Chapter XI: Liberalism Since 1906 (3)

This book will form a companion and complementary volume to the famous collection of letters published under the name of "The Hungry Forties." Scores of books issue from the Press yearly, written by thinkers of various schools, dealing with the now universally admitted hardships of our land laws. It is time, however, that the people were permitted to speak for themselves, and in this book they have done so. From the South of England to the far North of Scotland men and women have sent in letters detailing the actual hardships they have suffered through land monopoly. Included in the volume are many letters and testimonies from people who understand by experience how much more could be done with our land under happier laws, and thus contribute their ideas, not only on the nature of, but on the remedies for, a difficult problem. Mrs. Cobden Unwin writes a chapter dealing with the utterances of her father on the land question, and vindicating his insight into a problem which still awaits its solution.

* * * * *

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1 Adelphi Terrace, London

* * * * *

THE ECONOMICS OF LAND VALUE

By HAROLD STOREY Secretary of the Yorkshire Liberal Federation.

* * * * *

Crown 8vo, Paper boards, 1S. net.

* * * * *

This book demonstrates the extraordinary position held by Land in the production and distribution of wealth. The author briefly and clearly explains the economic forces that determine the share of wealth that can be claimed by the various classes of the community, and argues that unless some remedy can be found the growth of land-rents will increasingly impoverish the people. He advocates legislative action along various lines, and particularly insists upon the rating and taxing of land value. This latter policy is carefully analysed in all its bearings. The author shows what it will do, and what it cannot do, and by a fresh line of argument proves the necessity for other supplementary forms of taxation. The book affords a complete and balanced statement of the case that has to be met by any practical Land Policy.

* * * * *

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1 Adelphi Terrace, London

* * * * *

A PERSONAL NARRATIVE BY THE EX-TREASURER-GENERAL OF PERSIA

THE STRANGLING OF PERSIA

BY W. MORGAN SHUSTER

With a Map and 52 Full-page Illustrations Demy 8vo, cloth, 12S. 6D net (Inland postage 5d.)

* * * * *

The story of European diplomacy and Oriental intrigue which resulted in the denationalization of twelve million Mohammedans.

It is practically the first time that the real story of modern diplomatic relations between nations has been frankly and fully recorded. The startling facts are authenticated by the British and Persian state papers, supplemented by a private diary kept by the author during his entire sojourn in Persia.

"Only the pen of a Macaulay or the brush of a Verestchagin could
adequately portray the rapidly shifting scenes attending the downfall
of this ancient nation,--scenes in which two powerful and presumably
Christian countries played fast and loose with truth, honour, decency,
and law, hesitating not even at the most barbarous cruelties to
accomplish their political designs and to put Persia beyond hope of
self-regeneration."

_On Sale at all Booksellers_

* * * * *

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1 Adelphi Terrace, London

* * * * *

MY LIFE

By AUGUST BEBEL

* * * * *

With a Portrait. Cloth, 7S. 6D. net.

* * * * *

_The Daily Herald_ says:

"This book is of remarkable interest. It is a record and revelation of
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_The Daily Chronicle_ says:

"'My Life' is really an enchanting book, forcefully and modestly
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political parties, as seen by a firm and convinced democrat, and is
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Continent."

* * * * *

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1 Adelphi Terrace, London

* * * * *

THE TYRANNY OF THE COUNTRYSIDE

BY F. E. GREEN

Author of "The Awakening of England," "The Cottage Farm," &c.

* * * * *

Crown 8vo, cloth, 5S. net.

* * * * *

In this book the reader is shown the root causes of rural decay under that dominating tyranny which, in spite of rural Magna Chartas, hangs like a blight over England. The book is not a political pamphlet--it is something more. The author, like Cobbett, a tiller of the soil, and living the life of the yeoman farmer, understands those hardships that eventually drive the labourer from the land. He has attempted the difficult task of making the country labourer vocal.

"The mantle of William Cobbett has certainly fallen upon the shoulders
of Mr. F. E. Green, who wears the adornment with grace and rigour
alike."--_Daily Telegraph._

"It is an amazing revelation of countryside tyranny in its manifold
forms."--_Daily Herald._

* * * * *

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1 Adelphi Terrace, London

* * * * *

HOW CRIMINALS ARE MADE AND PREVENTED

A RETROSPECT OF FORTY YEARS

BY THE

Rev. J. W. HORSLEY, M.A.

Hon. Canon of Southwark, late and last Chaplain of Clerkenwell Prison.

* * * * *

Illustrated. Cloth, 7S. 6D. net.

* * * * *

Ever since his Chaplaincy of Clerkenwell prison, Canon Horsley has been a keen student of crime and its causes and an active worker in prison and social reform.

His new book deals largely with commercial morality as a cause of crime, but also with the general moral and social improvement in London (and some exceptions); progress in prison reform; increase in betting as a cause of crime; intemperance (especially amongst women) as a cause; infantile mortality; the medical care of the school-child; the transformation of the lads on the wrong path; the reformation of the hooligan; and recent literature on crime.

* * * * *

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1 Adelphi Terrace, London

* * * * *

THE PSYCHOLOGY OF REVOLUTION: ILLUSTRATED BY THE FRENCH REVOLUTION

BY

GUSTAVE LE BON

Author of "The Crowd."

TRANSLATED BY BERNARD MIALL

* * * * *

Demy 8vo. Cloth, 10S. 6D. net.

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M. Le Bon lays special stress upon the fact that there are not only a rational logic, but also affective, mystic, and collective logics, and that beliefs such as lie at the root of revolutionary movements cannot be created or destroyed by reason, because they do not lie in its domain: whence their extraordinary power. He also deals with the phenomena of mental contagion, and with the part played by the lower elements of the populace--the semi-criminal crowd--in times of revolution. A large part of the book deals with the great French revolution, analysing it and applying to its problems the methods of the new psychology. The third portion treats of modern developments of the revolutionary principles and faith, including the Syndicalist movement.

* * * * *

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1 Adelphi Terrace, London

* * * * *

THE PUTUMAYO THE DEVIL'S PARADISE

Travels in the Peruvian Amazon Region and an account of the Atrocities committed upon the Indians therein.

