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same spirit of accommodation and mutual adjustment of differences should not extend itself within each separate people, as it has done, in fact, in this country. The Sunderland shipwrights have made successful use of an arbitrative conference. Powerful companies have submitted their mutual differences to the arbitration of men of known character and ability. The House of Commons is a court of arbitration for many differing interests, although it becomes too much like a field of battle for those which are too powerful to be simply subject to Government; and if any methods can be invented by which classes having seemingly opposite interests can unite in mutual accommodation, such methods may take their place amongst the acknowledged combinations of political economy, may even fight their way under the system of competition,' levy troops against that mighty monarch in his own name, and, before men are well aware, usurp his throne.

The difficulties in the way of such an invention are not like those which stand in the way of a perpetual motion, but they may be somewhat analogous either to those of the north-west passage or of the Darien canal. The forces concerned are not all known and calculable: nor is it still a desideratum to find the living spring of untiring energy; human will and moral force are already involved in the problem, and the question is, whether they can overcome certain powerful material gravitations. It may be that this is possible only by an effort such as no organization hitherto imagined can maintain, or even such as human nature has not been made capable of maintaining. It may be only that an extent and concentration of energy is required beyond past example, but not beyond possibility, or the future prospects of reasonable hope. The oceans of capital and labour may, perhaps, be one day united, not merely by channels in which storms and ice-floes ceaselessly rush and jar, but by a calm and safe canal, whose waters peacefully ebb and flow between the solid banks of permanent institutions.

It must, however, be admitted, that what is so easily said is by no means easy to be done. One great difficulty arises, not only from the natural desire that all men have for liberty, but also from the indispensable value of the power of liberty in developing the faculties and energies of mankind.

Mr. Neale has justly observed that there is a danger to liberty in the system of industrial organisation:

'Now the result of this exaggeration of the principle of common property must necessarily be, to destroy the independence of the individualto turn the social union into a barrack-life, where every one is drilled and marched about, shaved, washed, dressed, given to eat, and to drink, sent to bed, and made to get up at the will of the majority; to strike at the root of family life, and to introduce a state of things which I conceive to be

altogether contrary to the true objects of social union; and therefore it is that I am opposed to the doctrince of communism.'-Letter in the Journal of Association, p. 135.

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It may seem out of place to refer to Apocalyptic prophecy in such a matter, but the tendency of strictly democratic socialism is to set up an authority such as that which is described in Rev. xiii. 16, 17: And he caused all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and bond, to receive a mark in their right hand, or in their foreheads; and that no man might buy or 'sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of the name.'

Under colour of liberality, and suppressing invidious distinctions, a Democratic system might very probably interfere with individual religion, and deny civil rights to any one who would not consent to give up the education of his family in his own religious principles, or even the public profession of any distinct and dogmatic faith. But long before we come to this extreme tyranny, there may be a very strict rule imposed upon many of our proceedings, at least on the condition, of any employment by which we can earn a livelihood.

Even the workman must not expect that absolute freedom of choice as to where he will labour, and whether he will labour, which the possession of a few pounds now gives him, at least for the time, in a system which is to provide labour at a fair remuneration for every one who needs it. Labour it may provide, but choice of labour no system can provide beyond the limits of mutual use and consumption. Yet as some freedom in the choice of employment is valuable to the workman, and tends to his improvement, so is freedom of occupation and enterprise almost an absolute necessity for the more highly educated class, which no rational economist would dream of eliminating from society. Liberty, then, is a condition which must be preserved in any system that is to be productive of permanent good, and which cannot be rendered compatible with organization except by careful provisions for the purpose.

Another great difficulty is to obtain a sufficiently large area of combination for an effectual experiment. Any establishment acting upon a new principle is liable to the competition of those which proceed on the old methods; and one that gives fair wages may be undersold, for instance, by one which pays a lower remuneration for labour. This part of the problem might, perhaps, be solved by cooperative associations, if including men of superior mental power, and furnished with realized capital enough to undergo a temporary depression, since they could, in the long run, work at a cheaper rate than capitalists who had to enrich themselves as well as to support their labourers.

But cooperative associations may come into competition with each other, and in that case the competition will become far more depressing than the present power of capital in other hands. The general union of cooperative associations would secure a large basis, yet even upon this the mania of speculation could not be entirely defied; and if we imagine the still wider basis of a whole country, that country would still be liable to the competition of the world.

In any supplementary system, such as has been sometimes proposed in the form of a poor-law, there is the difficulty of interference with the trade of other portions of the community, unless the workmen employed can strictly, or almost strictly, be employed for one another. And the fact that food is the first necessary of life, renders the difficulty of effecting this by a poor-law greater than it would be in any voluntary combination, for it is almost of the nature of a poor-law to provide for a variable number of persons, while the production of articles of food requires a permanent occupation of the soil, and its perpetual cultivation, and every intermission causes a proportionate loss. This difficulty would be partially met by the direction of labour to the production of articles capable of being kept in store, and the maintenance of a considerable stock, capable of bearing any ordinary excess of demand without exhaustion.

