for fencing and
house-building materials, as well as for making many of his
farm implements ; and he easily sold in the nearest town
enough of his surplus products to provide the few foreign

1 This chapter appeared in the Arena (Boston U.S.A.), of March and
April, 1893. It deals with the problem mainly from an American point
of view ; but for that very reason it is specially instructive to us, because
similar evils have arisen there under conditions whicli are often
alleged, by English writers, to be the remedy for them.

CHAP, xxin THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 395

luxuries that the family required. The farmer of that
day worked hard, no doubt, but he had also variety and
recreation, and there was none of that continuous grinding,
hopeless toil, that appears to characterize the life of the
Western farmer to-day. As a rule, his farm was his own,
unburdened by either rent or mortgage. Year by year it
increased in value, and if he did not get rich he was at
least able to live in comfort and to give his sons and
daughters a suitable start in life. In those days wages of
all kinds were high ; food was cheap and abundant ; and
the strange phenomenon — yet so familiar and so sad a
phenomenon now— of men seeking for work in order to live,
and seeking it in vain, was absolutely unknown.

The impression of general well-being and contentment
given by these tales was confirmed by the narratives of
travellers and the more solid works of students of society.
All agreed in telling us that not only the pauperism of
Europe, but even ordinary poverty or want, were quite
unknown. The absence of beggars was a noticeable fact ;
and except in cases of illness, accident, or old age,
occasions for the exercise of charity could hardly arise.
The extraordinary contrast between this state of things
and that which prevailed in Europe had to be accounted
for, and several different causes were suggested. A
favourite explanation on both sides of the Atlantic was,
that it was a matter of political institutions. On the
one hand, it was said, you have a Republican government,
in which all men have equal rights and no privileged
classes can oppress or rob the people ; on the other, there
is a luxurious court, a bloated aristocracy, and an esta-
blished church, quite sufficient to render a people poor and
miserable ; and this was long the opinion of the English
radicals, who thought that the cost of the throne and of
the church was the chief cause of the poverty of the
working classes. Others maintained that it was entirely a
matter of density of population. Europe, it was said, was
overpeopled ; and it was prophesied that, as time went on,
poverty would surely arise in America and become intensi-
fied in Europe. More philosophical thinkers imputed the
difference to the fact that there was an inexhaustible

396 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

supply of unoccupied and fertile land in America, on which
all who desired to work could easily support themselves ;
and that, all surplus labour being thus continually drawn
off, wages were necessarily high, as the only means of
inducing men to work for others instead of for themselves.
When the accessible land was all occupied, it was
anticipated that America would reproduce the phenomena
of poverty in the midst of wealth which are prevalent
throughout Europe.

It is needless to point out that these anticipations have
been realized far sooner and far more completely than were
ever thought possible. The periodical literature of America
teems with facts which show that the workers of almost
every class are now very little, if any, better off than those
of the corresponding classes in England. For though their
wages are nominally higher, the working hours are longer ;
many necessaries, especially clothing, tools, and house rent,
are dearer ; while employment is, on the whole, less con-
tinuous. The identity of conditions as regards the poverty
and misery of the lower grades of workers is well shown by
the condition of the great cities on both sides of the Atlantic.
The description of the dwellers in the tenement houses of
New York, Boston, and Chicago exactly parallels that of the
poorer London workers, as revealed in the " Bitter Cry of
Outcast London," in the " Report of the Sweating Commis-
sion," and in cases of misery and starvation recorded almost
daily in the newspapers. In both we find the same horrible
and almost incredible destitution, the same murderous
hours of labour, the same starvation wages ; and the official
statistical outcome of this misery is almost the same also.
The English registrar-general records that considerably over
one tenth of all the deaths in London occur in the work-
houses, while nearly the same proportions receive pauper
burial in New York.1

Henry George, in his great work Progress and Poverty,
declares in his title page that there is, in modern
civilization, " increase of want with increase of wealth ; "
and in Book V., Chapter II., he traces out the causes
of " the persistence of poverty amid advancing wealth."
1 See James B. Weaver's Call to Action, p. 369.

THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 397

The truth of this latter statement stares us in the face
in every country, and especially in every great city,
of the civilized world ; no one can have the hardihood
to deny it. But people are so dazzled by the palpable
signs of wealth and luxury which everywhere surround
them ; so many comforts are now obtainable by the middle
classes, which were formerly unknown ; so many and so
wonderful have been the gifts of science in labour-saving
machinery, in the means of locomotion and of distant
communication, and in a hundred arts and processes which
add to the innocent pleasures and refinements of life ; and
again, so jubilant are our legislators and our political
writers over our ever-increasing trade and the vast bulk
of yearly growing wealth, that they cannot and will not
believe in the increase, or even in the persistence of an
equal amount of poverty as in former years. That there
is far too much cruel and grinding poverty in the midsfc
of our civilization, they admit ; but they comfort themselves
with the belief that it is decreasing ; that bad as it is, it is
far better than at any previous time during the present
century, at all events ; and they scout the very notion that
it is even proportionally as great as ever, as too absurd to
be seriously discussed.

These good people, however, believe what they wish to
believe, and persistently shut their eyes to facts. Even
in Great Britain it can, I believe, be demonstrated that
there is actually a greater bulk of poverfcy and starvation
than one hundred or even fifty years ago ; probably even
a larger proportion of the population suffering the cruel
pangs of cold and hunger. I need not here go into the
evidence for this statement, beyond referring to two facts.
There has, during the last thirty or forty years, been an
enormous extension of the sphere of private charity,
together with a judicious organization calculated to
minimize its pauperizing effects.

Besides the marvellous work of Dr. Barnardo and General
Booth, there are in London, and in all our great cities,
scores of general and hundreds of local charities ; while
the numbers of earnest men and women who devote their
lives to alleviating the sorrows and sufferings of the poor,

398 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

have been steadily increasing, and may now be counted by
thousands. The fact of a slight diminution in the amount
of State relief under the poor law is, therefore, quite
consistent with a great increase of real poverty ; yet this
slight diminution is again and again cited to show that
the people are really better off. This decrease is, how-
ever, wholly due to the growing system, favoured by the
authorities, of refusing all outdoor relief, the place of
which is fully taken by the increase of private and
systematized charity. And there is good proof that this
vast growth of charitable relief has not overtaken the still
greater increase of real pauperism. This proof is to be
found in the steadily increasing proportion of the
population of London which dies in the workhouses. The
registrar-general gives this number as 6,743 in 1872 ; in
1881 it had risen to 10,692, and in 1891 to 18473. Thus
the deaths of paupers in workhouses had increased 85 per
cent, from 1872 to 1891, while the total deaths in London
during the same period had increased from 70,893 to
90,216, or 27 per cent. It may be thought that this has
been caused by the influx of the poor into the towns ; but
it is mainly the young that thus emigrate ; and the
registrar-general shows that the same increase of deaths
in workhouses has occurred, though in a less degree, in
the whole country. In his report for 1888, the only one
I have at hand, he says :

"The proportion of deaths recorded in workhouses, which
steadily increased from 5 '6 per cent, in 1875 to 67 per cent, in 1885,
further rose, after a slight decline in 1886 and 1887, to 6 '9 per cent,
in 1888."

The same continuous increase of aged pauperism is
thus proved to occur in all England, but to be especially
great in the larger cities ; and this fact appears to me to
demonstrate the increase of poverty during the last twenty
years of rapidly increasing wealth and ever-growing
luxury. And at the same time, notwithstanding all the
efforts of all the charitable institutions and philanthropic
associations, we see every week in the papers, though
only a few of these cases get noticed, such headings as

THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 399

" Shocking Destitution," " Destitution and Death," proving
that the official records, terrible though they are, only
show us a portion, perhaps only a small portion, of the
wretchedness and poverty culminating in actual death
from want of food, fire, and clothing, in the midst of the
wealthiest city the world has ever seen.1

But if any real doubt can exist as to the actual increase
of poverty in England, we have in America an object
lesson in which the fact is demonstrated with a clearness
and fulness that admits of no dispute. Fifty years ago
there was, practically, no poverty, as we now understand
the word, in the sense of men willing to work being unable
to earn enough to support their families. Now these exist
by tens of thousands, culminating in all the great cities,
in actual death caused or accelerated by want of the
barest necessaries of life. That the wealth of the
community has increased enormously in this period, there
is also no doubt. According to Mr. Mulhall, the great
English statistician, the total wealth of the United States
increased nearly seven-fold from 1850 to 1888, while the
population had increased less than two and three-fourths
fold. Here, then, we have a clear and palpable " increase
of want with increase of wealth ; " and as the causes which
have been at work in the production of this increased
wealth are of exactly the same nature in America and in
England, only that they have acted with more intensity
in America, we are supported in the conclusion that the
coincident increase of want has occurred also, though with
less intensity, in England. The causes of the enormous
wealth-increase are simple arid indisputable. First, steam
power has increased in America seven-fold (and probably
as much in England), and its application to ever-improv-
ing labour-saving machinery has given it an effective
productive power of perhaps twenty- fold or even more ;
secondly, railways have spread over the country, enabling
the varied products of the whole land to be more and

1 Fuller and much later details on these points are given in my
Wonderful Century, Chapter XX., proving that poverty and its attend-
ant evils have gone on increasing at an increasing ratio, to close on
the end of the century.

400 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

more utilized. The result of these two great factors has
been the corresponding increase of agriculture, mining,
manufactures, and commerce, by means of which the
increased wealth has been directly produced. If, then,
fifty years ago there was practically no want in the United
States, and there is now, say, ten times the wealth, with
about four times the population, not only ought there to
be no want of any kind, but all those who had mere
necessaries before should be able to have comforts and
even luxuries now ; hours of labour should be shorter, and
the struggle for existence less severe. But the facts are
the very opposite of these ; and there has evidently been
an increasing inequality in the distribution of the wealth
produced. The result of this inequality is seen, broadly,
in the increase of wealth and luxury on the one hand, and
of the most grinding poverty on the other; and more
particularly in the growth and increase of millionaires.
Fifty' years ago a millionaire was a rarity in England ; now
they are so common as to excite no special attention. In
America in 1840, there was probably no one worth one
million pounds (five million dollars). Now there are
certainly hundreds, perhaps over a thousand, who own as
much ; and it has been estimated that two hundred and
fifty thousand persons own three fourths of the whole
wealth of the country.

The paradox of increasing want with increasing wealth
is thus clearly explained. If we take the two hundred
and fifty thousand persons above referred to to be heads
of families, four to a family, we have a million persons
absorbing three fourths of the wealth created by the whole
community, the remaining fifty-nine millions having the
remaining one fourth amongst them ; and as probably
half of these are comfortably off, the other half have to
exist in various grades of destitution from genteel poverty
down to absolute starvation.

The Problem to le Solved.

The problem we have now to solve is, to discover what
are the special legal and social conditions that have

THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 401

enabled a small proportion of the community to possess
themselves of so much of the wealth which the whole of
the community have helped to produce. That much of
this wealth has been obtained dishonestly, is quite
certain, yet it has for the most part been obtained legally ;
and it is probable that if the whole of the transactions of
some of the chief of American millionaires were made
public, few of them would be found to be contrary to law,
or even contrary to what public opinion holds to be quite
justifiable modes of getting rich. Yet there is probably
a very large majority of voters who see the evil results of
the system, and would be glad to alter it if they knew
how. They have a vague feeling that something is
wrong in the social organization which renders such
results possible. They begin to see that the old explana-
tions of the poverty and starvation in Europe were all
wrong; since, though America still possesses its repub-
lican constitution, though it is still free from hereditary
aristocracy, state church, or the relics of a feudal system,
though its population is less than twenty-five per square
mile, while Great Britain has over three hundred, it has,
nevertheless, reached an almost identical condition of
great extremes of wealth and poverty, of fierce struggles
between capitalists and labourers, of crowded cities where
women are often compelled to work sixteen hours a day
in order to sustain life, and where thousands of little
children cry in vain for food. The causes that have led
to such identical results, slowly in the one case, more
rapidly in the other, must in all probability be identical
in their fundamental nature.

The present writer has long since arrived at very
definite conclusions as to what these causes are, and what
are the measures which alone will remedy the evil. In
America there has hitherto been a great prejudice against
these measures because they run counter to one of the
institutions which has profoundly influenced society, and
which, till quite recently, has been considered to be
almost perfect and to be of inestimable value — I allude,
of course, to the land system of the United States. It is
because the present generation has been taught to look

VOL. II. D D

,/'•

A isiTYl

402 STUDIES, SCltfNTTIFIC AND SOCIAL

upon this land system as almost perfect, that we now
behold the curious phenomenon of a large and most
important class of the community, the Western farmers,
while almost on the brink of ruin, yet quite unable to
discover the real cause of their suffering, and frantically
asking help of the government through action which
might, perhaps, alleviate their immediate distress, but
could have no effect in permanently benefiting them. As
this question of the farmers is one calculated to throw
light on the whole problem of " increasing want with
increasing wealth," it will be well to devote a little space
to its discussion.

The farmers in the great food-producing States in the
West are admitted to be very badly off. A large pro-
portion of them are crushed down by heavy mortgages,
others are tenants at high rents, and almost ail have a
hard struggle for a bare livelihood.1 Their friends and
representatives consider that their misfortunes depend
primarily on financial and fiscal legislation, and advocate
reforms of this nature. Mr. S. S. King, of Kansas City,
says:

' ' The first step in legislation is for the people to undo, so far as
they can, the things done by the hired tools of the monopolists,
repeal the National Banking Act, pay oft' the bonds, stop the inter-
est, call in the National Bank notes, and replace them with full
legal-tender paper money issued by the government . . . Then let

1 Mr. Atkinson, the optimist statistician of Boston, in his paper read
before the British Association in August, 1892, summarizes the special
Census Report on this subject as follows : Dealing with Illinois,
Alabama, Tennessee, Iowa, Kansas, and Nebraska, he states that
"more than one half of the farms are free from any mortgage," and
that "those which are under mortgage are encumbered for less than
half their value." This is the optimist way of stating the case, as if it
were something gratifying, something that indicated a successful
agriculture and a contented body of farmers ! Nearly half the farms
in six great agricultural States mortgaged ! And these mortgaged to
nearly half their value, which, at the high rates of interest usually paid,
is equivalent to a heavy, sometimes to a crushing rent ! ! I could
scarcely have imagined a more terrible state of things, short of absolute
ruin ; and had the facts been stated by any less trustworthy authority,
I should have thought there was certainly error or exaggeration. It
must be remembered, also, that during past years many mortgages have
been foreclosed, and the mortgagees are now the landlords. We are
not told how many of the farmers in these States are tenants.

xxin THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 403

the government reclaim from the railroads all the land still held by
them beyond what is necessary for the operation of the roads . . .
take absolute control of the roads . . .then level to the ground the
tariff- tax abomination."

Hon. James H. Kyle, U.S. Senator from South Dakota,
says :

"To pass the income tax ; to sweep away national banks; to
restore free coinage of gold and silver ; to have money issued
directly to the people in sufficient volume to meet the needs of legiti-
mate business — these are the reforms which are entirely within the
reach of earnest and persistent agitation . . . Land loans and produce
loans would surely follow . . . The nationalization of the great high-
ways of commerce would inevitably follow."

These same reforms are advocated by General J. B.
Weaver in his powerful work A Call to Action ; and
he imputes all the evils of the present land system — the
increase of large land-owners, the rapidly increasing army
of tenants, the numerous mortgages at high interest, and
the universal distress of the agriculturists — to causes
connected with the banking system and with the tariff.

Now, so far as I can understand these difficult questions,
all the evils pointed out by these writers are real and
very great evils, and the remedies they suggest may to
some extent remove these evils ; but I feel convinced that
these are not the fundamental remedies as regards the
farmers. The suggested remedies might benefit them
slightly along with the rest of the community, but would
not remove the troubles that specially affect the tillers of
the soil. It would, no doubt, be an advantage to be able
to pay off existing mortgages with money advanced by
the government at very low interest ; but an agriculture
that rests on mortgages, whether at high or at low
interest, is not a successful agriculture. General Weaver
truly says:

" The cultivation of the soil should be, and in fact is, under
natural conditions, the surest road to opulence known among men.
Under just relations it would be impossible to impoverish this calling,
for it feeds, clothes, and shelters the human family."

And again :

' ' What the farmer most wants is a good price for the products of
his farm, rather than an advance in the value of the farm itself."

D D 2

404 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

But he does not pursue this point, and does not show
how any of the remedial measures suggested can possibly
raise the price of farm-produce ; and unless this is done,
the farmer's condition, though it may be somewhat
ameliorated, will never be raised to the degree of comfort
and security which ought to be enjoyed by those whose
labour provides the food of the community.

Let us then try and get at the root of this question.
Why is it that the degree of comfort and safety of the
American farmer has, during the last fifty years or less,
so greatly diminished ? What is the cause of the strange
phenomenon of food being sold by its producers at such
low prices as to be unremunerative to them ? It is
evident that these prices are determined by competition.
How is it that in this particular business competition has
forced prices down to such a point as to be permanently
unprofitable? The causes that have brought this about
are clearly twofold : the absence of the equalizing power
of rent, and the competition of capitalist or bonanza
farms. Why this is so will now be explained.

Owing to the almost universal custom in America
(until recently) of purchase rather than rental of land,
and the wide-spread interests involved in real-estate
speculation, the true nature of rent, as thoroughly worked
out by the political economists of Europe, is quite un-
known except to the comparatively few who have made a
special study of the subject. It is therefore necessary to
show, in as clear a manner as possible, its economic
importance, and that it is really the key to the whole
problem of American agricultural distress.

The Social Importance of Bent.

Rent is the equalizer of opportunities, the means of
giving fair play to all cultivators of the soil in the
struggle for existence. Farms differ greatly in value,
from two quite distinct causes : the fertility of the land
itself, as dependent on soil and climate, is one cause ;
situation, as regards distance from a railroad or from a
market, is the other. Let us suppose one farm to produce

xxiii THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 405

thirty bushels of wheat an acre, another only twenty, with
the same labour and outlay, and that the first farm is
only a mile from a railroad, while the other is ten miles
over a bad and hilly track. The owner of the first farm
will evidently have a double advantage over the owner of
the other, both in the amount of his crops and the
economy in getting them to market ; and prices which
will enable the first to live comfortably and lay by money,
will mean poverty or ruin to the second. It is just the
same as with shops or stores. The business done, other
things being equal, will depend upon situation. If one
store is situated in a main street, with five hundred
people passing the door every hour, and another store
just like it is in a bye-street where not more than fifty
people pass per hour, and both sell exactly the same
goods, of the same quality, and neither have any special
connection or reputation, but depend mainly on chance
customers, then it is quite certain that the one will make
a living where the other will starve. Now prices are
fixed by the competition of the whole of the stores of
these two classes, and the more favoured class will run
down prices just so low that the less favoured class can
hardly live ; and the inevitable result will be that many
of them will be starved out, and the whole of the business
be absorbed by the other class. But if all these shops
belong to landlords, whether private individuals or the
municipalities, then rents will be so much higher in the
one class than in the other as to approximately equalize
the opportunities of both. Both will then be able to earn
a living for a time, and the ultimate superior success of
either will be a matter of business capacity. The com-
petition between them will be fair and equal.

The same thing happens with rival manufacturers.
Facilities for getting raw material, cheapness of water
power or fuel, and above all the possession of the best
and most improved machinery, enable one to undersell
another, and ultimately to drive him out of the market,
unless the latter can improve his conditions, or the former
is subject to an increased rent, to compensate for his advan-
tages of position.

406 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Now, in the case of the farmer there is no possibility of
removing the disadvantages of some as compared with
others. Land which is naturally poor can never be made
equal to that which is naturally fertile ; neither can a farm
be moved bodily near to a market or to a railway. The
competition between different farmers is, therefore, not a
fair one. As more land is cultivated and more surplus
grain produced, those having the advantage in land and
situation will get their produce earliest to market ; and
those who come later, when the market is already well
supplied, must take a lower price. Year by year, as the
output of grain increases, the price becomes lower still, till
it reaches a point at which those worst situated cannot
afford to grow it at all. Then either the worst farms go
out of cultivation, or some other crops are grown, or the
owner, burthened with mortgages, is sold out, and his farm
is perhaps joined to another, and goes to form one of the
great capitalist farms, which are another means of driving
down prices below the level at which the less favoured
farmers can make a living.

Many people argue, that, if large farming pays where
small farming will not pay, that large farming therefore
produces more food and is better for the country. But
this is a great mistake. The farms which are measured by
thousands of acres rarely produce so much per acre as the
small farms of fifty or a hundred acres. In the former the
object is to reduce the cost of labour to a minimum, and so
leave a larger profit to the owner. Whether in Australia,
Dakota, or California, the great machine worked farms only
produce from about eight to twelve or twenty bushels of
wheat an acre ; but on ten thousand acres a very small profit
per bushel will give a large income, while the same profit
on a much larger produce per acre will starve the small
farmer. In 1879 the wheat produce of the United States
varied in the several States from an average of seven
bushels an acre in North Carolina and Mississippi, to
nineteen and twenty bushels in Michigan and Indiana ;
and in the bad year, 1884, the range was from five bushels
to twenty bushels. But as these are the averages of
whole States, the produce of the several farms must have

xxin THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 407

a very much wider range ; and the profit made will vary
still more than the produce, owing to much greater cost of
carriage to market in some cases than in others. It thus
happens that the variations in the cost of producing
and selling a bushel of wheat are, in the United States,
extremely large, perhaps larger than in any other part of
the world, because, in the first place, that cost is not
equalized by any general payment of rent for the land in
proportion to its better or worse quality ; and in the second
place, because capitalists have been allowed to acquire
enormous areas of land from which, by means of machinery
and a very little hired labour, they can make large profits
from a very small produce per acre.

Some people will say that this result is a good one.
Bread is made cheap, and that benefits the whole com-
munity. This, however, is one of those utterly narrow
views by which capitalist writers delude the people. All
other things being equal, cheap bread is doubtless better
than dear ; but if cheap bread is only obtained through
the poverty or ruin of the bulk of those who grow it, and
if its value to most other workers is discounted by lower
wages or smaller earnings, both of which propositions are
in the present state of society demonstrably true, then
cheap bread is altogether evil.

There are few better definitions of good government
than that it renders possible for all, and actually produces
in the great majority of cases, happy homes and a con-
tented people. Unless a number of the best writers of
American fiction, and a considerable proportion of those
who contribute to the most serious periodicals of the day,
are deluding their readers, the present system of cheap
bread-production is founded on privation, misery, or ruin
in the homes of thousands of farmers, and on the un-
natural growth of great cities, with a corresponding increase
of millionaires, of pauperism, and of crime.

The Remedy.

If the exposition now given of the causes of the suffer-
ings of the Western farmers is correct — and I have the

408 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

greatest confidence that it is so — the only thorough remedy
will be to bring the land back into the possession of the
people, to be administered, locally, for the benefit of the men
who actually use it, never for those who want it only for
speculation; and by means of a carefully-adjusted system
of rents or land-taxes, to equalize the benefits to be derived
from the land (as regards quality and situation), so that
none will be able to undersell others to their ruin. Prices
will then be adjusted by fair competition, and will fall to
the lowest level compatible with the usual standard of
living of the time and place, and will be such as to leave a
clear margin of profit for the support of a family and for
provision for old age.

It will of course be understood that under such a
system the farmers would be really as much the owners of
their land as if they possessed the fee simple and were
free of mortgage. So long as the very moderate differential
rent or land-tax was paid, the farmer would have perpetual,
undisturbed possession, with the right to bequeath or sell,
just as he has now. Rents would never be raised on the
farmer's improvements, but only on any increase of value
of the land itself due to the action of the community, as
when increase of population or new railroads so raised
prices or cheapened production as to increase the inherent
value of land in that locality in proportion to its value in
other localities. But it should be always recognized that
the creation of " happy-homes," so far as material well-
being affects them, should be the first object of land
legislation ; and thus rents should in every case be assessed
low enough to secure that end, always supposing reasonable
care and industry in the farmer, which would be sufficiently
indicated by the average result.

Under such a system of land-tenure as is here suggested,
the farmer's life would become a peaceable and happy one,
more like that of the early days, when he supplied most
of his own wants, and only needed to sell a portion of his
surplus products. Every benefit which the community at
large may derive by the abolition of import duties, and the
operation of the railroads by the State for the good of all,
would be fully enjoyed by the farmer also, and his standard

xxiu THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 409

of comfort would gradually rise. If, however, these last
mentioned reforms are made without any alteration of land-
tenure, he will not be permanently benefited, because the
competition of the better, rent-free land, and also that of
the great capitalist farmers, will still drive prices down to
the lowest point at which he can just exist. This competi-
tion will act quite as surely and quite as cruelly as the
competition of labourers in the towns and cities, which
always drives down the earnings of unskilled labour to the
very lowest point, a point which is kept stationary by the
presence of a large body of the unemployed on the verge of
starvation and always ready to work at a little above starva-
tion wages.

It will no doubt be objected that, even admitting such a
land-system to be desirable, there is now no equitable means
of getting the land back, except the impossible one of pur-
chase from existing owners. But this is a mistake, and
several practical methods have been or can be suggested.
We have, first, the " single tax" of Mr. George, which has
already obtained many adherents. At first sight farmers
may think this would increase their burthens ; but it
would, on the contrary, relieve them, because all land would
be taxed on its inherent, not on its improved, value. Now
the inherent value of land in and around cities is enormous,
and is not now fairly assessed. This city land would bear a
much larger share of taxation than now ; farm land propor-
tionally less ; and as this single tax would be accompanied
by the removal of all duties on imported goods and produce,
the farmer's tools, machinery, and clothing would be greatly
cheapened.

But notwithstanding this single tax on land values, it
might still be worth the while of great capitalists, companies,
and trusts to hold large areas of land, because they could
derive both profit and power from it in various indirect
ways. The people will never be free from the countless
evils of land-monopoly and land-speculation until it is de-
clared contrary to public policy for any one to hold land
except for personal use and occupation. A date might then
be fixed before which all land not personally occupied must
be sold ; and that it should be really sold might be insured

410 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

by enacting that afterwards, no rental or other charge on
land payable to individuals or companies would be re-
coverable at law.

All municipalities, townships, or other local authori-
ties should, however, have a prior and also a continuous
right to purchase all such land at a moderate but fair valua-
tion, paying for it with bonds bearing alow interest and
redeemable at fixed dates. In this way the public would be
able to acquire most of the land for some miles around all
towns and cities ; and as much of this would certainly
increase rapidly in value, through growth of population
and municipal improvements, the bonds could in a few
years be redeemed out of the increased rents.

There is, however, another quite distinct method of re-
claiming the land for the community, which has many
advantages. This may be effected by carrying into
practice two great ethical principles. These are, first, that
the unborn have no individual rights to succeed to property;
and, second, that there is no equitable principle involved
in collateral succession to property, whatever there may
be in direct succession. By the application of these two
principles the people may, if they so will, in the course of
some eighty years gradually regain possession of the
whole national domain, without either confiscation or
purchase. The law should declare that, after a certain
date, land would cease to be transferable except to direct
descendants — children or grandchildren ; and, that, when
all the children of these direct descendants, who were
living at the time of passing the law, had died out, the
land should revert to the State. As people owning land,
but having no children, are dying daily, while even whole
families often die off in a few years, land would be continu-
ally falling in, to be let out to applicants on' a secure and
permanent tenure, as already explained, so as best to
subserve the wants of the community.

Here, then, are two very distinct methods of obtaining
the land, both thoroughly justifiable when the welfare of
a whole nation is at stake. The last named is that which
seems best to the present writer, since it would at once
abolish the greatest evils of the American social system—

xxm THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 411

those founded on land-speculation and land-monopoly ;
while the land itself would be acquired by means involving
the 'minimum of interference with the property or welfare
of any living persons. But, unless by these or some
analogous measures farmers are relieved from the competi-
tion of great capitalists, while competition among them-
selves is rendered fair and equal by a differential rent or
land-tax, no other kind of legislation can possibly relieve
the majority of them from the state of poverty and
continuous labour in which they now exist. In an unfair
and unequal competition the less favoured must always be
beaten.

II. WAGE- WORKERS.

The once familiar term " republican simplicity " is now
an unmeaning one, since both in France and in America
there is an amount of wealth and luxury not surpassed in
any of the old monarchies. Yet it serves to show us the
ideal which the founders of republics fondly hoped to
attain. They aimed at abolishing for ever, not only the
rank and titles of hereditary nobility, but also those vast
differences of wealth and social grade which were supposed
to depend upon monarchical government. Their objects
were to secure, not only political and religious freedom,
but also an approximate equality of social conditions ; or,
at the very least, an adequate share of the comforts and
enjoyments of life for every industrious citizen. Yet after
a century of unprecedented growth, and the utilization of
the natural riches of a great continent, we find to-day, in
all the great cities of the United States, thousands and
tens of thousands who by constant toil cannot secure
necessaries and comforts for their children or make any
provision for an old age of peaceful repose. One great
object of republican institutions has, it is clear, not been
attained. Let us now endeavour to form some idea of the
extent and nature of the disease of the social organism,
so as more effectually to provide the true remedy.