BY W. E. HARDENBURG, C.E.

Edited and with an Introduction by

C. REGINALD ENOCK, F.R.G.S.

_With a Map and many Illustrations_.

* * * * *

Second Impression. Cloth, 10S. 6D. net.

* * * * *

_The Globe_ says:

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* * * * *

T. FISHER UNWIN, 1 Adelphi Terrace, London

* * * * *

Notes

[1] T. H. Green, _Works_, iii. 367.

[2] L. T. Hobhouse, _Liberalism_, 122.

[3] L. T. Hobhouse, _Liberalism_, 126, 127, 133.

[4] L. T. Hobhouse, _Democracy and Reaction_ (2nd edition), 166.

[5] Bulwer's _Life of Palmerston_, i. 278. Palmerston's list of "Liberals" of June, 1828, includes 11 Peers and 37 Commoners.

[6] _Representative Government_, chap. xvi.

[7] J. A. Hobson, _Imperialism_ (1905 edition), 319.

[8] Morley's _Life of Cobden_ (popular edition), 529. The reference is to Russia's assistance of Austria against the Hungarians.

[9] _Daily News_, 16th February, 1912.

[10] There are few modern expressions of a general theory of Tory politics. _The Letters of an Englishman_ (Constable, 1911, 1912) are almost pure Toryism. Lord Hugh Cecil's _Conservatism_ is tinged with Liberal ideas on Free Trade and Foreign Affairs. Mr. Pierse Loftus's _Conservative Party and the Future_ is essentially Tory, but is rather suggestion for the future than an expression of the present mind of Toryism. Mr. J. M. Kennedy's _Tory Democracy_ is the philosophy of Nietzsche masquerading in political dress, and bears no relation to practical politics, past, present, or future. Mr. Price Collier's _England and the English_ is the Toryism of an American who has enjoyed the hospitality of the leisured class, and has read the _Times_ with some diligence. The cheap reprint is introduced by a characteristic eulogy from the pen of Lord Rosebery, who seems to have spent the last twenty-five years, if not in a castle in Spain, at least in an eighteenth-century nobleman's country house. Neither he nor Mr. Collier seems to have any knowledge of the industrial North. The _Standard_ has now opened its columns to a discussion of the principles and proposals of Toryism, but I have not yet (December, 1912) detected much system in what has been published. Various periodicals express various shades of Toryism, from the purity of Mr. W. S. Lilly, through the individualism of Mr. A. Baumann, to the Protectionist-Social Reform School of "Curio."

[11] But most of the Tory Suffragists stop at a narrow property franchise.

[12] Mr. Lewis Harcourt at the Albert Hall, 28th February, 1911.

[13] T. H. Green, _Works_, iii. cxii.

[14] T. H. Green, _Political Obligation_, s. 122.

[15] _Hansard_, III. cxxiv. 602.

[16] _Letters to a Friend on Votes for Women._

[17] _Speeches reprinted from the Times_, 47.

[18] _National Review_, May, 1912, 420.

[19] _Observer_, leading article, 15th September, 1912.

[20] At the Birmingham Chamber of Commerce, 13th November, 1896.

[21] _Morning Post_, leading article, 22nd August, 1912. The most startling feature of this passage is its assumption that patriotism can be bought, and, indeed, cannot be made secure except by being bought. If it be true that patriotism follows the cash, we are bound to the Argentine Republic and the United States by as close ties as to Canada, and if the present flow of British capital continues, our hearts will soon warm towards Russia. For the Liberal view of Empire, half a century old, see Gladstone's speech (1855), quoted in Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, i. 363.

[22] See, for example, leading articles in the _Morning Post_, 18th July, 1912, and _Daily Telegraph_, 12th July, 1912.

[23] Morley's _Burke_ (English Men of Letters), 136.

[24] Cole shot a black man because he suspected him of stealing sheep. Lewis shot another because his daughter said he had insulted her. Both acts were done in cold blood, and with the approval of local whites. There was no suggestion in either case that the law was inadequate or could not have been enforced.

[25] _Morning Post_, leading article, 14th May, 1912.

[26] The grossest modern example of Tory Imperialism is Mr. Bonar Law's proposal, while claiming the right to close English markets to foreign manufacturers, to keep those of India, whether Indians like it or not, open to English manufacturers. It is matched by his proposal that it should be left to the Dominions to say whether or not our own food supplies should be free or taxed.

[27] The _Times_ recently spoke of "insolence" when a meeting of East Lancashire manufacturers and Members of Parliament criticized Sir Edward Grey's policy in Persia. We may be wrong in the North. But we shall always think for ourselves. The same journal has made a vicious attack upon the Supreme Court of India, because it interferes with the arbitrary acts of executive officers.

[28] Moray's _Life of Cobden_, ii. 361. The _Review of Reviews_ furnished another example of this vicious reaction when it urged (October, 1912) that England must not put pressure upon Turkey to reform its government of Macedonia, because such action would impair our authority over the Moslem of India. In other words, because of our Empire, we must connive at murder, rape, and every form of brigandage.

[29] _Parliamentary History_, xxv. 472.

[30] _Wilberforce Correspondence_, i. 219.

[31] _Annual Register_, 1793, 113.

[32] _Parl. Hist._, xxx. 810.

[33] Walpole's _Life of Lord John Russell_, i. 56.

[34] The first exception to this rule was Mr. Smith the banker, who was made Earl Carrington in 1797.

[35] Scottish borough members were exempt. But Scottish boroughs were the most rotten of all rotten boroughs. An English county member must have L600 a year, a borough member L300. The qualifications were often fictitious.

[36] _Annual Register_, 1796, 52.

[37] _Parl. Hist._, xxii. 422.

[38] _State Trials_, xxiii. 229.

[39] Speech on Seditious Societies, 17th November, 1795.

[40] Londonderry to Brougham, 31st August, 1829, _Castlereagh Correspondence_, i. 121.

