VII. Lecture Bentham, the new democracy came into power under the influence of vague aspirations and unprovided with any definite plan of legislation. If we substitute the word "desires" for "passions," we may apply to the working classes of England in 1868 the language applied by Tocqueville to the working classes of France in 1848: 66 "Les classes ouvrières aujourd'hui, je le reconnais, sont tranquilles. Il est vrai qu'elles ne sont pas tourmentées par les passions politiques "proprement dites, au même degré où elles en ont "été tourmentées jadis; mais, ne voyez-vous pas que leurs passions, de politiques, sont devenues "sociales?" 1 3 These aspirations may, to use the expression of another French writer, be described as Le Socialisme sans doctrines, or a wish for socialistic laws without the conscious adoption of socialistic theory. Here, as elsewhere, law and speculation, action and thought react upon one another. One example of such interaction may be seen in the writings and speeches of H. Fawcett. He was himself an economist and individualist after the school, not of Senior or M'Culloch, but of John Mill. His essays published in 1872-that is within five years after the Reform Act, 1867-show that a writer, who criticised socialism in a moderate and not unsympathetic manner, felt that he was struggling against the sentiment of the 1 Souvenirs d'Alexis de Tocqueville, publiés par Le Comte de Tocqueville, 1893, pp. 15, 16. 2 Métin, Le Socialisme sans doctrines. The expression is used in reference to socialistic experiments in Australia. See W. P. Reeves, State Experiments in Australia and New Zealand. 3 See pp. 41-46, ante. VII. time. When six years later, in 1878, Fawcett pro- Lecture tested with vigour against restrictions imposed by the Factory Acts on the liberty of women, he is clearly the brave defender of a lost cause. In 1885 appeared the Radical Programme. It celebrated the complete establishment of the new democracy; it demanded reforms in the direction of socialism. These reforms, it is assumed, will sound the deathknell of the laissez faire system. Democracy is to advance, and "the goal towards which the advance "will probably be made at an accelerated pace, is "that in the direction of which the legislation of the last quarter of a century has been tending the “intervention, in other words, of the State on behalf of the weak against the strong, in the "interests of labour against capital, of want and 'suffering against luxury and ease.' Under this programme free education—that is, education at the expense, not of the parent, but of the nation 66 66 cottage farms and yeomanry holdings," also in some form or other to be provided at the cost of the nation, the complete reversal of the Benthamite policy embodied in the Inclosure Act 1845, the provision by the use of the resources of the State of good houses in towns for the poor, and a graduated income-tax, as well as a considerable extension of the right of the State to take for the public use the land of individuals at the lowest market price, are advantages offered or promised to the electorate. No one can doubt the direction in which the current of legislative opinion was in 1885 assumed to be flowing by the Radical leaders; they believed it-and no one 1 The Radical Programme, p. 17, published 1885. Lecture can say that their belief was erroneous—to be completely turned in the direction of collectivism. VII. If to any student the conditions referred to in this lecture appear, even when co-operating. insufficient to account for a remarkable revolution in legislative opinion, such doubts may be lessened by one reflection: The beneficial effect of State intervention, especially in the form of legislation, is direct, immediate, and, so to speak, visible, whilst its evil effects are gradual and indirect, and lie out of sight. If a law imposes a penalty on a shipowner who sends a vessel to sea before he has obtained a Board of Trade certificate of its seaworthiness, it is probable that few ships will set out on their voyage without a certificate, and it is possible that, for the moment, the number of ships which go to sea unfit to meet a storm may be diminished. These good results of State intervention are easily noticeable. That the same law may make a shipowner, who has obtained a certificate, negligent in seeing that his ship is really seaworthy, and that the certificate will in practice bar any action for real negligence, are evil results of legislation which are indirect and escape notice. Nor in this instance, or in similar cases, do most people keep in mind that State inspectors may be incompetent, careless, or even occasionally corrupt, and that public confidence in inspection, which must be imperfect, tends to make the very class of persons whom it is meant to protect negligent in taking due measures for their own protection; few are those who realise the undeniable truth that State help kills self-help. Hence the majority of mankind must VII. almost of necessity look with undue favour upon Lecture governmental intervention. This natural bias can be counteracted only by the existence, in a given society, as in England between 1830 and 1860, of a presumption or prejudice in favour of individual liberty—that is, of laissez faire. The mere decline, therefore, of faith in self-help-and that such a decline has taken place is certain-is of itself sufficient to account for the growth of legislation tending towards socialism. This consideration goes far to explain the peculiar development of English law during the later part of the nineteenth century. S LECTURE VIII THE PERIOD OF COLLECTIVISM Lecture THIS Lecture deals with two topics: first, the VIII. principles of collectivism, as actually exhibited in, and illustrated by English legislation during the later part of the nineteenth century; and, secondly, the general trend of such legislation. (A) Principles of Collectivism The fundamental principle which is accepted by every man who leans towards any form of socialism or collectivism, is faith in the benefit to be derived by the mass of the people from the action or intervention of the State even in matters which might be, and often are, left to the uncontrolled management of the persons concerned. This doctrine involves two assumptions: the one is the denial that laissez faire is in most cases, or even in many cases, a principle of sound legislation; the second is a belief in the benefit of governmental guidance or interference, even when it greatly limits the sphere of individual choice or liberty. These assumptions—the one negative, the other positive— |