In his Social Problems (written in 1883) Henry

412 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

George thus refers to the condition of one of the richest
states of the Union, Illinois :

" In their last report the Illinois Commissioners of Labour
Statistics say, that, their tables of wages and cost of living are repre-
sentative only of intelligent working men who make the most of
their advantages, and do not reach ' the confines of that world of
helpless ignorance and destitution in which multitudes in all large
cities continually live, and whose only statistics are those of
epidemics, pauperism, and crime.' Nevertheless, they go on to say,
an examination of these tables will demonstrate that one half of these
intelligent working men of Illinois * are not even able to earn enough
for their daily bread, and have to depend upon the labour of women
and children to eke out their miserable existence.' "

Dr. Edward Aveling in his book on the Working Glass
Movement in America, quotes from the same reports for
other States as follows :

1 ' In Massachusetts a physician gives evidence as to the condition
of Fall River : ' Every mill in the city is making money, . . . but
the operatives travel in the same old path — sickness, suffering, and
small pay. ' "

In Pennsylvania the Commissioners say :
" The rich and poor are further apart than ever."
In New Jersey :

uThe struggle for existence is daily becoming keener, and the
average wage-labourer must practise the strictest economy, or he
will find himself behind at the end of the season."

In Kansas :

"The condition of the labouring classes is too bad for utter-
ance. ... It is useless to disguise the fact that out of this . . . en-
forced idleness grows much of the discontent amd dissatisfaction
now pervading the country, and which has obtained a strong footing
now upon the soil of Kansas, where only the other day her pioneers
were staking out homesteads almost within sight of her capital
city."

In Michigan :

" Labour to-day is poorer paid than ever before ; more discontent
exists, more men in despair ; and if a change is not soon devised,
trouble must come."

XMI. THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 413

111 the pages of The Arena, within the last two years, I
find the following statements : —

" In the city of New York there are over one hundred and fifty
thousand people who earn less than sixty cents a day. Thousands
of this number are poor girls who work from eleven to sixteen hours
a day. Last year there were over twenty-three thousand families
forcibly evicted in that city owing to their inability to pay their
rent." (Arena, February, 1891, p. 375.)

' ' During the ten years which ended in 1889, the great metropolis
of the western continent added to the assessed value of its taxable
property almost half a billion dollars. In all other essential respects
save one, the decade was a period of retrogression for New York
City. Crime, pauperism, insanity, and suicide increased ; repres-
sion by brute force personified in an armed police was fostered,
while the education of the children of the masses ebbed lower and
lower. The standing army of the homeless swelled to twelve
thousand nightly lodgers in a single precinct, and forty thousand
children were forced to toil for scanty bread." (Arena, August,
1891, p. 365.)

1 ' When the compulsory education law went into effect (in
Chicago), the inspectors found in the squalid region a great number
of children so destitute that they were absolutely unfit to attend
school on account of their far more than semi-nude condition ; and
although a number of noble-hearted ladies banded together and
decently clothed three hundred of these almost naked boys and
girls, they were compelled to admit the humiliating fact that they
had only reached the outskirts, while the great mass of poverty had
not been touched. . . On one night last February, one hundred and
twenty four destitute men begged for shelter at the cells of one of
the city police stations." ( Arena, November, 1891, p. 761.)

' ' Within cannon shot of Beacon Hill, where proudly rises the
golden dome of the Capitol, are hundreds of families slowly
starving and stifling ; families who are bravely battling for life's
barest necessities, while year by year the conditions are becoming
more hopeless, the struggle for bread fiercer, the outlook more
dismal." ( Arena, March, 1892, p. 524.)

The above extracts may serve to give an imperfect
indication of the condition of those whose labour produces
much of America's phenomenal wealth. Volumes would
not suffice to picture a tithe of the misery, starvation, and
degradation that pervades all the great cities, and to a
less extent the smaller manufacturing towns and rural
districts ; and one of the latest writers on the subject gives
it as his conclusion,

" that there is in the heart of America's money-centre a poverty

414 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

as appalling, as hopeless, as degrading, as exists in any civilized
community on earth." (Arena, December, 1892, p. 49.)

Let it be clearly understood that I do not in any way
imply that republicanism is itself the cause of this state of
things. It simply exists in spite of republicanism, and
serves to demonstrate the great truth that systems of
government are in themselves powerless to abolish poverty.
The startling, and at first sight depressing, fact that
grinding poverty dogs the footsteps of civilization under all
forms of government alike, is really, from one point of view,
a hopeful circumstance, since it assures us that the source
of the evil is one that is common alike to republic, consti-
tutional monarchy, and despotism, and we are thus taught
where not to look for the remedy. We find it prevailing where
militarism is at a maximum, as in France, Italy, and
Germany, and where it is at a minimum, as in the United
States. It is quite as bad in thinly as in thickly popu-
lated countries ; but the one thing that it always
accompanies is CAPITALISM. Wherever wealth accumulates
most rapidly in the hands of private capitalists, there —
notwithstanding the most favourable conditions, such as
general education, free institutions, a fertile soil, and
the fullest use of labour-saving machinery — poverty
not only persists but increases. We must therefore
look for the source of the evil in something that favours
the accumulation of individual wealth.

Capitalism the Cause of Poverty.

Now, great wealth is obtained by individuals in two
ways: either by speculation, which is but a form of
gambling and perhaps the very worst form, since it
impoverishes, not a few fellow -gamblers only but the
whole community ; or by large industrial enterprises, and
these depend for their success on the existence of great
bodies of labourers who have no means of living except by
wage-labour, and are thus absolutely dependent on employ-
ment by capitalists in order to sustain life, and are com-
pelled in the last resort to accept such wages as the
capitalists choose to give. The result of these conditions

xxin THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 415

is very low wages, or if nominally higher wages, then
intermittent work ; and thus we find in all great cities —
in New York, Chicago, London, Vienna, for example, in
each recurring winter — many thousands of men out of
work, and either partially supported by charity or under-
going slow starvation. Now I propose to show that these
terrible phenomena pervading all modern civilizations
alike — speculation, capitalism, compulsory idleness of those
willing to labour, women and children starving or killed by
overwork — all arise as the natural consequences and direct
results of private property, and consequent monopoly, of
land. This is the one identical feature in the social
economy of modern civilizations, and it alone is an
adequate cause for an identity of results when so many of
the social and political conditions in the great civilized
communities of to-day are not identical but altogether
diverse.

We must always remember that the existence of large
numbers of surplus labourers, which is at once the in-
dication and the measure of poverty, is a purely artificial
phenomenon. There is no surplus, as regards land and
natural products waiting to be transmuted by labour into
various forms of wealth ; there is no surplus, as regards
demand for this wealth by those in want of all the
comforts and many of the barest necessaries of life, and
who only ask to be allowed to call those necessaries into
existence by their labour. The only surplus is a surplus
as regards demand for labourers by capitalists, a surplus
which owes its existence wholly to artificial conditions
which are fundamentally wrong. It is not a natural but a
man-created surplus, and all the want and misery and
crime that spring from it is equally man-created, and
altogether unnatural and unnecessary.1

1 In his most admirable and thoughtful work, Poverty and the, State,
Mr. Herbert V. Mills relates how he was led to study the subject by
finding in three adjoining houses in Liverpool a baker, a tailor, and
shoemaker, all out of work. They all wanted bread and clothes and
shoes; all were anxious to work to supply their own and the otherl*
wants. But the social system of which they formed a part did not
permit of their so working for each other, the alleged reason being that
there was already an overstocked market of all these commodities ;

416 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

In those early times to which I referred in the first
portion of this chapter, wages were higher, food cheaper,
and there were practically none unemployed. Why was
this ? The country was then far less rich ; there was
almost no labour-saving machinery; yet no one wanted
food, clothing, or fire. The reason simply was, that
immediately around most of the smaller towns there was
land which could be had for little or nothing ; and farther
off was everywhere the forest or the prairie, where any
one might build his log hut, grow his corn, or even hunt
or fish to support life. Every one could then easily
obtain land from which he could, by his own labour, sup-
port himself and his family. There was a charm in this
free life, and men were continually drifting away from
civilization to enjoy it. Therefore it was that wage-
labour was scarce and wages high, for no one would work
for low wages when he had the alternative of working for
himself. The labourer could then really make a " free
contract " with the capitalist who required his services,
because he had always an alternative ; or, at all events, a
sufficient number had this alternative and would avail
themselves of it, to prevent there being any surplus
labour vainly seeking employment.

Now, the great majority of the unemployed have no
such alternative. It is either work for the capitalist or
starve. Hence " free contract " is a mockery ; the wages
of unskilled labour have sunk to the minimum that will
^ support life in a working condition — it cannot perman-
ently be less — and skilled labour obtains somewhat better
terms just in proportion as it is plentiful or scarce. If,
then, we really desire that labourers shall all be better
paid, and none be unemployed (and the two things
necessarily go together), we must enable a large pro-
portion of all wage workers to have a sufficiency of land,
by the cultivation of which they can obtain food for

therefore they must either remain starved and naked or be supported
in idleness by their fellows. It is hardly possible to imagine a more
complete failure of civilization than such a fact as this ; and the failure
is rendered more grotesque and horrible by the additional fact that no
politician or legislator has any effectual remedy to suggest, while the
majority maintain that no remedy is needed or is possible !

THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 417

themselves and their families, for at least part of the year,
and thus have an alternative to starvation wages. There
is absolutely no other way, because it is from land alone
that a man can, by his own labour, obtain food and cloth-
ing, without the intervention of a capitalist employer.
But in order to ensure his doing this, he must have the
land on a permanent tenure ; he must be able to live on
it, and must never be taxed on the improvements he
himself makes on it ; and though he may be allowed to
sell or bequeath it, he must not be allowed to mortgage it,
since what we want is to create as many secure and per-
manent homes as possible, as the only safe foundation for a
prosperous and happy community.

The Remedy — Free Access to Land for All.

But in order to do this — not here and there in certain
localities, but everywhere throughout the length and
breadth of the Union — the people must resume the land,
which should never have been parted with, to be ad-
ministered locally for the benefit of all, and to be held
always for use, never for speculation. People are now
beginning to see that land speculation is the curse of the
country. Millionaires have, in almost every case, grown
by what is, fundamentally, land speculation. It is this
which has enabled the few to acquire the bulk of the
wealth created by the many toilers ; and it is by the
monopoly of land, whether in city lots, in railroads, mines,
bonanza farms, vast forests, or vaster cattle ranches, that
the rich are ever growing richer, and the poor more
numerous.

In an American town or city to-day, it is practically
impossible for the worker to obtain land for cultivation,
except at town-lot prices ; while beyond the municipal
limits the land is usually held in farms of 160 acres or
more, the owners of which are all holding for a rise in
value when the town limits are extended so as to include
some of their property. But so soon as the land becomes
all municipal or township property, and it becomes re-
cognized that on its proper use depends the well-being of

VOL. II. E E

418 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the workers, these workers, being everywhere in the
majority, will determine that beyond the central business
part of the town, the land shall be let in lots of from one
to five or ten acres, at fair agricultural rents and on a
permanent tenure. Such small lots would be a twofold
benefit to the community. In the first place they would
constitute homesteads for workers, where they and their
families could utilize every portion of spare time in the
production of vegetables, fruit, poultry, eggs, pork, and
other foodstuffs, which would supply their families with a
considerable portion of their daily food. In the second
place they would supply the town itself with fresh and
wholesome vegetables, fruit, eggs, &c., and also, from the
larger plots of five or ten acres, abundance of fresh milk
and butter and other farm and garden produce. A little
farther off, the regular farms, held in the same way,
would provide the town with wheat, corn, hay, beef,
mutton, and other necessaries ; and thus each town and
the surrounding district would be to a large extent self-
contained and self-supporting.

But at the present time the very reverse of this is the
case ; most of the towns and cities drawing their supplies
mainly from great distances, the country immediately
around them being often but half cultivated. Certain
districts grow cattle, others wheat, others vegetables,
others again fruit, each kind having its special district
where it is raised on an enormous scale and sent by rail
for hundreds or even thousands of miles to where it is to
be consumed. This is thought to be economy, but it is
really waste from every point of view except that of the
capitalist farmer. He chooses a place where land can be
had cheaply (though probably not more suitable for the
special purpose than plenty of land within a few miles of
every city), where communication is easy, and labour
abundant, and therefore cheap ; and by growing on a
large scale, and employing the greatest amount of
machinery and the least amount of labour, he obtains
large profits. But this profit is derived, not from superior
cultivation, but from the practical monopoly of a large
area of land, and by the labour of hundreds of men and

xxiii THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 419

women who work hard and live poorly to make him rich.
The same land, if cultivated for themselves by an equal or
a larger number of workers, would produce far more per
acre, and would keep them all in comfort, instead of
making one man exceptionally well off while all the rest
live in uncertainty and poverty. And besides this
material difference, there is the moral effect of work on a
man's own homestead, where every hour's extra labour
increases the value of his property or the comfort of his
home, as compared with wage-work for a master who will
discharge him as soon as he ceases to want him, and in
whose work, therefore, he can take no interest. Experi-
ence in every part of the world shows that this moral
effect is one of the greatest advantages of securing to the
mass of the people homesteads of their very own. As
this aspect of the question is hardly ever discussed in
America, a few illustrative examples must be given.

And first as to the profits of small farms as compared
with large ones. Lord Carrington has eight hundred
tenants of small plots of land around the town of High
Wy combe, Bucks., and he has recently stated that these
tenants get a net produce of forty pounds an acre, while
the most that the farmers can obtain from the same land
by plough cultivation is seven pounds an acre. Here is a
gain to the country of thirty- three pounds an acre by
peasant cultivation ; and it is all clear gain, for these men
are wage labourers, and their little plots of land are culti-
vated by themselves and their families in time that would
otherwise be wasted.

Another case is that of the Rev. Mr. Tuckwell, of
Stockton, Warwickshire, who has let two hundred acres of
land to labourers in plots of from one to four acres, at fair
rents, and with security for fourteen years. Most of the
men with two acres grow enough wheat and potatoes to
supply their families for the whole year, besides providing
food for a pig, and all this by utilizing the spare time of
the family. These men grow forty bushels of wheat to
the acre, the farmer's average being less than thirty ; and
their other crops are good in proportion.

Still more interesting is the Wellingborough Allotment

E E 2

420 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Association in Northamptonshire, where two hundred and
twenty-three men rent and occupy a farm of one hundred
and eighty-four acres at three hundred pounds a year
rent, though the land is rather poor. It is divided into
plots from one eighth of an acre to six acres, the occupiers
being various wage workers, small tradesmen, mechanics,
and comparatively few farm labourers. The farm was
visited by Mr. Impey, who states that it was excellently
cultivated, and that the wheat averaged forty-eight
bushels an acre — nearly twice the average of Great
Britain — while one man got fifty-six bushels an acre
from two and one-fourth acres. When this farm was let
to a farmer, four men on the average were employed on it ;
now an amount of work equal to that of forty men
is expended on it, and a considerable portion of the
work is done during time that would otherwise be
wasted.

The reports issued by the last Eoyal Commission on
Agriculture in 1882 give numerous similar illustrations,
showing that in periods of agricultural distress, when
large farmers were being ruined, the small farmers who
cultivated the land themselves were prosperous. Thus
Mr. F. Winn Knight, M.P., of Exmoor, Devonshire, had
sixteen tenants paying rents from thirteen pounds up to
two hundred pounds a year, all being paid regularly to
the last shilling, and every one of these men had been
agricultural labourers. More remarkable is the case of
Penstrasse Moor in Cornwall, a barren, sandy waste, which
neither landlord nor tenant-farmer thought worth cul-
tivating. Yet five hundred acres of this waste have been
enclosed and reclaimed by miners, mechanics, and other
labourers, on the security of leases for three lives at a low
rent. This land now carries more stock than any of the
surrounding farms, and the total produce is estimated by
the assistant commissioner, Mr. Little, at nearly twice the
average of the county.

Pages could be filled with similar cases, but these are
sufficient to show the importance of land in improving
the condition of the workers.

xxiii THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 421

Moral Effects of the secure Homestead,

In the same reports remarks are made on the material
and moral effects of this experiment. Mr. Little says :

"The family have a much more comfortable home, and many
advantages, such as milk, butter, eggs, which they would not other-
wise enjoy. The man has a motive for saving his money and
employing his spare time ; he enjoys a position of independence ;
he is elevated in the social scale ; his self-respect is awakened and
stimulated, and he acquires a stake and an interest in the country."

And the same reporter again recurs to the subject in
the following weighty remarks :

" Interesting as this subject is in its relation to agriculture, as
showing the capacity for improvement which some barren spots
possess, and as a triumph of patience and industry, it is most valuable
as an instance where the opportunity of investing surplus wages and
spare hours in the acquirement of a home for the family, an inde-
pendent position for the labourer, a provision for wife and children
in the future, has been a great encouragement to thrift and provi-
dence. It is not only that the estate represents so much land
reclaimed from the waste arid put to a good use, it represents also so
much time well spent, which would, without this incentive, have
most probably been wasted, and wages, which would otherwise
probably have been squandered, employed in securing a homestead
and some support for the Avidow and family when the workman dies."

The men who reclaimed this waste, it must be re-
membered, are all miners, hence the references to their
" wages " ; and all these good results are secured on an
uncertain tenure dependent on the duration of the longest
of three lives, after which it all reverts to the landlord,
who has not spent a penny on it, but has, on the contrary,
received rent the whole time for giving the tenants
permission to reclaim it ! Under an equitable system of
permanent tenure, the interest of the labourer in improving
the land would be greater, his position more secure, and
the benefit to the nation in the creation of happy homes
more certain to be brought about.

Another illustration of the moral effects of even a
moderately good land-system is given by the Honourable
George C. Brodrick, in his interesting work English

422 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Land and English Landlords. It occurred on the
Annandale Estate in Dumfriesshire, where farm labourers
were given leases for twenty-five years, at ordinary farm
rents, of from two to six acres of land each, on which they
built their own cottages with stone and timber supplied
by the landlord.

' ' All the work on these little farms was done at by hours, and by
members of the family; the cottager buying roots of the farmer, and
producing milk, butter, and pork, besides rearing calves. Among
such peasant farmers pauperism soon ceased to exist, and many of
them became comparatively well off. It was particularly observed
that habits of marketing and the constant demands on thrift and
forethought, brought out new virtues and powers in the wives. In
fact, the moral effects of the system, in fostering industry, sobriety,
and contentment, were described as no less satisfactory than its
economical success."

These moral effects of the secure tenure of land in
small farms or cottage homesteads have been observed by
politicians, travellers, and moralists wherever the system
prevails. Thus, William Howitt, in his Rural and
Domestic Life of Germany, says :

" The German peasants work hard, but they have no actual want.
Every man has his house, his orchard, his roadside-trees, commonly
so heavy with fruit that he is obliged to prop and secure them or
they would be torn to pieces. He has his corn plot, his plots for
mangold-wurzel, for hemp, and so forth. He is his own master, and
he and every member of his family have the strongest motives to
labour. You see the effects of this in that unremitting diligence
which is beyond that of the whole world besides, and his economy,
which is still greater. . . . The German bauer looks on the country
as made for him and his fellow-men. He feels himself a man ; he
has a stake in the country as good as that of the bulk of his neigh-
bours ; no man can threaten him with ejection or the workhouse so
long as he is active and economical. He walks, therefore, with a bold
step ; he looks you in the face with the air of a free man, but a
respectful ahV5

That admirable historian and novelist, Mr. Baring
Gould, confirms this. Writing at a much later period, he
says in his Germany Past and Present :

"The artisan is restless and dissatisfied. He is mechanized. He
finds no interest in his work, and his soul frets at the routine. He
is miserable and he knows not why. But the man who toils on his

xxiii THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 423

own plot of ground is morally and physically healthy. He is
a freeman ; the sense he has of independence gives him his upright
carriage, his fearless brow, and his joyous laugh. 'J 1

Results of Large and Small Holdings.

We see, then, that the statements continually made by
economical writers as to the advantages of large farms —
and repeated by press-writers as if they were de-
monstrated facts — are either partially or wholly untrue.
Large farms, as compared with smaller farms — one
thousand acres with two huudred acres, for instance — both
being capitalists — may be more profitable, but partly
because the larger farmer usually has more capital, and
employs more machinery. His individual profits may
also be much larger, even if he gets a smaller profit per
acre, on account of his larger acreage; and for this reason
landlords like large farmers because they can afford to
pay a higher rent. But this has nothing whatever to do
with the question as between peasant or cottage farmers
who do their own work, and capitalist farmers employing
wage labour. In every case known, and in all parts of the
world, the former raise a much larger produce from the
land, and it is this question of the amount of produce that
is the important question for the community.

It is often the case, perhaps even generally the case
with capitalist farmers, that a larger profit is obtained
from a small than from a large production. This is the
reason that, during the last twenty years, about two
million acres of English arable land have been converted
into pasture. But the average produce of arable land in
Great Britain has been estimated by the best authorities
as worth about ten pounds, while the average produce of
pasture land does not exceed one pound ten shillings.
Here is an enormous difference, yet the profit to the
farmer is often larger per acre from the small than from
the large produce. This is because the cost of raising

1 Fuller details of the results of permanent land tenure are given in "\ *
Mill's Political Economy, Book II. , Chapter VI. , and also in the present \f
writer's Land Nationalization, Chapter VI.

424 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the larger produce is much greater, labour of men and
horses being the most important item, of this great cost.
When prices of wheat and other arable crops are low, it
therefore pays both landlord and farmer to discharge their
labourers, sow grass, and keep cattle or sheep, which
require the minimum amount of labour per hundred acres.
We have already seen in the case of the Wellingborough
Allotment Association, that men working for themselves
can profitably put ten times as much labour on the land
as a tenant farmer usually employs ; and this last number
is again reduced to one-fifth when the land is turned into
grass. It follows that the two millions of acres recently
thrown out of cultivation in Great Britain would support
in comfort, at the lowest computation, more than a
hundred thousand families in excess of those who are now
employed there.

The redudio ad absurdum of this method of con-
founding profit with produce was seen when, in reply to
the demand of the Highland crofters to be allowed to
occupy and cultivate the valleys formerly cultivated by
their ancestors, but from which these were expelled to
make room for deer, the late Duke of Argyll replied that
there was no unoccupied land available, since all the land
in Scotland was applied to its best " economic use."
By this he meant that the rental received by the land-
lords for their deer and grouse shootings was greater
than they could obtain from the Highland cultivators !
The difference in produce of food might be a hundred to
one in favour of the Highlanders ; but that, in the duke's
opinion, had nothing to do with the matter. Political
economists, as a rule, never allude to this most important
point, of the essential difference between production and
profit. Mill just mentions it while showing that peasant
farms are the most productive ; but he does not reason the
thing out, and few other writers mention it at all. Hence
political writers, in the face of the clearest and most
abundant evidence, again and again deny that labourers
can possibly grow wheat and other crops at a profit,
because capitalist farmers cannot do so. But the peasant
gives that daily, minute, and loving attention to his small

THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 425

plot which the capitalist farmer cannot possibly give to
his hundreds of acres ; he works early and late at critical
periods of the growth of each crop ; and as a result he
often obtains double the produce at less than half the
money cost.

There is yet another objection made to peasant culti-
vators, and repeated again and again with the greatest
confidence, but which is shown to be equally unfounded
by the inexorable logic of facts. Peasants and small
farmers, it is said, cannot afford to have the best machinery,
neither can they make those great improvements which
require large expenditure of capital ; therefore they should
not be encouraged. Yet fifty years ago Mr. S. Laing, in
his Journal of a Residence in Norway, showed how
far advanced were the peasant farmers of Scandinavia in
co-operative works. The droughts of summer are very
severe ; and to prevent their evil consequences, the
peasants have combined to carry out extensive irrigation
works. The water is brought in wooden troughs from
high up the valleys and then distributed to the several
plots. In one case the main troughs extended along a
valley for forty miles. Another writer, Mr. Kay, in his
work on the Social Condition of the People in Europe,
shows that the countries where the most extensive irri-
gation works are carried on are always those where small
proprietors prevail, such as Vaucluse and the Bouches-du-
Rhone in France, Sienna, Lucca, and other portions of Italy,
and also in parts of Germany.

Again, in the French Jura and in Switzerland, the peas-
ants of each parish combine together for co-operative cheese-
making, each receiving his share of the product when sold,
in proportion to the quantity of milk he has contributed.
This system is also at work in Australia, where in the dis-
tricts suited to dairying, co-operative butter and cheese
factories are established, where the best machinery and the
newest methods are used, the result being that some of
the butter is so good that, after supplying the great cities,
the surplus is exported to England. Of course it would be
easy to apply the same principle to mowing machines,
harvesters, or even flour mills, all of which might be

426 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

obtained and worked by the co-operation of peasant
farmers, each paying in proportion to the days or hours
he made use of the machine. Neither is there anything
in the superior education and intelligence often claimed
for the large farmer. Mr. Kay tells us that in Saxony

' * the peasants endeavour to outstrip one another in the quantity
and quality of the produce, in the preparation of the ground, and
in the general cultivation of their respective portions. All the little
proprietors are eager to find out how to farm so as to produce the
greatest results ; they diligently seek after improvements ; they
send their children to agricultural schools, in order to fit them to
assist their fathers ; and each proprietor soon adopts a new
improvement introduced by any of his neighbours."

Finally, under this system of small peasant culti-
vators, who reap all the fruits of their own labours, the
land is improved in an almost incredible manner. The
bare sands of Belgium and Flanders have been gradually
converted into gardens, and Mr. Kay sums up his observa-
tions by saying :

" The peasant farming of Prussia, Holland, Saxony, and Switzer-
land is the most perfect and economical farming I have ever wit-
nessed in any country ; "

thus illustrating the famous axiom of Arthur Young a
century ago :

" Give a man secure possession of a bleak rock, and he will turn
it into a garden."

It will hardly be said that the workers of America and
of England to-day are less industrious, less intelligent, less
influenced by the desire for an independent life and a
home which shall be indeed each man's castle, than were
the peasants of various parts of Europe half a century ago.
Give them, therefore, equal or even superior opportunities,
and you will obtain at least equal, probably far superior
results.

The reason why we may expect better results is, that the
system of peasant-proprietors, from which most of our illus-
trations have necessarily been drawn, had in it the seeds of
decay and failure from the very same causes as those which

xxm THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 427

have led to the failure of the homestead system of the
United States : unequal competition, owing to differences
in quality and situation of farms, as well as to capitalist
farmers, the influence of both having been greatly increased
by railroads and other means of rapid communication, and
by the growth of great cities offering a practically unlimited
market. Added to this there has been the twofold influence
of the millionaire and the speculator, ever seeking to buy
land, and o the money lender, ever seeking to lend money
on land m jrtgages. These combined influences have led to
the almost complete extermination of the statesmen and
other small land -owning farmers of England, and have
greatly diminished the number and the prosperity of the
peasant farmers in France, Belgium, Germany, and Austria.
The lawyers and money lenders have now absorbed many of
the peasant properties of France and Belgium, whose former
owners are now tenants, subject to the grinding pressure of
rack-rents ; while many others are struggling in the meshes
of the mortgagees, as are so many of the farmers in the
Western States of America.

Conclusions from the Inquiry.

The present inquiry has, I venture to think, established
some definite and almost unassailable conclusions as to the
fundamental causes which have led all civilized nations into
the Social Quagmire in which they find themselves to-day ;
and in doing so it has furnished us with an answer to the
vital question — What should be our next step towards
better social conditions, such as will not render the term
" civilization " the mockery it is now ?

In the first place, we have demonstrated that a perma-
nently successful agriculture, in which the food producer
shall be sure of an adequate reward for his labour, is
absolutely impossible without national or state ownership
of the soil, so as to ensure the farmer undisturbed occu-
pation at a low but equitably graded rent.

It is equally clear, in the second place, that the condition
of the great body of industrial workers can only be improved,

428 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

permanently, by giving them free access to land — the pri-
mary source of all food and all wealth — in the form of
cottage homesteads around all cities, towns, and villages, by
which they may be enabled to provide food for their families
and to carry on such home industries as they may find con-
^ / venient. Thus only will it be possible for them to enter into
/ really " free contracts " with capitalists ; thus only can we
get rid of the great army of the unemployed, and ensure to
the worker a much larger proportion of the product of his
labour.

When these two great radical reforms have been effected
in every part of the country, the industrial classes of every
kind will have before them a vista of permanent well-being
and progressive prosperity. Many industries now carried on
in factories, for the benefit of the individual capitalist, can
be just as well prosecuted in the home of the worker, if
" power" to work his machine is supplied to him. And so
soon as there is a demand for such power it will be supplied,
either by compressed air or water, or by electricity. A hun-
dred looms, or knitting frames, or spinning mules, can be
worked quite as well in separate houses as in one large build-
ing, with the enormous advantage to the worker that he
could work at them during winter or in wet weather or at
times when he would be otherwise idle, while carrying on
another occupation out of doors in summer or in fine weather.
At such machines different members of the family could work
alternately, thus giving them all the relaxation derived from
diversity of occupation, and the interest due to the fact that
the whole product of their labour would be their own. In
the case of those processes that require to be carried on in
special buildings and on a larger scale, the workers could
combine to erect such a building in their midst, and carry on
the work themselves, just as they carry on co-operative
cheese and butter making in so many parts of the world
already. And, gradually, as men came to enjoy the health
and the profit derived from varied work, and especially the
pleasure which every cultivator of the soil feels in the
products he sees grow daily as the result of his own labour,
there seems no reason to doubt that co-operation of the
kind suggested would spread, till the greater part or the

xxin THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 429

whole of the manufacturers of the country were in the
hands of associated workers.

