Chapter XXXIV (2)

"This general law of agricultural industry is the most
important proposition in political economy. Were the law
different, nearly all the phenomena of the production and
distribution of wealth would be other than they are. The most
fundamental errors, which still prevail on our subject,
result from not perceiving this law at work underneath the
more superficial agencies on which attention fixes itself;
but mistaking these agencies for the ultimate causes of
effects of which they may influence the form and mode, but of
which it alone determines the essence."--(Vol. i. p. 212.)

It is to this physical law, underlying, as it were, the commercial and industrial energies of man, that we must finally attribute that gradual diminution of profits, observable in advanced and opulent countries. This is popularly attributed, we believe, and has been assigned, by some political economists, to over-production; to a general glut of the market, or, in other words, a preponderance of supply over demand. Over-production in this or that article may very easily, for a time, take place; but general over-production, a general over-balance in the supply, and deficiency in the demand, may be demonstrated to be impossible.

The simple but convincing argument against a general glut or over-balance between supply and demand, which we believe Mr Mill senior first originated, is this,--that as each producer produces in order to part with his produce--in order, in fact, to exchange, to purchase, he must necessarily bring into the market a demand equivalent to the supply he furnishes. "All sellers," as our present author expresses it, "are _ex vi termini_ buyers. Could we suddenly double the productive powers of the country, we should double the supply of commodities in every market; but we should, by the same stroke, double the purchasing power. Every body would bring a double demand as well as supply; every body would be able to buy twice as much, because every one would have twice as much to offer in exchange."--(Vol. ii. p. 91.) Of certain articles, there may, of course, be a superfluity; of certain others a deficiency; but such a thing as a general over-balance between supply and demand cannot take place.

The argument, if it laid claim to a sort of mathematical precision, might be open to an ingenious cavil. The exchange of commodities, it might be said, is effected through the instrumentality of money; now, it is one of the peculiar advantages of money that it enables the vender to sell at one time and purchase at another; it gives him a command over future markets; it enables him to postpone indefinitely one half of the operation of barter. Men who come into a market, wishing to dispose of their commodities _now_, but not intending to select what commodity they shall take in exchange, till some future time, postponing indefinitely the other half of the operation of barter, and seeking only for money, for that _token_ which will give them or their children a claim on subsequent markets--do _not_ bring with them a demand equivalent to their supply.

The answer to the objection lets us more fully into the real facts of the case. Those only who wished to sell their produce in order to _hoard_, would fall under the description of men who bring a present supply into the market, postponing indefinitely their demand. But the producer is almost always a man desirous of increasing his wealth--he does not hoard; he immediately lays out his capital in some productive manner, in the purchase of food for labourers, and of the raw materials of industry. But these articles, it happens, cannot be supplied to him with the increasing abundance he demands; and thus we fall back upon the ultimate law to which we have alluded. The manufacturer finds, that every additional demand he makes for these is supplied at a greater cost. What has limited the profits of the agricultural capitalist limits his profits also. He cannot sell his goods at the accustomed advantage. He exclaims that there is a glut in the market. What he takes for a glut is a deficiency. It is quite natural and permissible, however, that this phenomenon of the diminution of profits should be spoken of as the result of a superabundance of capital, provided only it be understood _why_ the later accumulations of capital fail to bring the same return as the earlier.

A simple law of nature, therefore, is the true cause of this commercial phenomenon. Countries, after a certain progress in the career of wealth, must cease to accumulate;--the diminished profit on capital affording no longer any motive for frugality and toil;--and they arrive at what may be called the stationary state. "When a country," says Mr Mill, "has long possessed a large production, and a large net income to make savings from, and when, therefore, the means have long existed of making a great annual addition to capital, (the country not having, like America, a large reserve of fertile land still unused,) it is one of the characteristics of such a country, that the rate of profit is habitually within, as it were, a hand's breadth of the minimum, and the country, therefore, on the very verge of the stationary state. By this, I do not mean that this state is likely, in any of the great countries of Europe, to be soon actually reached, or that capital does not still yield a profit considerably greater than what is barely sufficient to induce the people of these countries to save and accumulate. My meaning is, that it would require but a short time to reduce profits to the minimum, if capital continued to increase at its present rate, and no circumstances having a tendency to raise the rate of profit occurred in the mean time."--(Vol. ii. p. 287.)

