The question whether a settled adherence to the principles of non-intervention is compatible at once with our interests and our honour is one upon which much of the future of England may depend. The answer is not to be found in sneers at a “peace-at-any-price policy,” which has never been adopted by any section of our countrymen, or in panegyrics upon the virtues evolved by war, made by men who sit comfortably in their arm-chairs while they hound others on to bloodshed. It is a question which of necessity can only be answered in certain cases as the circumstances arise, but there is nothing either cowardly or dishonourable in considering the general principles involved in a reply.
Looking at the world as it stands, it seems almost beyond hope that war will ever cease. It is true that we have got rid of blood-letting in surgery and that we have got rid of blood-letting in society, and it may, therefore, seem to some that there is a chance of getting rid of blood-letting between States. A century since, the doctor’s lancet and the duellist’s pistol were rivals in slaughter, and all but fanatics thought their abolition impossible. What will be said of war in the time to come?
Whatever may be said of it then, we know what can be said of it now. It is a grievous curse to the nations engaged, and a calamitous hindrance to civilization. It is a barbarous and illogical method of settling international disputes, which decides only that one side is the stronger, and never shows which side is the right. The cynical saying that God is on the side of the big battalions is true at bottom. We laugh to-day at the old custom of “Trial by battle,” recognizing that the innocent combatant was often the weaker or less skilful, and that the guilty consequently triumphed. But “Trial by battle,” as between nations, is equally absurd, if any one imagines that it shows which is the righteous. Who would contend that France was in the right when Napoleon Bonaparte, in his early career, by his superior skill in tactics, swept the nations of Europe before him at Arcola and Marengo, Austerlitz and Jena, and that he was in the wrong when, in the waning of his powers, he was irretrievably ruined at Waterloo? That Denmark was in the wrong because the combined forces of Austria and Prussia crushed her in the struggle over Schleswig-Holstein, and that Prussia was in the right when, after she and her neighbour had quarrelled like a couple of thieves over their booty, she placed the needle-gun against the muzzle-loader and overwhelmed Austria? The spirit which impels each combatant to call upon the Almighty as of right for assistance, and which leads the victor to sing a Te Deum at the struggle’s close, is a blasphemous one, which should not blind us to the criminality of most wars. To hurl thousands of men into conflict in order to extend trade or acquire territory is an iniquity, disguise it by what phrases we will. In private life the man who steals is called a thief, the man who kills is called a murderer; why in public life should the nation which steals, and which kills in order to steal, be differently treated? If there be retributive justice beyond the grave, Frederick the Great and Napoleon Bonaparte, who in cold blood and for selfish motives sacrificed tens of thousands of lives, will stand at the murderers’ bar side by side with those lesser criminals who have gone to the gallows for a single slaughter.
Let us look at war, therefore, as it is—a direful necessity, even when justified by self-preservation, a flagrant crime when entered upon for the extension of territory or trade. It is easy to raise the cry of patriotism whenever a war is undertaken, but the patriotism that pays others to fight is a cheap article which deserves no praise. As for the bloodthirsty bray of the music halls, which even English statesmen have not disdained to stimulate in favour of their policy, it is abhorrent to cleanly-minded men; the ethics of the taproom and the patriotism of the pewter-pot are not to their taste; and when it is seen that the most sanguinary writers and the most blatant talkers are the last to put their own bodies in peril, it cannot but be concluded that their theory is that patriotism is a virtue to be preached by themselves and practised by their neighbours.
But though a reckless or merely aggressive war is not only the greatest of human ills but the gravest of national crimes, an armed struggle is in certain instances a necessity. Self-preservation is the first law of nature; and as no man would condemn another for slaying, if no milder measure would do, one who attempted to kill him, and the law would regard such a course as justifiable homicide, so a nation is right to fight against invasion, and would deserve to be extinguished or enslaved if it did not. “Defence, not defiance,” the motto of our volunteers, should be the motto of our statesmen; and then, if an enemy attacked us, we should be able to give a good account of ourselves.
In order to act up to this motto, we must dabble as little as possible with affairs that do not directly concern us. We should cease to think that we are the arbiters of the world’s quarrels—we have enough to do to look after our colonies and ourselves—and we should withdraw from such entangling engagements as we have, and enter upon no fresh ones. When, for instance, we are urged to formally join the Triple Alliance, we must ask why we should bind ourselves to fight France and Russia because Germany would like to pay off old scores, Austria wishes to get to Salonica, and Italy is eager to assert her position as the latest-created “Great Power.” As it is, a Continental struggle, such as is bound to come in the near future, may sufficiently involve us. No one seems quite to know whether we are or are not bound by treaty to defend the territorial independence of Belgium; but as it is through “the cockpit of Europe” that Germany may next attempt to assail France, or France try to reach Germany, the question is a very important one. Would it not be better to settle that before we proceed to bind ourselves with the chains of an alliance which could do us little good, but might easily effect considerable harm?