At the present tirrie all the boasted division of labour and
economy of manufacture on a great scale, tends solely to
the benefit of the capitalist. It is advantageous for him
to have a thousand men working in one huge building, or
agglomeration of buildings, and all the workers are made
to come there, though their homes may be a long way off.
The gain is his, the loss theirs. It is better for him
that each man should do one kind of work only all day
long, and from year's end to year's end, because he thus
does it quicker and with less supervision. But the man
suffers in the monotony of his work and in the injury to
his health ; while, doing one thing only, he is helpless
when out of work. But in the future the arrangements
will all be made in the interest of the worker. When
possible, he will do his work at home, neither tied to
special hours nor compelled to walk long distances, and
thus lose precious time, besides adding so much unpaid
labour to his daily toil. He will then be able to work some
hours a day in his garden or farm, or in some occupation
possessing more variety and interest than being a mere
intelligent part of a vast machine. And when he works
at his own machine he will not need to keep at it more than
four or six hours a day. Being thus able to work, even as
a manufacturer, on his own account, in association with
his fellow-townsmen, he will not be induced to work for a
capitalist except for very high wages and for very moderate
hours of labour. He will then soon compete successfully
with the capitalist, and ultimately drive him out of the
field altogether. For it must always be remembered that,
once the workers get homes of their very own, with the
means of obtaining a considerable portion of their food
direct from the soil, they can save their own capital, and
thereafter employ their own labour; whereas the capitalists,
though possessing abundance of money and machinery,
cannot make a single piece of calico or an ingot of steel,
cannot raise a ton of coal or turn out a single
watch, unless they can induce men to work for
them.

430 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

The workers of America, like those of Great Britain,
have their future in their own hands. They have the
majority of votes, and can return representatives to do
their bidding. Let them turn their whole attention to
the one point — of rescuing the land from the hands of
monopolists and speculators. In this direction only lies
the way out of the terrible Social Quagmire in which they are
now floundering ; this is the next step forward towards a
happier social condition and a truer civilization.

In conclusion, I should not have ventured to make these
suggestions to Americans on matters which, it may be
supposed, they are quite able to deal with themselves,
were it not that the principles on which my proposals are
founded are fundamental in their nature and of universal
application. For many years I have advocated similar
remedies for my own country, and these are at length
being very widely accepted by the chief organizations of
our workers. These remedies are equally applicable
and equally needed in Australia and New Zealand ; while
every country in Europe, from Spain to Russia, is at this
moment suffering the evils which necessarily result from
a vicious land system. Americans received this system
from us, as they received slavery from us. To abolish the
latter they incurred a fearful cost and made heroic sacrifices.
The system which permits and even encourages land
monopoly and land speculation inevitably brings about
another form of slavery, more far-reaching, more terrible
in its results, than the chattel slavery they have abolished.
Let the tenement houses of New York and Chicago, with
their thousands of families in hopeless misery, their
crowds of half naked and famishing children, bear witness !
These white slaves of our modern civilization everywhere
cry out against the system of private ownership and
monopoly of land, which is, from its very nature, the
robbery of the poor and landless. This system needs no
gigantic war to overthrow it ; it can be destroyed without
really injuring a single human being. Only we must not
waste our time and strength in the advocacy of half-measures
and petty palliatives, which will leave the system itself to

xxin THE SOCIAL QUAGMIRE 431

produce ever a fresh crop of evil. The voice of the
working and suffering millions must give out no uncertain
sound, but must declare unmistakably to those who claim
to represent them — Our land-system is the fundamental
cause of the persistent misery and poverty of the workers ;
root and branch it is wholly evil ; its fruits are deadly
poison ; cut it down , why cumbereth it the ground ?

CHAPTER XXIV

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

DURING many past centuries of oppression and wrong
there has been an ever-present but rarely expressed cry for
redress, for some small instalment of Justice to the down-
trodden workers. It has been the aspiration alike of the
peasant and the philosopher, of the poet and the saint. But
the rule of the lords of the soil has ever been so hard, and
supported by power so overwhelming and punishment so
severe, that the born thralls or serfs have rarely dared to
do more than humbly petition for some partial relief ; or,
if roused to rebel by unbearable misery and wrongs, they
have soon been crushed by the power of mailed knights
and armed retainers. The peasant revolt at the end of
the fourteenth century was to gain relief from the
oppressive serfdom that was enforced after the black
death had diminished the number of workers. John
Ball then preached Socialism for the first time.

"By what right," he said, "are they whom we call lords greater
folk than we ? Why do they hold us in serfage ? . . . They are
clothed in velvet, while we are covered with rags. They have wine
and spices and fair bread ; and we oat-cake and straw, and water to
drink. They have leisure and fine houses ; we have pain and labour,
the rain and the wind in the fields. And yet it is of us and our toil
that these men hold their state.5'

John Ball and Wat Tyler lived five hundred years too
soon. To-day the very same claims are made by men
who, having got political power, cannot be so easily
suppressed.

CHAP, xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 433

A century passed, and the great martyr of freedom,
Sir Thomas More, powerfully set forth the wrongs of the
workers and the crimes of their rulers in his ever-
memorable Utopia. Near the end of this work he
thus summarizes the governments of his time in words
that will apply almost, if not quite, as accurately to-day :

" Is not that government both unjust and ungrateful that is so
prodigal of its favours to those that are called gentlemen, or such
others who are idle, or live either by flattery or by contriving the
arts of vain pleasure, and, on the other hand, takes no care of those
of a meaner sort, such as ploughmen, colliers, and smiths, without
whom we could not subsist 1 But after the public has reaped all
the advantage of their service, and they come to be oppressed with
age, sickness, and want, all their labours and the good they have
done is forgotten, and all the recompense given them is that they
are left to die in great misery. The richer sort are often endeav-
ouring to bring the hire of labourers lower — not only by their
fraudulent practices, but by the laws which they procure to be made
to that effect ; so that though it is a thing most unjust in itself to
give such small rewards to those Avho deserve so well of the public,
yet they have given those hardships the name and colour of justice,
by procuring laws to be made for regulating them.

' ' Therefore I must say that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no
other notion of all the governments that I see or know than that
they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the
public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and
arts they can find out ; first, that they may, without danger, preserve
all that they have so ill acquired, and then that they may engage
the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and
oppress them as much as they please." 1

Here we have a stern demand for justice to the
workers who produce all the wealth of the rich, as clearly
and as forcibly expressed as by any of our modern
socialists. Sir Thomas More might, in fact, be well taken as
the hero and patron-saint of Socialism.

A century passed away before Bacon in England, and
Campanelli in Italy, again set forth schemes of social
regeneration. Bacon's New Atalantis supposed that the
desired improvement would come from man's increased
command over the powers of nature, which would give
wealth enough for all. We have, however, obtained this
command to a far greater extent than Bacon could

1 Cassell's National Library — Utopia, p. 17.
VOL. II. F F

434 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

possibly have anticipated ; yet its chief social effect has
been the increase of luxury and the widening of the gulf
between rich and poor. Although material wealth,
reckoned not in money but in things, has increased per-
haps twenty or thirty fold in the last century, while the
population has little more than doubled, yet millions of
our people still live in the most wretched penury, the
whole vast increase of wealth having gone to increase the
luxury and waste of the rich and the comfort of the
middle classes.

Campanelli, more far-sighted than Bacon, saw the need
of social justice as well as increased knowledge, and pro-
posed a system of refined communism. Bat all these
ideas were but as dreams of a golden age, and had no
influence whatever in ameliorating the condition of the
workers, which, with minor fluctuations, and having due
regard to the progress of material civilization, may be said
to have remained practically unchanged for the last three
centuries. When one-fourth of all the deaths in London
occur in workhouses and hospitals notwithstanding that
four millions are spent there annually in public charity,
while untold thousands die in their wretched cellars and
attics from the direct or indirect effects of starvation, cold,
and unhealthy surroundings ; and while all these terrible
facts are repeated proportionately in all our great manu-
facturing towns, it is simply impossible that, within
the time I have mentioned, the condition of the workers
as a whole can have been much, if any, worse than it is
now.

At the end of the seventeenth, and during the
eighteenth century, a new school of reformers arose, of
whom Locke, Rousseau, and Turgot were representatives.
They saw the necessity of a fundamental justice, especially
as regards land, the source of all wealth. Locke declared
that labour gave the only just title to land; while
Rousseau was the author of the maxim, that the produce
of the land belongs to all men, the land itself to no one.
The first Englishman, however, who saw clearly the vast
importance of the land question, and who laid down those
principles with regard to it which are now becoming

xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 435

widely accepted, was an obscure Newcastle schoolmaster,
Thomas Spence, who in 1775 gave a lecture before the
Philosophical Society of that town, which was so much
in advance of the age that when he printed his lecture
the society expelled him, and he was soon afterwards
obliged to leave the town. He maintained the sound
doctrine that the land of any country or district justly
belongs to those who live upon it, not to any individuals
to the exclusion of the rest; and he points out, as did
Herbert Spencer at a later period, the logical result of
admitting private property in land. He says :

' ' And any one of them (the landlords) still can, by laws of their
own making, oblige every living creature to remove off his property
(which, to the great distress of mankind, is too often put in execu-
tion) ; so, of consequence, were all the landholders to be of one
mind, and determined to take their properties into their own hands,
all the rest of mankind might go to heaven if they would, for there
would be no place found for them here. Thus men may not live in
any part of this world, not even where they are born, but as
strangers, and by the permission of the pretender to the property
thereof."

He maintained that every parish should have possession
of its own land, to be let out to the inhabitants, and that
each parish should govern itself and be interfered with as
little as possible by the central government, thus an-
ticipating the views as to local self-government which we
are now beginning to put into practice.

A few years later, in 1782, Professor Ogilvie published
anonymously, An Essay on the Eight of Property in Land,
with respect to its foundation in the Law of Nature, its
present establishment by the Municipal Laws of Europe, and
the Regulations by which it might be rendered more beneficial
to the Lower Banks of Mankind. This small work contains
an elaborate and well-reasoned exposition of the whole
land question, anticipating the arguments of Herbert
Spencer in Social Statics, of Mill, and of the most advanced
modern land-reformers. But all these ideas were before
their time, and produced little or no effect on public
opinion. The workers were too ignorant, too much
oppressed by the struggle for bare existence, while the

F F 2

436 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

middle classes were too short-sighted to be influenced by
theoretical views which even to this day many of the most
liberal thinkers seem unable fully to appreciate. But the
chief cause that prevented the development of sound views
on the vital problems of the land and of social justice, was,
undoubtedly, that men's minds were forcibly directed
towards the great struggles for political freedom then in
progress. The success of the American revolutionists
and the establishment of a republic founded on a
Declaration of the Rights of Man, followed by the great
French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, entirely
obscured all lesser questions, and also led to a temporary
and fictitious prosperity, founded on a gigantic debt the
burden of which still oppresses us. These great events
irresistibly led to the discussion of questions of political
and personal freedom rather than to those deeper
problems of social justice of which we are now only
beginning to perceive the full importance. The rapid
growth of the use of steam power, the vast extension of
our manufactures, and the rise of our factory system with
its attendant horrors of woman and infant labour, crowded
populations, spread of disease, and increase of mortality,
loudly cried for palliation and restrictive legislation, and
thus occupied much of the attention of philanthropists
and politicians.

Character of Nineteenth Century Legislation.

Owing to this combination of events, the nineteenth
century has been almost wholly devoted to two classes of
legislation — the one directed to reform and popularize the
machinery of government itself, the other to neutralize or

!)alliate the evils arising from the unchecked powers of
andlords and capitalists in their continual efforts to in-
crease their wealth while almost wholly regardless of the
life-shortening labour, the insanitary surroundings, and
the hopeless misery of the great body of the workers.
To the first class belong the successive Reform Bills,
the adoption of the ballot in elections for members
of Parliament, household and lodger suffrage, improved

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 437

registration, and the repression of bribery. To the
second, restriction of children's and women's labour in
factories and mines, government inspection of these
industries ; attempts to diminish the dangers of unhealthy
employments, and to check the ever-increasing pollution
of rivers ; the new poor law, casual wards, and other
attempts to cope with pauperism ; while various fiscal
reforms, such as the abolition of the corn-laws and the
extension of free trade, though advocated in the supposed
interest of the wage-earners, were really carried by the
efforts of great capitalists and manufacturers as a means
of extending their foreign trade. Later on came the
Elementary Education Act of 1870, which was thought
by many to be the crowning of the edifice, and to complete
all that could be done by legislation to bring about the
well-being of the workers, and, through them, of the
whole community.

Its Outcome.

Now that we have had nearly a century of the two
classes of legislation here referred to, it may be well
briefly to take stock of its general outcome, and see how
far it has secured — what all such legislation aims at
securing — a fair share to all the workers of the mass of
wealth they annually produce ; a sufficiency of food,
clothing, house-room, and fuel; healthy surroundings;
and some amount of leisure and surplus means for the
lesser enjoyments of life. And it must be remembered
that never in the whole course of human history has
there been a century which has added so much to man's
command over the forces of nature, and which has so
enormously extended his power of creating and distri-
buting all forms of wealth. Steam, gas, photography, and
electricity, in all their endless applications, have given us
almost unlimited power to obtain all necessaries, comforts,
and luxuries that the world can supply us with. It has
been calculated that the labour-saving machinery of all
kinds now in use produces about a hundred times the
result that could be produced if our workers had only the

438 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

tools and appliances available in the last century. But
even in the last century, not only was there produced a
sufficiency of food, clothing, and houses for all workers,
but an enormous surplus, which was appropriated by the
landlords and other capitalists for their own consump-
tion, while large numbers, then as now, were unprofitably
employed in ministering to the luxury of the rich, or
wastefully and wickedly employed in destroying life and
property in civil or foreign wars.

Taking first the anti-capitalistic or social legislation, we
find that, though the horrible destruction of the health,
the happiness, and the very lives of factory children has
been largely reduced, there has grown up in our great
cities a system of child-labour as cruel and destructive, if
not quite so extensive. Infants of four years and upwards
are employed at matchbox-making and similar employ-
ments to assist in supporting the family. A widow and
two children, working all day and much of the night, can
only earn a shilling or eighteenpence from which to pay
rent and support life. Children of school age have thus
often to work till midnight after having had five hours'
schooling ; and till quite recently a poor mother in this
state of penury was fined if she did not send the children
to school and pay a penny daily for each, meaning so much
less bread for herself or for the children. Of course for
the children this is physical and mental destruction. The
number of women thus struggling for a most miserable
living — often a mere prolonged starvation — is certainly
greater than at any previous period of our history, and
even if the proportion of the population thus employed
is somewhat less — and this is doubtful — the fact that the
actual mass of human misery and degradation of this
kind is absolutely greater, is a horrible result of a century's
remedial legislation, together with an increase of national
wealth altogether unprecedented.

Again, if we turn to the amount of poverty and pauper-
ism as a measure of the success of remedial legislation
combined with a vast extension of private and systema-
tised charity, we shall have cause for still more serious
reflection. In 1888 the Registrar-General called atten-

xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 439

tion to the fact that, both throughout the country and to
a still greater extent in London, deaths in workhouses,
hospitals, and other public charitable institutions had
been steadily increasing since 1875. A reference to the
Annual Summaries of deaths in London shows the in-
crease to have been continuous from 1860 to 1890, the
five-year periods giving the following results : —

In 1860-65 of total deaths in London, 16 '2 per cent, occurred in

charitable institutions.
1866-70 (110 material at hand).
1871-75 of total deaths in London, 17*4
1876-80 ,, ,, 18-6

1881-85 ,, ,, 21-1

1886-90 ,, ,, 23-4

1891-95 ,, ,, 26-7

When we add to this the admitted facts, that organized
charity has greatly increased during the same period,
while the press still teems with records of the most
terrible destitution, of suicides from the dread of starva-
tion, and deaths directly caused or indirectly due to want,
we are brought face to face with a mass of human
wretchedness that is absolutely appalling in its magnitude.
And all this time Royal and Parliamentary Commissions
have been inquiring and reporting, Mansion House and
other Committees have been collecting funds and relieving
distress at every exceptional period of trouble, emigration
has been actively at work, improved dwellings have been
provided, and education has been systematically urged on,
with the final result that one-fourth of all the deaths in
the richest city in the world occur in workhouses, hospitals,
&c., and, in addition, unknown thousands die in their
miserable garrets and cellars from various forms of slow
or rapid starvation.

Can a state of society which leads to this result be
called civilization ? Can a government which, after a
century of continuous reforms and gigantic labours and
struggles, is unable to organize society so that every willing
worker may earn a decent living, be called a successful
government? Is it beyond the wit of man to save a
large proportion of one of the most industrious people in

440 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

the world, inhabiting a rich and fertile country, from
grinding poverty or absolute starvation ? Is it impossible
so to arrange matters that a sufficient portion of the
wealth they create may be retained by the workers, even
if the idle rich have a little less of profuse " and wasteful
luxury ?

The Impotence of our Legislators.

Our legislators, our economists, our religious teachers,
almost with one voice tell the people that any better
organization of society than that which we now possess is
impossible. That \ve must go on as we have been going on,
patching here, altering there, now mitigating the severity
of a distressing symptom, now slightly clipping the wings of
the landlord, the capitalist, or the sweater ; but never
going down to the root of the evil ; never interfering with
vested interests in ancestral wrong ; never daring to do
anything which shall diminish rent and interest and profit,
and to the same extent increase the reward of labour ;
never seek out the fundamental injustice which deprives
men of their birthright in their native land, and enables
a small number of landlords to tax the rest of the
community to the amount of hundreds of millions for
permission to cultivate and live upon the soil in the
country of their birth. Can we, then, wonder that both
workers and thinkers are getting tired of all this hopeless
incapacity in their rulers? That, possessing education
which has made them acquainted with the works of great
writers on these matters, from Sir Thomas More to
Robert Owen, from Henry George to Edward Bellamy,
from Karl Marx to Carlyle and Ruskin ; and possessing as
they do ability, and honesty, and determination, fully
equal to that of the coterie of landlords and capitalists
which has hitherto governed them, they are determined,
as soon as may be, to govern themselves.

The Work of the Twentieth Century.

Now, I believe that the great work of this century,
that which is the true preparation for the work to be done
in the coming twentieth century, is not its well-meant

xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 441

and temporarily useful but petty and tentative social
legislation, but rather that gradual reform of the political
machine — to be completed, it is to be hoped, within the
next few years — which will enable the most thoughtful and
able and honest among the manual workers to at once
turn the balance of political power, and, at no distant
period, to become the real and permanent rulers of the
country. The very idea of such a government will excite
a smile of derision or a groan of horror among the classes
who have hitherto blundered and plundered at their will,
and have thought they were heaven-inspired rulers. But
I feel sure that the workers will do very much better;
and, forming as they do the great majority of the people,
it is only bare justice that, after centuries of mis-
government by the idle and wealthy, they should have
their turn. The larger part of the invention that has
enriched the country has come from the workers ; much
of scientific discovery has also come from their ranks ;
and it is certain that, given equality of opportunity, they
would fully equal, in every high mental and moral
characteristic, the bluest blood in the nation. In the
organization of their trades-unions and co-operative
societies, no less than in their choice of the small body of
their fellow-workers who represent them in Parliament,
they show that they are in no way inferior in judgment
and in organizing power to the commercial, the literary, or
the wealthy classes. The way in which, during the past
few years, they have forced their very moderate claims
upon the notice of the public, have secured advocates in
the press and in Parliament, and have led both political
economists and politicians to accept measures which were
not long before scouted as utterly beyond the sphere of
practical politics, shows that they have already become a
power in the state. Looking forward, then, to a govern-
ment by workers, and largely in the interest of workers, at
a not distant date, I propose to set forth a few principles
and suggestions as to the course of legislation calculated
to abolish pauperism, poverty, and enforced idleness, and
thus lay the foundation for a true civilization which will
be beneficial to all.

442 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Suggestions for Real Reforms.

That the ownership of large estates in land by private
individuals is an injustice to the workers and the source
of much of their poverty and misery, is held by all the
great writers I have alluded to, and has been fully
demonstrated in many volumes as well as in the four
chapters on the Land-question in the present work. It
has led directly to the depopulation of the rural districts,
the abnormal growth of great cities, the diminished culti-
vation of the soil and reduced food-supply, and is thus at
once a social evil and a national danger. Some petty
attempts are now making to restore the people to the
land, but in a very imperfect manner. The first and
highest use of our land is to provide healthy and happy
homes, where all who desire it may live in permanent
security and produce a considerable portion of the food
required by their families. Every other consideration
must give way to this one, and all restrictions on its
realization must be abolished. Hence, the first work of
the people's Parliament should be, to give to the Parish
and District Councils unrestricted power to take all land
necessary for this purpose, so as to afford every citizen the
freest possible choice of a home in which he can live
absolutely secure (so long as he pays the very moderate

f round rent) and reap the full reward of his labour,
very man, in his turn, should be able to choose both
where he will live and how much land he desires to have,
since each one is the best judge of how much he can
enjoy and make profitable. Our object is that all
working men should succeed in life, should be able to live
well and happily, and provide for an old age of comfort
and repose. Every such landholder is a gain and a safety
instead of a loss and a danger to the community, and no
outcry, either of existing landlords or of tenants of large
farms, must be allowed to stand in their way. The
well-being of the community is the highest law, and
no private interests can be permitted to prevent its
realization. When land can be thus obtained, co-

xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 443

operative communities, on the plan so clearly laid down
by Mr. Herbert V. Mills in his work on Poverty and the
State (and sufficiently explained in Chap. XXVI. of this
volume) may also be established, and various forms of
co-operative manufacture can be tried.

The Inviolability of the Some.

But until this great reform can be effected there is a
smaller and less radical measure of relief to all tenants,
which should at once be advocated and adopted by the
Liberal party. It is an old boast that the Englishman's
house is his castle, but never was a boast less justified by
facts. In a large number of cases a working man's house
might be better described as an instrument of torture, by
means of which he can be forced to comply with his land-
lord's demands, and both in religion and politics submit
himself entirely to the landlord's will. So long as the
agricultural labourer, the village mechanic, and the village
shopkeeper are the tenants of the landowner, the parson,
or the farmer, religious freedom or political independence
is impossible. And when those employed in factories or
workshops are obliged to live, as they so often are, in
houses which are the property of their employers, that
employer can force his will upon them by the double
threat of loss of employment and loss of a home. Under
such conditions a man possesses neither freedom nor safety,
nor the possibility of happiness, except so far as his land-
lord and employer thinks proper. A secure HOME is the
very first essential alike of political freedom, of personal
security, and of social well-being.

Now that every worker, even to the hitherto despised
and down-trodden agricultural labourer, has been given a
share in local self-government, it is time that, so far as
affects the inviolability of the home, the landlord's power
should be at once taken away from him. This is the
logical sequence of the creation of Parish Councils. For,
to declare that it is for the public benefit that every
inhabitant of a parish shall be free to vote and to be chosen
as a representative by his fellow parishioners, and at the

444 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

same time to leave him at the mercy of the individual
who owns his house to punish him in a most cruel manner
for using the privileges thus granted him, is surely the
height of unreason and injustice. It is giving a stone in
place of bread ; the shadow rather than the substance of
political enfranchisement.

There is, however, a very simple and effectual way of
rendering tenants secure, and that is, by a short Act of
Parliament declaring all evictions, or seizure of household
goods, other than for non-payment of rent, to be illegal. And
to prevent the landlord from driving away a tenant by rais-
ing his rent to an impossible amount, all alterations of rent
must be approved of as reasonable by a committee of the
Parish or District Council, and be determined on the appli-
cation of either the tenant or the landlord. Of course, at
the first letting of a house the landlord could ask what rent
he pleased, and if it was exorbitant he would get no tenant.
But having once let it, the tenant should be secure as
long as he wished to occupy it, and the rent should not
be raised except as allowed by some competent tribunal.
No doubt a claim will be made on behalf of the landlords
for a compulsory, not voluntary, tenancy on the part of
the tenant ; that is, that if the tenant has security of
occupation, the landlord should have equal security of
having a tenant. But the two cases are totally different.
Eviction from his home may be, and often is, ruinous loss
and misery to the tenant, who is therefore, to avoid such
loss, often compelled to submit to the landlord's will.
But who ever heard of a tenant, by the threat of giving
notice to quit, compelling his landlord to vote against his
conscience, or to go to chapel instead of to church ? The
tenant needs protection, the landlord does not.

The same result might perhaps be gained by giving the
Parish and District Councils power to take over all houses
whose tenants are threatened with eviction, or with an
unfair increase of rent ; but this would involve so many
complications and would so burthen these Councils with
new and responsible work, that there is no chance of its
being enacted for many years. But the plan of giving a
legal permanent tenure to every tenant is so simple, so

xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 445

obviously reasonable, and so free from all interference with
the fair money-value of the landlord's property, that, with
a little energy and persistent agitation, it might possibly
be carried in two or three years. Such an Act might be
more or less in the following form : —

" Whereas the security and inviolability of the HOME is an essen-
tial condition of political freedom and social well-being, it is hereby
enacted, that no tenant shall hereafter be evicted from his house or
homestead, or have his household goods seized, for any other cause
than non-payment of rent, and every heir or successor of such tenant
shall be equally secure so long as the rent is paid. "

A second clause would provide for a permanently fair
rent.

Now, will not some advanced Liberal bring in such a
Bill annually till it is carried ? It is, I think, one that
would receive the support of a large number of reformers,
because it is absolutely essential to the free and fair
operation of the Parish and District Councils, and is equally
necessary for the well-being of the farmer and the trades-
man, as well as for the mechanic and labourer. The
annual discussion of the subject in Parliament would be
of inestimable value, since it would afford the opportunity
of bringing prominently before the voters the numerous
cases of gross tyranny and cruel injustice which are yearly
occurring, but which now receive little consideration.

The Unborn not to Inherit Property.

The next great guiding principle, and one that will
enable us to carry out the resumption of the land without
real injury to any individual, is, that we should recognize
no rights to property in the unborn, or even in persons
under legal age, except so far as to provide for their
education and give them a suitable but moderate pro-
vision against want. This may be justified on two grounds.
Firstly, the law allows to individuals the right to will
away their property as they please, so that not even the
eldest son has any vested interest, as against the power
of the actual owner of the property to leave it to whom or
for what purpose he likes. Now, what an individual is

446 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

permitted to do for individual reasons which may be good
or bad, the State may do if it considers it necessary for
the good of the community. If an individual may justly
disinherit other individuals who have not already a vested
interest in property, however just may be their expectations
of succeeding to it, a fortiori the State may, partially,
disinherit them for good and important reasons. In the
second place, it is almost universally admitted by moralists
and advanced thinkers, that to be the heir to a great
estate from birth is generally injurious to the individual,
and is necessarily unjust to the community. It enables
the individual to live a life of idleness and pleasure, which
often becomes one of luxury and vice ; while the
community suffers from the bad example, and by the
vicious standard of happiness which is set up by the
spectacle of so much idleness and luxury. The working
part of the community, on the other hand, suffers directly
in having to provide the whole of the wealth thus
injuriously wasted. Many people think that if such a
rich man pays for everything he purchases and wastes,
the workers do not suffer because they receive an equivalent
for their labour ; but such persons overlook the fact that
every pound spent by the idle is first provided ly the
workers. If the income thus spent is derived from land,
it is they who really pay the rents to the landlord, inas-
much as if the landlord did not receive them they would
go in reduction of taxation. If it comes from the funds
or from railway shares, they equally provide it, in the
taxes, in high railway fares, and increased price of goods
due to exorbitant railway charges. Even if all taxes were
raised by an income tax paid by rich men only, the
workers would be the real payers, because there is no other
possible source of annual income in the country but pro-
ductive labour. If any one doubts this, let him consider
what would happen were the people to resume the land
as their right, and thenceforth apply the rents, locally, to
establish the various factories and other machinery needful
to supply all the wants of the community. Gradually all
workers would be employed on the land, or in the various
co-operative or municipal industries, and would themselves

xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 447

receive the full product of their labours. To facilitate
their exchanges they might establish a token or paper
currency, and they would then have little use for gold or
silver. How, then, could idlers live, if these workers, in
the Parliament of the country, simply declined to pay
the interest on debts contracted before they were born ?
What good would be their much-vaunted " capital," con-
sisting as it mostly does of mere legal power to take from
the workers a portion of the product of their labours,
which power would then have ceased; while their real
capital — buildings, machinery, &c. — would bring them
not one penny, since the workers would all possess their
own, purchased by their own labour and the rents of their
own land ? Let but the workers resume possession of the
soil, which was first obtained by private holders by force
or fraud, or by the gift of successive kings who had no
right to give it, and capitalists as a distinct class from
workers must soon cease to exist.

No Right to Tax Future Generations.