Mr Mill then states what are the counteracting circumstances which arrest this downward tendency of profits. He mentions the waste of capital in periods of over-trading and rash speculation, the expenditure of an unproductive kind, and the perpetual overflow of capital into colonies and foreign countries, to seek higher profits than can be obtained at home. This last has a twofold operation. "In the first place, it does what a fire, or an inundation, or a commercial crisis, would have done,--it carries off a part of the increase of capital from which the reduction of profits proceeds. Secondly, the capital so carried off is not lost, but is chiefly employed either in founding colonies, which become large exporters of cheap agricultural produce, or in extending, and perhaps improving, the agriculture of older communities. It is to the emigration of English capital that we have chiefly to look for keeping up a supply of cheap food and cheap materials of clothing, proportional to the increase of our population; thus enabling an increasing capital to find employment in the country, without reduction of profit, in producing manufactured articles with which to pay for this supply of raw produce. Thus, the exportation of capital is an agent of great efficacy in extending the field of employment for that which remains; and it may be said truly that, up to a certain point, the more capital we send away, the more we shall possess and be able to retain at home."--(Vol. ii. p. 297.)

This last observation we have quoted is well deserving of attention. It is an instance of what we mentioned in the outset, of the science correcting as it advances its own errors. What follows is a still more striking instance, and still more worthy of attention. It occurs in the chapter entitled,--_Consequences of the tendency of profits to a minimum_. To such observations we have wished to draw the especial attention of our readers, but could not do so till the previous exposition had been gone through.

"The theory of the effect of accumulation on profits, laid
down in the preceding chapter, materially alters many of the
practical conclusions which might otherwise be supposed to
follow from the general principles of political economy, and
which were, indeed, long admitted as true by the highest
authorities on the subject.

"It must greatly abate, or, rather, altogether destroy, in
countries where profits are low, the immense importance which
used to be attached, by political economists, to the effects
which an event or a measure of government might have in
adding to, or subtracting from, the capital of the country.
We have now seen that the lowness of profits is a proof that
the spirit of accumulation is so active, and that the
increase of capital has proceeded at so rapid a rate, as to
outstrip the two counter agencies, improvements in
production, and increased supply of cheap necessaries from
abroad: and that unless a considerable portion of the annual
increase of capital were either periodically destroyed, or
exported for foreign investment, the country would speedily
attain the point at which further accumulation would cease,
or at least spontaneously slacken, so as no longer to
overpass the march of invention in the arts which produce the
necessaries of life. In such a state of things as this, a
sudden addition to the capital of the country, unaccompanied
by any increase of productive power, would be but of
transitory duration; since, by depressing profits and
interest, it would rather diminish, by a corresponding
amount, the savings which would be made from income in the
year or two following, or it would cause an equivalent amount
to be sent abroad, or to be wasted in rash speculations.
Neither, on the other hand, would a sudden abstraction of
capital, unless of inordinate amount, have any real effect in
impoverishing the country. After a few months or years there
would exist in the country just as much capital as if none
had been taken away. The abstraction, by raising profits and
interest, would give a fresh stimulus to the accumulative
principle, which would speedily fill up the vacuum. Probably,
indeed, the only effect that would ensue, would be that, for
some time afterwards, less capital would be exported, and
less thrown away in hazardous speculation.

"In the first place, then, this view of things greatly
weakens, in a wealthy and industrious country, the force of
the economical argument against the expenditure of public
money for really valuable, even though industrially
unproductive purposes. _If for any great object of justice or
philanthropic policy, such as the industrial regeneration of
Ireland, or a comprehensive measure of colonisation or of
public education, it were proposed to raise a large sum by
way of loan, politicians need not demur to the abstraction of
so much capital, as tending to dry up the permanent sources
of the country's wealth, and diminish the fund which supplies
the subsistence of the labouring population. The utmost
expense which could be requisite for any of these purposes,
would not, in all probability, deprive one labourer of
employment, or diminish the next year's production by one ell
of cloth or one bushel of grain._ In poor countries the
capital of the country requires the legislator's sedulous
care; he is bound to be most cautious in encroaching upon it,
and should favour to the utmost its accumulation at home, and
its introduction from abroad. But in rich, populous, and
highly cultivated countries, it is not capital which is the
deficient element, but fertile land; and what the legislator
should desire and promote, is not a greater aggregate saving,
but a greater return to saving, either by improved
cultivation, or by access to the produce of more fertile
lands in other parts of the globe. In such countries, the
government may take any moderate portion of the capital of
the country and convert it into revenue, without affecting
the national wealth; the whole being rather drawn from that
portion of the annual saving which would otherwise be sent
abroad, or being substracted from the unproductive
expenditure of individuals for the next year or two, since
every million sent makes room for another million to be
saved, before reaching the overflowing point. When the object
in view is worth the sacrifice of such an amount of the
expenditure that furnishes the daily enjoyment of the people,
the only well grounded economical objection against taking
the necessary funds directly from the capital, consists of
the inconveniences attending the process of raising a
revenue, by taxation, to pay the interest of a debt.