Non-intervention has again and again been proved to be an honourable and beneficent policy. There has been scarcely a great war within the last thirty years in which we have not been urged by some section in this country to interfere. The Franco-Austrian conflict in 1859, the civil war in America, the Austro-Prussian attack upon Denmark, the Franco-German war, and the Russo-Turkish struggle—in every one of these we were urged to interfere on behalf of our interests or our honour, or both. In none did we do so, and who to-day will argue that abstention was wrong? There are some politicians who appear wishful to see England’s finger in every international pie, and the same old arguments, the same vehement appeals, are used whenever there is a struggle abroad. And when the next occurs, and these weather-beaten arguments and appeals are again brought to the fore, let those who may be swayed by them turn to the files of the newspapers which instigated intervention in all of the cases named; and let them reflect that non-intervention proved the best course in every one, and that what did so well before is most likely to do well again.
But, even if we sedulously pursue this policy, there are occasions when differences arise with other States, and the question is how these can be composed. In the large majority of cases the remedy will be found in arbitration. Here, again, we shall be confronted with assertions about honour and patriotism, which experience has proved to be worthless. Two striking instances have been afforded of the value of international arbitration. The greater is that which solved the difficulty between ourselves and the United States concerning the Alabama claims. Here was a matter in which England was distinctly in the wrong, and, as long as the sore remained open, so long was there danger of war ensuing between the two great English-speaking nations of the earth. When Mr. Gladstone’s first Government resolved to submit it to arbitration, no language was too vehement for some of our Tories to apply to the process. It was dishonourable, unpatriotic, and pusillanimous; but Mr. Gladstone persevered, and with what result? The dispute was settled, the sore was healed; and is there a solitary man among us who will contend that the better plan would have been to send into their graves thousands of unoffending men, and to perpetuate, perhaps for generations, a quarrel which has been so happily decided as now to have almost faded out of mind? The other instance is afforded by the resolve, in the spring of 1885, to refer the dispute with Russia concerning the Penjdeh conflict to arbitration. There were threatenings of slaughter on every hand, for weeks there appeared a danger of our being launched into war for a strip of Afghan territory, worthless alike to Russians, Afghans, and ourselves, and upon a conflict of testimony as to the original aggression, which even yet has not been composed. The agreement to submit the matter to the King of Denmark, though his arbitrament ultimately was dispensed with, gave a breathing time to Russia and England both; and who now would argue that we ought to have gone to war because of Penjdeh?
Therefore, if we adhere to a policy of non-intervention in disputes that do not directly concern us, and of arbitration in those in which we become involved, we shall be following a course which the immediate past has proved to be not only peaceful but honourable and agreeable to our interests. “The greatest of British interests is peace,” once observed the present Lord Derby; and the truth of the saying is unimpeachable. And when we are told that, strive as we will, war sometimes must come, one is reminded of the saying of a far greater statesman than Lord Derby, and one upon whose patriotism none has been able to cast a slur. It was Canning who, when told that a war in certain circumstances was bound to come sooner or later, replied, “Then let it be later.”
If, however, we wish England to pursue a peaceful policy, we must teach the people to believe that it is as honourable as it is practicable, and as truly patriotic as both. It is a mistake to think that the masses will oppose war merely because of the suffering and loss it entails; there are considerations beyond these which the artisan feels as keenly as the aristocrat, the peasant as the peer. The sentiment which resents, even to blood-shedding, an insult to the national flag, may be often to be deprecated but never to be despised; for when the people shall care nothing for the country’s honour, the days of independent national existence will be drawing to a close. And, therefore, when it is argued that a peace policy is practicable, it is held to be so only because it is honourable, patriotic, and just.
The foreign relations of England are necessarily complicated by her colonial concerns; and these deserve the most careful consideration, because at any moment they may arouse the hottest political dispute of the day. In considering the colonies we have to ask three questions: (1) How and why did we get them; (2) How and why do we keep them; and (3) Ought we to force them to stay?
At the history of the why and how we acquired our colonies, it is impossible here to do more than glance. By settlement as in the case of Australasia, by conquest as in that of Canada, and by treaty cession as in that of the Cape, have been obtained within the past three centuries practically all that we have. The wish for expansion has continually made itself felt, and the frequent result of war as well as of peaceful discovery has been to gratify it. And the consequence of both conquest and discovery has been the acquisition of a colonial empire vaster in extent and resources than the world has ever seen.