Another principle of equal importance is to refuse to
recognize the right of any bygone rulers to tax future
generations. Thus all grants of land by kings or nobles,
all " perpetual " pensions, and all war-debts of the past,
should be declared to be legally and equitably invalid,
and henceforth dealt with in such a way as to relieve
the workers of the burden of their payment as speedily
as is consistent with due consideration for those whose
chief support is derived from such sources. Just as we
are now coming to recognize that a " living wage " is
due to all workers, so we should recognize a " maximum
income " determined by the standard of comfort of the
various classes of fund-holders and State or family
pensioners. As a rule, these persons might be left to
enjoy whatever income they now possess during their
lives, and when they had relatives dependent on them
the income might be continued to these, either for their
lives or for a limited period according to the circumstances
of each case. There would be no necessity, and I trust no

448 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

inclination, to cause the slightest real privation, or even
inconvenience, to those who are but the product of a
vicious system ; but on every principle of justice and
equity it is impossible to recognize the rights of deceased
kings — most of them the worst and most contemptible of
men — to burthen the workers for all time in order to keep
large bodies of their fellow-citizens in idleness and
luxury.

How to deal with Accumulated Wealth.

By means of the principles now laid down, we can see how
to deal fairly with the present possessors of great estates, and
with millionaires, whose vast wealth confers no real benefit
on themselves while it necessarily robs the workers, since,
as we have seen, it has all to be provided by the workers.
It will, I think, be admitted that, if a man has an income,
say, often thousand a year, that is sufficient to supply him
with every possible necessary, comfort and rational luxury,
and that the possession of one or more additional ten
thousands of income would not really add to his enjoyment.
But all such excessive incomes necessarily produce evil
results, in the large number of idle dependants they
support, and in keeping up habits of gambling and ex-
cessive luxury. Further, in the case of landed estates the
management of which is necessarily left to agents and
bailiffs, it leads to injurious interference with agriculture
and with the political and religious freedom of tenants, to
oppression of labourers, to the depopulation of villages, and
other well-known evils. It will therefore be for the public
benefit to fix on a maximum income to be owned by any
citizen ; and, thereupon, to arrange a progressive income-
tax, beginning with a very small tax on a minimum
income from land or realized property of, say, £500, the
tax progressively rising, at first slowly, afterwards more
rapidly, so as to absorb all above the fixed maximum.

When a landed estate was taken over for the use of
the community, the net income which had been derived
from it would be paid the late holder for his life, and
might be continued for the lives of such of his direct

xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 449

heirs as were of age at the time of passing the Act, or
it might even be extended to all direct heirs living at
that time. In the case of a person owning many landed
estates in different counties, he might be given the
option of retaining any one or more of them up to
the maximum income, and that income would be
secured to him (and his direct heirs as above stated)
in case any of the land were taken for public use. In
the case* of fundholders, all above the maximum
income would be extinguished, and thus reduce
taxation.

The process here sketched out — by which the con-
tinuous robbery of the people through the systems of
land and fundholding, may be at first greatly reduced
and in the course of one or two generations completely
stopped, without, as I maintain, real injury to any living
person and for the great benefit both of existing
workers and of the whole nation in the future — will, of
course, be denounced as confiscation and robbery. That
is the point of view of those who now benefit by the
acts of former robbers and confiscators. From another,
and I maintain a truer point of view, it may be de-
scribed as an act of just and merciful restitution. Let us,
therefore, consider the case a little more closely.

Origin of Great Estates.

Taking the inherited estates of the great landed pro-
prietors of England, almost all can be traced back to some
act of confiscation of former owners or to gifts from kings,
often as the reward for what we now consider to be dis-
graceful services or great crimes. The whole of the pro-
perty of the abbeys and monasteries, stolen by Henry
VIII. and mostly given to the worst characters among
the nobles of his court, was really a robbery of the people,
who obtained relief and protection from the former owners.
The successive steps by which the landlords got rid of the
duties attached to landholding under the feudal system,
and threw the main burden of defence and of the cost of
government on non-landholders, was another direct

VOL. II. G G

450 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

robbery of the people. Then in later times, and down to
the present century, we have that barefaced robbery by
form of law, the enclosure of the commons, leading, perhaps
more than anything else, to the misery and destruction of
the rural population. Much of this enclosure was made
by means of false pretences. The general Enclosure Acts
declare that the purpose of enclosure is to facilitate
c the productive employment of labour ' in the improve-
ment of the land. Yet hundreds of thousands of acres in
all parts of the country, especially in Surrey, Hampshire,
Dorsetshire, and other southern counties, were simply
taken from the people and divided among the surrounding
landlords, and then only used for sport, not a single pound
being spent in cultivating it. Now, however, during
the last twenty years, much of this land is being sold
for building at high building prices, a purpose never
contemplated when the Enclosure Acts were obtained.
During the last two centuries more than seven millions
of acres have been thus taken from the poor by men who
were already rich, and the more land they already pos-
sessed the larger share of the commons was allotted to
them. Even a Royal Commission, in 1869, declared that
these enclosures were often made "without any com-
pensation to the smaller commoners, deprived agricultural
labourers of ancient rights over the waste, and disabled
the occupants of new cottages from acquiring new
rights."

Now, in this long series of acts of plunder of the
people's land, we have every circumstance tending to
aggravate the crime. It was robbery of the poor by the
rich. It was robbery of the weak and helpless by the
strong. And it had that worst feature which distin-
guishes robbery from mere confiscation — the plunder was
divided among the individual robbers. Yet, again, it was
a form of robbery specially forbidden by the religion of
the robbers, a religion for which they professed the
deepest reverence, and of which they considered them-
selves the special defenders. They read in what they
call the Word of God, " Woe unto them that join house to
house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that

xxiv ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE 451

they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth," yet
this is what they are constantly striving for, not by
purchase only, but by robbery. Again they are told,
" The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land is
Mine ; " and at every fiftieth year all land was to return to
the family that had sold it, so that no one could keep land
beyond the year of jubilee; and the reason was that no
man or family should remain permanently impoverished.

Both in law and morality the receiver of stolen goods is
as bad as the thief; and even if he has purchased a stolen
article unknowingly, an honourable man will, when he
discovers the fact, restore it to the rightful owner. Now,
our great hereditary landlords know very well that they
are the legal possessors of much stolen property, and,
moreover, property which their religion forbids them to
hold in great quantities. Yet we have never heard of a
single landlord making restitution to the robbed nation.
On the contrary, they take every opportunity of adding to
their vast possessions, not only by purchase, but by that
meanest form of robbery — the enclosing of every scrap of
roadside grass they can lay their hands on, so that the
wayfarer or the tourist may have nothing but dust or
gravel to walk upon, and the last bit of food for the
cottager's donkey or goose is taken away from him.

This all-embracing system of land-robbery, for which
nothing is too great and nothing too little ; which has
absorbed meadow and forest, moor and mountain ; which
has secured most of our rivers and lakes, and the fish
which inhabit them ; which often claims the very seashore
and rocky coast-line of our island home, making the
peasant pay for his seaweed-manure and the fisherman
for his bait of shellfish ; which has desolated whole
counties to replace men by sheep or cattle, and has
destroyed fields and cottages to make a wilderness for
deer : which has stolen the commons and filched the
roadside wastes ; which has driven the labouring poor
into the cities, and has thus been the primary and chief
cause of the lifelong misery, disease, and early death of
thousands who might have lived lives of honest toil
and comparative comfort had they been permitted free

G G 2

452 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

access to land in their native villages ; — it is the advocates
and beneficiaries of this inhuman system, the members of
this " cruel organization," who, when a partial restitution
of their unholy gains is proposed, are the loudest in
their cries of " robbery ! " But all the robbery, all the
spoliation, all the legal and illegal filching has been
on their side, and they still hold the stolen proporty.
They made laws to justify their actions, and we propose
equally to make laws which will really justify ours,
because, unlike their laws which always took from the
poor to give to the rich, ours will take only from the
superfluity of the rich, not to give to the poor individu-
ally, but to enable the poor to live by honest work, to
restore to the whole people their birthright in their
native soil, and to relieve all alike from a heavy burden of
unnecessary taxation. This will be the true statesmanship
of the future, and will be justified alike by equity, by
ethics, and by religion.

The Teaching of the Priests.

And now, what has been the conduct and teaching
of those priests and bishops who profess to be followers of
Him who declared that a rich man shall hardly enter into
the kingdom of heaven, and who gave this rule as
being above all the Commandments, "If thou wilt be
perfect, go and sell that thou hast, and give to the
poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven." Have
they ever preached to the squires and nobles restitution
of some portion of the land so unjustly obtained by their
ancestors ? Have they even insisted on the duty of those
who hold the land to allow free use of it to all their
fellow-citizens on fair terms ? Have they even set before
these men the inevitable and now well-known results
of land-monopoly, and the deadly sin of using their
power to oppress the poor and needy ? It is notorious
that, with some few noble exceptions, they have done
none of these things, but have ever taken the side of the
landed against the landless, and too often, whether in the

ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL JUSTICE

character of landlords or magistrates, have so acted as to
lose the confidence and even gain the hatred of the poor.
\Ve look in vain among priests arid bishops of the
Established Church for any real comprehension of what
this land-question is to the poor ; but we find it in the
following words of a dignitary of the older Church, that
good man and true follower of Christ, the late Cardinal
Manning :

1 'The land-question means hunger, thirst, nakedness, notice to
quit, labour spent in vain, the toil of years seized upon, the
breaking up of houses ; the misery, sicknesses, deaths of parents,
children, wives ; the despair and wildness which spring up in the
hearts of the poor, where legal force, like a sharp harrow, goes over
the most sensitive and vital rights of mankind. All this is contained
in the land-question."

But our archbishops and bishops know or care nothing
whatever of all this ! They are truly blind guides ; and,
as pastors of a Church which should be pre-eminently
the Church of the poor, how applicable are the words of
Isaiah :

' ' They are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark ; sleeping, lying down,
loving to slumber. Yea, they are greedy dogs which can never have
enough, and they are shepherds that cannot understand : they all
look to their own way, every one for his gain ! "

And now, in conclusion, I will give one or two extracts
from a book written by a self-taught worker for workers,
to show how workers feel on the questions we have touched
upon.

4 * At present the working people of this country live under condi-
tions altogether monstrous. Their labour is much too heavy, their
pleasures are too few ; and in their close streets and crowded houses,
decency and health and cleanliness are well-nigh impossible. It is
not only the wrong of this that I resent, it is the ivaste. Look
through the slums, and see what childhood, girlhood, womanhood,
and manhood have there become. Think what a waste of beauty,
of virtue, of strength, and of all the power and goodness that go to
make a nation great, is being consummated there by ignorance and
by injustice. For, depend upon it, every one of our brothers or
sisters ruined or slain by poverty or vice, is a loss to the nation of
so much bone and sinew, of so much courage and skill, of so
much glory and delight. Cast your eyes, then, over the Registrar-
General's returns, and imagine, if you can, how many gentle nurses,

454 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, xxiv

good mothers, sweet singers, brave soldiers, clever artists, inventors
and thinkers, are swallowed up every year in that ocean of crime
and sorrow which is known to the official mind as 4 the high death-
rate of the wage-earning classes.' Alas ! the pity of it."

And again, from the same writer :

' ' A short time ago a certain writer, much estemed for his graceful
style of saying silly things, informed us that the poor remained
poor because they show no efficient desire to be anything else. Is
that true ? Are only the idle poor ? Come with me, and I will show
you where men and women work from morning till night, from week
to week, from year to year, at the full stretch of their powers, in
dim and fetid dens, and yet are poor, ay, destitute — have for their
wages a crust of bread and rags. I will show you where men work
in dirt and heat, using the strength of brutes, for a dozen hours a
day, and sleep at night in styes, until brain and muscle are ex-
hausted ; and fresh slaves are yoked to the golden car of commerce,
and the broken drudges filter through the union or the prison, to a
felon's or a pauper's grave ! And I will show you how men and women
thus work and suffer, and faint and die, generation after generation,
and I will show you how the longer and harder these wretches toil, the
worse their lot becomes ; and I will show you the graves and find
witnesses to the histories of brave and noble industrious poor men,
whose lives were lives of toil and poverty, and whose deaths were
tragedies. And all these things are due to sin; but it is to the sin of
the smug hypocrites who grow rich upon the robbery and the ruin
of their fellow-creatures."

These extracts are from a small but weighty book called
Merrie England, by Nunquam. In the form of a series of
letters on Socialism to a working man, it contains more
important facts, more acute reasoning, more conclusive
argument, and more good writing, than are to be found in
any English work on the subject I am acquainted with.
When such men — and there are many of them — are
returned to Parliament, and are able to influence the
government of the country, the dawn of a new era, bright
with hope for the long-suffering workers, will be at hand.

CHAPTER XXV

RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS l

THE successful and most instructive experiment made
at Ralahine in 1831-33 is very little appreciated except
by a few advanced reformers ; but it attracted great
attention at the time, and deserves to be better known,
because it affords a practical and conclusive answer to
many of the objections now made to the possibility of
successful co-operation, especially in agriculture. The
adviser and organizer of this great experiment, Mr. E. T.
Craig, exhibited a marvellous tact and knowledge of
human nature, and has shown us how to avoid the rocks
and pitfalls which have led to failure in many other cases,
and this was especially remarkable in so young a man
(then under thirty), and shows him to have been a born
organizer and leader of men. Yet his great powers, which
might have benefited the nation and the human race,
were forbidden their full expansion through the influence
of the money interests and religious prejudices of the
ruling and landed classes. A brief sketch will now be
given of the difficulties he overcame, the results he
achieved, and the lessons to be learnt from his experience.

Ireland in 1830.

In 1830 the state of Ireland, especially in the south
and west, was deplorable. The potato crop had failed and

1 The Irish Land and Labour Question illustrated in the History of
Ralahine and Co-operative Farming. By E. T. Craig. London :
Triibner and Co, 1882,

456 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

200,000 people were starving. Agrarian outrages, murder,
robbery, and intimidation were prevalent. Houses were
broken open to obtain arms ; midnight meetings were
held ; and neither the armed police nor the military could
cope with the situation. County Clare, where Ralahine is
situated, was in the very centre of the disturbed area.
Many of the landlords left their houses in charge of the
police, and went to Dublin or to England. Rents at this
time were enormously high, often £10 or £12 an acre for
small plots of land of average quality, so that all the pro-
duce, except potatoes enough to keep life in the cultivator's
family, went into the landlords' pockets. The crisis had
been aggravated by extensive evictions of the peasantry in
order to form large grazing farms, the rents of which were
more easy to collect and less likely to fail than those of
small holdings. The excitement was intense, and hatred
and suspicion of landlords and of all agents and stewards
was at its height ; and it was at this inopportune moment
that Mr. Craig first came to Ralahine, on the invitation of
its owner, Mr. Vandeleur, to see if he could establish a co-
operative farm and thus restore peace to this one estate
in a time of general anarchy.

The steward who managed the farm had just been mur-
dered, and the owner's family had gone away for safety ;
and it was under these adverse circumstances, that a
stranger from England, a Saxon who knew not a word of
Irish, and a Protestant who, it was thought, would probably
interfere with their religion, was brought over by the
landlord, presumably in his o\vn interest and to get all
that was possible out of themselves, the labourers. The
former steward had been a tyrant, a cruel and unfeeling
one, and they naturally supposed that the new man from
England would be as bad or even worse, and that the talk
about their working for themselves was merely a pretence
to get more work out of them and to rob them more
completely than before. Within the first six weeks
after Mr. Craig's arrival at Ralahine there were four mur-
ders in the immediate neighbourhood, and he himself
received a letter with a sketch of a death's head and
cross-bones and a coffin on which was written, " Death to

xxv RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 457

the Saxon." He lodged in a poor cottage, which was
sometimes in the middle of the night surrounded by a
howling mob, which kept him in expectation of violence or
death . Once he was warned to return home after dark by
a different route from that he was following, and once a
stone was thrown at him from behind and struck him on
the head. In addition to his other troubles, the proprie-
tor's family and most of the gentry around were entirely
opposed to the new system he was preparing to introduce,
and their servants made jests upon him to his face, and
still further prejudiced the people against him.

Mr. Vandeleur, who had been struck by the example of
co-operation he had seen at New Lanark under Robert
Owen, had already made some preparations for the scheme
by building several cottages, sheds, and a large building
suitable for a dining hall, with a lecture or reading room
above, as well as a store-room and some dormitories, and
Mr. Craig was at first engaged in superintending the com-
pletion of these, getting in necessary stores, and making
the acquaintance and endeavouring to gain the confidence
of such of the mechanics and labourers as could
speak English. He also arranged with Mr. Vandeleur the
terms on which the farm, buildings, implements and stock
should be taken, and drew up the rules and regulations
which seemed to him most suitable for the success of the
undertaking. The people who had been hitherto working
on the farm lived scattered about the country, some of
them three or four miles away, so that a long walk was
added to their daily labour. But so wedded are the Irish
peasantry to their homes that it was difficult to get them
to come to live on the farm in the new houses, and still
more difficult for them to agree to take their meals to-
gether. But when at length the more intelligent among
them were satisfied that under the new plan they would
have all surplus profits to divide among themselves, they
saw that to live together and to have their meals in com-
mon would be a great saving, and would enable them to
give more work to the farm ; and as the benefit of all
economies of this kind would not as heretofore go to the
landlord but be really all their own, they soon persuaded

458 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

the others to agree, and thus one great initial difficulty
was overcome.

Description of Raldhine.

The farm of Ralahine contained 618 acres, only 268 of
which were cultivated, the rest being pasture, some of it
very stony or rough, and 63 acres of bog from which peat
for fuel was obtained. There was also live stock and some
farm implements, to the estimated value of £1,500, on
which six per cent, interest was to be paid, the total of
rent and interest being £900, which the landlord himself
admitted was too high, but which was nevertheless
punctually paid for the three years that the experiment
lasted. Mr. Craig showed great judgment in stipulating
that this rent should be paid entirely in produce,
estimated at the average market prices at Limerick of the
last two years, the grain to be delivered at Limerick, the
stock at Dublin or Liverpool, a plan which saved all the
inconvenience of fluctuations of price, as well as the loss
due to forced sales to meet the rent at fixed dates.
This arrangement was one of the causes of success, and it
is of great importance to all peasant-cultivators and
especially in barbarous or thinly populated districts. Yet
so prejudiced are our rulers that they continue to insist,
on money rents in India and hut-taxes paid in money in
our African possessions, entirely regardless of the wishes,
habits, or convenience of the inhabitants. In Ralahine,
unfortunately, this tenancy was a yearly one, and the
experiment was thus dependent on the will or the life of
the landlord. Had it been a secure permanent tenure,
the whole subsequent history of Ireland might have been
changed, while legislation would certainly have been
beneficially influenced by it.

The Organization of the Ralahine Society.

Mr. Craig also drew up a constitution and rules of the
association under forty-four separate heads, dealing with
the purpose of the society, the modes and hours of work
and nominal rates of wages, the arrangements for food,

RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 459

clothing, &c., rules for education and conduct, methods of
government, accounts, &c. A few of the more important
of these may be given. Any member wishing to leave
the society could do so at a week's notice. The landlord
had power, during the first year, to discharge any member
for misconduct. If more labour-power were required new
members could be introduced on being proposed and
seconded. They first came for a week on trial (after-
wards changed to a month), and were then balloted for
and chosen by a majority of votes. The landlord chose
the secretary, treasurer, and store-keeper. All were
to work, and to assist in agriculture when specially
wanted. All youths, male and female, were to learn some
useful trade, as well as farming and gardening. All work
usually done by domestic servants was to be performed by
the boys and girls under seventeen years of age. Meals
could be taken in the public rooms or not as desired, but
those cooking in their own houses must pay for fuel. No
spirituous liquor of any kind was to be kept at the stores
or be brought to the premises. Holidays were to be
arranged so that each of the members could pay occasional
visits to their friends.

The whole business of the society was managed by a
committee of nine members, chosen half-yearly by ballot
by all adult members male and female. This committee
met every evening to decide upon the work of the
following day and any other matters of importance ; and
here Mr. Craig introduced an ingenious arrangement to
prevent friction between the committee and the rest of
the members, which was strictly carried out and was
found to work admirably. In all such societies every
person must know what work he or she has to do the next
day. Now, if the members of the committee who have
decided this have to tell each one individually, all kinds
of difficulties are sure to arise. Many persons cannot give
instructions simply and clearly, but are so verbose and
explanatory that their meaning may be easily mistaken,
from which endless disputes would result. Others speak
too abruptly, and when asked to explain refuse or make
disparaging remarks, hence more quarrels. In fact the

460 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

giving and receiving orders among persons who look upon
each other, and who really are, equals, is one of the most
fertile sources of discord. To avoid this the names of
all the members were arranged alphabetically and con-
secutively numbered, so that every one knew his or her
number, and every horse and implement had also a
number. A series of slates were hung up in the dining
room at the end of each committee meeting, with the
numbers and names of all the members in their proper
order and an exact statement of the work they were to do
the next day. Every one looked at these slates either"
before going to bed or early in the morning, and went
straight to their work without any need of instructions
and without any possibility of mistake. The members of
the committee were divided into sub-committees dealing
with special departments, and any alterations needed during
the day on account of changes in the weather or other
causes were settled by one of them. If any of the arrange-
ments or allotments of work were thought to be injudicious
by any of the members, they could state their objections
in a " suggestion book " which was always open for the
purpose. The remarks in this book were read by Mr.
Craig as secretary, at the evening meetings of the com-
mittee, and the decision upon each point was noted therein
by him.

Even more important, for the harmonious working of
the society, was the weekly meeting of the whole body, at
which the various suggestions during the week, with the
decisions of the committee upon them, were read and
subjected to remarks and criticism. It was thus seen
that attention was given to all these remarks, and that
many of them had been acted upon ; and Mr. Craig tells
us that — "sometimes very j udicious suggestions would be
made by men who, all their lives previously, had been
treated as utterly unworthy of a moment's consideration."
A healthy public opinion was thus formed, and every one
gave his best thought as to how the affairs of the society
could be improved, and the work carried on in the most
economical and effective manner.

RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 461

Self-government at Ralahine.

But although these admirable rules and methods were
suggested by Mr. Craig it must not be thought that
any of them were forced upon the people. At the very
commencement each of them was put to the vote by
ballot of the adult members, and were only adopted by
them, after the purport and use of them had been
explained by Mr. Craig and fully considered among them-
selves. Even the rule against drink and tobacco was
accepted and strictly obeyed during the whole existence
of the society, apparently because they believed that
drinking would interfere with the general harmony, but no
doubt chiefly because they knew that it would lead to
neglect and bad work, and as all returns after paying the
fixed rent were to be their own property, they all wanted
to work as much and as effectively as possible.

Mr. Craig remarks on the change produced in the
workers by this system of associated work and common
benefit as compared with the old system, almost universal
on large estates in Ireland, of badly paid uninterested
labourers under the absolute rule of a tyrannical
steward, who despised them and treated them as inferiors.
The orders they received were often accompanied by
oaths or personal insults, and they did as little work as
they could without being discharged. They were then
almost universally dissatisfied, and had the character of
being lazy; untrustworthy and vicious. As the steward
could not possibly be in all parts of the estate at once,
and had often to be away a considerable part of the day,
the loss to all parties must have been very great.

Many persons now came to see Ralahine, not being able
to credit the accounts they heard of it. One of these, a
large Irish farmer, found a single man repairing the
masonry of a tunnel under a road, which had partly given
way, and to do it he was standing up to his middle in
water. The visitor was surprised, and the following conver-
sation took place :—

Visitor—" Are you working by yourself? "

Man.—" Yes, sir."

462 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Visitor. — " Where is your steward ? "

Man. — " We have no steward."

Visitor. — " Then who sent you to do this work ? "

Man.— " The Committee/3 *

Visitor. — u What Committee ? Who are the Commit-
tee?"

Man. — " Some of the members, Sir."

Visitor. — " What members do you mean ? "

Man. — " The members of the new system — the plough-
men and labourers."

This gentleman afterwards expressed his astonishment
at finding a solitary workman so industrious and doing
the work so well. Another visitor, Mr. John Finch of
Liverpool, who remained three days at Ralahine and
published the results of his inquiry in fourteen letters to
a Liverpool newspaper, makes the following statement :

" A sensible labourer with whom I conversed, when at Ralahine,
in contrasting their present with their former condition under a
steward, said to me, — ' We formerly had no interest, either in doing
a great deal of work, doing it well, or in suggesting improvements,
as all the advantages and all the praise were given to a tyrannical
taskmaster, for his attention and watchfulness. We were looked
upon as merely machines, and his business was to keep us in motion ;
for this reason it took the time of three or four of us to watch him,
and when he was fairly out of sight, you may depend upon it we
did not hurt ourselves by too much labour ; but now that our
interest and our duty are made to be the same we have no need of
a steward at all."

The first members of the society were forty men and
women who had before worked on the estate, and twelve
children, but as there had been much difference of opinion
and some quarrels among them, and as it was desired to
start with a set of people who would work harmoniously
together, it was decided that each one should be balloted
for by the rest, and Mr. Craig insisted that he too, should
be balloted for. Before the ballot, in each case, a
personal criticism took place, and as a result none were
rejected, nor were any expelled afterwards for idleness or
bad conduct ; and this was really a striking example either
of the inherent goodness of the Irish peasant under reason-
ably fair conditions, or of the wonderful effect of associated

xxv RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 463

labour for the common good in improving the character
and conduct. For it must be remembered that these
people were not selected at all, but were the very same
who had before worked on the estate, many of them
having been among what were considered the worst
characters, while some of them were almost certainly the
associates and abettors of the murderer of the former
steward. Mr. Craig assures us that their characters
seemed to be wholly changed ; for whereas under the
despotic rule of the steward they had been sullen, quarrel-
some, and dissatisfied, when working under the men they
had elected to manage the farm in which all had an equal
interest, they became cheerful and contented.

Education and Sanitation at Ralahine.

Mr. Craig was a thorough educationist of the most
advanced type. He was one of the first, if not the very
first, to introduce the kinder-garten system, not only in
the training of infants but throughout all education. He
therefore at once established a school at Ralahine, in which
this system was carried out under a trained teacher and
his personal supervision. His own observation, after long
experience, assures him, he tells us, that children can only
attend with pleasure and profit to a purely intellectual
lesson for a very limited period, which he puts at fifteen
minutes for children of six to seven, increasing to thirty
minutes for those of fifteen to sixteen. He therefore
advocates a constant succession of subjects at each such
interval, alternating with some mechanical, and, if possible,
outdoor work, or with the experimental illustration of
natural laws and phenomena. He was also a specialist
in the general laws of health, and particularly as regards
the need of pure air ; and the result of his arrangements
was visible when an epidemic of cholera and fever was
raging all around the colony, attaining the proportions
of a plague in many of the towns. Ralahine had not a
single case, nor was there any illness during the three
years in a population of eighty and upwards.

A striking illustration of the value of the prohibition

464 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

of spirituous liquors occurred during a time when Mr.
Craig was on a visit to Manchester. Three of the
members attended a " wake," where there was, as usual,
abundance of whisky, resulting in the not unusual fac-
tion-fight, during which stones were thrown and a man
was killed. The Ralahine blacksmith was accused of
throwing the stone which killed the man, was tried and
sentenced to seven years' transportation, and as the two
others were mixed up in the same affair they were dis-
missed from the society. Yet there was plenty of enjoy-
ment without drink, for once or twice every week there
was dancing in the evening, which both men and women
seemed to enjoy, notwithstanding their ten or twelve
hours work in the fields. On other evenings Mr. Craig
gave simple lectures on natural phenomena or the laws of
health, illustrated by such experiments as were adapted
to the intelligence of his audience.

All the people, at Ralahine, with the exception of Mr.
and Mrs. Craig had been accustomed to live almost
entirely on potatoes, and often not enough of these. They
did not therefore expect or want meat ; but they had a
variety of vegetables and as much new milk as they
wished at every meal, with sometimes a little pork and
bread and butter as a luxury. Mr. Craig considered that
abundance of new milk with vegetables, constituted a
perfectly healthy and sufficient diet, on which the hardest
work could be and was done. There was also a large
orchard, which yielded so abundantly that although every
one of the eighty members had as much fruit as they wished,
in one year two cartloads rotted for want of consumers.
It was no doubt owing to this wholesome food, abundance
of fresh air, and cleanliness in all the houses and sur-
roundings, together with the contented cheerfulness
resulting from their improved condition and prospects,
that the perfect healthiness of the Ralahine community
is to be attributed.

An interesting result of the experiment was the change
it produced in the peasant's attitude towards machinery.
Hitherto it had been impossible to use agricultural
machinery in Ireland, because as it clearly reduced the

\\v RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 465

demand for labour and thus tended to lower wages, it
benefited only the landlord or farmer, while it injured
the labourers. But so soon as these labourers were
working for themselves and any surplus profits were their
own, labour-saving machinery became a blessing instead
of a curse. The Ralahine people, therefore, invested their
first savings in a reaping machine, which, in the third
year of their work, enabled them to harvest economically
a splendid crop of wheat which they had grown on some
poor rocky pasture by trenching it eighteen inches deep
and getting out all the rock with crowbars.