"_The same considerations enable us to throw aside, as
unworthy of regard, one of the common arguments against
emigration as a means of relief for the labouring class._
Emigration, it is said, can do no good to the labourers, if,
in order to defray the cost, as much must be taken away from
the capital of the country as from its population. That any
thing like this proportion could require to be abstracted
from capital for the purpose even of the most extensive
colonisation, few, I should think, would now assert; but even
on that untenable supposition, it is an error to suppose that
no benefit could be conferred on the labouring class. If
one-tenth of the labouring people of England were transferred
to the colonies, and along with them one-tenth of the
circulating capital of the country, either wages, or profits,
or both, would be greatly benefited by the diminished
pressure of capital and population upon the fertility of the
land. There would be a reduced demand for food; the inferior
arable lands would be thrown out of cultivation, and would
become pasture; the superior would be cultivated less highly,
but with a greater proportional return; food would be lowered
in price, and, though money wages would not rise, every
labourer would be considerably improved in circumstances--an
improvement which, if no increased stimulus to population and
fall of wages ensued, would be permanent; while, if there
did, profits would rise, and accumulation start forward so as
to repair the loss of capital. The landlords alone would
sustain some loss of income; and even they, only if
colonisation went to the length of actually diminishing
capital and population, but not if it merely carried off the
annual increase."--(Vol. ii. p. 999.)

Does not all this place the condition of England in a very striking aspect before us? We have a country here so wealthy, so nearly approaching that state where its accessions of capital can no longer be profitably employed, that it wastes its funds in ruinous speculations, building perhaps useless factories--and, if useless, how mischievous!--that it sends its money abroad to construct foreign railways, or throws it away upon South American republics. Yet the people of this country is degraded and brutalised for want of education, and it is threatened with political convulsions for want of a good system of emigration; and you call for education, and you call for colonisation, and the only obstacle that is opposed to you is--the want of money! Shame upon England, if this be so! With all her knowledge and civilisation, she will go down to ruin, rather than give, in the shape of taxes, for the most necessary as well as philanthropic purposes, that wealth which she can fling abroad or waste at home with the most reckless prodigality.

Of late the Irish landlord has been very justly held up to public reproof for the hard, unthinking, extortionate manner in which he has been in the habit of dealing with the soil--or allowing certain middlemen to deal with it--taking a famine-price for the land--permitting the miserable cottiers to bid against each other, instead of fixing an equitable rent, such as would finally have secured to himself better and more profitable tenants. For his thoughtlessness or cupidity, whichever it may be, both he and the country at large are paying a severe penalty. But the Irish landlords are not the only class that are to blame. That indiscriminate recoil from all taxation, whatever be its object, which characterises the upper and middling classes of society in England, is a sad blot in their escutcheon.[6]

Before quitting this subject of capital, we must quote a passage which occurs at an earlier part of the work, but which is in perfect harmony with the strain of observations we have been calling attention to. It serves to show and explain the elastic power there is in every thoroughly industrious country to revive from any temporary loss, or sacrifice, or calamity. Let but the people with their knowledge and habits, the soil and a little food, remain, and there is no effort, and no ruin or desolation from which it would not speedily recover. Moreover, it is a passage of a certain popular interest, and we are glad of the opportunity to relieve our pages by its quotation.