[41] Speech on _Revolutionary Principles_, 13th December, 1792. Compare the argument which is used to-day against the enfranchisement of working women. Toryism knows no sex.

[42] Speech on _Bull-baiting_, 24th May, 1802.

[43] _Ibid._

[44] _Speech_, 24th April, 1807.

[45] _Parl. Hist._, xxxiv. 162, 165 (1798). The publication of reports of debates began in 1771, or rather, was then first permitted.

[46] _Hansard_, I. xli. 1045 (1819).

[47] _Hansard_, I. xxxviii. 1171 (1818).

[48] _Hansard_, I. xli. 388 (1819).

[49] _Hansard_, I. xli. 914. The resolutions were no more "disgraceful" than those of the ordinary Trade Union Congress of to-day.

[50] Arnould's _Life of Denman_, i. 253.

[51] In 1817 no less than 1,200 persons were sent to prison for offences against the Game Laws.

[52] _Hansard_, I., xxxix. 1435, 1439.

[53] Beaufoy's speech, _Annual Register_, 1787.

[54] Burke's _Memoirs of the English Catholics_, ii. 459, 466.

[55] _Speeches: On Repeal of the Test Act_, 2nd March, 1790.

[56] _Strictures on Female Education_ (1799), i. 106.

[57] _Legacy to Young Ladies_ (1826).

[58] _Legacy to his Daughters_ (1784).

[59] Lucy Aikin's _Memoir of Mrs. Barbauld_ (1825), xvi.

[60] See further, the writer's _Emancipation of English Women_, ch. 3.

[61] _Speeches_, 26th May, 1797.

[62] _Hansard_, I. xli. 391.

[63] _Parl. Hist._, xxxi. 1384.

[64] Fitzmaurice's _Life of Shelburne_, ii. 367.

[65] _Parl. Hist._, xxxiv. 416.

[66] _Parl. Hist._, xix. 1100.

[67] _Leviathan_, ii. ch. xvii.

[68] _On Civil Government_, ch. viii.

[69] _Letter to Sir Hercules Langrishe_ (1792). Compare his _Speech at Bristol previous to the Election_ (1780).

[70] _Speeches_, vol. vi. 310 (23rd March, 1797). Compare Granville, in the _Annual Register_, 1808, 196.

[71] Burke, _French Revolution_.

[72] _Parl. Hist._, xxxii. 961 (1796).

[73] _Parl. Hist._, xxxiv. 1429.

[74] Fitzmaurice's _Life of Shelburne_, iii. 88, 435. His ideas on education he tried to enforce on his own estates. But "the clergy opposed his lordship's intentions, lest the children should become Dissenters, although it was engaged that the children of Church people should go to Church with their parents." _Ibid._, 438 n.

[75] Fitzmaurice, iii. 497, 498.

[76] _Ibid._, ii. 329.

[77] _Ibid._, 360.

[78] _Ibid._, iii. 438.

[79] _Ibid._, iii. 365.

[80] Letter to Lord Holland, 12th October, 1792.

[81] _Speeches_, vi. 383.

[82] M. Halevy suggests that the Wesleyan revival, which began in the middle of the eighteenth century, was largely if not wholly responsible for the social changes. But, except in so far as it increased dissent in religion, the liberating influence of Wesleyanism was small. The Wesleyans are, to this day, the most conservative of Nonconformists, and their mystical piety was utterly opposed to the rationalistic freethinking of the Revolution.

[83] Arthur Young's _Annals_, xxv. _passim._

[84] 39 Geo. III, c. 81; 39 & 40 Geo. III, c. 106.

[85] _Letters to his Son_, 19th December, 1767.

[86] Walpole's _George III_, iii. 197; Chesterfield's _Letters_, 12th April, 1768.

[87] _Annual Register_, 1770, 72.

[88] _Annual Register_, 1769, 125.

[89] _Annual Register_, 1769, 197 _et seq._

[90] Stephen's _Memoirs of Horne Tooke_, _passim._

[91] William Knox, in a letter to Grenville, _Grenville Papers_, iv. 336. Knox wrote the pamphlet _State of the Nation_, to which Burke replied in his celebrated _Observations_.

[92] For the views of Fox, see Lord Russell's _Correspondence of C. J. Fox_, I. 146; Walpole's _Last Journals_, ii. 241; and for those of the elder Pitt, _Chatham Correspondence_, ii. 367. The Duke of Richmond set up a claim to an old French peerage, by way of preparing an asylum for himself when George III had finally established his despotism. Burke's _Correspondence_, ii. 112.

[93] _Speech at Bristol previous to the Election_ (1780). The union between English reformers and American rebels was marked by deeds as well as words. In 1770 the Assembly of South Carolina subscribed L1,500 to the Society of the Friends of the Bill of Rights. _A. R._ 1770, 224.

[94] _A. R._ 1780, 51. See also Sir George Savile's _Address to the Freeholders of York_, 169.

[95] _A. R._ 1780, 55.

[96] Watson's _Anecdotes of His Own Time_.

[97] _Parl. Hist._, xxix. 509.

[98] See, for instance, Luxford's case, mentioned by Fox in _Parl. Hist._, xxix. 557, and contrast the judge and the juries in William Hone's trials (1817).

[99] See the speech of Calcagus to the British, in Tacitus' _Agricola_, c. 30.

[100] In her _Vindication of the Rights of Woman_ (1792).

[101] _Political Arithmetic_ (1774), 95.

[102] _Thoughts on Scarcity_ (1795).

[103] _Wealth of Nations_, Bk. IV., cix.

[104] _Reports_, 1806, iii. 2.

[105] _On Civil Liberty_ (1776), 72.

[106] _Political Justice_ (1793), ii. 190.

[107] _Memoir of Major Cartwright_, i. 244.

[108] I use the term "Radicals" for these early extremists because it is the most convenient. But the word was not actually introduced till the end of the French War in 1816.

[109] P. 3.

[110] P. 22.

[111] P. 37.

[112] _Memoir_, i. 191.

[113] In 1793 the Society published a _Report on the State of the Representation_, which showed that 309 members were returned by private patronage, 163 of them by Peers (_Annual Register_, 1793).