This third harvest reaped by the society was an abun-
dant one, and they celebrated it by a harvest-home which
the landlord attended and in a congratulatory speech
summarized the work and success of the Association. He
expressed the great satisfaction he felt at the progress
the Society had made during the short time it had been
in existence ; at the harmony which prevailed in the
social arrangements of the members ; their evident com-
fort, prosperity, and contentment ; contrasting the present
happy state of Ralahine and the quiet condition of the
county with what it was when his family were compelled,
from the dread of outrages and murders, to leave their
home in the care of an armed police force. He congratu-
lated them on the operation of the new system, which had
accomplished a success greater than he had expected ;
and he hoped that other landlords would appreciate the
advantages of giving those they employed a share in the
profits realized by mutual co-operation, as might be seen
in the evidence given by the large crops raised on
hitherto waste land, made richly productive by deep
cultivation, producing a heavy crop of potatoes the first
year, followed by the splendid crop of wheat the last load
of which they were now carrying home.

It seems almost incredible that this unexampled
success, material, social, and moral, did not lead to any
general adoption of a similar plan, which was so well
calculated to banish famine from the country and to bring
about that peace, contentment, and general happiness
which from that day to this has been constantly absent

VOL. II. H H

466 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

from this fertile and beautiful but sadly misgoverned
island. The landlords seem to have had no real wish to
benefit the workers, even though at the same time they
would benefit themselves. Many no doubt were influenced
by their stewards and agents, who, if the new system pre-
vailed, would lose their often profitable employment, and,
more important still, their power and influence. Others
would not trust the peasantry with so much independence,
and others again would insist upon using the schools on
their estates as a means of influencing the children
against the religion of their parents. One landlord ap-
pears to have tried the experiment on a small farm of
a hundred acres, and though this was fairly successful
he did not carry it any further. In another case the
law itself intervened adversely. Mr. William Thompson,
a disciple of Bentham, had large estates in county Cork,
and having visited Ralahine he determined to adopt a
system so beneficial to all parties. He died un-
fortunately soon afterwards, but left his property to
trustees to have his wishes carried into effect. The
will, however, \vas disputed by his relatives, the nature
of the bequest being held to be a proof of insanity !
The suit was carried from the Irish Probate Court to
the Court of Chancery, and finally settled in favour of
the claimants, thus stopping for ever an extension of
the principles and methods that had been so successful
at Ralahine !

The Last Days of the Great Experiment.

We now approach the sad ending of a social experiment
which had been altogether successful and altogether
beneficial, things that do not always go together. Not
only had the admittedly too high rent been punctually
paid for three years, but the estate itself had been greatly
improved, by the bringing into cultivation of twenty acres
of almost worthless land ; by the erection of six additional
cottages ; by the purchase of a reaping machine and other
tools, and by some increase in the stock. The men,
women and children employed on the farm had increased

RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 467

in number from 52 to 81. All these entered upon it half-
starved and in rags. At the end of the third year they
were all strong and well fed, and had at least two suits of
clothes each, and many of them had saved money in the
form of labour-notes represented by the net increase in
stock and crops above what was required for payment of
the exorbitant rent. There had been no deaths, no illness,
no quarrels, and no secessions from the little community.
All were contented and happy, and were looking forward
with confidence to a still greater prosperity in the coming
year, and the certainty in a few years more of being able
to pay off the value of the stock and implements and thus
become the owners of everything but the land.

There was abundance of water-power on the property ;
and it was contemplated some day to utilize it for the pur-
pose of establishing home-manufactures, which would give
profitable employment to many of the members during
bad weather, or at seasons of less pressure in agricultural
work, and thus add still further to the productiveness and
self-supporting character of the Association.

If the rent had been a fair one, that is at least £200 a
year less than was actually paid, there is no reasonable
doubt that there would have been a continuous increase
of prosperity, and that ultimately double the number of
persons could have been easily supported on the land.
Never perhaps in the history of our country was there
a more important social experiment tried, or one that
was so completely successful and so thoroughly
beneficial.

But suddenly a terrible misfortune fell upon them
and shattered their prosperity and their hopes. The
landlord and president of the Association, not long after
the harvest-home suddenly disappeared. During the time
that Mr. Craig and the other members of the Associa-
tion had been working hard to ensure their own and his
prosperity, he had spent much of his time from home,
had been gambling in Dublin, and had got into such
difficulties that he felt them to be overwhelming. He
therefore escaped to America without a word of explana-
tion to his family. A banker to whom he owed money

H H 2

468 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

obtained a decree of bankruptcy against the estate, and
all the stock and movable property were appropriated and
sold by auction. The Association was held to have no legal
claim, the agreement was declared to be invalid, and the
members were treated as mere labourers having no rights
whatever beyond their weekly wages. Property which
they had themselves bought, as well as the surplus
stock and crops against which several of the members
held labour-notes to the amount of £50, were all con-
fiscated ; and this oasis in the desert of Irish misery, this
little " heaven upon earth " as the people around were
accustomed to call it, became a thing of the past. Mr.
Craig, however, determined that none but himself should
lose their savings, and by selling his own personal effects
and borrowing the balance from friends, succeeded in re-
deeming all the outstanding notes, and, so far as he was
concerned, leaving no stain on the honour of Ralahine
and the New System, which he had so judiciously in-
augurated and so successfully supervised during the three
years of its existence.

The Teachings of Ralahine.

Having thus given a brief history of this notable
experiment, from the various fragmentary indications in
Mr. Craig's interesting but very excursive and rather
confusing little volume ; supplemented by the more con-
nected account by Mr. W. Pare, I wish to call special
attention to some of the lessons to be learnt from it, which
are of very great importance at this time, when writers of
authority assert positively, that any general system of
co-operative industry must fail on account of certain
deficiencies in the character of workers as a class.1

1. It is said, again and again, that the majority of men
will not work without either the dread of starvation or

1 Mr. Craig's book is called The Irish Land and Labour Question,
illustrated in the History of Ralahine and Co-operative Farming, Triibner
and Co. 1882. Another work, Co-operative Agriculture in Ireland, by
William Pare, F.S.S. , Longmans, 1870, gives a more connected account
from personal observation of the same experiment, and of some others.

xxv RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 469

the incitement of individual gain. The common good, the
well-being of the community of which they form a part,
and on the economical success of which their own well-
being depends, it is said, is not sufficient. There will
be numbers of men and women who are constitutionally
lazy, and there will always be more or less of loafers, who
will thus live upon the labour of their fellows.

The answer to this general proposition is, that such
persons, who are perhaps not really numerous, do as little
work as they can now, while great numbers do none at all
but live by the plunder of society in various ways, some
criminal, some quite respectable ; whereas, in a co-operative
or socialistic community of any kind, all these people
would do some work, or they would be expelled from the
community or treated in some way that would be far
more disagreeable to them than working. It is further
urged that the influences impelling them to work would
be far stronger than now. At present the working classes
of all grades, from the common labourer up to the engineer,
architect, parson, or doctor, do not in any way look down
upon the person who does no work whatever, and only
lives to enjoy his life as best he can on inherited property.
They do not for the most part see that such a person lives
upon their labour just as much as the most thorough
loafer among themselves, and with just as little real right
or justice.1 But in a co-operative state of society the very
reverse would be the case. The lazy man who shirked
his work in any. degree, who did not do that fair share of
work which he had both strength and ability to do, would
be despised as a mean and dishonest individual, and if he
persisted in his idleness would be so treated that he would
feel like a detected cheat, liar, or thief, in a society of
gentlemen; and, it is alleged, that under this moral
compulsion every man would do a fair share of work.

But both these arguments are purely academic, and
they may continue to be urged by each side, to their own
satisfaction but without convincing the other, till dooms-
day. An experimental test, on however small a scale, is

1 This point has been elaborated and demonstrated in Chapters XV.
and XXIV. of this volume.

470 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

therefore of value, and at Ralahine we had such a test.
Mr. Craig was a very close observer, but he gives no hint
that any of the members shirked their work, while he
declares that all were industrious, and that without any
supervision men would work hard and well for the benefit
of the community and of themselves. There was no doubt
some considerable inequality in the work done by
individuals, because men's capacity for work differs ; but
there is no indication whatever that systematic idleness
formed a difficulty at Ralahine. Yet under the old system
of work under a steward for daily wages only, the Irish
peasants were always alleged to be incorrigibly idle; and
the same thing is said of the cotters who worked their
own land, when every increase of productiveness and every
appearance of improvement in the house, or the food or
clothing of the family, was the sure precursor of an
increase of rent. Mr. Finch, however, who made a per-
sonal study of Ralahine, and who gave evidence before
a Committee of the House of Commons in 1834, deals
especially with this subject in his letters to the Liverpool
Chronicle in 1838 ; he savs, as quoted in Mr. Fare's book
(p. 61):-

" There were at first two or three fellows inclined to be idle, and
they were cured in the way wild elephants are tamed. The com-
mittee who fixed the labour knew their characters, and appointed one
of these idlers to work between two others who were industrious —
at digging, for instance ; he was obliged to keep up with them, or
he became the subject of laughter and ridicule to the whole society.
This is what no man could stand. By these means they were soon
cured : and when I was there, there was not an idle man, woman, or
child in the whole society. Indeed, public opinion was found
sufficient for the cure of every vice and folly."

And Mr. Craig tells us the result in the following
passage : —

" At harvest-time the whole Society used voluntarily to work
longer than the time specified, and I have seen the whole body
occasionally, at these seasons, act with such energy, and accomplish
such great results by their united exertions, that each and all
seemed as if tired by a wild enthusiastic determination to achieve
some glorious enterprise — and that too without any additional
stimulus in the shape of extra pecuniary reward."

RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 471

Here we have an indication of what will happen when
labour is organized as we now organize our armies, and
when all the ardour and enthusiasm now devoted to the
destruction of life and property is excited in the interest
of labour exerted for the preservation, well-being, and
happiness of all.

2. It is said that working men will not submit to the
orders of their equals even when chosen by themselves to
be foremen of the work, and that quarrels will result, and
the community be soon broken up. That this has some-
times happened is no doubt true, but that it will always
happen or need happen is disproved by the example now
before us. The Irish are perhaps rather more quarrel-
some and more quick to take offence than many other
races ; yet with a few common-sense rules as to the
management and the overpowering influence of self-
interest, we find them at Ralahine living and working
together for three years in the most perfect harmony.
Of course there was the power of expulsion of any indi-
vidual who could not or would not live at peace with the
rest ; but that power can be exerted by any community,
and the dread of expulsion will probably be a sufficient
deterrent in most other places, as it was at Ralahine.

3. One of the most serious allegations (if it were true)
against socialism or any complete system of co-operative
society is, that there would be no incentive to invention
or improvement, and that civilization, instead of ad-
vancing, would either stand still or retrograde and ulti-
mately fall back to barbarism. But all history shows
that this supposed objection is utterly unfounded, and
that the joy of the inventor, like that of the artist, arises
first from the exercise of his special talent, next from the
interest and admiration it excites in his fellows, and last
of all and least of all, from any hope of exceptional money
reward. The lives of such men as Kepler, Galileo, Palissy,
Watt, Herschel, Faraday, and a hundred others, show the
truth of this ; and at Ralahine it was found that the most
ignorant of the labourers were sometimes able to make
suggestions of value to the community. Quite recently,
Mr. Preece, in a lecture before the Liverpool Engineering

472 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

Society, stated, that since the telegraphs had been
worked by the Post Office four times as much work was
done by the same length of wire as could be done at first,
and that this was mainly due to improvements made by
officers of the postal service. These improvements, he
said, had never been patented, and the inventors of them
received no money reward. The objection that inven-
tion would cease, may therefore be dismissed as purely
imaginary, and quite unsupported by an appeal to facts.

4. An objection made much of by Mr. Mallock and
others is, that the power of organization, or business
capacity in its higher forms, is the almost exclusive
possession of the capitalist class, and will only be exer-
cised under the stimulus of a very high salary or great
prospective gain. The associated workers must therefore
necessarily fail for want of this capacity. It may be
admitted that great organizing power is rare, and that,
under our present social arrangements and struggle for
wealth it commands a high price, and often brings wealth
to its possessor. But the assumption that it exists in one
class only, and the supposition that, under a different
state of society, it will not be utilized because it is not so
highly paid, is unproved as fact and unsound as reasoning.
The exercise of this faculty is the exercise of power ; and
this is always enjoyed for its own sake, or for the sake of
the benefits it confers on humanity, arid is still further
enjoyed on account of the admiration and esteem of his
fellow men which it usually brings to its possessor. The
idea that the man who has this great faculty, and is
asked by his fellow citizens to use it for the common good,
will refuse because he will not be exceptionally paid, is
about as absurd, and as contrary to all experience, as to
maintain that the great leader of armies or fleets will not
lead till he is assured of higher pay than all other leaders.
Two of the greatest organizers of modern times, Count
von Moltke and General Booth, were certainly not incited
to exertion by the hope of a money reward.

And the experience at Ralahine shows that a sufficient
business capacity does exist among very humble men so
soon as they have an opportunity of exercising it. It

xxv RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 473

would certainly be deemed by most persons to require
considerable business talent, in addition to agricultural
knowledge, to manage successfully a farm of over six
hundred acres, employing eighty people and subject to
an exorbitant rent, so as to be in a much better position
at the end of three years than at the beginning. And
yet this was done wholly by a committee of common Irish
ploughmen and labourers. It may be said that they had
an organizer in Mr. Craig, and no doubt much of the
social success was due to him ; but he was not a farmer,
and though he no doubt was largely responsible for the
good health and general harmony of the little community,
the farm, as a business concern, was wholly managed by
the farm labourers themselves. Here again the imag-
inary objections of the critics are fully answered by
facts.

5. Perhaps one of the commonest, and at the same
time wildest and least grounded of these allegations is,
that any kind of socialism is slavery — is a despotism so
rigid and so cruel that people will not long submit to it ;
and that the system will necessarily break down and men
will gladly return again to the old, wise, perfect and
wholly-beneficial-to-everybody system of competition,
starvation, and slums !

There is not a particle of evidence adduced for these
statements, and experience is wholly against them.
Whenever there have been associations for the common
good, of people in a similar grade of education and of
social advancement, they have usually succeeded. The
Shakers and some other communistic societies have suc-
ceeded marvellously. Owen's mills at New Lanark were
a perfect success as long as he was allowed to carry on
the experiment ; and the case of Ralahine is particularly
striking. There we had the direct comparison of co-
operation against individualism under exactly the same
external conditions and surroundings, and we have the
opinion expressed both by the members who experienced
its benefits, and the surrounding population which looked
on with a wondering surprise. And what was their
unanimous judgment ? Did they say that the New

474 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

System was slavery, and that though it fed and clothed
its members they would have none of it ? Not one of the
Irish workers left it voluntarily. Numbers applied for
admittance for whom there was no room ; and the only
words they could find strong enough to express their
approval were, that Ralahine had become " a little heaven
upon earth " under the new system, while under the old
one " it was a hell ! " Now the Ralahine experiment was
pure socialism. It was voluntary co-operation for the
good of all. All benefited equally ; all worked to the
best of their ability ; all fared alike. They lived together,
worked together, and played together; and even those
who would have been idlers and loafers if they could, did
not go away, did not declare they could not stand the
slavery, but remained, and worked on happily with the
rest. The purely academic objection, the critic's idea of
what he thinks would happen, is directly contradicted by
the appeal to facts.

6. We come now to the last refuge of the individualist,
an objection urged even by many who can find nothing
but praise for the ideals of socialism. It is, that we are
not good enough for such an ideal system ; that we must
alter human nature before a co-operative commonwealth
(which is the brief definition of socialism) is possible.
Here again we have bold assertion without any attempt,
or the shadow of an attempt, at proof. All moralists,
students of human nature, and social workers know well
that a very large proportion of crime is not due to any
exceptional badness of the criminals, but either to ex-
ceptional temptation or the character of the surroundings
in childhood and youth. They know, and we all know,
that the men and women who pass through life unstained
by conspicuous vice or actual crime owe their immunity
in a large number, perhaps in a majority of cases, to their
happy surroundings and freedom from temptation, and
not to any superiority of character to many of those who.
after a first offence, are irresistibly driven by our vile
systems of punishment and our still viler social environ-
ment to a life of crime. Look at the cases of what is
termed kleptomania now and then occurring among men

xxv RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 475

and women almost wholly removed from the temptation
to theft. For each one of these cases that comes before
the public there must be scores and hundreds of persons
in whom the impulse exists in a less pronounced degree,
but who gratify it in various harmless ways — becoming
collectors, picking up bargains, &c., or by exerting all
their energy in the practice of those various devices,
concealments, or adulterations, which in manufacture or
trade soon lead to honourable fortune. Had all the
people with these dispositions been born and brought up
in the slums, they would certainly have gone to swell the
ranks of thieves or burglars, their " human nature " being
exactly the same as that which, under more favourable
conditions, caused them to remain respected members of
society. Again, look at the most suggestive history of
the Pitcairn Islanders, the descendants of the mutineers
of the Bounty, men brutalized by subjection to the cruelty
of superiors perhaps no better than themselves, but given
absolute power over them. After years of riot and fighting
which made a very pandemonium of this tropic isle, all
were killed but one, John Adams, whose influence then
brought peace and contentment among the population of
half-breeds, the descendants of the original mutineers, and
for many years they remained a model community. We
cannot suppose there was any great change of character,
always for the better, in the descendants of these rough
men and savage women, but the better conditions brought
about by the influence of the one survivor, appeared to
effect a radical change in their nature

And this view is strikingly supported by the case of
Ralahine. The people there were considered to be among
the worst of the Irish peasantry. They mostly belonged to
the White Boys, Moonlighters, and other organizations for
intimidating landlords and agents and carrying on the
agrarian war then at its height. They were universally
declared by their employers to be idle, wasteful, quarrel-
some and vindictive. They had just connived at, perhaps
helped in, the murder of the agent of the estate, and were
universally considered to be about as bad a lot as could be
found. They were, moreover, among the lowest and most

476 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

ignorant class of Irish labourers. Apparently no more
unpromising material could be found in the three kingdoms.
Yet in a few months their whole natures appeared to be
entirely changed. Their idleness became untiring in-
dustry ; their wastefulness a most careful economy ; their
quarrelsomeness a cheerful good- temper and joyousness
which lasted for three years ! Here was a marvellous
change of conduct under conditions of simple justice,
sympathy, and self-interest ; but there could have been no
change whatever in the nature of these poor people. It
was simply the result of a change from bad conditions to
good conditions, from injustice, tyranny, contemptuous
abuse and oppression by their immediate superiors and
employers, to one of fairness, freedom, civility and mutual
self-interest. And yet our would-be teachers, who claim
to be of the " superior " classes, can find no remedy for the
countless and terrible evils of our existing social system,
but a vague appeal for a higher " human nature " in some
distant future ! May we not properly say to such people —
"Physician! cure thyself." It may be true that some
human natures need elevating ; but it is quite as likely to
be the nature of those who believe that the piling up of
wealth for themselves and others of their class is the great
object of life, as of those simple Irish ploughmen and
labourers who only asked to be allowed to work hard under
moderately fair conditions, and so long as they were per-
mitted to do so lived joyous, contented, and blameless
lives.

We are again and again told, that attempts at realizing
socialism have all failed, and that they have failed in
consequence of deficiencies in the character of the workers.
History, however, tells a different story. The three experi-
ments which in various degrees best illustrate the advan-
tages of socialistic co-operation are those of Robert Owen at
New Lanark, E. T. Craig at Ralahine, and more recently,
of the Willimantic Thread Company of Connecticut under
the management of Colonel Barrows.1 All of these
succeeded perfectly, so far as the conduct, contentment and

1 See Mr. D. Pidgeon's account of this place in his Old World
Questions and New World Answers, Chapter XIII.

xxv RALAHINE AND ITS TEACHINGS 477

improvement of the workers were concerned. They were all
alike broken up by the misconduct or greed of the
capitalistic owners — the self-styled " superior classes."
But we do not therefore jump to the conclusion that these
classes are worse than the workers, and that it is their
" human nature " that wants altering. On the contrary we
believe, as does Herbert Spencer, that on the average, both
classes are equal in moral worth as well as in intellectual
power, and that, when the wealthy and educated classes are
once freed from the debasing influence of cut-throat competi-
tion and the worship of wealth, they will be amenable to the
influences of a more elevating environment, arid will be quite
as well able to make the co-operative commonwealth a
success, as were the humble Irish labourers and the
enthusiastic young Englishman at Ralahine.

CHAPTER XXVI.

REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND : THE ONLY IMMEDIATE
SOLUTION OF THE PROBLEM OF THE UNEMPLOYED.

WE have now just completed a century which has far
surpassed all preceding centuries in the increase of man's
power over natural forces, and consequent enormous
increase in the production of wealth. The amount of this
increase may be judged from the fact, that fifteen years ago
the steam-power in Great Britain was about ten times the
labour power of the whole population. It is now certainly
much greater, and by the use of enormously improved
labour-saving machinery, this steam-power is again
increased at least tenfold in efficiency — often very much
more ; so that our people now perform at least a hundred
times as much productive work as during the preceding
centuries, when steam-power and labour-saving machines
were little used or almost unknown.

Yet with this hundred-fold capacity for producing the
food, clothing and other commodities needed for the satis-
faction of all the wants of human nature, and for obtaining
all the comforts and enjoyments of life, what do we find ?
Huge masses of people suffering untold want, misery, and
degradation in all our great cities, while in the country
villages they are often surrounded by game preserves and
untilled fields ; an ever-increasing number dying of actual
starvation, cold, or want ; insanity and suicide increasing
more rapidly than the population ; and according to a very
competent authority — a prison chaplain, who has studied

CHAP, xxvi REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND 479

the statistics of crime for thirty years — an equally large
increase in the prison population and in crime itself.1

As confirming and illustrating all these terrible facts,
we find, in the annual reports of the Registrar-General,
proof that for the last forty years there has been a
continuous increase in the proportion of deaths
occurring in workhouses, hospitals, asylums, and other
public charitable institutions, from 16 per cent, of the
total deaths (in London) in the five years 1856-60, to 26*9
per cent, in the years 1892-96 ; while a similar increase,
though not quite so great, is shown for the whole of
England.

Coincident with all these facts, and to some extent
explaining them, is the continuous depopulation of the
rural districts and increase of town and city populations,
certainly largely due, and I believe wholly due, to the
monopoly of the land in the hands of a limited class, which
has always forbidden, and still forbids to the workers, the
free use of their native soil except in a very small number
of cases, and usually on exorbitant terms. Hence has
arisen the phenomenon of an ever-increasing lack of per-
manent employment ; the flocking of large numbers of
rural labourers to the towns ; the increase of want, suicide,
insanity, and crime ; millions of acres of land going out of
cultivation; and the cry of agricultural depression, now
raised the more loudly because the pockets of the land-
lords themselves are affected by it.

Most of the aspects of the "problem of poverty" above
adverted to, I have dealt with more or less fully else-
where, and also to some extent in the chapters of this
volume on the Land Question, the Social Quagmire, &c.
My present object is to suggest an immediate practical
remedy for some of the worst features of the present state
of things, by withdrawing from the labour market the
superabundant workers and rendering them wholly self-
supporting on the land. This once effected, every other
worker in the kingdom will be benefited, and the move-
ment for a greatly improved organisation of society will be

1 See "Increase of Crime," by Rev. W. D. Morrison, in the
Nineteenth Century of June, 1892.

480 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

advanced by a practical illustration of the enormous waste
involved in the capitalistic and competitive s}rstem that now
prevails.

The Problem of the Unemployed.

The problem of general unemployment is well stated by
Mr. J. Hobson in the Contemporary Review, April, 1898.
He says :

" Why is it that, with a wheat-growing area so huge and so
productive that in good years whole crops are left to rot in the
ground, thousands of English labourers, millions of Russian peasants
cannot get enough bread to eat ? Why is it that, with so many cotton-
mills in Lancashire, that they cannot all be kept working for any
length of time together, thousands of people in Manchester cannot
get a decent shirt to their backs ? Why is it that, with a growing
glut of mines and miners, myriads of people are shivering for lack
of coals ? "

Now, not one of our authorized teachers of political
economy, not one of our most experienced legislators can
give any clear answer to these questions, except by vague
reference to the immutable laws of supply and demand,
and by the altogether false statement that things are not
so bad as they were, and that in course of time they will
improve of themselves. Mr, H. V. Mills had his attention
directed to this subject by an individual instance of the
same phenomenon. He found in Liverpool, next door to
each other, a baker, a shoemaker, and a tailor, all out of
work, all wanting the bread, clothes and shoes which they
could produce, all willing and anxious to work, and yet all
compelled to remain idle and half starving. His book has
been before the world several years; it contains a
practical and efficient remedy for this state of things ; yet
no attempt whatever has been made to give his plan a
fair trial. Let us therefore see if we can throw a little
more light on the problem, and thus help to force it upon
the attention of those who have the power, but who
believe that nothing can be done.

The answer to the question so well put by Mr. Hobson,
and which Mr. Stead, in the Review of Reviews, considers
to be the modern problem of the Sphinx which it needs a

xxvi REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND 481

modern (Edipus to solve, is nevertheless perfectly easy.
To put it in its simplest form it is as follows:—
Unemployment exists, and must increase, because, under
the conditions of modern society, production of every kind is
carried on, nut at all for the purpose of supplying the wants
of the producers, but solely with the object of creating wealth
for the capitalist employer.

Now, I believe that this statement contains the
absolute root of the whole matter, and indicates the true
and only lines of the complete remedy. But to many it
will be a hard saying ; let us therefore examine it a little
in detail.

The capitalist cotton-spinner, cloth or boot-manu-
facturer, colliery-owner, or iron-master, care not the least
ivho buys their goods or loho uses them, so long as they can
get a good price for them. The cotton, the boots, the
coals, or the iron, may be exported to India or Australia,
to America or to Timbuctoo, while millions are in-
sufficiently clad or warmed in the very places where all
these things are made. Even the very people who make
them may thus suffer, through insufficient wages or
irregular employment ; yet the upholders of the present
system will not admit that anything is fundamentally
wrong.' The lowness of wages and irregularity of
employment, are, they tell us, due to general causes over
which they have no control — such as foreign competition,
insufficient markets, &c., which injure the capitalists as
well as the workers. The unemployed exist, they say, on
account of the improvements in machinery and in
mechanical processes in all civilised countries, which
economise labour and thus render production cheaper.
The surplus labour, therefore, is not wanted ; and that
portion of it which cannot be absorbed in administering
to the luxury of the rich must be supported by charity or
starve. That is the last word of the capitalists and of the
majority of the politicians. But though capitalists and
politicians are satisfied to let things go on as they are,
with ever-increasing wealth and luxury on the one hand,
ever-increasing misery and discontent on the other,
thinking men and women all over the world are not

VOL. II. I I

482 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

satisfied, and will not be satisfied, without a complete
solution of the problem : which, though they are not yet
able to see clearly, they firmly believe can be found.

Governments in modern times have gone on the
principle that they have nothing whatever to do with the
employment or want of employment of the people, — with
high wages or low wages, with luxury or starvation,
except inasmuch as the latter calamity may be prevented
by the poor-law guardians. A great change has, however,
occurred in the last few years. Both the local and
imperial Governments have admitted the principle of a
reasonable subsistence wage, and are acting upon it, in
flagrant opposition to the principles of the old political
economy. Now too, I observe, the buying of Government
stores abroad because they can be obtained a fraction per
cent, cheaper than at home, is being given up, though
only three or four years ago the practice was defended as
being in accordance with true economical principles, and
also because it was the duty of the Government to buy as
cheaply as possible in the interest of the tax-payer. I
only mention these facts to show that new ideas are
permeating modern society and are compelling Govern-
ments, however reluctantly, to act upon them. We may,
therefore, hope to compel our rulers to acknowledge, that
it is their duty also to provide the conditions necessary to
enable those who are idle and destitute — from no fault of
their own, but solely through the failure of our compet-
itive and monopolist system — to support themselves by
their own labour. Hitherto they have told us that it
cannot be done, that it would disorganise society, that it
would injure other workers. We must, therefore, show
them how it can be done, and insist that at all events the
experiment shall be tried. I will now give my ideas of
how this great result can be brought about, and the
reasons which I believe demonstrate that the method
will be successful.

Hitherto there has been no organisation of communities
or of society at large for purposes of production, except so
far as it has arisen incidentally in the interest of the
capitalist employers and the monopolist land-owners.

xxvi REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND 483

The result is the terrible social quagmire in which we now
find ourselves. But it is certain that organisation in the
interest of the producers, who constitute the bulk of the
community, is possible ; and as, under existing conditions,
the millions who are wholly destitute of land or capital
cannot organise themselves, it becomes the duty of the
State, by means of the local authorities, to undertake this
organisation ; and if it is undertaken on the principle
that all production is to be, in the first place, for con-
sumption by the producers themselves, and only when the
necessary wants of all are satisfied, for exchange in order
to procure luxuries, such organisation cannot fail to be a
success.

Why Organised Industry must le a Success.