Having got our colonies, there are various reasons for retaining them. The imperial spirit, which is elated by expansion and would be deeply wounded by contraction, has been a prominent factor in causing England to take a leading position in the world’s affairs; and it is one which none interested in her prosperity will despise. Even if there were no material reasons for keeping our colonies, this sentiment would cause many Englishmen, and probably the majority, to regard with the deepest distrust any movement having a tendency to separate the colonies from the mother country.
But there are material reasons for binding the colonies to us which none will ignore. They form not only an outlet for our surplus labour and enterprise, but give us markets of high importance to our trade. Emigrants who go to Canada or Australia not merely remain attached by obvious considerations to the English connection, but continue to be our customers in a very much larger degree than if they went to the United States or any other foreign country. Those who study the statistics of our export trade will recognize that if we lost the custom of our colonies—and this we should be likely to do if we lost the colonies themselves—the consequences to our commerce would be very serious.
Thus there are reasons of the highest sentiment, as well as of commercial expediency, for retaining the possessions the hard fighting and determined enterprise of many generations of Englishmen have acquired; but the question which is needed to be answered in much more fulness than either of the others is that which may affect the politics of the near future: Ought we, if any of our self-governing colonies desire to secede, to force them to stay?
A distinct difference has been made in the form of this question between the self-governing colonies and the dependencies—a distinction arising from the very nature of things. There is a chasm between the consideration of letting Australia or letting India go, which is too wide to be bridged. Australia consists of various colonies, peopled by Englishmen or the descendants of Englishmen, who have the fullest means of constitutionally expressing their desires. India has a vast concourse of deeply-divided peoples, who have no bond of union, whether of race, religion, or common descent, and who are in no sense self-governed. In the argument about to be set forward, therefore, it is to be understood that only the colonies, and not the dependencies, are in consideration.
Broadly speaking, it may be submitted with regard to our self-governing colonies that we are bound in honour to keep them as long as they will stay, and in conscience not to detain them when they are able and willing to go. Having acquired them, and given the most practical guarantees to protect them, we ought to hold to our implied bargain at any cost, and to defend them with as much energy as our native soil. But, just as a parent’s duty to a child is to do everything to protect and assist him in his period of growth, so is it equally his duty, when the training-time has been accomplished, to set no hindrance in the path of his acquiring an independent position. And the relation of parent to child has a true likeness to that of England to her self-governing colonies.
If it be asked whether this question of what should be done in case of a proposed separation ought to be raised at the present moment, the reply is that events are forcing the matter forward, and that it is well to consider in a time of comparative quiet a problem which may convulse the nation from end to end if urged upon us in a storm.
For rumblings of the storm have already been heard from the three great self-governing portions of our colonial empire. Sir Henry Parkes, the Premier of New South Wales, in an article published no long time since, and in the very act of proposing a scheme by which he imagined the mother country and the colonies might be knit more closely together, uttered a warning that separation might within the next generation be pushed to the front, for “there are persons in Australia, and in most of the Australian Legislatures, who avowedly or tacitly favour the idea.” And he added: “In regard to the large mass of the English people in Australia, there can be no doubt of their genuine loyalty to the present State, and their affectionate admiration for the present illustrious occupant of the throne. But this loyalty is nourished at a great distance, and by tens of thousands, daily increasing, who have never known any land but the one dear land where they dwell. It is the growth of a semitropical soil, alike tender and luxuriant, and a slight thing may bruise, even snap asunder, its young tendrils.”
When we turn from Australia to Canada, the same warning is in the air. In the autumn of 1887, the remarks of Mr. Chamberlain at Belfast, repudiating the principle of commercial union between Canada and the United States, evoked strong protests from some leading newspapers in the Dominion against the idea of England interfering if such a union were agreed upon. The Toronto Mail put the matter in a nutshell when it observed—“Let there be no misunderstanding on this point. Canadians have not ceased to love and venerate England, but have simply reached that stage of development when their choice of what is best for themselves, be it what it may, must prevail over all other considerations.” Should it be said that this is only an utterance of our old friend “the irresponsible journalist,” it may be added that the practice of Canadian statesmen appears to be in accordance with the principles of Canadian writers. This was certainly the opinion of our own Standard, which, in an article in 1887 upon the increases in the Canadian tariff directed against imported iron and steel, wrote—“The obvious truth of the matter is that Canada has given no thought to our interests at all, but only to her own.... Of course these Canadians are a most ‘loyal’ people for all that, and if they can get us to lend them our money they will flatter us and heap sweet-sounding phrases upon us, till the most voracious appetite for such is cloyed to sickness. It is only when we expect them to pay us our money back, or at least to put up no barriers against our trade with them, that we find out how hollow these phrases are. No federation of the empire can take place under any guise while its leading colonies, which love us so exceedingly, strive their utmost to injure our trade.... Why should we waste a drop of our blood or spend a shilling of our means to shelter countries whose selfishness is so great that they never give a thought to any interest of ours? That is the question the Protectionist colonies are forcing Englishmen to ask themselves, and it is as well that it should be bluntly put to them now.”
