VI. Benthamism was not in reality the monopoly of Lecture Liberals. The Conservatives who followed Peel1 would have derided the idea of being utilitarians, but in common with the men of their generation they had accepted to a great extent the doctrines of Bentham. They joined with the older Tories in resistance to further and large constitutional changes, but under the guidance of Peel they believed that the gradual removal of abuses, and the skilful administration of public affairs at home, combined with the preservation of peace abroad, would secure national prosperity. The men who in later years were known as Peelites were convinced individualists, no less than the Radicals of the Manchester school, and stood far nearer in their way of looking at politics to the older Benthamites than did a Whig such as Lord John Russell, or a nominally Liberal leader such as Palmerston. No Liberal and no Conservative betrayed, at any rate, the remotest leaning towards socialism. Lord Melbourne's "Why can't you let it alone?" was the expression not so much of indolence as of trust in laissez faire. The guides, lastly, of the working classes were, in 1 Between 1835 and 1844 agricultural training schools and model farms were established in Ireland, but "a strong opposition to State"paid agricultural education arose among the English free-traders and "greatly influenced the Government. They objected to training "farmers at public cost; to the State paying for, and taking a part in agricultural operations. Peel and Cardwell sympathised with these "views; the model farms were nearly all given up and the teaching "of agriculture was almost restricted to mere book knowledge. In "accordance with ideas that were then widely diffused, the inspectors "positively discouraged practical agricultural instruction as not really "education."-Lecky, Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland, ii. pp. 125, 126. This illustrates both the laissez faire of the day and the attitude of Peel and the Peelites. VI. Lecture some cases, at any rate, Benthamites. Francis Place disbelieved in trade unionism, but believed heart and soul in Malthusianism, and in the saving virtues of the New Poor Law, if only it were administered with sufficient severity.1 Trade unionists themselves adopted the formulas, if not the principles of the political economists, and hoped that laissez faire, if rightly interpreted, would give to wage-earners adequate means for working out their own social and political salvation. Among the Chartists might be found some devotees of socialistic ideals, but Chartism was not socialism. The People's Charter, formulated in 1838,3 was a strictly political programme which conformed to the doctrine of democratic Benthamism. 2 Liberalism, indeed, of the Benthamite type was not only dominant during what may be termed the era of reform, but betrayed, in Parliament at least, little sign of weakening authority till the nineteenth century had run more than half its course. Consider for a moment the general condition of opinion say in 1850 and 1852. The philosophic Radicals (whose fate it was to advocate the cause of the people, and yet never to command the peoples' confidence or affection) had almost ceased as a party to exist, but practical individualism was the predominant sentiment of the time. If there remained few ardent 1 See generally Wallas, Life of Francis Place, and especially as to the reforms still desirable in 1832, pp. 326, 327. As to transitory character of trade combinations, pp. 217, 218; as to desire for the strict enforcement of the poor law, pp. 332-334; as to Malthusianism, pp. 174, 175. 2 See Webb, History of Trade Unionism, pp. 277-283; and 265, 266. I do not, of course, forget that many artisans were deeply influenced by the principles of Robert Owen. 3 Walpole, Hist., iv. p. 49. VI. disciples of Bentham, such as were John Mill and Lecture his friends, when twenty or thirty years earlier they were the fervent propagandists of utilitarianism, Bentham had, in fact, triumphed, and moderate utilitarianism was the accepted and orthodox political faith. The optimism of Macaulay, the first two volumes of whose History appeared in 1849, expressed the tone of the day in the vigorous rhetoric of genius. At about the same date (1849-50) the lucid dogmatism of Miss Martineau demonstrated that the progress of England during the Thirty Years' Peace was due to liberalism of the Benthamite type; the learning of George Grote (1846-56) was used, or misused, to deduce from the annals of the Athenian democracy conclusions in support of philosophic radicalism. The Exhibition of 1851 had a significance which is hardly understood by the present generation. To wise and patriotic contemporaries it represented the universal faith that freedom of trade would remove the main cause of discord among nations, and open an era of industrial prosperity and unbroken peace. The ideas of the political economists, and above all the dogma of laissez faire, had, it was thought, achieved a final victory. The Reformed Parliament, though its legislation did not satisfy all the aspirations of philosophic radicalism, proved to be a suitable instrument for the gradual carrying out of utilitarian reform. Great political changes seemed to be at an end. Chartism had expired on the 10th April 1848, and the working classes had ceased to press for democratic innovations. Reform Bills were suggested or brought forward in deference to the pledges of statesmen, or the exigencies of party warfare, in 1852, 1854, 1859, Lecture and 1860, but excited no general interest. VI. In 1859 Bright attempted an agitation in favour of household suffrage. His eloquence collected crowded audiences, but did not kindle popular emotion, and the orator is said to have compared his labours to the futile work of "flogging a dead horse." In truth the events of 1848 and of the years which immediately followed 1848 had discredited republicanism, and had in England checked the advance of democracy. They had done more than this; they had in the eyes of English common-sense convicted socialism not only of wickedness but of absurdity.' Buckle in 1857 sounded forth throughout all England sonorous periods which embodied the principles or the platitudes of the then prevalent liberalism; whilst John Mill, the hereditary representative of Benthamism, published two years later that treatise On Liberty, which appeared, to thousands of admiring disciples, to provide the final and conclusive demonstration of the absolute truth of individualism, and to establish on firm ground the doctrine that the protection of freedom was the one great object of wise law and sound policy. As a sign of the state of opinion it is noticeable that the only considerable legislative achievement which can be ascribed to Palmerston is 1 Note the violence of the language of the Quarterly in reference to Christian Socialists such as Maurice and Kingsley (see Life of Maurice, ii., pp. 71-73), and the protest against a sermon by Kingsley (supposed to contain socialist doctrine), uttered immediately after its delivery before the very congregation who heard it, by the Rector at whose request Kingsley had delivered the sermon (Kingsley, Dictionary of National Biography, xxxi. p. 177). 2 Notice Buckle's denunciation of everything which savoured of protection. As to John Mill's influence and also as to the relation between evangelicalism and individualism, see Lect. XII., post. VI. the Divorce Act of 1857. And this measure, if Lecture opposed to the convictions of High Churchmen, was in perfect harmony with Benthamism. Add to all these facts which lie on the very surface of recent history, the immense moral and intellectual effect produced by the uninterrupted course of Benthamite legislation, and above all by the repeal of the corn laws, and the subsequent prosperity of which this repeal was held to be the cause. This continuance, indeed, of Benthamite legislation is the main proof as well as from one point of view a chief cause of the dominance of individualism throughout pretty nearly the whole existence of the reformed Parliament. But here we pass to 1 (C) The Trend and Tendency of Benthamite Benthamite individualism possessed, as already noted,2 one peculiar characteristic. It was a movement which, under the influence of a teacher born with the genius of a law-maker, was immediately and intentionally directed towards the amendment of the law of England. 3 Hence a singular congruity or harmony in the whole trend of Benthamite legislation which, if we look not at the gradual steps by which it was carried out, but at the nature of the objects which it systematically pursued, might seem to be dictated by the will of a despotic sovereign inspired with the spirit of Bentham. For this legislation has, speaking 1 See pp. 41-46, ante. 2 See pp. 63-64, ante. 3 This unity is concealed from casual observers by the gradual and fragmentary character of English legislation. |