"Every thing which is produced is consumed; both what is
saved and what is said to be spent; and the former quite as
rapidly as the latter. All the ordinary forms of language
tend to disguise this. When men talk of the ancient wealth of
a country, of riches inherited from ancestors, and similar
expressions, the idea suggested is, that the riches so
transmitted were produced long ago, at the time when they are
said to have been first acquired, and that no portion of the
capital of the country was produced this year, except so much
as may have been this year added to the total amount. The
fact is far otherwise. The greater part, in value, of the
wealth now existing in England, has been produced by human
hands within the last twelve months. A very small proportion
indeed of that large aggregate was in existence ten years
ago;--of the present productive capital of the country,
scarcely any part except farm-houses and factories, and a few
ships and machines; and even these would not in most cases
have survived so long, if fresh labour had not been employed
within that period in putting them in repair. The land
subsists, and the land is almost the only thing that
subsists. Every thing which is produced perishes, and most
things very quickly. Most kinds of capital are not fitted by
their nature to be long preserved. There are a few, and but a
few productions, capable of a very prolonged existence.
Westminster Abbey has lasted many centuries, with occasional
repairs; some ancient sculptures have existed above two
thousand years; the Pyramids perhaps double or treble that
time. But these were objects devoted to unproductive use. If
we except bridges and aqueducts, (to which may sometimes be
added tanks and embankments,) there are few instances of any
edifice applied to industrial purposes which has been of
great duration: such buildings do not hold out against wear
and tear, nor is it good economy to construct them of the
solidity necessary for permanency. Capital is kept in
existence from age to age, not by preservation, but by
perpetual reproduction: every part of it is used and
destroyed, generally very soon after it has been produced;
but those who consume it are employed meanwhile in producing
more. The growth of capital is similar to the growth of
population. Every individual who is born, dies, but in each
year the number born exceeds the number who die; the
population, therefore, always increases, although not one
person of those comprising it was alive until a very recent
date.

"This perpetual consumption and reproduction of capital
affords the explanation of what has so often excited
wonder--the great rapidity with which countries recover from
a state of devastation; the disappearance in a short time of
all traces of the mischief done by earthquakes, of floods,
hurricanes, and the ravages of war. An enemy lays waste a
country by fire and sword, and destroys or carries away
nearly all the movable wealth existing in it: all the
inhabitants are ruined; yet in a few years after, every thing
is much as it was before. This _vis medicatrix naturae_ has
been a subject of sterile astonishment, or has been cited to
exemplify the wonderful strength of the principle of saving,
which can repair such enormous losses in so brief an
interval. There is nothing at all wonderful in the matter.
What the enemy have destroyed would have been destroyed in a
little time by the inhabitants themselves; the wealth which
they so rapidly reproduce would have needed to be produced,
and would have been reproduced in any case, and probably in
as short an interval."--(Vol. i. p. 91.)

One of the most interesting portions of the work is that devoted to questions touching the cultivation of the land--as whether large or small farms are most advisable. Mr Mill appears to advocate the latter, and enlarges much on the industry universally displayed by the peasants of those countries who either cultivate land of their own, or in which they have a certain and permanent interest. Additional value is given to these chapters, from the bearing they are made to have on the vexed questions of the causes and the remedies of the lamentable state of that unhappy country, Ireland.

We remember well the impression made upon us on reading, some time, ago, these passages in Sismondi's work which Mr Mill quotes on this occasion, where the habits and life of the peasant proprietors of Switzerland are so minutely, and apparently so faithfully described. Coupling his description with what our own hasty observation had taught us of this country, we were disposed to believe that nowhere, and under no circumstances, does human life wear a more enviable aspect than amongst these small proprietors, this rustic aristocracy of Switzerland. But we regarded it, as we still do, as one of those instances of _compensation_ so general in the moral world. All the wealth of England could not purchase this sort of pastoral happiness. At all events, only here and there such a primitive state of things could exist. It was not necessary for our Norman ancestors to have added manor to manor: a wealthy commercial state, which gives origin to great fortunes, must inevitably give origin to large properties. The same wealth which decides for us that the land shall be cultivated in large farms, would also decide that it should be divided amongst large proprietors. It is well to keep in mind that neither of these facts is, to any material extent, owing to any peculiarity in the history or the laws of England, but to its commercial opulence.

Meanwhile we may be permitted to admire "the picture of unwearied industry, and what may be called affectionate interest in the land;" the patience, frugality, and prudence in entering into marriage, that almost always characterise the class of small proprietors cultivating their own soil. Our own yeomen, at that distant and almost fabulous epoch when our country obtained the name of "merry England," were of this description of men. We wish we had space to transfer to our pages some of the extracts which our author has drawn together from French, and German, and English writers, all showing the hearty, incessant, and, as one author calls it, the "superhuman" industry of the peasant proprietor.

A great number of such properties England cannot be expected to have; there may, too, be reasons for not desiring their existence; but one fact is placed beyond all controversy, both by the testimony of travellers, and the known operations of the common feelings of our nature, that they are the most indefatigable of all labourers. If you wish to convert an idle and improvident man into an industrious and frugal one, give him a piece of land of his own: the recipe _may_ fail; but if this does not reform him, nothing else will.

It is on the condition of Ireland, as we have intimated, that this description of the peasant proprietor is made particularly to bear. To substitute for the wretched cottier system, some system under which the Irish peasant, having a substantial interest in the improvement of the soil, would be placed under strong motives to industry and providence, is the great remedy which Mr Mill proposes for the unhappy state of that country.