Cape Colony is as ready as Australia or Canada to resent the least interference from the mother country. Sir Gordon Sprigg, its Premier, referring at a public meeting late in 1887 to a Bill which the Imperial Ministry had been asked to disallow, observed that, if it should be disallowed, it was not a question of this particular Bill, but whether the colony was to have a free government, or whether necessary legislation in South Africa was to be checked by irresponsible persons at home, and they were to go back to the old Constitution, and be governed by a people six thousand miles away, knowing little of the requirements of the inhabitants of the Cape.
Therefore, we have to face a growing opinion among the self-governing colonies that they will allow England no controlling voice in their internal affairs; and the question will present itself to many Englishmen whether it is right that we should be saddled with the responsibility of defending colonies which resent any interference, and use their tariffs to lessen our trade. As long as they require help we are bound in honour to give it; but when they demand, as at some time they will demand, separation, the conviction they are now impressing upon us that they can do without England, will materially strengthen the desire to say to them, “Go in peace.”
Even if such a consideration did not exist, one might hope that England would never repeat the enterprise once attempted against what are now the United States, and try to crush a growing nation of our own children when wishing to take its own place in the economy of the world. Some will answer that all danger of such a contingency would be avoided by the adoption of a sound plan of imperial federation; but where is that sound plan to be looked for? Even the most ardent advocates of the principle do not venture upon a plan. They are content to talk of sympathy rather than develop a system; but sympathy does not go far when practical considerations are concerned. It may be argued that sympathy went a long way when a detachment from New South Wales assisted our military operations in the Soudan; but the experiment was a dangerous one which ought not to be often repeated. Franklin in his autobiography tells us that it was the defeat of Braddock’s force which first taught the American colonists that it was possible to hope for independence; and the lesson needs remembering.
What those who advocate imperial federation have to prove is that it is practicable to persuade each portion of this vast empire to pay and to fight for every other portion. As long as England does both the paying and the fighting, things may go smoothly. But if England went to war with France over the New Hebrides, in order to protect the interests of Australia, what would Newfoundland say on being asked to share the bill? Similarly, if England engaged France over the bait question, so as to preserve the fishing trade of Newfoundland, how would Australia like to be taxed for the fray? And if we fought the United States on the fisheries dispute in order to please Canada, does any one imagine that Australia or Cape Colony would agree to additional imposts for the lessening of our National Debt? It is when considerations like these are discussed that imperial federation appears a pleasing dream rather than a probable reality.
And, therefore, when we discuss our future dealings with the colonies, we ought to know how far we intend to go. As long as they remain with us, we ought to do our utmost to preserve the most friendly relations; but, having given them self-government, we ought to impress upon them the necessity for self-preservation. And if, when they can not only rule but protect themselves, they should ask to be freed from even the nominal allegiance to the English Crown which is all they now give, they should be suffered to go, in the hope and belief that they would prosper.
Though we have been discussing at this length our foreign and colonial relations, we must never forget that there is a “condition of England question” which claims the closest attention. The politics of the future will be largely coloured by considerations arising from our social developments; and it is important to decide whether the State ought to attempt to solve social problems, and how far it ought to interfere in the relations between man and man.
There is just now so much talk about Socialism that it is desirable to examine the principles which underlie State-interference with private affairs. Those who like to divide men into strictly defined parties are accustomed to describe their fellows as Socialists and Individualists; and, although there is no Socialist who would prevent all liberty of personal action, and no Individualist who would protest against every form of State-interference, the distinction is fair enough if it be understood that the Socialist believes that the State should do as much as possible, and the Individualist that it should do as little as possible, for those who dwell within its limits.
The view of the former is concisely stated in the programme of the Social Democratic Federation, in which are urged the immediate compulsory construction of healthy artisans’ and agricultural labourers’ dwellings, free compulsory education for all classes, with at least one wholesome meal a day in each school, an eight hours’ working day, cumulative taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum, State appropriation of railways with or without compensation, the establishment of national banks absorbing all others, rapid extinction of the National Debt, nationalization of the land, and organization of agricultural and industrial armies under State control on co-operative principles. These are merely claimed to be palliative measures, which should be followed by others more drastic; but they suffice to show the present-day Socialistic idea.
