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numbers than he did in savage days. The money that is wasted in excess of drink, well applied, would leave few in England short of victuals, and for money the victuals would be forthcoming. Education, if universal, would very much diminish pauperism and distress, but there would still be need of some organization which might direct labour and capital into the most desirable channels, and balance the increase of one service by a proportionate increase of another. A large body thus working within itself might hold its place within the community, and by degrees it is conceivable that the advantages of such combination might draw the whole people into one or more such unions, or into acquiescence in their arrangements of prices, wages and the like. But this is a remote possibility, while it can scarcely be doubted but that a limited society might be formed with advantage on cooperative principles, with rules of mutual insurance, for education, apprenticeship, employment, emigration, settlement, &c. Even our agricultural poor are not so driven to the minimum of subsistence, but that young men might engage in some such combinations with advantage. But artisans and manufacturing workmen, who have higher wages, need only good plans, and prudence to adopt them, in order to secure to themselves and their families almost a certainty of maintaining tolerable prosperity, with a fair chance of further advancement. Meanwhile selfishness and distrust stand even more in men's way than imprudence and impatience, and constantly prevent agreements and combinations which might issue in the greatest mutual advantage. And it must never be forgotten that these evil dispositions cannot be eradicated by the very best social arrangements, as on the other hand it is possible to act under the present system of free competition on the highest principles of charity and mutual accommodation. The same facts produce very different practical impressions on different minds. On coming to the conclusion that wages are determined by the market value of the commodity of labour, one master will conclude that, such being the case, he is to make as good a bargain as he can; another will infer, no less logically, that since the labourer has no protection but in the necessity of some one being found to do the work, it is his duty to see that his own labourer at least is not oppressed in his wages. The received political economy, viewed as a science, has as good a right to the one conclusion as to the other. The only question is, whether, and how far, political economy can aid Christian principle in carrying out its ends. And this is a question not lightly to be given up as irrelevant. The economists of the socialist school, though they believe that they see beyond J. S. Mill with respect to the principle of population, ought not to

forget that he has appreciated and adopted the suggestions of Babbage with respect to co-operative establishments. It is to be regretted that a man so earnest in purpose and so intelligent as M. St. André cannot refrain from using the terms Economy' and Economist' in a bad sense, and with reference to certain practical conclusions which the best political economists would be glad to dispense with. It is not from inhumanity, but from an intellectual difficulty, that J. S. Mill resorts to improbable suppositions of the future prudence and self-denial of mechanics and labourers. If an extension of the cooperative system will enable them to dispense with a course of action alien to natural and allowable tendencies, so much the better, and Mr. Mill will not be the last to admit it. But they should excuse his caution, and improve upon him without reviling him, or the science to which he has striven to give a right direction. It may not be too much to expect of the lower classes, in an improved state of cultivation, what is now done by the higher, who commonly marry late, or do not marry, if they do not see the way to maintaining a family in their own rank. But when he goes beyond this, he certainly exposes himself to attack, and gives reason to suspect the completeness of his theory. At the same time he has not failed to indicate the direction of the only remedy which can solve the difficulty he has raised. If he has not ventured further, it may be because he perceives what M. St. André states as the result of long experience and many efforts.

2

'I intended to render available to you and your country, as a token of my gratitude to both, the results of a costly and varied experience protracted during twenty consecutive years. The results of that experience I summed up then, and still sum up as follows:

1st. That the introduction of the principle of association and valid combination into the industrial and economical life of society as being the proper check against irrational and conflicting competition, and the only means of securing education, labour, and adequate subsistence to all men in their respective local and national circles, to be successfully and effectively carried out, requires a strong discipline, and the entire submission and coordination of the acts and dealings of every private individual and

1 See Mill's Political Economy, b. iv. c. viii. s. 5.

2 Mr. Ludlow has done justice to Mr. J. S. Mill in his Lectures on the Master Engineers and their Workmen, p. 25:- If we turn to Mr. J. S. Mill, we find a writer whose whole spirit is so generously devoted to the improvement of the masses, that it is almost impossible to pick out any special passages embodying that feeling. Take, however, the following: "In Europe, the time, if it ever existed, is long past, when a life of privation had the smallest tendency to make men better workmen or more civilised beings. It is, on the contrary, evident, that if the agricultural labourers were better off, they would both work more efficiently, and be better citizens. I ask then, is it true or not, that if their numbers were fewer they would obtain higher wages?" "High wages and short hours," he says elsewhere tersely, are generally good objects."'

private family as producer and consumer to a common social rule freely accepted and strictly enforced.