My confidence in its success is founded on three con-
siderations, which I will briefly enumerate. The first is,
the enormous productive power of labour when aided by
modern labour-saving machinery. Mr. Edward Atkinson,
admitted to be the greatest American authority on the
statistics of production and commerce, has calculated that
two men's labour for a year in the wheat-growing States
of America will produce, ready for consumption, 1,000
barrels of flour, barrels included ; and this quantity will
produce bread for 1,000 persons for a year. Now as we
can grow more bushels of wheat an acre than are grown
in America, we could also produce the bread for 1,000
persons by the labour of say four or five men including the
baking. Again, he tells us that, with the best machinery,
one workman can produce cotton cloth for 250 people,
woollen goods for 300, or boots and shoes for 1,000. And
as other necessaries will require an equally moderate
amount of labour, we see how easily a community of
workers could produce, at all events all the necessaries of
life, by the expenditure of but a small portion of their
total labour-power.

The next consideration is, that in the Labour Colonies
of Holland, the unemployed are so organised as to produce
all that they consume, or its value, without the use of any
labmir-saving machinery. The reason they have none, as

I i 2

484 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the director told Mr. Mills, is, that it would lead to a
difficulty in finding work for the people of the colony, and
it would then be less easy to manage them. The difficulty
in this case seems to be to provide against the possibility
of a too great success ! l

The third consideration which points to the certainty
of success is, the demonstrable enormous waste of the
present capitalistic and competitive system ; and the
corresponding enormous economies of a community in
which all production would be carried on primarily for
consumption by the producers themselves. This economy
will be illustrated as we consider the organisation of such
a community.

The Economics of an Industrial Community.

A careful consideration of the whole problem by experts
will determine the minimum size of a colony calculated to
ensure the most economical production of all the chief
necessaries of life. Let us take it at about 5,000 persons,
including men, women and children, which is Mr. Mills'
estimate. Enough land will be required to grow all the
kinds of produce needed, both vegetable and animal — say
two to three thousand acres — and a skilled manager will
be engaged to superintend each separate department of
industry. Not only will bread, vegetables, fruit and meat
of all kinds be grown on the land, but the whole of the
needful manufactures will be carried on, aided by steam,
water, or wind power as may be found most convenient
and economical. To provide clothes, tools, furniture,
utensils, and conveniences of all kinds for 5,000 people,
workshops and factories of suitable dimensions will be
provided, and skilled workers in each department will be
selected from among the unemployed or partially employed.
A village with separate cottages or lodgings for families
and individuals, with central cooking and eating-rooms
for all who desire to use them, would form an essential
part of the colony. The village would be built on a high
yet central position, so that all the sewage could be
applied by gravitation to the lower and more distant
1 See, Poverty and the State, by H. V, Mills, Chapter X

I II •:<)('( PUPATION OF THE LAND 4sr>

portions of the land, while all the solid refuse and
manurial matter would be applied to the higher portions.
Here would be the first great economy, both in wealth
and health. Every particle of sewage and refuse would
be immediately returned to the land, where, under the
beneficent action of the chemistry of nature, it would be
again converted into wholesome food and other products.

Another economy, of vast amount but difficult to
estimate, would arise from the whole effective population
being available to secure the crops when at their
maximum productiveness. Who has not seen, during
wet seasons, hay lying in the fields week after week till
greatly deteriorated or completely spoilt ; shocks of wheat
sprouting and ruined; fruit rotting on the ground;
growing crops choked with weeds, all involving loss to
the amount of many millions annually, and all due to
the capitalistic system which has led to the overcrowding
of the towns aad the depopulation of the rural districts.
But this is only a portion of the loss from deficiency of
labour at the critical moment. Agricultural chemists
know that, even in good seasons, a considerable portion of
the nutritious qualities of hay is lost by the cutting of
the grass being delayed a few weeks, owing to uncertain
weather, the pressure of other work, or a deficiency of
labour. The critical moment is when the grass is in flower.
Every day later it deteriorates ; and in our self-supporting
colonies the whole population would be available to supply
whatever assistance the head farmer required to get the
hay made in the best possible state. A single fine day
utilised, with the aid of machinery and ample labour,
would often save hundreds of pounds value to the colony.
The same would be the case with wheat and other corn
crops, as well as with fruit and vegetables.

In such a colony education could be carried on in a
rational manner not possible under the present conditions
of society, where the means of industrial training have to
be specially provided. Ordinary school work would be at
the most three or four hours daily ; the remainder of the
working day being devoted to various forms of industrial
work. Every child would be taught to help in the simpler

486 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

agricultural processes, as weeding, fruit gathering, &c.,
and besides this each person would learn at least two
trades or occupations, more or less contrasted ; one being
light and sedentary, the other more active and laborious,
and involving more or less out-door work. By this means
not only would a pleasant and healthful variety of occu-
pation be rendered possible for each worker, but the
community would derive the benefit of being able to
concentrate a large amount of skilled labour on any
pressing work, such as buildings or machinery.

But perhaps the greatest economy of all would arise
from such a community being almost wholly free from
costs of transit, profits of the middleman, and need for
advertising. The total amount of this kind of waste, on
the present system, is something appalling, and can be
best realised by considering the difference between the
cost of manufacture and the retail price of a few typical
articles. Wheat now varies from 22s. to 80s. a quarter,
which quantity yields nearly six hundred pounds of bread.
In our proposed community the labour of making the
flour would be repaid by the value of the pollard and
bran, while the bread-making would employ two or three
men and women. The actual cost of their four-pound
loaf, reckoning the labourers to receive present wages,
would be about 2d., while it now costs 3|d. or 4d. a
saving of at least 40 or 50 per cent. Again, the^best
Cork butter sells wholesale at 8d. a pound, the actual
maker probably getting no more than 7d., while the retail
consumer has to pay double — here would be a saving of at
least 50 per cent. Milk is sold wholesale by the farmers
at about 7d. a gallon, while it is retailed at 16d. a gallon—
a saving of more than 60 per cent. In meat there would
be, probably, about the same saving as in bread; in
vegetables and fruit very much more ; in coals bought
wholesale from the pit, as compared with the rate at which
it is sold by the hundredweight or the pennyworth to the
poor in great cities, an equally large saving. And in
addition to all this, there would be the economy in the
cooking for a large community ; in the freshness and good
quality of all food and manufactured products ; and,

xxvi REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND 487

further, in the saving of labour by all those improvements
in gas and water supply, in disposing of refuse, in warming
and ventilation, which can be easily provided for a large
community living in a compact and well arranged set of
buildings.

The Waste of Competition.

Taking all these various economies into consideration,
it is probably far below the mark to say that our present
system of production on a huge scale for the benefit of
capitalists and landlords only, on the average doubles the
cost of everything to the consumer ; that is to say, the
cost of distribution is equal to, and often much greater
than, the cost of production. And this is said to be an
economical system ! A system too perfect, and almost
too sacred to be touched by the sacrilegious hands of
the reformer! We are to go on for ever spending a
pound to get every pound's worth of goods from the
producer to the consumer ; just as under our poor-law
system it costs a shilling to give a starving man a shilling's
worth of food and lodging.

But there is yet another economy, which I have not
hitherto mentioned, and which may perhaps be said to
be the greater in real value and importance than all the
rest — and that is the economy to the actual producer, of
time, of labour, of health, and the large increase .in his
means of recreation and happiness. Agricultural
labourers now often have to walk two or three miles to
their work ; mill-hands, including women and children,
walk long distances in all weathers to be at the mill-gates
by six in the morning ; workers by the million undergo a
process of slow but certain destruction in unsanitary
workshops, or in dangerous or unhealthy occupations,
many of which (as making the enamelled iron advertising
plates, for example, as well as poisonous matches) are quite
unnecessary for the needs of a properly organised
community; while in all cases it is only a question of
expense to save the workers from any injury to health.
In our self-supporting communities all these sources of
waste and misery would be avoided. All work would be

488 . STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

near at hand. No work permanently injurious to health
would be permitted ; while the alternations of out-door
and indoor work, together with the fact that every worker
would be working for himself, for his family, and for a
community of which he formed an integral part on an
equality with all his fellow- workers, would give a new
interest to labour similar to that which every gardener
feels in growing vegetables for his own table, and every
mechanic in fitting up some useful article in his own
house. Then again, while living in and surrounded by
the country and enjoying all the advantages and pleasures
of country life, a community of five thousand persons
would possess in themselves the means of supplying most
of the relaxations and enjoyments of the town, such as
music, theatricals, clubs, reading rooms, and every form of
healthy social intercourse.

How to Establish Go-operative Communities.

This is not the place to go into the minute details of
the establishment of such communities, but a few words
as to ways and means may be considered necessary.

Mr. Mills has estimated that the capital required to
buy the land and start such a colony, would not exceed
two years' poor-rates of a Union where there are an equal
number of paupers. But there is really no necessity for
buying the land. It might be taken where required at a
fair valuation and paid for by means of a terminable
rental, similar to that by which Irish tenants have been
enabled to purchase their farms ; but in this case the
county would be the purchaser, not an individual, and
after the first year, or perhaps two years, this rent-charge
would be easily payable by the colony. The capital
needed for buildings, machinery, and one year's partial
subsistence, should be furnished, half by the County or
Union, and half by the Government, free of interest, but
to be repaid by instalments to commence after, say, five
or ten years. It would really be to the advantage of the
community at large 'to give this capital, since it would
inevitably lead to the abolition of unemployment and of

REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND 489

able-bodied pauperism which would more than repay the
initial outlay.

In each colony there would be grown or manufactured
a considerable amount of surplus produce, which would be
sold in order to purchase food which cannot be produced
at home — as tea, coffee, spices, &c., and also such raw
materials as iron and coal. The things produced for sale
would vary according to the facilities for its production
and local demand. In some colonies it would be wheat
or barley, in others butter or cheese, in others again, flax,
vegetables, fruit, or poultry. And as all the products of
our soil except milk are largely imported, there is ample
range for producing articles for sale which would not in
any way affect prices or interfere with outside labour.

At first, of course, such colonies must be organised and
all the work done under general regulations, and the same
discipline as is maintained in any farm or factory, but with
no unnecessary interference with liberty out of working
hours. Accounts would be strictly kept and audited, and
all profits would go to increasing the comfort of the
colonists in various ways, and in paying surplus wages to
be spent, or saved, as the individual pleased. Under
reasonable restrictions as to notice, every one would be at
liberty to quit the colony; but with such favourable
conditions of life as would prevail there it is probable
that only a small proportion would do so, as was the case
at Ralahine, and at the Dutch colony of Frederiksoord.

But as time went on, and a generation of workers grew
up in the colony itself, a system of self-government might
be established ; and for this purpose I think Mr. Bellamy's
method the only one likely to be a permanent success. It
rests on the principle that, in an industrial community,
those only are fit to be rulers who have for many years
formed integral parts of it, who have passed through its
various grades as workers or overseers, and who have thus
acquired an intimate practical acquaintance with its
needs, its capacities, and its possibilities of improvement.
Persons who had themselves enjoyed the advantages of
the system, who had suffered from whatever injudicious
restrictions or want of organisation had prevailed, and who

490 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

had nearly reached the age of retirement from the more
laborious work, would be free from petty jealousies of
their fellow -workers, and would have no objects to aim at
except the continued success of the colony and the happi-
ness of all its inmates. On this principle those who had
worked in the colony for at least fifteen or twenty years,
and who had reached some grade above that of simple
workmen, should form the governing body, appointing the
superintendents of the various departments, and making
such general regulations as were needed to ensure the
prosperity of the community and the happiness of all its
members.

Why is not the Experiment Tried ?

Now, I would ask, what valid reason can be given
against trying this great experiment in every county in
Great Britain and -Ireland, so as at once to absorb the
larger part of the unemployed as well as all paupers who
are not past work ? The only real objection, from the
capitalist's point of view, that I can imagine, is, that
colonies in which the whole of the produce went to the
workers themselves, including of course their own sick
and aged, would be so attractive that they would draw
to them large numbers of workers of all kinds, and thus
interfere with the capitalists' labour-supply. This, I
believe, would, after a few years, inevitably occur ; but,
from my point of view, and from that probably of most
thinkers and workers, that circumstance would afford the
greatest argument in favour of the scheme. For it would
show that, with a proper organisation of labour, produc-
tion under individual capitalists was unnecessary ; it
would afford practical proof that labourers can successfully
produce without the intervention of capitalist employers.

In this connection I will quote a passage from the
writings of that remarkable observer and thinker, the late
Richard Jeffrey. He says : —

"I verily believe that the earth in one year can produce enough
food to last for thirty. Why then have we not enough ? Why do
people die of starvation, or lead a miserable existence on the verge
of it ? Why have millions upon millions to toil from morning till

xx YT REOCCUPATION OF THE LAND t'.H

evening just to gain a mere crust of bread ? Because of the absolute
lack of organisation by which such labour should produce its effects,
the absolute lack of distribution, the absolute lack even of the very
idea that such things are possible. Nay, even to mention such
things, to say that they are possible, is criminal with many.
Madness could hardly go further."1

This was written a good many years ago. Now, we who
hold such opinions are considered to be, not criminals but
merely cranks ; and it is even allowed that we have good
ideas sometimes, if only we were more practical. But,
surely, nothing can be more practical than the proposal
here made, since the experiment has already been tried
in Holland and in Ireland, both under unfavourable
conditions, yet in both it succeeded. To produce any real
effect, however, it must be brought into operation on a
large scale, and this can only be done by the local
authorities, to whom all necessary powers must be given,
with the needful financial assistance from the Government.

When labour-colonies of the kind here suggested have
been established for a few years, it is quite certain that
the District Councils will no longer endure the old, bad,
wasteful, and degrading system of the Union Workhouses,
but will obtain land in the vicinity of existing workhouses
where possible, and establish labour-colonies of the same
type. The effects of the new system will soon become
palpable to every ratepayer in the kingdom by the
greatly diminished rates together with the abolition of
paupers, wherever they have been established. Public
opinion will then be all in favour of the new system, and
legislation will be demanded and quickly obtained,
enabling any sufficient number of persons who wish to
form such a community by voluntary association, to have
the land required in any part of the country on a
permanent tenure and at a fair agricultural rental.

Numerous self-supporting co-operative labour-colonies
being thus established all over the country, their
connection by tramways where required, together with
the arrangements they would soon make for mutual
assistance and exchange of products, for the common use
1 The Story of My Heart, p. 194.

492 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, xxv

of mills or other costly machinery, and through the healthy
rivalry that would inevitably spring up — all these varied
influences would still further increase the benefits to be
derived from them and the pleasures of associated life.
And these advantages would in a less degree spread to
every inhabitant of our country. For, not only would the
withdrawal of the whole surplus labour now represented
by the unemployed or partially employed, inevitably cause
a considerable increase in the rate of wages in all
departments of industry, but the high standard of comfort
and the complete absence of the anxiety now inseparable
from capitalistic wage-labour, would draw more and more
of the workers to such co-operative communities and thus
compel capitalists to offer yet higher wages, with probably
a share of profits and a voice in the management of their
factories in order to obtain men to work for them. This
would compel the capitalist manufacturer to be satisfied
with an amount of profit sufficient to pay him as an
organiser and superintendent, as the only alternative to
the loss of his fixed capital.

The whole of the surplus profits in all our industries
would then be distributed among the various classes of
workers, manual and intellectual, and labour would, for the
first time, receive its full and just reward.

CHAPTER XXVII

HUMAN PROGRESS : PAST AND FUTURE

THE word progress, as used above, has two distinct
meanings, not always recognized, whence has arisen some
confusion of ideas. It may mean either an advance in
material civilization, or in the mental and moral nature of
man, and these are far from being synonymous. Material
civilization is essentially cumulative. Each generation
benefits by the trials and failures of the preceding
generation ; and since the discovery of printing has
facilitated the preservation and circulation of all new
knowledge, progress of this kind has gone on at an ever
accelerated pace. But this does not imply any general
increase of mental power. Step by step the science of
mathematics has advanced immensely since the time of
Newton, but the advance does not prove that the mathema-
ticians of to-day have a greater genius for mathematics-
are really greater mathematicians — than Newton and his
contemporaries, or even than the Greeks of the time of
Euclid and Archimedes. Our modern steam engines and
locomotives far surpass those of Watt and Robert Stephen-
son, but of the hundreds who have laboured to improve
them perhaps none have surpassed those great men in
mechanical genius. And so it is with every item which
goes to form that which we term our civilization. We
have risen, step by step, on the ladders and scaffolds
erected by our predecessors, and if we can now mount
higher and see further than they could, it does not in the
least prove that we are, on the average, greater men,

494 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

intellectually, than they were. The question I propose to
discuss is one quite apart from that of civilization as
usually understood. It is, whether mankind have ad-
vanced as intellectual and moral beings ; and, if so, by
what agencies and under what laws have they so advanced
in the past, and what are the conditions under which that
advance may be continued in the future.

Has Human Nature improved during Historic Times ?

We have, first, to inquire whether there is any evidence
of such an advance in human nature during historic times.;
and this is by no means so simple a problem and one so
easily answered as is sometimes supposed. If there has
been any cause constantly at work tending to elevate
human nature, we should expect it to manifest itself by a
perceptible rise in the culminating points reached by man-
kind, in the intellectual and moral spheres, at successive
periods. But no such continuous rise of the high-water
mark of humanity is perceptible. The earliest known
architectural work, the great pyramid of Egypt, in the
mathematical accuracy of its form and dimensions, in its
precise orientation, and in the perfect workmanship
shown by its internal structure, indicates an amount of
astronomical, mathematical, and mechanical knowledge,
and an amount of experience and practical skill, which
could only have been attained at that early period of man's
history by the exertion of mental ability no way inferior
to that of our best modern engineers. In purely
intellectual achievements tl^e Vedas and the Maha-
bharata of ancient India, the Iliad of Homer, the book of
Job, and the writings of Plato, will rank with the noblest
works of modern authors. In sculpture and in architecture
the ancient Greeks attained to a height of beauty, harmony
and dignity, that has never been equalled in modern
times ; and taking account also of the great statesmen,
commanders, philosophers, and poets of the age of Pericles,
Mr. Francis Galton is of opinion " that the average ability
of the Athenian race was, on the lowest possible estimate,
very nearly two grades higher that our own — that is,

\\vii HUMAN PROGRESS: PAST AND FUTURE 495

about as much as our race is above that of the African
negro." ]

There is, therefore, some reason to think that the intel-
lectual high-water level of humanity has sunk rather than
risen during the last two thousand years ; but this is not
absolutely incompatible with the elevation of the mean
level of the human ocean both intellectually and morally.
We must, therefore, briefly consider the various agencies
that have been at work, some tending to raise others to
depress this level ; and by balancing the one against the
other, and taking account of certain modern developments
of human nature in civilized societies, we may be able to
arrive at an approximate conclusion as to the final result.

During the whole course of human history the struggle
of tribe with tribe and race with race has inevitably
caused the destruction of the weaker and lower, leaving
the stronger and higher, whether physically or mentally
stronger, to survive. Another, and perhaps not less potent
cause of the destruction of lower tribes is the greater
vital energy and more rapid increase of the higher races,
which crowds the lower out of existence even when no
violent destruction of life takes place. To this latter
cause quite as much as to actual warfare must we ascribe
the total disappearance of the Tasmanians, and the con-
tinuous diminution of population among the Maoris of
New Zealand and the inhabitants of the Eastern Pacific
Islands, as well as of the Red Indians of the North
American continent. Here we see survival of the fittest
among competing peoples necessarily leading to a con-
tinuous elevation of the human race as a whole, even
though the higher portion of the higher races may remain
stationary or may even deteriorate.

But a similar and even more complex process is ever
going on within each race, by the survival of the more fit
and the elimination of the less fit under the actual
conditions of society. On the whole, we cannot doubt
that the prudent, the sober, the healthy, and the virtuous,
live longer lives than the reckless, the drunkards, the
unhealthy, and the vicious ; and also that the former, on

1 Htreditary Geniua, p. 342.

496 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

the average, leave more descendants than the latter. It
is true that the latter not unfrequently marry earlier and
have larger families ; but many of these die young, and
as, on the average, children resemble their parents, fewer
of these will survive and leave offspring. Thus, accidents,
violence, and the effects of a reckless and vicious life, are
natural checks to the increase of population among these
classes, and this inevitably gives an advantage to the more
intellectual, the more prudent, and the more moral portion
of each race. The latter will, therefore, increase at the
expense of the former, and thus again tend to raise the
mean level of humanity.

But society has always, in one way or another, interfered
with these beneficent processes, and has thus retarded the
general advance. The celibacy of the clergy and the
refuge offered by monasteries and nunneries to many to
whom the rude struggle of the world was distasteful,
and whose gentle natures fitted them for deeds of charity
or to excel in literature or art, prevented the increase of
these nobler individuals ; and thus, as Mr. Galton well
remarks, " the Church, by a policy singularly unwise and
suicidal, brutalized the breed of our forefathers." By a
still more deplorable policy, independent thought and
that true nobility which refuses to purchase life by a
lifelong lie, was almost exterminated in Europe by
religious persecution. It is calculated that for the three
centuries between 1471 and 1781, a thousand persons
annually were either executed or imprisoned by the
Inquisition in Spain alone. In Italy it was even worse ;
while in France during the seventeenth century three or
four hundred thousand Protestants perished in prison, at
the galleys, or on the scaffold.

Another cause which has had a prejudicial effect at all
times, and which continues in action in the civilized
societies of to-day, is the system of inherited wealth,
which often gives to the weak and vicious an undue
advantage both in the certainty of subsistence without
labour, and in the greater opportunity for early marriage
and leaving a numerous offspring. We also interfere
with the course of nature by preserving the weak, the

xxvn HUMAN PROGRESS : PAST AND FUTURE 497

sickly, or the malformed infants ; but in this, probably,
humanity gains rather than loses, since many who are in
infancy weak or distorted exhibit superior mental or
moral qualities which are a gain to civilization, while the
cultivation of humane and sympathetic feelings in their
care and nurture is itself of the greatest value.

Balancing, as well as we are able, these various opposing
influences, it seems probable that there has been, on the
whole, a decided gain. Health, perseverance, self-restraint,
and intelligence have increased by slowly weeding out the
unhealthy, the idle, the grossly vicious, the cruel, and the
weak-minded ; and it may be in part owing to the
increased numbers of the higher and gentler natures thus
brought about that we must impute the undoubted
growth of humanity — of sympathy with the sufferings of
men and animals, which is perhaps the most marked and
most cheering of the characteristics of our age.

The Effect of Education.

But although the natural process of elimination does
actually raise the mean level of humanity by the destruc-
tion of the worst and most degraded individuals, it can
have little or no tendency to develop higher types in each
successive age ; and this agrees with the undoubted fact
that the great men who appeared at the dawn of his-
tory and at the culminating epochs of the various
ancient civilizations, were not, on the whole, inferior to
those of our own age. It remains, therefore, a mystery
how and why mankind reached to such lofty pinnacles of
greatness in early times, when there seems to be no
agency at work, then or now, calculated to do more than
weed out the lower types. Leaving this great problem
as, for the present, an insoluble one, we may turn to
that aspect of the question which is of the most vital
present day interest — whether any agencies are now at
work or can be suggested as practicable, which will pro-
duce a steady advance, not only in the average of human
nature, but in those higher developments which now, as
in former ages, are the exceptions rather than the rule.

VOL. II, K K

498 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Till quite recently the answer to this question would
have been an unhesitating affirmative. Education, it
would have been said, is such an agency; and although
hitherto it has done comparatively little, owing to the
very partial and extremely unscientific way in which it
has been applied, we have now acquired such a sound
knowledge of its philosophy and have so greatly improved
its methods, that it has become a power by which human
nature may be indefinitely modified and improved. When
every child is really well educated, when its moral as well
as its intellectual faculties are trained and developed,
some portion of the improvement effected in each gen-
eration will be transmitted to the next, and thus a
continual advance both in the intellectual and moral
nature will be brought about.

Almost all who have discussed the subject have held
that this is the true and only method of improving
human nature, because they believe that in the analogous
case of the bodily structure the modification and improve-
ment of all organisms has been effected by a similar
process. Lamarck taught that the effects produced by
use and exertion on the body of the individual animal
were, wholly or in part, transmitted to the offspring ; and
although Darwin's theory of natural selection rendered
this agency almost if not altogether unnecessary, yet it
was so universally held to be a fact of nature that Darwin
himself adopted it as playing a subsidiary but not unim-
portant part in the modification of species. So little
doubt had he of this "transmission of acquired characters "
that his celebrated theory of Pangenesis was framed so as
to account for it. In order to explain, hypothetically, how
it was that the increased size or strength given to a
limb or an organ by constant exercise was transmitted
to the progeny, he supposed that the male and female
germ-cells were formed by the aggregation of inconceivably
minute gemmules from every tissue and cell of every part
of the body, that these gemmules were continually
renewed and continually flowing towards the reproductive
organs, and that they had the property of developing into
cells and structures in the offspring which more or less

xxvii HUMAN PROGRESS: PAST AND FUTUIM-: 499

closely resembled the corresponding cells and structures
in the parents at that particular epoch of their lives. Thus
was explained the transmission of disease, and the supposed
transmission of the changes produced in the parents by
use or disuse of organs or by other external conditions.

To illustrate this by an example : if two brothers,
equally strong and healthy, became one a city clerk, the
other a farmer, land-surveyor, or rural postman, living
much in the open air and walking many miles every day
of his life, and if they married two sisters equally alike
in constitution, then the children of these two couples,
especially those born when their parents approached
middle age and the different conditions of their existence
had had time to produce its full effect on their bodily
structure, ought to show a decided difference, the one
family being undergrown, pale, and rather weak in the
lower limbs, the other the reverse; and this difference
should be observable even if the children of the two
families were brought up together under identical con-
ditions. It may be here stated that no trustworthy
observations have ever been made showing that such
effects are really produced, but it has always been be-
lieved that they must be produced.

As Darwin's theory of Pangenesis led to considerably
discussion, Mr. Francis Galton, who had at first accepted
it provisionally, endeavoured to put it to the test of experi-
ment. He obtained a number of specimens of two
distinct varieties of domestic rabbits which breed true,
and, by an ingenious and painless arrangement, caused
a large quantity of the blood of one variety to be trans-
fused into the blood-vessels of the other variety. This
having been effected with a number of individuals
without in any way injuring their health, they were
separated and bred from. It was found that in every
case the offspring resembled their parents and showed
no trace of intermixture of the two varieties. It was
also pointed out by another critic that if the theory of
Pangenesis were true, the stock on which a fruit is
grafted ought to change the character of the fruit pro-
duced by the graft, which, as a rule, it does not do.

K K 2

500 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

The Non-inheritance of Acquired Character.

Doubt being thus thrown on the validity of the theory,
Mr. Galton suggested another, in which the germs in the
reproductive organs of each individual were supposed to be
derived directly from the parental germs and not at all
from the body itself during its growth and development.
A very similar theory was proposed some years later by
Professor Weismann under the now well-known term " the
continuity of the germ-plasm." Both these theories imply
that, except among the lower single-celled animals and in
certain exceptional cases among the higher animals, no
change produced in the individual during life, by exercise
or other external conditions, can be transmitted to its off-
spring. What is transmitted is the capacity to develop into
a form more or less closely resembling that of the parents
or their direct ancestors, the characteristics of these ap-
pearing in the offspring in varying degrees and compounded
in various ways, leading to that wonderful variety in
details while preserving a certain unmistakable family
resemblance. Thus are explained not only bodily but
mental characteristics, even those peculiar tricks of motion
or habits which are often adduced as proofs of the trans-
mission of an acquired character, but which are really only
the transmission of the minute peculiarities of physical
structure and nervous or cerebral co-ordination, which
led to the habit in question being acquired by the
parent or ancestor, and, under similar conditions, by his
descendant.

Finding that this theory, if true, did not allow of the
hereditary transmission of the majority of individually
acquired characters, Weismann was led to examine the evi-
dence of such transmission, and found that hardly any real
evidence existed, and that in most cases which appeared to
prove it, either the facts were not accurately stated, or
another interpretation could be given to them. The trans-
mission had been assumed because it appeared so natural
and probable ; but in science we require as the foundation
of our reasoning not probability only, but proof; or if we

\\ vi. HUMAN PROGRESS: PAST AtfD tfUTtJRE 501

cannot get direct proof, then the probability which arises
from all the phenomena being such as would occur if the
theory in question were true, and this so completely as to
give us the power of predicting what will occur under new
and hitherto untried conditions. Of this nature is the
probability in favour of the existence of an ethereal medium
whose undulations produce light and heat ; of atoms which
combine to form the molecules of the various elements ;
and of the molecular theory of gases. The biologists of
Europe, though usually slow to accept new theories in
the place of old ones, have given to the theories of Weis-
mann and Galton an amount of acceptance which was
never accorded to Darwin's theory of Pangenesis, notwith-
standing the weight of his great reputation ; and they are
now seeking earnestly for facts which shall serve as
crucial tests of the rival theories, just as the phenomena
of interference served as a test of the rival theories of
light.

We have here only to deal with the theory of the non-
inheritance of acquired characters as it affects mental and
moral qualities ; and in this department it has to encounter
great opposition, because it seems to bar the way against any
improvement of the race by means of education. If the
theory is a true one, it certainly proves that it is not by
the direct road of education, as usually understood, that
humanity has advanced and must advance, although edu-
cation may, in an indirect manner, be an important factor
of progress. Let us, however, look at the problem as pre-
sented by the rival theories, and see what light is thrown
upon it by the history of those great men who have most
contributed to the advance of civilization, and who serve
well to illustrate the successive high-water marks attained
by human genius.