Against this extreme Socialist view must be set the extreme Individualist, which has been expressed by Mr. Spencer, who says—“There is reason to believe that the ultimate political condition must be one in which personal freedom is the greatest possible, and governmental power the least possible; that, namely, in which the freedom of each has no limit but the like freedom of all; while the sole governmental duty is the maintenance of this limit.” And the main idea of this statement had been anticipated in the remark, a couple of thousand years ago, by one of the greatest of Greek philosophers—“The truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most willing is the worst.”
The real question, of course, is not between any such extreme views, for Mr. Spencer would not deny that the State sometimes must interfere, and Mr. George would be the last to plead against the use of all individual effort. But though the limits of State-interference are what we have to determine, it is necessary first to consider whether the State should interfere at all.
An obvious answer is that the State interferes already in many a social problem, and that no one seriously proposes to do away with that interference. But even those who would thus reply may not be aware of the extent to which the State makes its influence felt in social affairs. The administration of justice and the protection of the commonwealth are necessarily, in all civilized communities, the affair of the State. But beyond these limits, the ruling authority, whether exercised through imperial or local officials, wanders at many a point.
The Poor-law is a striking instance of this fact, for it is a piece of legislation the Socialistic tendency of which none can gainsay, the State practically asserting that no one need starve, and providing food and shelter, under certain conditions, for all who are unable, or even unwilling, to work. The system of national education is another instance of Socialistic legislation; it makes me pay towards the education of my neighbour’s child, not for any immediate benefit to myself, but for my ultimate benefit as a citizen of an improved State. And the ruling authority goes further even than compelling me to feed the poor and educate the young, for it interferes, presumably for my good, with my liberty in many a detail.
From birth to death the State, even under present conditions, steps in at point after point to direct one’s path. Within forty days of being born I am compelled by the State to be registered; within three months I am equally constrained to be vaccinated; from five years old to thirteen, with certain limitations, I have to be sent to school; and, should my parents be so sensible as to apprentice me to a trade, a fee has to be paid to the State for the indentures. When I marry it is at a State-licensed institution; when I die it is by a State-appointed officer that my decease is certified. And in the interval, the State prevents me from obtaining intoxicating liquor except from certain individuals and within specified hours; it compels me, if I am a house-owner, to effect my sanitary arrangements in a given way; and if I am a house-holder, to keep my pavement free from snow. From the highest details to the lowest, then, the State even now interferes; whether I fail to have my child vaccinated or my chimney swept, it steps in; and those who argue that Individualism is a theory so true that State-interference should be abolished, have a number of fruits of that State-interference to get rid of before they can claim the victory.
But probably even those who imagine that they are extreme Individualists would not wish to remove from the Statute Book such specimens of State-interference as are now upon it. If they did, the clearance would indeed be great. For imagine what the effect would be if, in addition to the other measures indicated, we got rid of all the enactments affecting labour, and again allowed the employment of climbing boys as chimney-sweeps, of women and small children in mines, of men and women in white-lead works without precaution of any kind, of sailors in the merchant service without the protection of lime-juice against scurvy and of survey against sinking; picture what the population of our manufacturing districts would by this time have become without the protection afforded by the Factory Acts; remember what an improvement has been made in the way of guarding dangerous machinery, owing to the penalties inflicted upon careless owners by the Employers’ Liability Act; and then answer whether State-interference is necessarily a bad thing.
Within the limits which experience has shown to be desirable, it is a good thing; and it is no answer to this assumption that it has sometimes failed to secure the object aimed at. As long as nothing in this world is perfect, we cannot expect the action of the State to be; the only test in every case is an average test. If such State-interference as we see has on the whole done well, the balance must be struck in its favour; and in human affairs a favourable balance is all we have a right to anticipate.
The Individualistic ideal may be a good one, but it is the Individualistic real we have to examine. And what would become of the poor, the weak, and the helpless if the State stood aside from all interference with the affairs of men? That the rich and the powerful would grind them to powder in their struggles for more riches and greater power. The days of universal brotherhood have never existed—and, what is more, never will exist—and that State which protects the weak against the strong and the poor against the rich is the best worth striving for.
An ideal condition of society would be that in which every able-bodied person would have to work for a living with body, brains, or both; but birth and bullion play so large a part under present circumstances that, while we may sigh for the ideal, we must recognize the real. And this applies to all thinkers on our social affairs—to the extreme Socialist as to the extreme Individualist. The mystery of life cannot be solved by logic, and the pain, the poverty, and the crime which that mystery involves dissipated by law.