2d. That association is essentially a religious principle, the very refraction of spiritual light and love, which is Christianity in the temporal relations of men, and that therefore any attempt to establish co-operation or collective action in the economical functions of society is either consciously or unconsciously a Christian movement, and must fail or succeed in the direct ratio of its being in conformity with true Christian principles, namely, Church principles, and of the amount of Christian faith and selfdenial evinced by individuals engaged in a cooperative and socialist effort.' Letter, p. 14.

This is plain and important truth, and the sooner it becomes. understood by English Socialists, the better; but it is still more necessary that it should be known to all who desire to aid the cooperative efforts of the labourer and the mechanic by counsel or contribution. The calculation and contemplation of all that is involved in the first of these two propositions would at once put out of the question many a visionary scheme, and prove many a specious proposal to be either worthless or of but partial and temporary benefit. And the necessity of submitting to the conditions requisite to give a truly social, and not merely jointstock, character to combination would silence many a hasty claimant of property or privileges, which he would use, and only thinks of using,if once made his own, as selfishly as the present

possessors.

The truth is, that the claims of individual liberty are fatal to almost any scheme that can be hastily drawn up for the combination of different classes. And supposing individuals to surrender their present liberty of action, there are still difficulties in securing the quality of work, which is now maintained in some measure by competition. The necessary organization for such purpose, and the habits of action required for them, must grow, and cannot be instantaneously created. And the most favourable chance for the growth of such organization is in a state of peace and order, and good-will between different classes. It would act as a remedy, it is true, for the social war of strikes and lock-outs, counterfeiting and counter-advertising, touting and underselling; but it cannot probably come in as a compromise in that war, it must appear as a mediating party beside the combatants. In order to this, its own character should be as little as possible competitive, its accommodations mutual, its rules elastic, its principles firm, its scope comprehensive of all classes, and its founders far-sighted, patient, and self-denying. M. St. André is probably somewhat premature in expecting Englishmen to be able to submit to the amount of discipline' which is necessary for his combinations. Most of them certainly will not do that on speculation. They must see their advantage

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clearly before they will sacrifice so much of their liberty. But he is right in selecting the functions of consumption as those which are most likely to afford the means of combining classes, and giving an universal character to a cooperative movement. His ideal Board of supply and demand, of which his present little establishment is merely a possible germ, is a kind of universal cooperative store, or bank of all commodities. Such an engine, in honest hands, devoted to the cause of cooperation, would control, while it would also effectually encourage, cooperative production, and would make various cooperative societies beneficial to one another. It is unquestionably a good division of labour, and a saving upon the present expensive, speculative, and somewhat demoralizing machinery of selling. But its efficacy for the ends which he purposes depends upon its obtaining extensive support, and becoming a kind of public institution, in the hands of disinterested men, who have deliberately before them the object of a just division of profits in all the processes of production and supply.

Whether or not such a scheme can be carried into effect, there can be no question but that the idea of cooperation has taken root and is likely to spread. And it is, to say the least, a healthier form of speculation than that of communism, or of agrarian agitation. In that direction, if in any, is the escape from the pressures of bankruptcy on the one hand, and starvation on the other, which preserve a rude and fluctuating balance in the unorganized state of commercial and industrial life. And it is not unreasonable to suppose that now the consciousness of those pressures has been developed by political economy, the remedy of them may also be open to the joint reason of large societies, as well as to the individual prudence of capitalists, real or sham, the latter of whom are their most dangerous promoters. And while the collection of documents published by M. St. André may appear to superficial readers a proof that the problem is insoluble, and only involves those who undertake it in endless confusion, a closer study of it will lead to other thoughts. It may be that some who really understand the question will shrink from the difficulty, or will be deterred from undertaking such work by other responsibilities; but it is scarce possible to enter thoroughly into the question without seeing that there is a real work to be done, a real organization possible, and clear principles on which it must be constructed, or rather vitally concreted, in order to give at least an example of social justice and mutual aid and support in all the transactions of life. It is in order to call the attention of Churchmen to the progress of facts and theories in this department, that this subject has been, otherwise prematurely, taken up. There are Commu

nistic, Pantheistic, and Atheistic heads at work, and the work is one which ought to be done by men of sound and sober faith. And if Mr. E. V. Neale, Mr. Maurice, and Mr. Kingsley, though with better views, have not taken so satisfactory a course as to make it desirable that the movement they have set on foot should continue unmodified, it would be well for able men to investigate the questions and problems which have arisen, and if possible to propose or adopt better methods of working out such kindred objects as may afford some example of a real social reformation.

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