The evils of the cottier system are notorious. A peasantry who have no resource but the potato field, and who are multiplying as only utter poverty can multiply, bid against each other for the possession of the land. They promise rents they cannot possibly pay. They are immediately and continually in debt; but being there upon the soil, they can first feed themselves; this they do, and the rest, whatever it may be, is for the landlord.

"In such a condition," writes Mr Mill, "what can a tenant
gain by any amount of industry or prudence, and what lose by
any recklessness? If the landlord at any time exerted his
full legal rights, the cottier would not be able even to
live. If by extra exertion he doubled the produce of his bit
of land, or if he prudently abstained from producing mouths
to eat it up, his only gain would be to have more left to pay
to his landlord, while, if he had twenty children, they would
still be fed first, and the landlord would only take what was
left. Almost alone among mankind, the Irish cottier is in
this condition,--that he can scarcely be either better or
worse off by any act of his own. If he was industrious or
prudent, nobody but his landlord would gain; if he is lazy or
intemperate, it is at his landlord's expense. A situation
more devoid of motives to either labour or self-command,
imagination itself cannot conceive. The inducements of free
human beings are taken away, and those of a slave not
substituted. He has nothing to hope and nothing to fear,
except being dispossessed of his holding; and against this he
protects himself by the _ultima ratio_ of a civil
war."--(Vol. i. p. 374)

That this system must be got rid of is admitted by all--but how? It is often proposed to convert the cottiers into hired labourers; but without entering upon (either to admit or controvert) the other objections which Mr Mill makes to this plan, it is enough to say that it is, at present, impracticable. "The conversion of cottiers into hired labourers," he justly observes, "implies the introduction all over Ireland of capitalist farmers, in lieu of the present small tenants. These farmers, or their capital at least, must come from England. But to induce capital to come in, the cottier population must first be peaceably got rid of: in other words, that must be already accomplished, which English capital is proposed as the means of accomplishing." Besides which, it is the characteristic of the English system of farming, that it employs the fewest number of labourers. "Taking the number of Irish peasants in the square mile, and the number of hired labourers in an equal space in the model counties of Scotland or England, the former number is commonly computed to be about three times the latter. Two-thirds, therefore, of the Irish peasantry would be absolutely dispensed with. What is to be done with them?... The people are there; and the problem is, not how to improve the country, but how it can be improved by and for its present inhabitants."

To wait till the English system of farming can be introduced into Ireland is tantamount to resigning all attempt to improve the condition of the people of that country. Something must be done to prepare the way for the introduction of that system. There are several schemes afloat for giving or extending a certain _tenant-right_ to the peasantry. Into these we have not space to enter--for it would take some to explain the several significations attached to this term tenant-right. It is sufficient to say, that, whenever the term has any really important signification, and under it any effective remedy is proposed, it means this,--that the legislature should interfere between the landlord and tenant, and assign an equitable rent, and an equitable duration of the tenancy. Such an act of the legislature might be perfectly justifiable, and might be found to be as advantageous to the landlord as the tenant; for the former as much needs to be protected from his own indolence or thoughtless cupidity, as the latter from the desperate pressure of want. But we should, of course, infinitely prefer that such an equitable arrangement between these parties should be arrived at without the intervention of the legislature; and we think it would be an indirect result of the scheme which Mr Mill proposes, or rather advocates. He would begin the work of reformation by forming a body of peasant proprietors on the waste lands of Ireland. Carried out with due consideration to the rights of property, we confess we can detect no objections to this plan. Some differences of opinion, we believe, exist amongst the best judges as to the nature of the soil in question, and its capability of being reclaimed; and on this point we cannot profess to give an opinion: but, so far as principles of legislation, or the objects in view are concerned, we cordially approve of the scheme, though we cannot say that we entertain the same sanguine view of it as the author before us. It deserves a trial, in conjunction with other measures of relief, when the temper of that misguided people shall admit of the application, with any probability of success, of this class of remedial measures.