[114] _Parl. Hist._, xxxi. 793.

[115] _Speeches_, v. 97, 115 (1795).

[116] _Hansard_, I. xxxviii. 1118. The voting on Burdett's resolution was 106 to 0. _Ibid._, 1185.

[117] _Speeches_, 17th May, 1794.

[118] The minority in the Commons ranged between forty and sixty. In the Lords it was sometimes only three or four.

[119] _Appeal to the Nation_ (1812), 78.

[120] _A Problem_ (1824).

[121] Preface to _Rights of Man_, Part II.

[122] Part I.

[123] _Ibid._, Conclusion.

[124] Part II., Preface.

[125] Part II., c. i.

[126] See for example the resolutions of the London Wards in the _Annual Register_, 1792.

[127] _Rights of Man_, Part II.

[128] Part II., Preface.

[129] Part II.

[130] _Rights of Man_, Part II., c. 3.

[131] So late as 1840 Cook, a Whig, described the _Rights of Man_ as "a fountain of evil," and denounced its "licentiousness and impiety." See his _History of Party_, iii. 399.

[132] _Parl. Hist._ (1799), xxxi. 467. Compare Colonel Cawthorne's speech, xxx. 1440.

[133] _Hansard_, I. xli. 434 (1819).

[134] _Speeches_, 24th May, 1802.

[135] _Annual Register_, 1782. There is an admirable account of these different societies in Mr. G. S. Veitch's _Genesis of Parliamentary Reform_ (1913).

[136] _Annual Register_, 1792. The Association soon got into difficulties. Its president, Mr. John Reeves, published a pamphlet so violently Tory in tone that the House of Commons ordered him to be prosecuted for sedition involved in contempt of itself. He was acquitted.

[137] Government spies were sometimes involved in their own net. Two of them took part in treasonable proceedings at Edinburgh, and were hanged, drawn, and quartered (_Annual Register_, 1793, _Chronicle_, 53, 58).

[138] These cases are taken from the _Chronicle_ in the _Annual Register_, 1792.

[139] _State Trials_, xxiii.; _Annual Register_, 1794, 32.

[140] _State Trials_, xxiii.

[141] _Report of Secret Committee of Commons_; _Parl. Hist._, xxxi. 727.

[142] _Reports of Secret Committees_ of 1795 and 1799 in the _Parl. Hist._, xxxi. 475, 574, 688; xxxiv. 579, 1000, and the consequent debates. Dr. J. Holland Rose and Mr. G. S. Veitch come to the same conclusion as that reached in the text.

[143] Shelburne became Lord Lansdowne in 1784.

[144] _Speeches_, vi. 61.

[145] _Parl. Hist._, xxxiv. 992.

[146] _Hansard_, I. xli. 7, 8.

[147] _Parl. Hist._, xxxiv. 248.

[148] During their brief tenure of office in 1807 they stopped the Slave Trade, which Pitt's Government, while always condemning it, had never suppressed. This was the last and the noblest of the public acts of Fox.

[149] _Parl. Hist._, xxxiv. 213.

[150] Letter to Lord Holland, in the _Correspondence of C. J. Fox_, 23rd February, 1799.

[151] _Parl. Hist._, xxxiv. 244. Cf. Granville and Auckland at pp. 668, 717.

[152] To Charles Grey, 8th August, 1803, 6th January, 1804; _Correspondence of C. J. Fox_.

[153] _Parl. Hist._, xxxi. 684 (1793).

[154] _Ibid._, xxx. 422 (1792).

[155] _Speeches_, v. 496.

[156] _Ibid._, 84.

[157] _Ibid._, 174.

[158] Alison's _Life of Castlereagh_, i. 21, 23.

[159] _Parl. Hist._, xxxi. 1367 (1795).

[160] _Speeches_, vi. 620 (1805).

[161] _Hansard_, I. x. 290.

[162] _Hansard_, I. 354.

[163] _Ibid._, I. x. 365.

[164] _Ibid._, 376.

[165] The descent upon Copenhagen is to-day used as an argument for a powerful German Navy. Our old immoralities pursue us still.

[166] _Life and Opinions of Earl Grey_, by Colonel Grey, 220.

[167] _Ibid._, 332.

[168] Yonge's _Life of Lord Liverpool_, ii. 26.

[169] Alison's _Castlereagh_, i. 500 _et seq._; Castlereagh's speech in _Hansard_, I. xxx. 292.

[170] Walpole's _Life of Russell_, i. 110.

[171] _Hansard_, I. xxvii. 850.

[172] _Ibid._, 862.

[173] _Ibid._, 790, 791

[174] _Hansard_, I. xxvii. 773.

[175] _Ibid._, I. xxvii. 782.

[176] _Hansard_, I. xl. 338, 671; xli. 421, 892.

[177] Tooke's _History of Prices_, ii. 4, 18.

[178] _Hansard_, I. xli. 924.

[179] Pellew's _Life of Sidmouth_, iii. 276. The name "Radical" was just coming into use. It was explained in the Commons as a new word in 1817 (_Hansard_, I. xxxvi. 761).

[180] Yonge's _Life of Liverpool_, ii. 429. There were one or two flashes of imagination. Peel, just rising into prominence in the Tory party, thought that Reform could not be long delayed. "Public opinion is growing too large for the channels that it has been accustomed to run through" (_Croker Papers_, i. 170).

[181] _Hansard_, I. xxxvii. 570, 680, 682; xli. 230. Bamford's _Passages in the Life of a Radical_, _passim._

[182] _Castlereagh Correspondence_, xii. 162, 259.

[183] _Annual Register_, 1819, _Hist._ 107. Hunt and his associates were afterwards sentenced to imprisonment for conspiracy, Hunt for two and a half years. _A. R._, 1820; _Chron._, 898.

[184] See the speech of Lord Grenville in _Hansard_, I. xli. 448.

[185] Burdett's motion of 1818 for Radical Reform was beaten, as already described, by 106 votes to 0. See _ante_, p. 105, and _Hansard_, I. xxxviii. 1185. For the official Whig view see Brougham, _ante_, p. 105.