Mr. Hole proposes the application of this plan to our harvests in general, and thinks that the community might do to greater advantage, and to a greater extent, what is now done by speculators at some risk, and with only partial benefit to the public. He thinks we might keep far ahead of consumption in our stock of corn, and thus in a greater degree equalize its price. This plan is inadmissible on the theory of absolutely free competition, since competition in the market would at once be crushed by an enormous reserve at the command of a public authority. Yet the benefit of almost absolute security against famine is one not to be despised, and it is an object worthy of laborious thought, and some trial of experiments, whether such a plan could not be made available at least to check those extreme variations which are a dubious and partial benefit even to the favoured class. Only the farmers whose capital was far below a reasonable standard, if even they, would be driven off the field by a more limited variation of price. And means ought to be taken for preventing unnaturally low as well as extremely high prices.' In fact large purchases in times of plenty would

1 This must be understood relatively to the natural average. If produce can be permanently cheapened, while production is fairly remunerated, the public cannot well forego the benefit.

almost do this of themselves, while they would provide for future dearth.

Yet this cannot be thrown out as a complete and digested plan for overcoining the present evils. There are ways by which, at present, it would be made far less effectual than it might at first sight appear to an enthusiast. And even the prevention of extreme temporary cheapness might operate to the detriment of the home producer by setting the foreign importer free from one of the risks to which he is now subject. Speculation, as long as it remains free, can still disturb any, even the wisest system, of regulating supply and demand. Nothing short of a power so paramount as actually to regulate prices could be entirely secure against such interference. And it would be useless to attempt an entire regulation of prices without a frumentary bank stocked for a Babylonian siege. Further objections might doubtless be raised against this or any similar arrangement, grounded upon the supposed permanency of some of the present conditions of society. But as it is not proposed at once to introduce any such measures, so it is not necessary to guard them against inconveniences which will be removed if the plans ever come into action through the processes of nature. Liberty must be maintained in some way or other, but we are not now sensibly the less free, because when we want to travel from London to Edinburgh we must go by railway or steamboat, instead of pack-horse, coach, or smack. If employment is rendered, as it may be, far more remunerative than it is at present, by a better division of labour, in an organized system, liberty will be at once increased and extended. Capital itself will have surer gains, though less chance of extravagant inultiplication; enterprise may be somewhat limited in its range, but may probably be even forced into directions safer for private interest, as well as more conducive to public benefit. But the procedure by which these advantages are to be attained must be gradual, for several reasons. One of these is the high amount of integrity that will be required in the more responsible and confidential parts of such a social organization. Another is the necessity of having men trained and habituated even to the mechanical part of any new system. Again, every change interferes with existing interests, and is liable to cause extreme distress and injustice if hastily brought about. A more organized social economy might in some measure provide against this evil for the future, but ought not to give the worst example of it in its own introduction.

Mr. Hole, whose book contains too many home-truths to be passed unnoticed, although he has himself considered this point, writes sometimes in a way calculated to prevent its due con

sideration by others. In one page he deprecates violence, and sudden reconstruction, in another he uses language and proposes plans calculated to excite the most violent passions on the one side, and the most determined hostility on the other. When he speaks of landlords 'restoring the land,' and the like, we cannot but expect that the cupidity of the multitude will be excited by the hope of immediate plunder, and the jealousy of the proprietor aroused to the utmost possible resistance. Even where he speaks of compensation, it is in connexion with a theory and a proposed measure which are liable to grave objections.

'A feudal system of landholding and a dense population are two such incongruous elements, that, we may rely upon it, the advent of the masses of the people of this country to power, will witness the destruction of the land-monopoly. It would be very desirable, could the mind of the people be prepared by a system of prospective legislation, to avoid alike the evils which must attend a sudden and violent re-distribution of the soil similar to those suffered by the French Aristocracy, and, at the same time, secure the supremacy of just and rational principles of landholding. We would on no account sanction the deprivation of the present owners of their interest in the soil, at all events not without complete compensation. That society has no right to inflict an evil to obtain a good, until all means have been tried to avoid that evil, is a principle as valid for landlords as it ought to have been held for hand-loom weavers. But this by no means excludes action on the future. As Mr. Mill justly observes, "the reason for not disturbing acts of injustice of old date, cannot apply to unjust systems or institutions, since a bad law or usage is not one bad act in the remote past, but a perpetual repetition of bad acts, as long as the law or usage lasts." A law whose action should not commence until all now living had quitted the scene of life, might be framed to secure those just rights of society which it ought never to have given up, and it could not be charged with injustice towards the descendants of the landlords, no longer brought up with the expectations of obtaining superior advantages at the expense of the community. The landlords enjoy the monopoly of the land upon sufferance, just as they did the monopoly of the Corn Laws. The land was never granted them with the acquiescence of those at whose expense it was given; and we have yet to learn that society, in resuming its rights, after protecting the interests of the present owners, would be guilty of spoliation or robbery.'-Hole, pp. 98, 99.

He would have no more land held by an individual than he has capital to cultivate, and this be let by the State, at the termination of every life-tenancy, to the highest bidder, an arrangement which requires strict examination when proposed by one who complains of rent. His answer would be, that the payer receives back through the State. But this would not prevent the rent from becoming, in some cases, oppressive, especially if the family of a deceased tenant were anxious to continue in occupation, and bid high on that account. It is conceivable, however, that it might answer to the State, if it had a proper organization in readiness for using its acquisition, to purchase the land at its full value, at the demise of the present holders. But a

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