We shall give the project as it is stated in the work before us. After observing that it is not necessary that peasant properties should be universal, in order to be useful, nor, indeed, desirous that they should be universal, he thus proceeds:--

"It is enough, if there be land available on which to locate
so great a portion of the population, that the remaining area
of the country shall not be required to maintain greater
numbers than are compatible with large farming and hired
labour. For this purpose there is an obvious resource in the
waste lands, which are happily so extensive, and a large
portion of them so improveable, as to afford a means by
which, without making the present tenants proprietors, nearly
the whole surplus population might be converted into peasant
proprietors elsewhere. This plan has been strongly pressed
upon the public by several writers; but the first to bring it
prominently forward in England, was Mr William Thornton.[7]

"The detailed estimate of an irrefragable authority, Mr
Griffith, annexed to the Report of Lord Devon's Commission,
shows nearly a million and a half of acres reclaimable for
the spade or plough, some of them with the promise of great
fertility, and about two millions and a half more reclaimable
for pasture; the greater part being in most convenient
proximity to the principal masses of destitute population.
Besides these four millions of acres, there are above two
millions and a half, pronounced by Mr Griffith to be
unimprovable; but he is only speaking of reclamation for
profit: it is doubtful if there be any land, in a temperate
climate, which cannot be reclaimed and rendered productive by
labourers themselves under the inducement of a permanent
property. Confining ourselves to the one and a half millions
of arable first mentioned, it would furnish properties
averaging five acres each to three hundred thousand persons,
which, at the rate of five persons to a family--a rather low
rate for Ireland--answers to a population of fifteen hundred
thousand. Suppose such a number drafted off to a state of
independence and comfort, together with any moderate
additional relief of emigration, and the introduction of
English capital and farming over the remaining surface of
Ireland would cease to be chimerical.

"'The improvement of waste,' Mr Thornton observes, 'may
perhaps be thought to require a good deal of capital; but
capital is principally useful for its command of labour, and
the Irish peasantry have quite labour enough at their own
disposal. Their misfortune is that they have so much. Their
labour would not be worse applied because they worked for
themselves instead of for a pay-master. So far is large
capital from being indispensable for the cultivation of
barren tracts, that schemes of this kind, which could only
bring loss to a real speculator, are successfully achieved by
his penniless rival. A capitalist must have a certain return
for the money he lays out, but the poor man expends nothing
but his own superabundant labour, which would be valueless if
not so employed; so that his returns, however small, are all
clear profit. No man in his senses would ever have thought of
wasting money upon the original sand of the Pays de Waes; but
the hard-working boors who settled there two hundred years
ago, without any other stock than their industry, contrived
to enrich both themselves and the land, and indeed to make
the latter the richest in Europe.'

"'The profit of reclaiming waste land,' says the Digest of
Evidence to Lord Devon's Commission, 'will be best understood
from a practice not uncommon in Ireland, to which farmers
sometimes resort. This consists in giving the use of a small
portion of it to a poor cottier or herdsman for the first
three crops, after which this improved portion is given up to
the farmer, and a fresh piece of the waste land is taken on
the same terms by the cottier.' Well may the compiler say,
'Here we have the example of the very poorest class in
Ireland obtaining a livelihood by the cultivation of waste
land under the most discouraging and the least remunerative
circumstances that can well be imagined.'

"It is quite worthy of the spirit which pervades the wretched
attempts as yet made to do good to Ireland, that this
spectacle of the poorest of mankind making the land valuable
by their labour for the profit of other people who have done
nothing to assist them, does not at once strike Lord Devon
and his Commission as a thing which ought not to be. Mr
Thornton strongly urges the claims of common justice and
common sense.

"'The colonists ought to be allowed to retain permanent
possession of the spots reclaimed by them. To employ them as
labourers in bringing the land into a remunerative condition,
(see Report of Land Occupation Commissioners,) in order that
it may then be let to some one else, while they are sent to
shift for themselves where they can, may be an excellent mode
of enriching the landlord, but must eventually aggravate the
sufferings of the poor. It is probably because this plan has
been generally practised, that the reclamation of waste land
has hitherto done nothing for the benefit of the Irish
peasantry. If the latter are to derive any advantage from it,
such of them as may be located on the waste should receive
perpetual leases of their respective allotments--should be
made freeholders in fact, or at least perpetual tenants at a
quit-rent. Such an appropriation of waste land would, of
course, require that compensation should be made to all who
previously possessed any interest in it. But the value of a
legal interest in land which cannot be enclosed or cultivated
without permission of the legislature, can only be
proportionate to the actual yearly produce; and as land in a
natural state yields little or nothing, all legal claims upon
it might be bought up at a trifling expense, or might be
commuted for a very small annual payment to be made by the
settlers. Of the perfect competence of parliament to direct
some arrangement of this kind there can be no question. An
authority which compels individuals to part with their most
valued property on the slightest pretext of public
convenience, and permits railway projectors to throw down
family mansions and cut up favourite pleasure-grounds, need
not be very scrupulous about forcing the sale of boggy
meadows or mountain pastures, in order to obtain the means of
curing the destitution and misery of an entire people.'