[186] Yonge's _Liverpool_, ii. 365. Wilberforce supported State grants in aid of education from a similar motive. See _ante_, 52.

[187] _Hansard_, I. xli. 1212.

[188] Twiss, _Life of Eldon_, ii. 124.

[189] _Hansard_, II. xvi. 397.

[190] _Hansard_, II. xxi. 1632.

[191] _Wellington Despatches_, v. 409.

[192] _Hansard_, II. xxi. 1646, 1655. For the Liberal arguments see _ibid._, xix. 1719; xxi. 1601, 1795; xxii. 591; xxiii. 75, 738; xxiv. 126.

[193] _Catechism of Parliamentary Reform_ (1817).

[194] _Theory of Legislation_, ch. xiii. s. 10.

[195] _Constitutional Code._

[196] It was Macaulay who, during the debates on the Reform Bill, contrasted "the beauty, the completeness, the speed, the precision with which every process is performed in our factories, and the awkwardness, the rudeness, the slowness, the uncertainty of the apparatus by which offences are punished and rights vindicated" (_Speeches_, 5th July, 1831). This is pure Utilitarianism.

[197] _Hansard_, I. xxiii. 1166.

[198] _Report of Lords' Committee on the State of Ireland_ (1825), 558.

[199] _Commons' Committee_ (1825), 414.

[200] _Ibid._, 810.

[201] Catholics were expressly excluded from the places of Lord Chancellor and Lord-Lieutenant of Ireland. These disabilities still exist.

[202] _Hansard_, II. xviii. 711.

[203] _Ibid._, II. xviii. 869.

[204] A declaration was substituted for the old tests, that the candidate for office would never attempt "to injure or subvert" the Established Church. The Lords added the words "upon the true faith of a Christian." In freeing the Dissenters they disabled the Jews.

[205] Macaulay's _Miscellaneous Writings; Westminster Reviewer's Defence of Mill_.

[206] Macaulay's _Speeches_: Speech on Reform, 16th December, 1832.

[207] _Ibid._

[208] Macaulay's _Miscellaneous Writings; Mill on Government_.

[209] Macaulay, _Speeches_, on Reform, 20th September, 1831.

[210] _Works_ (1869), 670 (written in 1830).

[211] _Speeches_, on Reform, 16th December, 1831.

[212] Speech on the People's Charter, 3rd May, 1842.

[213] _Hansard_, III. xxiii. 101, 102.

[214] Bulwer's _Palmerston_, ii. 174, 178. See also his _Memoirs_, iii. 322, 323; Torrens' _Life of Melbourne_, i. 437; Walpole's _Life of Russell_, i. 264; and the _Edinburgh Review_, July, 1834. The King included the Catholic Association, the Orangemen, the Political Unions and the Trade Unions in one dislike, and wished they could all be put down by law (Walpole's _Russell_, _ubi sup._).

[215] See, for instance, Webb's _Local Government; The Parish and the County_; Peet's _Liverpool Vestry Books_, vol. i.

[216] _Speeches_, on Ten Hours Bill, 22nd May, 1846.

[217] Morley's _Life of Cobden_, i. 464.

[218] Hodder's _Life of Shaftesbury, passim_; Oastler's letters on _Slavery in Yorkshire_ (1830); Hutchin and Harrison's _History of Factory Legislation_, ch. iii.-vi.

[219] The Acts were the Common Law Procedure Act (1832) and the Fines and Recoveries Act (1833).

[220] The House of Lords did its utmost to maintain the old abuses. The Bill was sent back to the Commons "with the title altered but the preamble changed.... Out of 140 clauses 106 have been in substance omitted, 18 other clauses have been introduced, and of the whole purport and intention of the original Bill little is to be found in the Bill which is now come down to us" (Lord John Russell in _Hansard_, III. xxxiv. 218). The Government stood firm, and, with the help of Peel, obtained the greater part of what they wanted.

[221] The contending principles were most clearly expressed in the Lords. The Duke of Richmond and Lord Wharncliffe supported the Bill because it abolished a class distinction. Wellington opposed it for precisely that reason (_Hansard_, III. vii. 129).

[222] Romilly, _Memoirs_, iii. 252; _Memoir of Earl Spencer_, 185.

[223] _Hansard_, III. xlviii. 1252.

[224] _Ibid._, 1304, 1305.

[225] _Hansard_, III. xlviii. 1321.

[226] _Ibid._, 1322.

[227] _Ibid._, xlviii. 1263.

[228] _Speeches_, on Education, 18th April, 1847.

[229] He was very ably supported by his secretary, Charles Buller.

[230] _Parliamentary Papers_, 1839, xvii. 53.

[231] Adderley, in _Hansard_, III. cx. 578 (1850).

[232] In ten days 5,884 petitions were presented against this "endowment of error."

[233] _Hansard_, III. cxxxi. 1123.

[234] Cobden to Peel; Morley's _Life of Cobden_ (Popular Edition), 395.

[235] Quoted in F. W. Hirst's _Manchester School_, 491.

[236] Hirst, 229.

[237] _Speeches_, ii. 397.

[238] Hirst's _Manchester School_, 251.

[239] Morley's _Cobden_, 396.

[240] _Speeches_, i. 470; ii. 397, 399.

[241] Cobden, _England, Ireland, and America_ (1835).

[242] _The Three Panics_; _Russia_, c. iv.

[243] _Speeches_, i. 463.

[244] Cobden, _Hansard_, III. cxii. 671.

[245] _England, Ireland, and America_.

[246] _Hansard_, III. clxxvi. 832.

[247] Hirst, xii.

[248] See _e.g._, _Hansard_, I. xli. 456 (1819). A few Whig members like Lord Grenville (_ibid._, 456) and Ellice (_ibid._, 931) pressed the same point.

[249] The whole petition is set out in Hirst's _Manchester School_, 117 _et seq._

[250] Hirst, 123 (1833).

[251] Cobden, _Speeches_, i. 256 (1845).

[252] Bright, in Hirst, 218.