It must constantly also be borne in mind that mankind is not governed by material considerations alone, but is largely swayed by sentiment; and any system which ignores this and treats men simply as calculating machines is bound to fail. Thus it is that, while men accept the latest doctrines of social science, they do not act upon them. They sympathize with Mr. Spencer’s account of an ideal State in which the governmental power is the least possible, but they pay the education rate, support compulsory vaccination, and express not the slightest wish to see public-houses open all night. It is in this as in other theoretical affairs—our minds agree, but our hearts arbitrate. A parent may accept most thoroughly the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, but he will strive his utmost to preserve life to a crippled or lunatic child. And a trader may indicate assent when he hears that the employed ought to be paid only the amount which would secure similar services in the labour market; but, if he is even commonly honest in his dealings with his fellows, he will not discharge an old servant because he can obtain another for something less.
But no sooner do some men secure a fact than it begets a theory, and truth thus becomes the father of many lies. It is well enough that every one should strive to be independent of external help, but it is not within the bounds of the possible that every one can be perfectly so; and that being the case, the State, as the protector of all, is bound to interfere. What has to be decided is the limit of such interference; and although upon that point no precise line can be drawn, for as conditions vary so must the limit change, discussion may serve to show that all the truth lies in neither of the contending theories, but in a judicious use of both.
To precisely limit the interference of the State in private affairs has been urged to be impossible, for the boundaries of such interference are ever changing, and will continue ever to change as the circumstances vary. In some respects the State has more to say about our domestic concerns, in others less, than it formerly had; but there never was a time when it left us altogether alone, and there is never likely to be.
When people groan about “grandmotherly government,” and talk hazily of “good old times” when such was unknown, they speak with little knowledge of the social history of England. They forget that there was a day when under penalty men had to put out their fires at a given hour; that later they were directed to dress in a fashion presumed to be becoming to their several ranks; that at one period they had to profess Catholicism under fear of the fagot, and at another Protestantism under penalty of the rope; that in later days they had to go to church to escape being fined, and even until this century had to take the Sacrament in order to qualify for office; that in other times they were allowed to bury their dead only in certain clothing; that a section of them had to give six days in the year to the repair of the highways; and that in divers further ways their individual liberty was fettered in a fashion which would not now be tolerated for a day.
The State, in fact, has always claimed to be all-powerful, and has never assigned set limits to its demands. It has asserted, and still asserts, rights over that which is intangible, which it has not created, and which in its origin is superhuman. If a man has used a stream for his own purposes for a given period, the State secures him a right of use, protecting him from interference in or providing him compensation for that which neither he nor the State made or purchased. If another has a window which is threatened with being darkened by a newer building adjacent, the State steps in to assure him of the retention of his “ancient light.” And when people have for a series of years walked without hindrance across land belonging to others, the State gives to the commonalty a right of way, which, however seemingly intangible, often seriously deteriorates the value of the property over which it is exercised.
In the gravest concerns of man as well as in those which merely affect his comfort or his purse, the State intervenes. It used to assert by means of the press-gang its right to seize men for service in war; and it could at this day order a conscription which would compel all in the prime of life to pass under the military yoke. It can and does direct property to be seized for public purposes, upon compensation paid, from an unwilling owner; and it can and does take out of our pockets a proportion of our income, which proportion it has the power to largely increase, in order to pay its way.
That which does all these things is for convenience called “the State,” but in present circumstances it is really ourselves. The nation is simply the aggregate of the citizens who compose it, and each one of us—especially each possessor of a vote—is a distinct portion of the State. The misfortune which attends upon the frequent use of the word is that many persons seem to think that there is some mystic power called “the State” or “the Government,” which can dispense favours, spend money, and do great things—all from within itself. But neither State nor Government has any money save that which we give it, and no power except that which is accorded by the constituencies. And, therefore, when people cry out for “the State” to do this or “the Government” to do that, they should remember that they are portions of the force they beseech, and that if what is to be done costs money they will have to pay their share; and this much it is highly useful to recollect when appeals are more and more being made to the State for help.
Let us start, therefore, with the conviction that the State, which is simply ourselves and others like us, has no power beyond what the people give it, and no money but what the people pay; that it has throughout our history attempted to solve social problems, and is doing so still; and that it is as sure as anything human can be that if it did not interfere in certain cases to aid the struggling, to put a curb upon the tyrannous, and to regulate divers specified affairs, the poor and the helpless would be the principal sufferers, and greed of gain and lust of power would be in the ascendant.
But it would be easy to push this interference too far. Admitted that the State has done certain things for us, and, in the main, done them well, this affords no argument that it should do everything in the hope that equal success would follow. There is an assumption dear to pedants and schoolboys that because one does this he is bound to do that, but neither our daily lives nor our State concerns are or ought to be so governed. They are largely regulated by circumstances, with the idea of doing the best possible under existing conditions. For there is no infallible scheme of government or of society, and the system must be made to suit the people and not the people to suit the system.