Illustrations of the Non-inheritance of Culture.

If progress is in any important degree dependent on the
hereditary transmission of the effects of culture, as distin-
guished from the transmission of innate geni\is, or of the
various talents and aptitudes with which men and women

502 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

are born, then we should expect to see indications of such
transmission in the continuous increase of mental power
wherever any family or group of families have for several
generations been subjected to culture or training of any
particular kind. It has, in fact, been claimed that this is
the case, for in his presidential address to the Biological
Society of Washington, in January, 1891, Mr. Lester F.
Ward argues that not only is Professor Weismann's great
ability a result of the rigid methods of training in the
German universities, but that

' ' those rigid methods themselves have been the product of a
series of generations of such training, transmitted in small increments
and diffused in increasing effectiveness to the whole German
people. . . . And the fact, that out of the barbaric German hordes
of the Middle Ages there has been developed the great modern race
of German specialists is one of the most convincing proofs of the
transmission of acquired characters, as well as of the far-reaching value
to the future development of the race of such an educational
system as that which Germany has had for the last two or three
centuries."

It will, I think, be admitted that, if this is " one of the
most convincing proofs " of the transmission of the effects
of culture, the theory of its transmissibility has but a weak
foundation ; for not only may the facts be explained in
another way, but there is another body of facts which
point with at least equal clearness in an exactly opposite
direction. It may be said, for instance, that the eminence
of German specialists in science is due primarily to
special mental qualities which have always been character-
istic of the German race, and to the facilities afforded for
the culture of those faculties throughout life, by the large
numbers of professorships in their numerous universities,
and by the comparative simplicity of German habits, which
renders the position of professor attractive to the highest
intellects. And when we turn to other countries we find
facts which tend in the opposite direction. In England,
for example, during many centuries, Oxford and Cam-
bridge Universities were closed to nonconformists, and
their honours and rewards were reserved for members of
the Established Church, and very largely for the families

xxvn HUMAN PROGRESS : PAST AND FUTURE 503

of the landed aristocracy. Yet in the short period tjiat
has elapsed since they were opened to dissenters, these
latter have shown themselves fully equal to the heredi-
tarily trained churchmen, and have carried off tho highest
honours in as great, and perhaps even in greater pro-
portion than their comparative numbers in the universities
would render probable.

Again, it is a remarkable fact, that almost all our
greatest inventors and scientific discoverers, the men whose
originality and mental power have created landmarks in
the history of human progress, have been self-taught, and
have certainly derived nothing from the training of their
ancestors in their several departments of knowledge.
Brindley, one of the earliest of our modern engineers, was
the son of a dissipated small freeholder; Telford, our
greatest road and bridge builder, was the son of a shepherd,
and apprenticed to a rough country mason; George
Sbephenson, the inventor of the locomotive engine, was a
self-taught collier ; Bramah, the inventor of the hydraulic
press, of improved locks, and almost the originator of
machine tools, was the son of a farmer, and at seventeen
years of age was apprenticed to the village carpenter ;
Smeaton, who designed and built the Eddystone light-
house, was the son of a lawyer, and a wholly self-taught
engineer; Harrison, the inventor of the modern chrono-
meter, was a joiner and the son of a joiner ; the elder
Brunei wras the son of a French peasant farmer, and was
educated for a priest, yet he became a great self-taught
engineer, designed and executed the first Thames tunnel,
and at the beginning of this century designed the block-
making machinery in Portsmouth dock-yard which was so
complete both in plan and execution that it is still
in use.

Coming now to higher departments of industry, science,
and art, we find that Dolland, the inventor of the achromatic
telescope, was a working silk- weaver, and a wholly self-
taught optician ; Faraday was the son of a blacksmith,
and apprenticed to a bookbinder at the age of thirteen ;
Sir Christopher Wren, the son of a clergyman and. edu-
cated at Oxford, was a self-taught architect, yet he

504 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

designed and executed St. Paul's Cathedral, which will
certainly rank among the finest modern buildings in the
world ; Ray, the son of a blacksmith, became a good mathe-
matician, and one of the greatest of our early naturalists ;
John Hunter, the great anatomist, was the son of a small
Scotch landholder ; Sir William Herschel was a professional
musician, the son of a German bandmaster ; Rembrandt
was the son of a miller ; the great linguists and oriental
scholars, Alexander Murray and Dr. Leyden, were both sons
of poor Scotch shepherds ; while Shelley, whose poetic
genius has rarely been surpassed, was the son of an
altogether unpoetic and unsympathetic country squire.

These few examples, which might be easily increased so
as to fill a volume, serve to show, what is indeed seldom
denied, that genius or superexcellence in any department
of human faculty tends to be sporadic, that is, it appears
suddenly without any proportionate development in the
parents or immediate ancestors of the gifted individual. No
doubt there is usually, or perhaps always, a considerable
amount of the same mental qualities dispersed through
the diverging ancestral line of all these men of genius, and
their appearance seems to be well explained by a fortu-
nate intermingling of the germ-plasms of several ancestors
calculated to produce or to intensify the various mental
peculiarities on which the exceptional faculties depend.
This is rendered probable, also, by the fact that, although
genius is often inherited it rarely or never intensifies after
its first appearance, which it certainly should do if not
only the genius itself, but the increased mental power due
to its exercise were also inherited. Brunei, Stephenson,
Dollond, and Herschel, all had sons who followed in the
steps of their fathers ; but it will be generally admitted
that in no case did the sons exceed or even equal their
parents in originality and mental power. So, if we look
through the copious roll of names of great poets, and
painters, sculptors, architects, engineers, or scientific dis-
coverers, we shall hardly ever find even two of the same
name and profession, and never three or four, rising pro-
gressively to loftier heights of genius and fame. Yet this
is what we ought to find if not only the innate faculty,

\\vii HUMAN PROGRESS: PAST AND FUTURE 505

but the increased development given to that faculty by
continuous exercise, tends to be inherited.1

If it is thought that this non-inheritance of the results of
education and training is prejudicial to human progress,
we must remember that, on the other hand, it also pre-
vents the continuous degradation of humanity by the
inheritance of those vicious practices and degrading habits
which the deplorable conditions of our modern social
system undoubtedly foster in the bulk of mankind.
Throughout all trade and commerce lying and deceit
abound to such an extent that it has come to be con-
sidered essential to success. No dealer ever tells the
exact truth about the goods he advertises or offers for
sale, and the grossly absurd misrepresentations of material
and quality we everywhere meet with have, from their very
commonness, ceased to shock us. Now it is surely a great
blessing if we can believe that this widespread system of
fraud and falsehood does not produce any inherited de-
terioration in the next generation. And it is equally
satisfactory to believe that the physical deterioration
produced on the thousands who annually exchange country
for town life will have no permanent effect on their
offspring if they return at any time to more healthy con-
ditions. And we have direct evidence that this is so, in the
fact that the street arabs of our great cities, when brought
up under healthy and elevating conditions in the colonies,
usually improve both physically, intellectually, and
morally, so as to be fully equal to the average of their
fellow-countrymen.

It appears, then, that the non-inheritance of the effects
of training, of habits, and of general surroundings, whether
these be good or bad, is by no means a hindrance to

1 The only prominent example that looks like a progressive increase
of faculty for three generations is that of Dr. Erasmus Darwin and his
grandson Charles Darwin. But in this case the special faculties displayed
by the grandson were quite distinct from those of the grandfather and
father ; while if we consider the different state of knowledge at the
time when Erasmus Darwin lived, his occupation in a laborious
profession, and the absence of that stimulus to thought which the five
years' voyage round the world gave to his grandson, it is not at all
certain that in originality and mental powers, the former was not fully
the equal of the latter.

506 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

human progress, if, as seems not improbable, the results
on the individual of our "present social arrangements
are, on the whole, evil. It may be fairly argued that
the rich suffer, morally and intellectually, from these
conditions quite as much as do the poor; and that the
lives of idleness, of pleasure, of excitement, or of de-
bauchery, which so many of the wealthy lead, is as
soul-deadening and degrading in its effects as the sordid
struggle for existence to which the bulk of the workers
are condemned. It is, therefore, a relief to feel that
all this evil and degradation will leave no permanent
effects whenever a more rational and more elevating
system of social organization is brought about.

How Progress will be Effected.

If, then, education, training, and surrounding con-
ditions can do nothing to affect permanently the march
of human progress, how, it may be asked, is that pro-
gress to be brought about ; or are we to be condemned
to remain stationary in that average condition which,
in some unknown way, the civilized nations of the
world have now reached ? We reply, that progress is still
possible, nay, is certain, by the continuous and perhaps
increasing action of two general principles, both forms
of selection. The one is that process of elimination
already referred to, by which vice, violence, and reck-
lessness so often bring about the early destruction
of those addicted to them. The other, and by far the
more important for the future, is that mode of selection
which will inevitably come into action through the ever-
increasing freedom, joined with the higher education of
women.

There have already been ample indications in literature
that the women of America, no less than those of other
civilized countries, are determined to secure their personal,
social, and political freedom, and are beginning to see the
great part they have to play in the future of humanity.
When such social changes have been effected that no
woman will be compelled, either by hunger, isolation, or

xxvii HUMAN PROGRESS: PAST AND FUTURE 507

social compulsion, to sell herself whether in or out of
wedlock, and when all women alike shall feel the refining
inHitence of a true humanizing education, of beautiful and
elevating surroundings, and of a public opinion which
shall be founded on the highest aspirations of their age
and country, the result will be a form of human selection
which will bring about a continuous advance in the
average status of the race. Under such conditions, all
who are deformed either in body or mind, though they
may be able to lead happy and contented lives, will, as a
rule, leave no children to inherit their deformity. Even
now we find many women who never marry because they
have never found the man of their ideal. When no
woman will be compelled to marry for a bare living or for
a comfortable home, those who remain unmarried from
their own free choice will certainly increase, while many
others, having no inducement to an early marriage, will
wait till they meet with a partner who is really congenial
to them.

In such a reformed society the vicious man, the man of
degraded taste or of feeble intellect, will have little chance
of finding a wife, and his bad qualities will die out with
himself. The most perfect and beautiful in body and
mind will, on the other hand, be most sought and there-
fore be most likely to marry early, the less highly endowed
later, and the least gifted in any way the latest of all, and
this will be the case with both sexes. From this varying
age of marriage, as Mr. Gal ton has shown, there will
result a more rapid increase of the former than of the
latter, and this cause continuing at work for successive
generations will at length bring the average man to be
the equal of those who are now among the more advanced
of the race.

When this average rise has been brought about there
must result a corresponding rise in the high-water mark
of humanity ; in other words, the great men of that era
will be as much above those of the last two thousand
years as the average man will have risen ;ib<>\r tin- MMCftge
of that period. For, those fortunate combinations of
germs which, on the theory we are discussing, have

508 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHA*>.

brought into existence the great men of all ages, will
have a far higher average of material to work with, and
we may reasonably expect that the most distinguished
among the poets and philosophers of the future will
decidedly surpass the Homers and Shakespeares, the
Newtons, the Goethes, and the Humboldts of our era.

Mr. Lester F. Ward has indeed urged, in his article on
;' The Transmission of Culture" (Forum, May, 1891), that,
if Weismann's theory is true, then " education has no
value for the future of mankind, and its benefits are
confined exclusively to the generation receiving it."
Another eminent scientist, Professor Joseph Le Conte, in
his article on " The Factors of Evolution " (The Monist,
Vol I., p. 334), is still more desponding. He says :—

" If it be true that reason must direct the course of human evo-
lution, and if it be also true that selection of the fittest is the only
method available for that purpose ; then, if we are to have any race-
improvement at all, the dreadful law of destruction of the weak
<ind helpless must with Spartan firmness be carried out voluntarily
and deliberately. Against such a course all that is best in us
revolts.'3

These passages show that the supposed consequences
of the theories of Weismann and Galton, have, very
naturally, excited some antagonism, because they appear,
if true, to limit or even to destroy all power of further
evolution of mankind, except by methods which are
revolting to our higher nature.

But I have endeavoured to show, in the present article,
that we are not limited to the depressing alternatives
above set forth, — that education has the greatest value
for the improvement of mankind, — and that selection
of the fittest may be ensured by more powerful and more
effective agencies than the destruction of the weak and
helpless. From a consideration of historical facts bearing
upon the origin and development of human faculty I
have shown reason for believing that it is only by a true
and perfect system of education and the public opinion
which such a system will create, that the special mode of
selection on which the future of humanity depends can be
brought into general action, Education and environment,

HUMAN PROGRESS : PAST AND FUTURE 509

which have so often stunted and debased human nature
instead of improving it, are powerless to transmit by
heredity either their good or their evil effects ; and for
this limitation of their power we ought to be thankful.
It follows, that when we are wise enough to reform our
social economy and give to our youth a truer, a broader,
and a more philosophical training, we shall find their
minds free from any hereditary taint derived from the evil
customs and mistaken teaching of the past, and ready to
respond at once to that higher ideal of life and of the
responsibilities of marriage which will, indirectly yet
surely, become the greatest factor in human progress.

CHAPTER XXVIII

TRUE INDIVIDUALISM — THE ESSENTIAL PRELIMINARY OF A
REAL SOCIAL ADVANCE

Now that we have entered the last year of this our
Nineteenth Century, in many respects the most eventful
century for good and evil the world has witnessed, most
thinking men are looking forward with anxious hope as to
what of real good the Twentieth Century may have in
store for humanity. Any words of hopeful guidance as to
how we may help to bring about such good ; any indication
of the true path to such social regeneration a?s may not
only enable the middle classes to reach a still higher pitch
of refinement, but may raise up the masses from the
deadly slough of want, misery, starvation and crime in
which so many millions are now floundering, often from no
fault of their own and in the midst of the most wealthy
and most civilized countries in the world, — will certainly
be welcome to the humane and thoughtful in all modern
societies.

It is clear, that if we wish to do any real good, we must
cease to deal in generalities, or to suggest mere palliatives.
We must seek for the fundamental error in our social
system which has led to the damning result, that, in the
latter half of the nineteenth century there has been a far
greater mass of human misery arising directly from want
—and an equal, perhaps greater, amount in proportion to
population — than in the preceding century. This is
clearly indicated by the figures given by the statistician
Mulhall in 1883, in a paper read at the British Association,

CHAP, xxvin TRUE INDIVIDUALISM 511

In the period 1774 to 1800 — which may be taken as
representing the latter half of the eighteenth century — he
gives the wealth per head of the population of Great
Britain at £110, and for I860 to 1882, representing a
corresponding period of the nineteenth century, at £216.
But the purchasing power of money is estimated to have
been so much greater in the earlier period that
Mr. Mulhall calculates the effective income per head to
have then been £227, or actually higher than in our own
time. This apparent paradox can only be explained by
the proportion of the very poor to the whole population
being now exceptionally large, so that, although there has
been such an enormous increase of total wealth and a
considerable increase of very rich men, yet the great army
of workers who produce this wealth has increased so much
more largely that the proportion coming to them is
smaller than ever. And this is quite in accordance with
the evidence of Mr. Charles Booth, who has shown that
about 1,300,000 of the population of London live " below
the margin of poverty ; " and if we add to these the inmates
of the workhouses, hospitals, &c., we shall find that close
upon one-third of the whole population are in this miser-
able condition ; and we may be sure that in all our great
manufacturing towns and cities, the proportion of the
very poor is not much less.

Again, we must remember that in the last century the
majority of the workers lived in the rural districts or in
the smaller towns, and possessed many additions to their
means of living which they have now lost : — such as
gardens, common-rights, wood for fuel, gleaning after
harvest, pig and poultry-keeping, and often skim-milk or
butter milk from the farms where they worked.

It thus appears that the conclusions arrived at by
myself from the statistics of poverty, suicide, insanity,
physical deterioration, and crime, during the last forty
years,1 are supported by a quite different set of facts,
extending over a much longer period, and set forth by a
statistical authority of the first rank, who has no special
views to support. Let us therefore now consider the main

1 See my Wonderful Century, Chapter XX.

512 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

problem. What is the fundamental error in our social
system that has allowed this state of things to persist,
notwithstanding all our increase in wealth, and how we
may most certainly and most safely bring about the
desired change to a social state in which none who are
willing to work shall ever suffer the extreme of want ?

The Society of the Future.

I am myself convinced that the society of the future will
be some form of socialism, which may be briefly defined as
the organization of labour for the good of all. Just as the
Post Office is organized labour in one department for the
benefit of all alike ; just as the railways might be
organized as a whole for the equal benefit of the whole
community ; just as extensive industries over a whole
country are now organized for the exclusive benefit of com-
binations of capitalists ; so all necessary and useful labour
might be organized for the equal benefit of all. When a
combination or trust deals with the whole of one industry
over an extensive area/there are two enormous economies ;
advertising, which under the system of competition among
thousands of manufacturers and dealers wastes millions
annually, is all saved ; and distribution, when only the
exact number of stores and assistants needful for the work
are employed, effects an almost unimaginable saving over
the scores of shops and stores in every small town, com-
peting with each other for a bare living. What then
would be the economy when all the industries of a whole
country were similarly organized for the common good ; and
when all absolutely useless and unnecessary employments
were abolished — such as gold and diamond mining except
to the extent needed for science and art; nine-tenths
of the lawyers, and all the financiers and stock-gamblers ?
It is clear that under such an organized system three or
four hours work for five days a week by all persons
between the ages of twenty and fifty would produce
abundance of necessaries and comforts, as well as all the
refinements and wholesome luxuries of life, for the whole
population,

xxvin TRUE INDIVIDUALISM ;,!;;

But although I feel sure that some such system as this
will be adopted in the future, yet it may be only in a
><>ni('\vh;it. distant future, and the coming century may only
witness a step towards it; it is important that this step
should be one in the right direction. The majority of
our people dislike the very idea of socialism, because they
think it can only be founded by compulsion. If that
were the case it would be equally repulsive to myself, I
believe only in voluntary organization for the common
good, and I think it quite possible that we require a
period of true individualism — of competition under strictly
equal conditions — to develop all the forces and all the
best qualities of humanity, in order to prepare us for that
voluntary organization which will be adopted when we are
ready for it, but which cannot be profitably forced on before
we are thus prepared.

In our present society the bulk of the people have no op-
portunity for the full development of all their powers and
capacities, while others who have the opportunity have no
sufficient inducement to do so. The accumulation of
wealth is now mainly effected by the misdirected energy
of competing individuals ; and the power that wealth so
obtained gives them is often used for purposes which are
hurtful to the nation. There can be no true individualism,
no fair competition, without equality of opportunity for all.
This alone is social justice, and by this alone can the best
that is in each nation be developed and utilized for the
benefit of all its citizens. I propose, therefore, to state
briefly what is the ethical foundation for this principle,
and what its practical application implies.

The Law of Social Justice.

In Herbert Spencer's volume on " Justice," forming
Part IV. of his Principles of Ethics, he gives as the found-
ation of social justice the following :—

" Of man, as of all inferior creatures, the law by conformity to
which the species is preserved, is that among adults the indivi-
duals best adapted to the conditions of their existence shall prosper
most, and that the individuals least adapted to the conditions of their

VOL. II. L L

514 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

existence shall prosper least — a law which, if uninterfered with,
entails survival of the fittest, and spread of the most adapted
varieties. And, as before, so here, we see that, ethically considered,
this law implies, that each individual ought to receive the benefits and
evils of his oum nature and consequent conduct : neither being prevented
from having whatever good his actions normally bring him, nor allowed
to shoulder off on to other persons whatever ill is brought to him by his
actions. "

The passage printed in italics is the " law of social
justice " deduced from the law of the survival of the
fittest, and it is appealed to again and again throughout
the volume, but is usually indicated by the shorter formula
— " each shall receive the benefits and evils due to his own
nature and consequent conduct." 1 In all our sports
and trials of skill or endurance, we aim at equality of
conditions for the competitors, who are all of nearly equal
age and in good health, while their preliminary training
has been nearly the same ; and it is universally recognized
that the skill or endurance of each can only be ascertained
by such equal or fair conditions.

But when it is a question, not of mere sports or amuse-
ments, but of the real battle of life, failure in which often
means continuous hardship, want, or premature death,
with the loss to friends and to the community of all those
higher qualities or talents which were undeveloped through
want of leisure or opportunity, we make no attempt what-
ever to give fair play to all alike. How much we lose by
this unfairness no one can tell, but the poets have always
recognized that there is such a loss. Gray tells of the
" village Hampdens " and the " mute inglorious Miltons "
that may have passed away unknown, and of the hearts
" once pregnant with celestial fire "-

" But knowledge to their eyes her ample page
Rich with the spoils of time did ne'er unroll ;
Chill Penury repress'd their noble rage
And froze the genial current of the soul " :

•

1 It would operate, not as among the lower animals and plants by
the actual destruction of the unfit, but by their less rapid increase,
since, under equal conditions of education and mode of life, it is certain
that marriage would be delayed till some industrial success had been
reached by both parties.

xxvin TRUE INDIVIDUALISM 515

while even the refined and critical Tennyson could
say —

" Plowmen, shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still

could find,
Sons of God and kings of men in utter nohleness of mind. ''

And everywhere we see illustrations of the same fact in
the fortunate accidents that have here and there rescued
some great mind from a life of obscure drudgery. If Watt,
the mathematical instrument maker, had not lived in
Glasgow, where he had the model of a steam-engine sent
him from the University for repair, the advent of the
modern steam-engine might have been delayed half a
century. If Faraday had not had a ticket given him to
Sir Humphry Davy's lectures on chemistry at the Royal
Institution, he might have always remained a working
bookbinder, and the progress of electrical science might
have been seriously checked. Numbers of our inventors
and original thinkers have sprung from the ranks of
peasants and mechanics, and we may be sure that many
more who were equally gifted have been wholly lost to the
world owing to the absence of favourable conditions at the
right period of their lives, or to some inherent modesty or
timidity that prevented them from forcing their way in spite
of all obstacles. What we need in order to profit by all the
skill, and talent, and genius that may exist in our whole
population, is that all should have the education and the
opportunities for developing whatever abilities they may
possess, which are now accessible only to the higher and the
wealthier classes ; and when we find that this is also the
teaching of philosophy, and that only in this way can we
apply the fundamental principle of organic evolution to
the development of the social organism, we have both
experience and theory in favour of adopting it as a sure
guide.

Equality of Opportunity.

While discussing Herbert Spencer's "Justice" in an
address to the Land Nationalization Society in 1892, I
remarked :

"It is strange that Mr. Spencer did not perceive that if this law
of the connection between individual character and conduct and their

L L 2

516 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

economical results, is to be allowed free play, some social arrange-
ment must be made by which all may start in life with an approach
to equality of opportunities."

Two years later this term was used and popularized by
Mr. Benjamin Kidd in his " Social Evolution," and is now
often used with approval by political and social writers,
most of whom, however, do not appear to see all that it
implies. The term includes all that is contained in
Spencer's principle of social justice, and as it is much
shorter and more expressive, it is well adapted to become
the watchword of social reformers. Let us then see what
its full application would really mean.

Equality of Opportunity is absolute fair play as between
man and man in the struggle for existence. It means
that all shall have the best education they are capable of
receiving ; that their faculties shall all be well trained,
and their whole nature obtain the fullest moral, intellec-
tual, and physical development. This does not mean that
all shall have the same education, that all shall be made
to learn the same things and go through the same train-
ing, but that all shall be so trained as to develop fully all
that is best in them. It must be an adaptive education,
modified in accordance with the peculiar mental and
physical nature of the pupils, not a rigid routine applied
to all alike, as is too often the case now.

It further implies that during this period of thorough
education every endeavour shall be made to ascertain how
the special faculties of each can be best .utilized for the
good of society and for his own happiness, and thus will
be determined the particular work, both bodily and mental,
to which each youth shall be trained, subject always to
the demand for workers in the various industries or
occupations.

Yet further, equality of opportunity requires that all
shall have an endowment to support them during the
transition period between education and profitable em-
ployment, and to furnish them with such an outfit as their
special avocations require.

KXVH1 TIMJE INDIVIDUALISM 517

Inheritance of Wealth causes Inequality.

But even this is not all. We must also take care that
inequality is not introduced by private gifts or bequests
to individuals which might enable them to live permanently
in idleness and luxury, since every one who so lives must
necessarily be supported by the labour of others, and is in
all essentials a pauper, as has been so forcibly urged in the
remarkable work of Mr. A. J. Ferris — " Pauperizing the
Rich." It is here that most people (including Herbert
Spencer and Mr. Kidd) object to the application of the
principle that every man shall receive the results of his
own nature and conduct, or, in other words, shall have
" equality of opportunity," as being unjust or injurious.
But if this principle is the essential feature of social
justice, its full application cannot be unjust; while if
it is the true correlative in human society of survival of
the fittest among the lower forms of life, it cannot be
injurious.

The difficulty seems to arise from the fact that if the
accumulation of property either by the labour, the foresight,
or the good fortune of an individual, is right, and is for
the benefit of society as a whole, as is generally assumed, it
is also assumed that the power of transferring this property
to another must be also both right and beneficial. This,
however, does not logically follow. If equality of opportunity
is a true and just principle, then the society that gives to
every man that equality, and protects him in his work
throughout his life, may fairly claim to inherit any surplus
wealth that he leaves behind him, in order to ensure similar
advantages to all. And it is still more obvious, that a
society which has adopted the principle of equality of
opportunity as the only means of securing true individu-
alism and competition under fair and equal conditions,
may justly prevent individuals from introducing inequality
by their injudicious gifts or bequests. From either point
of view it follows, that society should protect itself by a
strict regulation of the transmission or inheritance of
wealth.

518 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

Public Debts Impolitic and Immoral.

There is another consideration that is usually overlooked
in this connection, and thus helps to obscure the real
issue. Under our highly artificial and complex monetary
system, the " property " left by rich men is seldom real
wealth, but consists almost wholly of claims upon, or tribute
exacted from society at large. Real wealth is highly
perishable — food, clothing, houses, tools, machinery, &c. —
and if such wealth were given to another in large quanti-
ties it would rapidly deteriorate or require a considerable
annual expenditure to preserve its value. But by our money-
market system of funds, stocks, shares, and rents, permanent
incomes are derived from perishable wealth, to the injury
of all who are forced to pay these incomes. Money has been
diverted from its original and beneficial purpose of facili-
tating the mutual exchange of commodities — " a tool of
exchange/' as some economists have termed it — into a
means of enabling large numbers of wealthy individuals
to live permanently at the expense of their working fellow-
citizens. This is the real reason of the objection of the
ancient law-givers to usury, that it enables men to live
without doing any useful work ; and the objection of
modern socialists to interest is, not that to take interest
for the use of money is morally wrong, but that the
general application of the principle of national or muni-
cipal interest-bearing debts, railway shares, &c., afford the
conditions by which perishable wealth is changed into
permanent property, and offers facilities for the most
gigantic and harmful system of gambling the world has
ever seen.

All wealth so acquired is a means of impoverishing those
whose work produces all the real wealth that is consumed
annually. Adam Smith again and again states this fact,
that the annual consumption of the whole population,
including all the idle rich, is produced annually by the
workers ; and it is because the system of interest enables
false wealth, which is really tribute exacted from the
people, to go on increasing indefinitely, and thus tends

TRUE INDIVIDUALISM 519

continually to impoverish the workers and to increase the
numbers of the idle, that it has been condemned as both
impolitic and evil. And we now see that, as it leads to
results which are opposed to " equality of opportunity,"
it is also ethically unjust.

Hereditary Wealth bad for its Recipients.

There is yet another consideration which leads to the
same conclusion as to the evil of hereditary or unearned
wealth — its injurious effects to those who receive it, and
through them to the whole community. It is only the
strongest and most evenly balanced natures that can
pass unscathed through the ordeal of knowing that
enormous wealth is to be theirs on the death of a parent
or relative. The worst vices of our rotten civilization are
fostered by this class of prodigals, surrounded by a crowd
of gamblers and other parasites, who assist in their
debaucheries and seek every opportunity of obtaining
a share of the plunder. This class of evils is too well
known and comes too frequently and too prominently
before the public to need dwelling upon here ; but it
serves to complete the proof of the evil effects of private
inheritance, and to demonstrate in a practical way the
need for the adoption of the just principle of equality of
opportunity.

Conclusion.

Under such a system of society as is here suggested,
when all were well educated and well trained and were
all given an equal start in life, and when every one
knew that however great an amount of wealth he
might accumulate he would not be allowed to give or
bequeath it to others in order that they might be free to
live lives of idleness or pleasure, the mad race for
wealth and luxury would be greatly diminished in
intensity, and most men would be content with such a
competence as would secure to them an enjoyable old
age. And as work of every kind would have to be done
by men who were as well educated and as refined as their

520 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CH. xxvm

employers, while only a small minority could possibly
become employers, the greatest incentive would exist
towards the voluntary association of workers for their
common good, thus leading by a gradual transition to
various forms of co-operation adapted to the conditions
of each case. With^ such equality of education and
endowment none would consent to engage in unhealthy
occupations which were not absolutely necessary for the
well-being of the community, and when such work was
necessary they would see that every possible precautions
were taken against injury. All the most difficult
labour-problems of our day would thus receive an easy
solution.