[253] W. J. Fox, in Hirst, 175.

[254] Prentice's _History of the League_, i. 129, 140.

[255] A meeting of Birmingham women on the 2nd April, 1838, protested against the Corn Law and the new Poor Law. It was connected with the Chartist agitation.

[256] Prentice, i. 171.

[257] _Hansard_, III. cx. 1248.

[258] After 1867 Factory Bills were often opposed by women and their champions, in the same logical spirit, as an interference by men with women's "liberty."

[259] _Hansard_, III. cx. 566.

[260] It is perhaps worth noting here that there is no trace to-day in the character of Australian colonists of any unusual taint in origin. Many of the transported criminals were made criminal simply by their surroundings, and when they obtained a new chance became as energetic, as resourceful, and as valuable to the community at large as the most respectable people in the Colony. This experience should always give pause to those who argue that the inhabitants of our slums are naturally degenerate, and that the process of "selection" which has reduced them to the depths has anything accurate or scientific about it.

[261] _Hansard_, III. ciii. 383; cviii. 161, 777; cxvii. 543; cxxiv. 554. Convicts were until 1867 occasionally sent to Western Australia, but only at the request of the inhabitants, who needed cheap labour.

[262] _Hansard_, III. cx. 559, 566.

[263] _Ibid._, 1170. Compare Bright at p. 661, and Russell, _ibid._, cviii. 549.

[264] Lord Grey, _Hansard_, III. cx. 657.

[265] Archbishop of Canterbury, _Hansard_, III. liii. 959.

[266] _Hansard_, III. cxxiv. 1150.

[267] _Hansard_, III., ccxliv. 1313.

[268] Lytton Bulwer's _Palmerston_, i., 139.

[269] _Ibid._, 346.

[270] _Hansard_, III. cxii. 583, 584.

[271] _Ibid._, 508, 509.

[272] _Hansard_, III. cxii. 586.

[273] Fitzmaurice's _Life of Granville_, i. 49.

[274] Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, ii. 37.

[275] The two great blemishes, the inequality of the sexes, and the difficulty of giving redress to the poor, have now been unanimously condemned by a Royal Commission (1913).

[276] _Hansard_, III. cxliv. 1476.

[277] _Ibid._, 1784.

[278] _Hansard_, III. clxxvi. 709.

[279] _Ibid._, 829.

[280] Morley's _Life of Gladstone_, ii. 431.

[281] Webb's _History of Trade Unionism_ (1902), 495.

[282] _Speeches_, ii. 100.

[283] _Hansard_, III. cx. 464. Compare Viscount Duncan's speech on the Window Tax, _ibid._, 68.

[284] _Ibid._, III. li. 537.

[285] _Speeches_, on re-election to Parliament, 2nd November, 1852.

[286] _Sartor Resartus_ (1833) Bk. III. c. v. Compare his _Past and Present_ (1843) and _Latter Day Pamphlets_ (1850).

[287] _Thirty Years' Peace_, iv. 454.

[288] _Essay on Coleridge._

[289] _Subjection of Women_, c. i.

[290] _Autobiography_; _Political Economy_, Bk. V. c. xi.

[291] Sir Henry Craik, _The State in its Relation to Education_, 84, 85.

[292] _Fortnightly Review_ (1865); reprinted in _National and Social Problems_ (1908).

[293] _England, Ireland, and America._

[294] _Hansard_, III. lxxii. 1016.

[295] _Speeches_, on the Coercion Bill, i. 308.

[296] _Speeches_, i. 425, 369 (1866).

[297] _Hansard_, III. cxciv. 2071.

[298] _Ibid._, 1955, 1963.

[299] See the Report of the Royal Commission appointed to inquire into the condition of education in England (1869-70). So little importance was attached to the education of girls that the Commission at first proposed to confine its work entirely to boys' schools!

[300] Morley's _Gladstone_, ii. 318.

[301] For a statement of Gladstone's views on war and the Manchester doctrine, see his speech at Edinburgh on the 17th March, 1880, quoted in Morley's _Gladstone_, iii. 182.

[302] _Times_, 25th September, 1870.

[303] He succeeded Lord Clarendon at the Foreign Office just before the outbreak of the war.

[304] Morley's _Gladstone_, ii. 350.

[305] _Ibid._, 353.

[306] _Ibid._, ii. 346.

[307] Morley's _Gladstone_, ii. 347.

[308] _Ibid._, 348.

[309] The Prime Minister estimated these at more than the whole National Debt (Lord Selborne's _Memorials_, II. i. 231.)

[310] One of his resolutions advocating intervention was beaten by 131 votes, a far greater majority than the Government could expect on any party measure.

[311] Lord Derby and Lord Carnarvon resigned their posts in the Ministry rather than share the responsibility of such a crime. The former suspended his resignation for a few weeks.

[312] Afterwards Marquis of Salisbury.

[313] Beaconsfield did not stop at this point. He made a treaty with Turkey, binding us to defend her possessions in Asia, and her to reform her system of government. The reforms were never carried out, and fifteen years later the Armenian massacres showed what Turkish promises were worth. One omission was made in these arrangements. Bismarck offered to support a British occupation of Egypt. Beaconsfield refused thus to impair the integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and took a worthless "lease" of the island of Cyprus instead. The sanction of Europe for our incursion into Egypt was thus lost.

[314] Lord Mayo, quoted in _Hansard_, III. ccxliii. 312. Lady Betty Balfour's _Lord Lytton's Indian Administration_ is a very good account of the Viceroy's aims and methods. See also the Blue Book, _Papers Relating to Afghanistan_ (1878).

[315] Balfour, 30.

[316] For the Parliamentary debates see _Hansard_, III. ccxliii. 245 (Lords), and 310 (Commons). Lord Lawrence's views were quoted from a dispatch of his (1869) at p. 311.

[317] _Hansard_, III. ccxliii. 349.

[318] _Hansard_, 380. Mr. Chamberlain's defence of the claim to criticize a war while it is in progress (p. 382) is the best possible comment on his treatment of Pro-Boers twenty years later.