"It would be desirable," continues Mr Mill, "and in most
cases necessary, that the tracts of land should be prepared
for the labours of the peasant by being drained and
intersected with roads, at the expense of government; the
interest of the sums so expended, and of compensation paid
for the existing rights to the waste land, being charged on
it, when reclaimed, as a perpetual quit-rent, redeemable at a
moderate number of years' purchase. The state would thus
incur no loss, while the advances made would give that
immediate employment to the surplus labour of Ireland, which,
if not given in this manner, will assuredly have to be given
in some other, not only less useful, but far less likely to
repay its cost. The millions lavished, during the famine, in
the almost nominal execution of useless works, without any
result but that of keeping the people alive, would, if
employed in a great operation in the waste lands, have been
quite as effectual for relieving immediate distress, and
would have laid the foundation, broad and deep, for something
really deserving the name of social improvement. But, as
usual, it was thought better to throw away money and exertion
in a beaten track, than to take the responsibility of the
most advantageous investment of them in an untrodden
one."--(Vol. i. p. 392.)

We make no apology for the length of the above extract; the subject is of great importance; but having stated the proposal in the words of its principal author (if Mr Thornton can claim the distinction) and its most distinguished advocate, we have nothing left but to express our own wish that some such wide and general plan will at all events meet with a fair trial, when the fitting time shall occur for making the experiment.

Any of our readers into whose hands the work of Mr Mill has already fallen, will be aware of the numerous topics on which it must excite controversy or provoke discussion. Some of these topics we had marked out for examination; but we have no space to enter upon a new subject, and shall content ourselves with closing our notice with an extract or two from what is the closing chapter of the work itself--_On the Limits of the Province of Government_. His observations upon this subject are so temperate and judicious, and conceived throughout in so liberal and enlightened a spirit, that although there must always be a _shade_ of difference between such a writer and ourselves, we should have little hesitation in adopting almost the whole of the chapter. He draws a very necessary distinction between the authoritative interference of government, controlling and interdicting, and that kind of intervention where a government, "leaving individuals free to use their own means of pursuing any object of general interest, but not trusting the object solely to their care, establishes, side by side with their arrangements, an agency of its own for a like purpose. Thus it is one thing to maintain a church establishment, and another to refuse toleration to other religions, or to persons professing no religion. It is one thing to provide schools or colleges, and another to require that no person shall act as an instructor of youth without a government license."

We like the tone of the following remark:--"Whatever theory we adopt respecting the foundation of the social union, and under whatever political institutions we live, there is a circle around every individual human being which no government, be it that of one, of a few, or of the many, ought to be permitted to overstep; there is a part of the life of every person, who has come to years of discretion, within which the individuality of that person ought to reign uncontrolled, either by any other individual or the public collectively. That there is, or ought to be, some space of human existence thus entrenched round, and sacred from authoritative intrusion, no one who professes the smallest regard to human freedom or dignity will call in question."

"Many," he continues, "in latter times have been prone to
think that limitation of the powers of government is only
essential when the government itself is badly constituted;
when it does not represent the people, but is the organ of a
class, or a coalition of classes; and that a government of a
sufficiently popular constitution might be trusted with any
amount of power over the nation, since its power would be
only that of the nation over itself. This might be true, if
the nation, in such cases, did not practically mean a mere
majority of the nation, and if minorities only were capable
of oppressing, but not of being oppressed. Experience,
however, proves that the depositaries of power, who are mere
delegates of the people--that is, of a majority--are quite as
ready (when they think they can count upon popular support)
as any organs of oligarchy to assume arbitrary power, and
encroach unduly on the liberty of private life. The public
collectively is abundantly ready to impose, not only its
generally narrow views of its interests, but its abstract
opinions, and even its tastes, as laws binding upon
individuals; and our present civilisation tends so strongly
to make the power of persons acting in masses the only
substantial power in society, that there never was more
necessity for surrounding individual independence of thought,
speech, and conduct with the most powerful defences, in order
to maintain that originality of mind and individuality of
character, which are the only source of any real progress,
and of most of the qualities which make the human race much
superior to any herd of animals."