And although the State, in certain departments of its interference, has done well, it has not brilliantly succeeded where it has entered into competition with private enterprise. Just as public companies are worked at a greater cost than the same concerns in the hands of individual proprietors, so Government enterprises are always highly expensive and often disastrous failures. It did not need the recent revelations concerning the waste, the jobbery, and the wanton extravagance of certain of our departments to inform those who knew anything of the public offices or the Government dockyards, that such things were the customary results of the system. Stroll through a private dockyard and then through a public one; visit a large mercantile office and then a Government department in Whitehall; and decide whether the State is a model master. It may be said that it is simply the system that is to blame, but surely the universality of evil result from the same cause should teach a lesson.
There may be asserted the possible exception of the Post-office to the charge that the State fails where it competes with private enterprise; and no one would deny that that department does good work, and that, if all others were like it, there would be less reason to complain. But it must not be forgotten that the Post-office, as far as the main portion of its business—letter-carrying—is concerned, does not compete with private enterprise, for it possesses by law the monopoly of the work; and that the cheapness of postage, upon which it prides itself, is largely secured by making the people of London pay at least twice as much as they would if competition existed for the letters they send among themselves, in order that they and others may, for the same money, forward letters to Perth or Penzance. As to the Government monopoly of the telegraphs, the result, while beneficial in a certain degree, has had this effect—it has partially strangled the telephone system; and that will hardly be claimed as a triumph.
Any suggestion, therefore, for making the State interfere still further with private enterprise ought to be most carefully weighed. The question really is whether it has not already done as much in this direction as it ought, and whether, generally speaking, the limits now laid down are not sufficiently broad.
What it does is this: it undertakes by means of an army and navy our external defence; secures by the police our internal safety; makes provision by which no person need starve; enforces upon all a certain amount of education; and enjoins a set of sanitary regulations for the protection of the community from infectious or contagious disease. These are the main items of its work, but beyond them it provides the means of communication by post and telegraph; fixes in certain degree the fares on railways and the price of gas; encourages thrift by the institution of savings banks; and gives us all an opportunity for religious exercise by the provision of an Established Church.
The objectionable part of this is that which directly interferes with personal opinion or private enterprise. The noble saying of Cromwell—“The State, in choosing men to serve it, takes no notice of their opinions; if they be willing faithfully to serve it, that satisfies”—spoken before its time, as even some of the Protector’s friends may have considered, must now be extended to the contention that the State has no concern whatever with the opinions of its citizens, and that it ought not to endow any sect at the expense of the rest. Concerning the competition with private enterprise, the State, in providing a system of national education and a postal and telegraph service, has gone to the verge of what it should do in such a direction.
While, therefore, the State should not abandon any function it now exercises, the severest caution ought to be used before another is undertaken. All attempts of the ruling power to interfere too closely with the private concerns of men—as witness the sumptuary laws and those against usury—have defeated themselves, and it is not for us to revive systems of interference which, even in the Middle Ages, broke down. It is no answer that some things are going so badly that State-interference may be considered absolutely necessary, and that it is merely the extremity of nervousness that hinders the experiment being tried. Caution is not cowardice, and no man is called upon to be foolhardy to prove his freedom from fear.
When it is said that, in certain directions, matters have come to such a pass that the State must more actively interfere, let us note that extremes meet upon this as upon so many other matters; for the cry that “the country is going to the dogs” is nowadays raised as lustily by some friends of the working man as ever it has been by the retired colonels and superannuated admirals whose exclusive possession it was so long. And the remedy suggested is that the State should do this, that, and the other, with an utter ignoring of the fact, which all history proves, that the creation of an additional army of officials would strangle enterprise and stifle invention. Thus from the general, it will be necessary to go to the particular, and to ask how far the proposed remedy would be effectual. The principle here argued is that the State should concern itself simply with external defence, internal safety, the protection of those unable to guard themselves, and the undertaking of such work for the general good as cannot be better done by private enterprise; and this principle holds good against many a nostrum now put forward as an infallible remedy for social ills.
Among the many social questions which the pressure of circumstances may soon make political is that of the State regulation of the hours of labour. The president of the Trades Union Congress for 1887 advocated, for instance, the passing of an Eight Hours Bill; and it is desirable to consider whether this would in any respect be a step in a right direction.
The argument for such a measure appears in principle to be this: that the classes dependent upon manual labour for their livelihood have too many hands for the work there is to do; that those who do get work toil too long; and that both evils would be remedied by restricting the hours of labour, more men thus finding employment and all working well within their strength.