I submit, therefore, that the adoption of the principle
of Equality of Opportunity as our guide in all future
legislation, should be acceptable to every social reformer
who believes in the supremacy of Justice. To the
individualist it would mean the fullest application of
his principle of individual freedom limited only by the
like freedom of others, since this principle is a mere
mockery under the present negation of fair and equal
conditions to the bulk of the citizens of all civilized
states. And it should be equally acceptable to the
socialist, because the greatest obstacle to his teachings
would be removed by the abolition of ignorance and of
that grinding poverty and want which leaves no time
or energy for any struggle but that for bare existence.
Equality of Opportunity, founded as it is upon simple
Justice between man and man, is therefore well fitted to
become the watchword of the social reformers of the
Twentieth Century.

CHAPTER XXIX

JUSTICE, NOT CHARITY, AS THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE
OF SOCIAL REFORM. AN APPEAL TO MY READERS l

OUR conceptions of social duty — of what constitutes
justice in social life — will be to a considerable extent
dependent upon the views we hold as to man's spiritual
nature, and more especially upon the relation believed to
exist between the present life and that which is to follow
it. On this subject there has been a great change of
opinion during the last forty years.

The old doctrine as to the nature of the future life was
based upon the idea of rewards and punishments, which
were supposed to be dependent upon dogmatic beliefs and
ceremonial observances. The atheist, the agnostic, even the
Unitarian, were for centuries held to be certain of future
punishment ; and, with the unbaptised infant, the Sabbath-
breaker, and the abstainer from church-going, were alike
condemned to hell-fire. Beliefs and observances were
then held to be of the first importance; disposition,
conduct, health, and happiness were of little or no
account.

The new doctrines — founded almost wholly on the
teachings of Modern Spiritualism, though now widely
accepted even among non-Spiritualists — are the very
reverse of all this. They are based upon the conception of
mental and moral continuity ; that there are no imposed

1 The following pages (with verbal modifications) constitute the main
portion of an Address to the International Congress of Spiritualists, at
St. James's Hall, in June, 1898.

522 STUDIES,* SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL

punishments ; that dogmatic beliefs are absolutely unim-
portant, except so far as they affect our relations with our
fellows ; and that forms and ceremonies, and the complex
observances of most religions, are equally unimportant. On
the other hand, what are of the most vital importance are
motives with the actions that result from them, and every-
thing that develops and exercises the whole mental, moral,
and physical nature, resulting in happy and healthy lives
for every human being. The future life will be simply a
continuation of the present, under new conditions ; and its
happiness or misery will be dependent upon how we have
developed all that is best in our nature here.

Under the old theory the soul could be saved by a mere
change of beliefs and the performance of certain ceremonial
observances. The body was nothing; happiness was
nothing ; pleasure was often held to be a sin ; hence any
amount of punishment, torture, and even death were con-
sidered justifiable in order to produce this change and
save the soul.

On the new theory it is the body that develops,
and to some extent saves, the soul. Disease, pain, and
all that shortens and impoverishes life, are injurious to
the soul as well as to the body. Not only is a healthy
body necessary for a sound mind, but equally so for a
fully-developed soul — a soul that is best fitted to com-
mence its new era of life and progress in the spirit world.
Inasmuch as we have fully utilized and developed all our
faculties — bodily, mental, and spiritual — and have done
all in our power to aid others in a similar development,
so have we prepared future well-being for ourselves and
for them.

All this is the common knowledge and belief of Spirit-
ualists ; and I should not have thought it necessary to re-
state it were it not that their creed is often misunderstood
and misrepresented by outsiders, and also because it> is
preliminary to certain conclusions which, I think, logically
follow from it, but which are not so generally accepted
among us.

It seems to me that, holding these beliefs as to the
future life and what is the proper and only preparation

v\i\ JUSTICE, NOT CHARITY 523

for it, not only Spiritualists, but all those to whom these
beliefs are acceptable, must feel themselves bound to
work strenuously for such improved social conditions as
may render it possible for all to live a full and happy life,
for all to develop and utilize the various faculties they
possess, and thus be prepared to enter at once on the
progressive higher life of the spirit-world. We know that
a life of continuous and grinding bodily labour, in order
to obtain a bare existence ; a life almost necessarily devoid
of beauty, of refinement, of communion with Nature ;
a life without adequate relaxation, and with no oppor-
tunity for the higher culture ; a life of temptation
and with no cheering hope of a happy and a peaceful
old age, is as bad for the welfare of the soul as it is
for that of the body.

If the accounts we get of the spirit world have any truth
in them, the reclamation and education of the millions of
undeveloped or degraded spirits which annually quit this
earth, is a sore though cheerfully accepted burden, a source
of trouble and sorrow to those more advanced spirits who
have charge of them. This burden must, for a long time
to come at all events, necessarily be great, on account of
the numbers of the less advanced races and peoples still
upon the earth ; but that we, who call ourselves civilized,
who have learnt so much of the secret powers and
mysteries of the universe, who by means of those powers
could easily provide a decent and rational and happy life
for our whole population — that ice should send to the
spirit world, day by day and year by year, millions of
men and women, of children and of infants, all destroyed
before their time through want of the necessary means of a
healthy life, or by the various diseases and accidents forced
upon them by the vile conditions under which alone we
give them the opportunity of living at all — this is a dis-
grace and a crime !

I firmly believe — and the fact is supported by abundant
evidence — that the very poorest class of our great cities,
those that live constantly below the margin of poverty,
who are without the comforts, the necessaries, and even
the decencies of life, are, nevertheless, as a class, quite as

5-24 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

good morally, and often as high intellectually, as the middle
and upper classes who look down upon them as in every
way their inferiors. Their degraded condition, socially
and morally, is the work of society ; and in so far as they
appear worse than others they are made so by society.
What should we ourselves have been if we had had no
education, no repose, no refined or decent homes, no means
of cleanliness, which is not only next to, but is a source
of, godliness ; surrounded by every kind of temptation, and
not unfrequently forced into crime ? And a direct con-
sequence of the millions who are compelled to lead such
lives are the millions of infants who die prematurely — a
slaughter a thousand times worse than that of Herod,
going on year by year in our midst ; surely their innocent
blood cries out against our rulers, against all of us, who
choose such rulers ; and more especially against those
Spiritualists and Christians, who know the higher law,
if they do not work with all their strength for a radical
reform.

I ask you to think over this question ; and above all
things, I ask you to consider the necessity for real and
fundamental remedies, not mere palliatives, which have
been tried with ever-increasing energy and good- will
throughout the whole of the nineteenth century, and
have absolutely failed. The evil has grown, just as if no
such remedies had been applied at all. Charity has
increased enormously, and has completely failed. Now it
is time for us to try Justice.

A few years since a talented writer used, and at once
popularized, a new term — "equality of opportunity." It
expresses, briefly and forcibly, what may be termed the
minimum of social justice. The same idea had been
urged by other writers, especially by Herbert Spencer in his
volume on "Justice," when he declared that justice
requires every man to receive " the results of his own
nature and consequent actions" — this and this only.
Fundamentally, the two ideas are the same, but " equality
of opportunity" is the more simple and intelligible ex-
pression of it.

To Christians and Spiritualists, who realize that every

xxix JUSTICE, NOT CHARITY 525

child born into this world is a living soul, which has
come here to prepare itself for the higher life of the
spirit world, it must -appear a crime against that world
and against humanity not to see that every such child
has the best possible nurture and training, at the very
least till it arrives at the adult age and becomes an
independent unit of the social organism. And if to each
is due the best, then none can have more than the best,
and we come thus again to EQUALITY OF OPPORTUNITY.

Of course, many of my readers will say, "This is
impossible. How can we possibly give this equality of
nurture and education to every child ? " I admit that it
is difficult- — by no means impossible. It must, of course,
be brought about gradually; and where there is a will
there is a way. As Herbert Spencer said of another
matter — the nationalization of the land — "justice sternly
demands that it be done " ; and if we, boasting of our
civilization, declare that it cannot be done, then so much
the worse for us and for our false civilization. But it
wants only the will. And it is our duty to help to create
that will.

But, again, you will say, "Where are the means of
doing this? We are already taxed as much as we can
bear." True, we are shamefully over-taxed for all kinds
of unnecessary and hurtful expenses, some of which have
been exposed in preceding chapters; but, instead of
increasing the taxes, there is a necessary corollary of
" equality of opportunity " which will not only give us
ample funds to bring it about, but will at the same time
greatly reduce taxation and ultimately abolish it alto-
gether. For, if every child is given equality of oppor-
tunity, and every man and woman receives only " the
results of their own nature and consequent actions," then
it is evident that there must be no inequality of
inheritance: and to give equality of inheritance, the
State, that is, the community, must be the universal
inheritor of all wealth. At first, of course, it would only
be needful to take surplus wealth above a fixed maxi-
mum ; and, so far from this being an injury to the heirs
of a millionaire, it would be a great benefit; for it is

526 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP.

admitted that nothing has so demoralizing an effect on
the young as the certainty of inheriting great wealth ;
and examples of this come before us every year and
almost every month. This is the real teaching of the
parable of Dives and Lazarus ; this gives us the true
meaning of Christ's saying that a rich man shall hardly
enter into the kingdom of heaven.

Now, many who dislike the idea of Socialism — chiefly,
I think, through not understanding what it really implies
—will perhaps look more favourably on this great
principle of "equality of opportunity/' since it would
leave individualism untouched, would in fact render it
far more complete arid effective than it is now. For our
present state of society is not true individualism, because
the inequalities of opportunity in early life are so great
that often the worst are forced to the top, while many
of the best struggle throughout life without a chance of
using their highest faculties, or developing the best part
of their nature. Even Tennyson, whose mind was of an
aristocratic bent, could say —

1 ' Plowmen, shepherds, have I found, and more than once, and still

could find,

Sons of God and 1? ings of men in utter nobleness of mind ;
Truthful, trustful, looking upward to the practised hustings-liar ;
So the Higher wields the Lower, while the Lower is the Higher.
Here and there a cotter's babe is royal-born by right divine ;
Here and there my lord is lower than his oxen or his swine."

Equality of opportunity would put all this right ;
every one would be able to show what power for good he
possessed, and society would be enormously benefited in
consequence. At the same time, there would be all the
stimulus to be derived from individual effort. The man
who could surpass his fellows under such equal and fair
conditions would be truly great. Some would achieve
honour, some would acquire wealth; but it would be all
due to their own "nature and consequent actions," and
neither the honour nor the wealth would be handed on to
individuals who might not be worthy of the one or be
able to acquire, or properly to use, the other.

I believe myself that such a perfectly fair competition,

JUSTICE, NOT CHARITY 527

in which all started on equal terms materially and socially,
would be an admirable training, and would be sure to
lead, ultimately, to a voluntary co-operation and organiza-
tion of labour which would produce most of the best result s
of Socialism itself. But whether it would or not, I claim
that it embodies a great and true principle — Social
Justice ; and that it affords the only non-socialistic escape
from the horrible social quagmire in which we find our-
selves. All who believe in a moral law as a guide to
conduct must uphold justice ; and equality of opportunity
for all is but bare justice. Believing that the life here is
the school for the development of the spirit, we must feel
it our duty to see that the nascent spirit in each infant has
the fullest and freest opportunity of developing all its
faculties and powers under the best conditions we can
provide for it. And I have ventured to bring this subject
before the reading and thinking world, because it is the
one hope nearest to my heart ; and I am sure that if the
great and rapidly-increasing body of true philanthropists
and all who are spiritually-minded, can be brought to
consider it, and to feel that the misery and degradation
around them must be and can be got rid of, and further,
that it is especially their business and their duty to help
to get rid of it, the great work will soon be taken in
hand.

What we want, above all things, is to educate the
people and create a public opinion adequate for the
work. In this movement for justice and right, Christians
and Spiritualists should take the lead, because they, more
than any others, know its vital importance both for this
world and the next. The various religious sects are all
working, according to their lights, in the social field ; but
their forces are almost exclusively directed to the
alleviation of individual cases of want and misery by
means of charity in various forms. But this method has
utterly failed even to diminish the mass of human misery
everywhere around us, because it deals with symptoms
only and leaves the causes untouched. I would not say a
word against even this form of charity, for those who see
no higher law ; but we want more of the true charity of

528 STUDIES, SCIENTIFIC AND SOCIAL CHAP, xxix

St. Paul — the charity that thinketh no evil, that suffereth
long and is kind, that rejoiceth in the truth — not only
the lesser and easier charity which feeds the poor out
of its superfluity, an action which St. Paul does not allow
to be charifcy at all.

To all advanced thinkers, to all earnest reformers,
to all humanitarians — and especially to Christians and
Spiritualists, I urge, that it is now time to sever
ourselves from these old and utterly useless methods and
to take higher ground. Let us unflinchingly demand
Social Justice, as developed in the preceding chapter.
This will be a work of such grandeur, of such far-reaching
influence, so deeply founded in Right, so absolutely
impregnable against the attacks of logic, or theology, or
expediency, that it must succeed in a not far distant
future. Knowing that we are striking at the very roots
of our social evils, that every step we take will make the
next step easier, let us work strenuously for the elevation
and permanent well-being of our fellows, and let our
watchword be — not Charity, but JUSTICE.

INDEX

VOL. II M M

INDEX

Agassis, Prof. L., and the Harvard

Museum, 10
Alex., on defects of museums, 21

Agnostics as moral as believers, 376

have no adequate motive for morality,
377

America, depression of trade in, 207

America, eastern forests of, 83

American cities, condition of, 413

American museums, 16

Ancient ash-pits and cemeteries, 54
mounds in N. America, 54

Animal sculptures from the mounds, 51

Animals, how to exhibit in a museum, 8

Aquired characters not inherited, 500

Argyll, Duke of, on economic use of land,
424

Armies should be industrial, 387

Arrow-heads, twisted, 43

Atkinson, Mr. E., on economy of pro-
duction, 483

Aveling, Dr. E., on American workers,
412

B.

Bad habits not inherited, 505
Bankruptcies showing depression, 103
Bequest, limitation of right of, 341

unlimited is doubly injurious, 342
Botany in a museum, 6
Bread, cheap, not always a blessing, 407
Hreathing in language, 121
British Museum of Nat. History, defects

of, 17
Broderick, Hon. G. C., on results of !

peasant-husbandry, 321
Business capacity of peasants at Ralahine, I

472

C.

Cairnes, Prof., on landlordism, 301
California, forests of, 86
Capitalism causes poverty, 414
Carrington, Lord, on peasant cultivation,

217
Cave -dwellings in Arizona, 56

Character, apparent improvement of, at

Ralahine, 474
Child-language, no guide to its origin,

135
Christianity, modern, a slow growth,

108

Church, a native, in South Africa, 109
Church, a really national, 235
Church property is national property,

23(5
Clarke, Mr. Hyde, on mouth, tongue,

and tooth words, 134
Coal, a national trust, 138

unlimited export of, injurious, 141
Concave globe, advantages of, 68

how to construct, 71
Conquests desired by governing classes.

385
Commission, the Devon, on evictions,

311
Commons enclosed under false pretences

449

Competition, the waste of, 487
Co-operative colonies, how to establish,

488

why not tried, 490
Craig, Mr., comes to Ralahine, 456

his excellence as an organiser, 458
Credit at creditor's risk, 163, 165
Cxilture, effects of, not inherited, 501
Cups and bowls in stone, 48

D.

Dead men should not dictate to the liv-
ing, 157
Debt, how to extinguish the national,

257

Debtor and creditor, 162
Debts should not be collected by the

State, lt»3
Depopulation of rural districts, 210

causes of, 214

effects of, 212
Depression of trade, causes of, 188

its main features, 190

remedies for, 220

true causes of, 194

Destitution, evidence of increase of, 213
Differences of forests, how caused, 94
Disestablishment and disendowment, 235

532

INDEX

Disputes about work, how avoided, 459
Dives and Lazarus, real teaching of the

parable of, 526

Draining injurious in a natural forest, 92
Dutch people healthy in the Moluccas,

104

E.

Earth, how best to model the, 59
Eastern Asia and Japan forests of, 88

Europe, forests of, 88
Economies of an industrial community,

484

Economy of health and happiness, 487
Education at Ralahine, 4(53

needed to abolish militarism, 390

the effect of, 497
Effort in pronouncing words, significant,

129

Enclosures under false pretences, 449
Endowed Schools Commission, 156
Epping Forest, 74

how to treat, 91
Equality of opportunity, 515, 524

a guide to legislation, 520
Equatorial zone generally healthy, 101

a Scotchman's work in, 103
Essential equality in nature of rich and

poor, 524, 526

Estates, origin of great, 449
Ethical principles applied to land tenure,

410

Ethnology in a museum, 10
European forests, 82
Europeans treat natives badly, 113
Eviction should be illegal, 444
Experiments in socialism have not all

failed, 476

Exports and imports showing depres-
sion, 192
Extinct animals in Harvard Museum, 35

F.

Fair play in life, absence of, 514
Farmers, remedy for poverty of, 407

suggested remedies for poverty of,

402

Farms, large versus small, 406
Farrar, Dean, on transference of mean-
ings, 132
and Wedgwood on imitative words,

127

on origin of language, 116
Fawcett, Prof., against land-nationalisa-
tion, 296

on free trade and protection, 175
unsound argument of, 176
Finch, Mr. J., visits Ralahine, 462
Foreign loans a cause of depression, 195
Forest regions, proposed illustrations of,

82
the temperate, 74

Food at Ralahine, 464

Free access to land the remedy for want,

417

Free contract a mockery, 416
Freeholders, system of small, unstable,

349
Free trade, acknowledged exceptions to,

169

and reciprocity, 167
in limited natural products wrong,

138

the whole programme of, 173
Froude, J. A., on property in land, 265

G.

Galton, F., on superiority of Athenians,

494
Genius rarely inherited, 503

no successive increase of, 504
Geography and geology, a museum of, 4
Geographical distribution in Harvard

Museum, 26

suggested museum of, 33.
George, Henry, an illustration of land-
lordism, 302

on state of American workers, 412
Gestures and words used in earliest

speech, 135

Giffen, Mr., on depression of trade, 191
Globe, gigantic, alternative plan of, 65
objections to the plan of, 63
proposed by M. Ileclus, 59
Gold not a permanent standard of value

145
Gould Mr. Baring, on German peasants,

319

Government tested by happy homes, 407
Governments all seek enlarged territory,

485

Gray, Prof. Asa, on forest regions, 82
Great and small in Malay languages, 130
Guernsey market-notes, 260

H.

Harvard Museum, origin of, 19
Harvest-home at Ralahine, 464
Health at Ralahine, 464, 467
Hereditary wealth injures its receivers,

519

Himalayas, temperate forests of, 90
Home and household goods inviolable, 164

the inviolability of, 443
Homes, to form secure, 361
Hooker, Sir Jos., on museums, 12
Howitt, Wm., on German peasants, 319
House of Lords, a representative, 223

conditions of its reform, 226
Human nature advances by survival of
the fittest, 495

adverse influences, 496

has it improved in historic times, 494
Human progress, past and future, 493

INDEX

I.

Idlers, how cured at Ralahine, 470

Increased w:ir expenditure and depres-
sion of trade, 107
Individualism, true, 510
Industrial colony, economics of, 4S4

organisation needed, 3SS
Inheritance causes inequality, 517
Inherited wealth injurious, -lit;
Interest-bearing funds injurious and un-
just, 'J.VI

Invention among co-operators, 471
Ireland, chronic starvation in, 310

in 1830, 455
Irish cottars, industry of, 323

J.

Jeffrey, Richard, on organisation of

'labour, 400

.levons, Prof. W. S., objections to incon-
vertible paper money, 147

on changes in value of gold, 145
Justice, economic and social, 432

for all an elementary right, 150

not charity, 521

Spencer's formula of, 341

the law of social, 513

K.

Kaffir clergyman in England, 110
Kavanatfh 011 myths and language, 122
Kay, Mr. Joseph, on pauperised England,

305
on farming in Switzerland, 318

Labour colonies of Holland a success, 483

results of organisation of, 471
Land, benefit of free access to, 288
evils of free trade in, 284
evil of speculation in, 409
free access to, a cure for want, 417
freedom of choice of, 330
how to be distributed, 328
how to deal with the, 259
how to nationalise, 265
is private property in, just, 298
Lord Carrington on benefits of, 419
monopoly, effects of, 347
nationalisation, objections an-
swered, 345

probable results of, 282
State tenants versus freeholders,

345

why and how of, 296
question and Herbert Spencer, 333
re-occupation of the, 478
robbery of, by landlords, 449
special iniquity of, 450
tenure, proposed system of, 274
transfer, a general principle of, 268
rult'f not due to improvement of
soil, 336

Landlordism, Fronde, on evils of, 285
in Bengal, 286
results of, in Ireland, 309

in Scotland, 313
the effects of, 304
the remedy for, 323
the right or wrong of, 299
Language, a factor in origin of, 115
Large and small holdings, results com-
pared, 423
Laveleye, on results of great properties,

3-J1
Law, how to simplify, 152

system, antiquated and inefficient,

151
Legislation of 19th century, nature of,

436

its outcome, 437

Legislators, the impotence of our, 440
! Lewis, poverty in island of, 315
i Life at Ralahine free and happy, 473,

476

why live a inoral, 375
Limitations of free trade, 171
Limitation of State functions, 150
Limited Liability Act, evil results of,

205, 221

Lord Tollemache's peasant-farms, 322
Lords, a representative House of, 223
constitution of new House of, 226
mode of election of representative,

229

representative, advantages of, 231
Lowe, Mr., a reply to, 183

M.

Macdonald, Dr., on Highland clearances,
315

Machinery at Ralahine, 464

Malay words for great and small, 130

Manning, Cardinal, on the land ques-
tion, 452

Martius, on lip-pointing, 117

M'Culloch on Flemish agriculture, 320

Mercy, works of, on the Sabbath, 369

"Merrie England," extracts from, 453

Mill, J. S., on the incidence of a rent-
tax, 352

Mills, Mr. H. V., on failure of our civili-
sation, 415
on willing workers idle, 480

Militarism can only be banished by the

people, 390
its good and evil effects, 386

Millionaires causing depression of trade,

201

increase of, 400
supposed uses of, 254

Mineralogy, museum of, 5

Money-fines unjust, 151

Moral qualities, their expressive names,
132

More, Sir T., on wrongs of the workers,
433

Motions, and their expressive names, 124

534

INDEX

Mounds and earthworks in N. America,

54

Mouth-gesture, 115, 117
Mouth-words,-121
Museums, American, 16

for the people, 1
Museum, position and plan of, 1?

National Church, advantages of the new,

249

the proposed, 240
debt, how to extinguish, 257
Natural history, a typical museum of, 4
Nineteenth-century legislation, charac-
ter of, 436
Nose-words, 122

O.

Objections to reciprocity answered, 181
Ogilvie on right of property in land, 435
Opportunity, equality of, 515
Opportunities equalised by rent, 404
Organisation not injurious to character,

388

the good side of militarism, 387
Organised industry must succeed, 483

P.

Pare, Mr. W. , book on Ralahine, 468
Parish rectors, duties of, 241
Paper money as a standard of value, 145
Jevons's objections to inconvertible,

147

Pauperism not really diminishing, 306
Peasant cultivation, results of, 217
farms in Annandale, 322
in Cheshire, 322
farmers co-operate, 425
good agriculture of, 426
Pirn, Mr. J. , on industry of Irish cottars,

323

Pope, expressive verses of, 130
Possession, results of secure, 320
Post obits should be illegal, 164
Pottery from mounds, 53
Poverty due to capitalism, 414

in great cities of United States, 306
proof of its increase in America, 399

in England, 398
proof of increasing, 203
Prehistoric archaeology, museums of, 37
at Cambridge, Mass., 39
at Washington, D.C., 40
Priests, the teaching of, as to the land,

452
Produce of land more important than

profit, 424

Progress, how it will be effected, 506
Public debts immoral, 518

rooms in the Harvard Museum, 23

Q.

Qualities indicated by sounds, 128
Queensland, white men work in, 104

R.

Ralahine a striking success, 470, 477

and its teachings, 455, 468

confiscation of workers' savings at,
468

description of, 458

education and sanitation at, 463

end of great experiment at, 4i'.i;

enthusiastic industry at, 470

organisation of the society at, 458

self-government at, 461

why no imitators, 465
Real reforms, suggestions for, 442
Rebellion not a crime, 392

is always justifiable, 392
Reciprocity the essence of free trade, 167

what it means, 177
Reclus 011 proposed gigantic globe, 59
Rectors, new, advantages of, 249

may be introduced gradually, 244

new parish, 241

objections to and answers, 245
Remedies for depression of trade, 220
Rent of small holdings, how to fix, 358

paid in produce* advantages of, 45S

the social importance of, 404
Reports, agricultural, on results of small

holdings, 420

Republican simplicity now vanished, 411
Ricardo on effects of a rent-tax, 351

S.

Sabbatarians, a suggestion to, 364
Sabbath, effects of a tnie observance of,

370

the command to keep, 365
Sabbath breaking by Sabbatarians, 365

excuses for, 366

Salvation, old and new theories of, 522
Sanitation at Ralahine, 463
Savages, how to civilise, 107
Scotland, clearances of the crofters, 314

landlordism in, 313

Selection of the fittest will act on man-
kind in the future, 508
Self-government at Ralahine, 461
Shell-mounds and cave-dwellings, 50
Sismondi on peasant cultivators, 318
Small holdings, beneficial results of, 420
good results of, 316
to secure success of, 354
Smith, Adam, on effects of a land-tax,

351

Socialistic experiments successful, 476
Social justice, the law of, 513
quagmire, the, 394
reform, the fundamental principle

of, 521
Society of the future, 512

INDEX

586

Sounds, continuous and abrupt, VJ3

which represent motions, 127
South Africa, educated natives in, 111
Smith temperate /one. forests of. !>(>
Spades and knives in stone, -ir.
Speculation causing depression of trade,
MM

increase of, 204
Speech, how it originated, 135

the expressiveness of, 115
Spencer, Herbert, misstatements of, 335,
337

on iniquitous power of landlords, 435

on social j list ice, 513

on the land question, 333
Spiritualism and justice, .V_'7

higher teachings of, 380

is rationalism, :;>.]

the teachings of, 521, 525
Spiritualists are impelled to live morally,

883

Sportsmen healthy in the tropics, 103
Standard of value, a, 145
State-functions, limitation of, 150

tenants «havc rights of freeholders,

348

Steam-power, estimate of, 300
Stone implements at Washington, 41

objects of unknown use, 49

yokes from I'orto Rico, 52
Stubbs, Dean, on peasant cultivation, 217
Success of small holdings, how to secure,

354

Sunday service an introduction to useful
work, 373

T.

Taxation of future generations immoral,

447

Taxation of land, who will pay it? 351
Teeth and palate words, 122
Tennyson, expressive verses of, 130
Tollemache, Lord, his peasant farmers,

322
Tropics, can white men work in the, 00

unhcalthiness of parts of, 100
Trusts should be personal and voluntary,

155
should not be recognised by the law,

154

Twentieth century, the work of, 440
Tylor, Mr. E. 1J., on ingenious contri-
vances in language, 120

U.

Unborn, the, not to inherit property, 445
Unemployed, political economists have
no remedy for the, 480

Unemployed, solution of problem of, 478

workers a man-created evil, 415 "
ruemploynient, why it exists, -M
I'nited States, condition of. in curly years

of the inth century, 304
present condition of, M'.n',
supposed causes of absence of poverty
in, 305

V.

Value, paper money as a standard of. 14'.
Vandcleur, Mr., disappearance of, ir.T
invites Mr. Craig to organise llala-
hine, 456

W.

Wage-workers in America, 411
War, evil results of, 108

its causes and the remedies, 384
traders in materials of, are enemies

of their country, 301
teachers of, to lower races arc

enemies of civilisation, 301
War-expenditure and depression of

trade, 107

Water not bullets to disperse mobs. P.'.'-J
Wealth, how to abolish fictitious, 2'>7
how to deal with accumulated, 448
real and fictitious, 256
White men in the tropics, 99
Wicksteed, Mr. C., on proposed land

tax, 354

Words expressing disgust, 129
imitating sounds, 124
more widely useful than gestures,

136

not originally conventions, 118
specially expressive, 131
with changed meanings, 134
Work, meaning of in Fourth Command-
ment, 367

Workers in harmony at Ralahine, 471
Wyld's globe in Leicester Square, 07

Y.

Young, Arthur, on secure possession of
land, 320

Z.

Zoology in a museum, 7

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• Renewals and rechrges may be made
4 days prior to due ate

DUE AS STUPED BELOW

FEB 2 2 2Q05

D20 6M 9-03

:- BERKELEY

Booo^aeis""1"1""1"11

RETURN TO the circulation desk of any
University of California Library

or to the

NORTHERN REGIONAL LIBRARY FACILITY
Bldg. 400, Richmond Field Station
University of California
Richmond, CA 94804-4698

ALL BOOKS MAY BE RECALLED AFTER 7 DAYS

• 2-month loans may be renewed by calling
(510)642-6753

• 1-year loans may be recharged by bringing
books to NRLF

• Renewals and recharges may be made
4 days prior to due date

DUE AS STAMPED BELOW

2QD5

DD20 6M 9-03

LIBRARY. U.C. BERKELEY

M62

V