[319] The best Liberal speeches are in _Hansard_, III. ccxliii., Lords Halifax (245), Lawrence (261), and Grey (406); Whitbread (310), Chamberlain (380), and Gladstone (541).

[320] _The Midlothian Campaign_ (speeches in 1879 and 1880), 113.

[321] _Ibid._, 194.

[322] _The Midlothian Campaign_, 19.

[323] _Ibid._, 66.

[324] _Ibid._, 131.

[325] _The Midlothian Campaign_, 58.

[326] _The Midlothian Campaign_, 63.

[327] Lord Randolph Churchill, Mr. Arthur Balfour, Sir John Gorst, and Sir Henry Drummond Wolff.

[328] _Hansard_, III. cclxxviii. 1174. Bright's best speech is at cclx. 1199.

[329] _Times_, 21st November, 1883; _Nineteenth Century_, January and February, 1884. Miss Octavia Hill, who knew more about the subject than anybody else, was not appointed a member of the Commission, though she gave evidence. Twenty years elapsed before a woman sat on a Royal Commission.

[330] _Report_ of Lord Bessborough's Commission (1881), 21.

[331] Lord Morley's _Miscellanies_, iv. 306.

[332] _Midlothian Campaign_, 44.

[333] See _Hansard_, III. ccxcviii. 1659; ccxcix. 1085, 1098, 1119. Lord Salisbury spoke at Newport on the 7th October, 1885, three months after Lord Carnarvon had, with his knowledge, communicated with Parnell.

[334] _Hansard_, III. ccciv. 1050.

[335] _Ibid._, 1372.

[336] At Nottingham, 31st January, 1913.

[337] _Hansard_, III. ccciv. 1268.

[338] At Bristol, 17th January, 1888.

[339] _Aspects of Home Rule_ (speech of 22nd April, 1893), 170. Mr. Balfour succeeded Sir Michael as Irish Secretary on the 7th March, 1887.

[340] _Hansard_, III. ccccix. 66, 1191; cccxii. 183; cccxiii. 1608.

[341] Lord Hugh Cecil, Lord St. Aldwyn, and Mr. Bonar Law have recently suggested that the Crown itself should once more take an active and open part in politics and veto legislation.

[342] See his _Popular Government_.

[343] J. A. Hobson's _Imperialism_, chap. i.; Meredith Townsend in _Liberalism and the Empire_, 341.

[344] Lord Wolseley's _Soldier's Pocket Book_. His lordship would probably not poison his enemy's wells, or burn him alive, or kill him with explosive bullets, or massacre his women and children. But why not?

[345] See, for instance, L. T. Hobhouse's _Democracy and Reaction_; J. A. Hobson's _Imperialism_; and Norman Angell's _Great Illusion_.

[346] See Fitzpatrick's _Transvaal from Within_; Sir E. T. Cook's _Rights and Wrongs of the Transvaal War_; Mr. Bryce's _Impressions of South Africa_; and Sir Francis Younghusband's _South Africa of To-day_ (1897), 246, 250.

[347] Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman's _Speeches reprinted from the Times_, 167.

[348] It has been suggested that without the war this would have been impossible. Even if this were true, the case against the war would still stand. Material success cannot be balanced against morality. It might similarly be argued that an eruption on the skin is a good thing, because it rids the body of poisonous matter. Clean living would have prevented the accumulation of the poison, and made the violent means of discharge unnecessary.

[349] The questions of limiting the number of "pickets," and of making Unions liable for the wrongful acts of their central executive committees are not yet finally settled. The Acts of 1871 and 1874 did not, I think contemplate an absolute immunity.

[350] Lord Morley's _Miscellanies_, iv. 311. The same principles are of course being applied in all civilized countries. See Mr. Jethro Brown's _Underlying Principles of Modern Legislation_.

[351] In a very remarkable article in the _Edinburgh Review_ for January, 1912, an anonymous writer declares that the better sort of workmen are now not merely politically, but actually, in character and ability, the superiors of the middle class. The shameless ignorance and hostility to ideas, which he discovers in the latter, are due partly to the increase of luxury and partly to the public-school system. The reform of the latter, which is now in progress, is probably as urgent a need of the middle, as industrial insurance is of the working class.

[352] Herbert Samuel's _Liberalism_, 8, 11.

[353] The Labour Exchange at Liverpool has actually decasualized the whole of the system of dock labour in that port. Credit for this is due to Mr. Rowland Williams, of the Exchange, and Mr. Lawrence D. Holt, a local shipowner. The machinery established by the Act has done what private effort had for a generation found beyond its strength.

[354] _Liberalism and the Social Problem_, 316. These speeches are by far the best expression of the philosophy of the new Liberalism.

[355] Churchill, _op. cit._, 82.

[356] Mr. Harold Spender, in Mr. Philip Snowden's _Living Wage_, x.

[357] It should be remembered that in the peculiar case of women Trade Unionism is almost impossible. Without the State, they have no means of raising their wages as men have raised theirs by combination.

[358] _Social Statics_ (1851), 325.

[359] A great proportion of this surplus wealth is spent on giving fictitious values to works of art and curiosities. A china jar which cost L500 fifty years ago may be bought for L5,000 to-day. The increase represents no real increase in value, but simply an increased capacity of millionaires to bid against each other. The price will again fall, as incomes are reduced.

[360] Accusations of moral corruption are most rarely made by those who are best acquainted with political history. But what other term is to be applied to this action, of which I am informed on the best possible authority? For several days before the day on which the Woman Suffrage amendment was moved to the Franchise Bill, a Liberal Member, who had refused to pledge himself to either side, was "bombarded" with requests from pledged Suffragist Members that he would vote against them and defeat the amendment. We hang soldiers who commit this offence in military warfare.

[361] Sir Almroth Wright's notorious pamphlet has of course been repudiated by the saner women Anti-Suffragists. But it certainly represents the opinions of the average man Anti-Suffragist.