It is not the error which Conservative politicians are liable to commit, to throw too large a share of the management of affairs into the hands of a central power; they would, therefore, readily coincide with Mr Mill, when he observes, that even if a government could comprehend within itself the most eminent intellectual capacity and active talent of the nation, it would not be the less desirable that the conduct of a large portion of the affairs of society should be left in the hands of the persons immediately interested in them. "The business of life," he remarks, "is an essential part of the practical education of a people; without which, book and school instruction, though most necessary and salutary, does not suffice to qualify them for conduct, and for the adaptation of means to ends.... A people among whom there is no habit of spontaneous action for a collective interest--who look habitually to their government to command or prompt them in all matters of joint concern--who expect to have every thing done for them, except what can be made an affair of mere habit and routine--have their faculties only half developed; their education is defective in one of its most important branches."

We must conclude with the following extract, which is so extremely applicable to the affairs of our neighbours, that we wish we could make it heard from the tribune of their National Assembly.

"A democratic constitution, not supported by democratic
institutions in detail, but confined to the central
government, not only is not political freedom, but often
creates a spirit precisely the reverse, carrying down to the
lowest grade in society the desire and ambition of political
domination. In some countries, the desire of the people is
for not being tyrannised over, but in others, it is merely
for an equal chance to every body of tyrannising. Unhappily,
this last state of the desires is fully as natural to mankind
as the former, and in many of the conditions even of
civilised humanity, is far more largely exemplified. In
proportion as the people are accustomed to manage their
affairs by their own active intervention, instead of leaving
them to the government, their desires will turn to the
repelling tyranny, rather than to tyrannising; while, in
proportion as all real initiative and direction resides in
the government, and individuals perpetually feel and act as
under its perpetual tutelage, popular institutions develop in
them not the desire of freedom, but an unmeasured appetite
for place and power; diverting the intelligence and activity
of the country from its principal business to a wretched
competition for the selfish prizes and the petty vanities of
office."--(Vol. ii. p. 515.)

In quitting this work, we must again repeat that our task would be endless if we entered upon every topic on which it provokes discussion. On some of these we may take a future opportunity to express ourselves. Amongst the subjects we had designed, had space permitted, for some discussion, are certain heresies, as we think them, regarding property in land; and some views, rather hinted at than explained, on the position which the female sex ought to take in society. In the extract we first made, the reader may have remarked this singular expression. Speaking of the Americans, he says they have "apparently got rid of all social injustices and inequalities that affect persons of Caucasian race _and of the male sex_;" leaving it to be inferred, that even in America there still remain certain social injustices and inequalities affecting _the female sex_. There are many inuendos scattered throughout the book of the same description, but we nowhere gather a distinct view of the sort of reformation that is called for. In a writer of another character these expressions would be encountered only with ridicule; coming from Mr Mill, they excite our surprise, and, in some measure, our curiosity.

FOOTNOTES:

[4] _Principles of Political Economy, with some of their applications to Social Philosophy._ By JOHN STUART MILL. 2 vols.

[5] "Mais d'abord va-t-on designer cet ordre particulier d'investigations par le nom d'economie politique? Quoi donc! Economie politique, economie de la societe,--c'est a dire--production, distribution, consommation des richesses? Mais c'est se moquer; on ne traduit pas avec une liberte pareille. Il ne faut qu'ouvrir le premier dictionnaire venu pour voir," &c.--DUNOYER, _De la Liberte du Travail_.

[6] The discussions upon the income tax reveal a lamentable state of public feeling on this subject. That this tax might have been more equitably adjusted, every one but a Chancellor of the Exchequer will admit. Those who have to insure their lives, or otherwise save a fund out of their income for survivors, ought not to pay the same tax as those who can enjoy the whole of their income. But no such modification as this would have pacified discontent. One often heard it said that the tax should fall exclusively on realised property. The prosperous tradesman, with his income of some thousands a-year, was to pay nothing; the poor widow, who draws her sixty pounds per annum from her property in the funds, she was to pay the tax. Mr Mill, in noticing this very equitable proposition, says--"Except the proposal of applying a sponge to the national debt, no such palpable violation of common honesty has found sufficient support in this country during the present generation to be regarded within the domain of discussion. It has not the palliation of a graduated property-tax, that of laying the burthen on those best able to bear it; for 'realised property' includes almost every provision made for those who are unable to work, and consists, in great part, of extremely small fractions. I can hardly conceive a more shameless pretension than that the major part of the property of the country, that of merchants, manufacturers, farmers, and shopkeepers, should be exempted from its share of taxation; that these classes should only begin to pay their proportion after retiring from business, and if they never retire, should be excused from it altogether."--(Vol. ii. p. 355.)

[7] In a work entitled, _Over-Population and its Remedy_.

Life in the "Far West."