Against these points may be set others: that England has already been severely affected by competition with countries where the hours are longer and the pay less; that any further restriction of hours without a corresponding reduction of pay would be ruinous to our trade; and that it is highly probable that the majority of workmen would prefer to labour for nine hours at their present wages than for eight hours at less. The last contention, of course, might be answered by an enactment fixing not only the hours to be worked but the wages to be paid. If this is wished for, it should be clearly put; but before any step is taken towards either such measure, several points concerning each, which now appear more than doubtful, should be made clear.
A fallacy underlying much of the contention in favour of any such enactment is the idea that the community is divided into two distinct classes—the producing and the consuming. As a fact, there are no producers who do not consume, though there are some consumers who do not produce. But is even that an unmixed evil? There is a further fallacy which arbitrarily divides us into capitalists and labourers; but every man who can purchase the result of another’s labour is a capitalist, and that much-denounced person will never be got rid of as long as it is easier to buy than to make.
A third class which secures the condemnation of many is “the middle-man.” It is easy to denounce him, but he is a necessity at once of commerce and of comfort. If one wants some coffee at breakfast, he cannot go to Java for the berry, the West Indies for the sugar, the dairy-farm for the milk, and the Potteries for the cup from which to drink. So far from the middle-man unduly increasing the price of those articles, he lessens it by dealing in bulk with what it would pay neither the producer nor the purchaser to deal with in small quantities; and not only lessens the price but, in regard to the commodities of a distant land, renders it practically possible for us to have them at all.
It is equally useless to rail at competition as if it were inherently evil, for there will be competition as long as men exist to struggle for supremacy. And competition keeps the world alive, as the tide prevents the sea from stagnating. Occasionally the waves break their bounds, and loss and tribulation result; but the power for good must not be ignored, because the power for evil is sometimes prominent.
To talk of the working classes as if they thought and acted in a body is another delusion. Not only this. The frequent assumption that somebody or other can speak on behalf of “the people” is a mistake. When it is done, one is entitled to ask what the phrase means? “The people” are the whole body of the population, and no one section, even if a majority has a right to exclusively claim the title. In legislating, regard must be had to the interests of all and not to those of a part, however numerous; and this brings us straight to the question of interfering by enactment with the price or the amount of labour.
It is curious to note that the demand which is now being raised by some Trade Unionists on behalf of labour is similar in principle to that which was used for centuries by the propertied classes against labour. The Statute of Labourers, passed in the reign of Edward III., fixed wages in most precise fashion, settling that of a master mason, for instance, at fourpence and of journeymen masons at threepence a day. And as lately as only eight years after George III. came to the throne, all master tailors in London and for five miles round were forbidden under heavy penalties from giving, and their workmen from accepting, more than 2s. 7½d. a day—except in the case of a general mourning. Subsequently, statesmen grew more wise, and, in the closing years of last century, the younger Pitt refused to support a bill to regulate the wages of labourers in husbandry. But it is singular that, whereas Adam Smith could say that “whenever the Legislature attempts to regulate the difference between masters and their workmen, its counsellors are always the masters,” to-day it is the workmen who promise to become so.
If it be replied that it is State interference with the hours alone and not with the wages that is demanded, it may be submitted that if the one is done it will be a hardship to the worker rather than a boon if the other be not attempted. For, if a man, by working nine hours a day, could earn, say, 27s. a week, it is obvious that for eight hours a day he would not earn more in the same period than 24s., unless Parliament insisted that he should receive the higher sum for the less work. But is Parliament likely to do anything of the kind; if it did do it, would it be found to be practicable; and, if it were found to be practicable, would it be just?
Parliament is not likely to do anything of the kind, because the experience of centuries has taught us that it is impossible to fix wages by statute. It was tried over and over again, first by enactments applying to the whole country, and then by regulations for each county, settled by the local justices of the peace; but, though the experiment was backed by all the forces of law, it broke down so utterly that in time it had to be got rid of.
Even if the return could be secured of a majority to Parliament pledged to the proposal, would it be likely to be any more practicable to-day than it was in olden times? We are now an open market for the world. If hours were lessened and wages not reduced, imported articles from foreign countries would become much cheaper than our own goods, and would be bought to the detriment of English workers. Is it proposed by the promoters of a compulsory eight-hours working day that we should have Protection once more, and a prohibitory tariff placed upon all manufactured goods brought from abroad in order to keep up the price of English articles?
And, further, if it were practicable, would it be just? It would be unjust to the employers, who would have to pay present prices for lessened work; it would be unjust to the toilers, in that it would prevent them from making a higher income by working more; and it would be unjust to the consumers, in making them give a greater price for the commodities they required. Those who propose the compulsory eight hours would presumably wish wages to be maintained at the present standard; it would hardly be a popular cry if it would have the effect of bringing wages down.
If the Legislature is to interfere at all in this direction, the old proposal had better be put forward at once—