[362] I cannot deal seriously with the argument that the vote is merely an expression of physical force, that a minority only yields to a majority because it would be beaten in a civil war, that substantially all women might vote on one side at an election and substantially all men on the other, that the women outnumber the men and would therefore be able to procure the legislation which they wanted, that the men would refuse to obey the law, that civil war would follow, that the women would be beaten, and that society would be dissolved. Those politicians who believe in the possibility of such a succession of miracles had better retire each to a separate desert island. They will not find in any society of human beings a constitution which does not admit, on similarly logical grounds, of the same dreadful disasters. Such an absurd and pedantic example of reasoning away from human nature has not been seriously maintained in England since the time of Cartwright.

[363] I use these terms as a convenient way of referring to the general movements for and against emancipation. They may mean anything in themselves. So far as I am concerned, I believe neither in that sexual promiscuity which some Anti-Suffragists charge against their opponents, nor on the other hand in that theory of a primitive matriarchate upon which some Suffragists base their claims.

[364] For the history of the agitation see Mrs. Fawcett's _Women's Suffrage_ ("The People's Books" series); and for its philosophical basis, Mrs. Olive Schreiner's _Women and Labour_, and my own _Emancipation of English Women_.

[365] I refer those who believe that the militant women were suffering from hysteria or other sexual disorder to the deliberate contradiction of Mr. H. L. Carre-Smith, in the _Standard_ of the 9th April, 1912. Mr. Smith is a competent physician, and an Anti-Suffragist, and he has made a careful study of the militant type. "As a rule," he says, "I have been struck by their normal demeanour."

[366] The only Government department which acted wisely in dealing with the women was the Irish Office. The first offenders against the law in Dublin were promptly placed in the first division. Unhappily, this was after Mr. McKenna had revived forcible feeding, and too late to produce any effect. The next Irish offences were attempts at arson and murder, committed by one of Mr. McKenna's prisoners. Had Mr. Birrell been at the Home Office in 1906, we should still be far from arson and explosives.

[367] I received a letter from a Cabinet Minister in 1909, in which he said that he expected vitriol-throwing at any moment. Vitriol is, of course, the weapon of an outraged sex instinct, the injured wife or discarded mistress.

[368] I refer my readers to the grave and responsible report of Sir Victor Horsley, Dr. Mansell Moulin, and Dr. Agnes Saville, three physicians of unquestioned competence and probity, which appeared in the _Lancet_ of the 24th August, 1912.

[369] One of the charges, that a large number of plain-clothes policemen had mingled with the crowd for the purpose of attacking the women, was no more a subject for investigation in a court of law than the subject of the Parnell Commission. On this point Mr. Churchill denied the charges without inquiring of anybody but police officers, whose evidence, even if it was perfectly honest, was of little value. For a police officer to say that he did not see a fact, one of a large number of facts, is not sufficient proof that a private person is lying when he states that he did see it. Two gentlemen known to me say that they saw a large number (one says "more than a hundred") of plain-clothes men march back into Scotland Yard after the disturbance. Mr. Churchill says that there were "not more than a dozen" on duty. My informants may be lying or mistaken. But Mr. Churchill is not in a position to say so, because he never attempted to cross-examine them. Both appear to me to be honest witnesses.

[370] For a naive and illuminating statement of the militant women's case see _The Suffragette_, by Sylvia Pankhurst; and for a fuller statement of my own opinions, my _Emancipation of English Women_ (1913 edition). For the case against Mr. Churchill see the pamphlet _Treatment of the Women's Deputations by the Metropolitan Police_ (The Woman's Press, 1911). See also my pamphlet _Political Prisoners_ (National Political League, 1912). During the London Dock strike of 1912 charges similar to those above mentioned were made against the police. Mr. McKenna granted a public inquiry at once.

[371] No Liberal questions Sir Edward Grey's honesty or good will. His record in connection with Woman's Suffrage, no bad touchstone, is conspicuously pure.

[372] The action of Austria in establishing formal sovereignty over Bosnia and Herzegovina was not such a gross violation of moral rules as it appears at first sight. Austria had been in occupation of these territories, with European sanction, for more than a generation, and there is no question that they had been well governed. It was only in taking advantage of the revolution in Turkey, without obtaining the formal consent of the Powers, that she acted immorally.

[373] It should be remembered that the whole of the Foreign Service is recruited from among people with minimum incomes of L400 a year. This ensures a Tory bias among permanent officials.

[374] There is great need of a history of foreign policy which shall trace in a satisfactory way the various currents which have brought us to our present situation. For the present we have to rely on detached studies like Mr. E. D. Morel's _Morocco in Diplomacy_, Mr. E. H. Perris's _Our Foreign Policy and Sir Edward Grey's Failure_, Mr. J. A. Spender's pamphlet reprinted from the _Westminster Gazette_, Mr. Morgan Shuster's _Strangling of Persia_, Professor E. G. Browne's pamphlets on the same subject, and the Hon. George Peel's _Friends of England_, _Enemies of England_, and _Future of England_. There is no general historical survey, and until there is, foreign policy will remain as much the monopoly of a caste as ancient legal systems. It is time that this mysterification of such important affairs was ended. At this moment (February, 1913), though the French Government has published a huge Yellow Book on the Morocco crisis, Sir Edward Grey still refuses to the English people any explanation of the reason why he nearly led them into war eighteen months ago.

[375] An article in the _Times_ of the 15th March, 1913 seems to endorse all our Liberal protests and criticisms.

[376] See, for example, the article by Mr. Sydney Brooks in the _Fortnightly Review_ for January, 1913. The suggestion was also made in a leading article in the _Daily Telegraph_, the date of which I forget.

* * * * *

Changes made against printed original.

Page 10. "The maintenance of rights is the condition of human progress": 'conditions' in original.

Page 90. "The Gordon Riots in June, 1780": '1880' in original.

Page 197. "paid an artificially high price": 'artifically' in original.

Page 235. "mass of mutually dependent individuals": 'mutally' in original.

Page 261. "to which other Powers were parties": 'others Powers' in original.

Page 290. "not an adequate political substitute": 'adeqate' in original.

Page 308. "protecting weak men against temptation": 'tempation' in original.

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