Chapter XXII: Letter VII: Concluding Letter (1)

PARIS: Feb. 19, 1852.

SIR,—There is a story of some Swedish Abbé, in the last century, who wrote an elaborate work to prove the then constitution of his country to be immortal and indestructible. While he was correcting the proof sheets, a friend brought him word that—behold! the King had already destroyed the said polity. ‘Sir,’ replied the gratified author, ‘our Sovereign, the illustrious Gustavus, may certainly overthrow the Constitution, but never _my book_.’ I beg to parody this sensible remark; for I wish to observe to you, that even though Louis Napoleon should turn out a bad and mischievous ruler, he won’t in the least refute these letters.

What I mean is as follows. Above all things, I have designed to prove to you that the French are by character unfit for a solely and predominantly Parliamentary government; that so many and so great elements of convulsion exist here, that it will be clearly necessary that a strong, vigorous, anti-barricade executive should, at whatever risk and cost, be established and maintained; that such an Assembly as the last is irreconcileable with this; in a word, that riots and revolutions must, if possible, come to an end, and only such a degree of liberty and democracy be granted to the French nation, as is consistent with the consolidated existence of the order and tranquillity which are equally essential to rational freedom and civilised society.

In order to combine the maintenance of order and tranquillity with the maximum of possible liberty, I hope that it may in the end be found possible to admit into a political system a representative and sufficiently democratic Assembly, without that Assembly assuming and arrogating to itself those nearly omnipotent powers, which in our country it properly and rightfully possesses, but which in the history of the last sixty years, we have, as it seems to me, so many and so cogent illustrations that a French Chamber is, by genius and constitution, radically incapable to hold and exercise. I hope that some checking, Consultative, petitioning Assembly—some βουλή, in the real sense of the term,—some _Council_, some provision by which all grave and deliberate public opinion (I do not speak more definitely, because an elaborate Constitution, from a foreigner, must be an absurdity) may organise and express itself—yet at the same time, without utterly hampering and directing—and directing amiss—those more simple elements of national polity on which we must, after all, rely for the prompt and steady repression of barricade-making and bloodshed.

I earnestly desire to believe that some such system as this may be found in practice possible; for otherwise, unless I quite misread history, and altogether mistake what is under my eyes, after many more calamities, many more changes, many more great Assemblies abounding in Vergniauds and Berryers, the essential deficiencies of debating Girondin statesmen will become manifest, the uncompact, unpractical, over volatile, over logical, indecisive, ineffectual rule of Gallican Parliaments will be unequivocally manifest (it is _now_ plain, I imagine, but a truth so humiliating must be written large in letters of blood before those that run will read it), and no medium being held or conceived to be possible, the nation will sink back, not contented but discontented, not trustfully but distrustfully, under the rule of a military despot; and if they yield to this, it will be from no faith, no loyalty, no credulity; it will be from a sense—a hated sense—of unqualified failure, a miserable scepticism in the probable success and the possible advantages of long-tried and ill-tried rebellion.

Now, whether the Constitution of Louis Napoleon is calculated to realise this ideal and intermediate system, is, till we see it at work, doubtful and disputable. It is not the question so much of what it may be at this moment, as of what it may become in a brief period, when things have begun to assume a more normal state, and the public mind shall be relaxed from its present and painful tension. However, I should be deceiving you, if I did not inform you that the state of men’s minds towards the Prince-President is not, so far as I can make it out, what it was the day after the _coup d’état_. The measures taken against the Socialists are felt to have been several degrees too severe, the list of exiles too numerous; the confiscation of the Orleans’ property could not but be attended with the worst effect: the law announced by the Government organs respecting or rather against the Press, is justly (though you know from my last letter I have no partiality for French newspapers) considered to be absurdly severe, and likely to countenance much tyranny and gross injustice; above all, instead of maintaining mere calm and order, the excessive rigour, and sometimes the injustice, of the President’s measures, have produced a breathless pause (if I may so speak) in public opinion; political conversation is a whispered question, what will he do next? Firstly, the Government is dull, and the French want to be amused; secondly, it is going to spoil the journals (depreciate newspapers to a Frenchman, disparage nuts to a monkey); thirdly, it is producing (I do not say it has yet produced, but it has made a beginning in producing) a habit of apprehension;—in fact, I believe the French opinion of the Prince-President is near about that of the interesting damsel in George Sand’s comedy, concerning her uninteresting _prétendu_: ‘_Vous l’aimez? n’est-ce pas?’ ‘Oui, oui, oui, certainement je l’aime. Oui, oui, mille fois, oui, Je dis que oui. Je vous assure. AU MOINS je fais mon possible à l’aimer_:’ the first attachment is not extinct, but people have begun—awful symptom—to add the withering and final saving clause. Yet it is, I imagine, a great mistake to suppose that the present Constitution, if it work at all, will permanently work as a despotism, or that the _Corps Législatif_ will be without a measure of popular influence; the much more helpless _Tribunal_ was not so in the much more troublesome times of the Consulate. And the source of such influence and the manner of its operation may be, I imagine, well enough traced in the nature of the forces whereby Louis Napoleon holds his power.

A truly estimable writer says, I know, ‘that the Legislative body cannot have, by possibility, any analogy with the consultative and petitioning senate of the Plantagenets,’ nor can any one deny that the likeness is extremely faint (no illustration ever yet ran on all fours), the practical differences clear and convincing. But yet, according to the light which is given me now, I affirm that for one vital purpose,—the resisting and criticising any highly unpopular acts of a highly unpopular Government,—the _Corps Législatif_ of Louis Napoleon must, and will, inevitably possess a power compared with which the forty-day followers of the feudal _noblesse_ seem as impotent as a congregation of Quakers; a force the peculiarity of which is that you can’t imprison, can’t dissolve, can’t annihilate it—I mean, of course, the moral power of civilised opinion. You may put down newspapers, dissolve Parliaments, imprison agitators, almost stop conversation, but you can’t stop thought. You can’t prevent the silent, slow, creeping, stealthy progress of hatred, and scorn, and shame. You can’t attenuate easily the stern justice of a retarded retaliation. These influences affect the great reservoir of physical force—they act on the army. A body of men enlisted daily from the people take to the barracks the notions of the people; in spite of new associations, the first impressions are apt to be retained; you overlay them, but they remain. What is believed elsewhere and out of doors gives them weight. Each soldier has relations, friends, a family—he knows what they think. Much more with the officers. These are men moving in Parisian society, accessible to its influences, responsible to its opinion, apt to imbibe its sentiments. Certainly _esprit de corps_—the habit of obedience, the instinct of discipline, are strong, and will carry men far; but certainly, also, they have natural limits. Men won’t stand being cut, being ridiculed, being detested, being despised, daily and for ever, and that for measures which their own understandings disapprove of. Remember there is not here any question of barbarous bands overawing a civilised and imperial city; no question of ugly Croats keeping down cultivated Italians; it is but a question of French gentlemen and French peasantry in uniform acting in opposition to other French gentlemen and other French peasants without uniform. Already there has been talk (I do not say well-founded, but still the matter was named) of breaking two or three hundred officers, for speaking against the Orleans decrees. Do you fancy that can be done every day? Do you imagine that a Parliament, whatever its nominal functions may be (remember those of the old _régime_), speaking the sense of the people about the question of the day, in a time of convulsion, and in a critical hour, would not be attended to, or at any rate thought of and considered, by an army taken from the people—commanded by men selected from and every day mixing with common society and very ordinary mankind. The 2nd of December showed how readily such troops will support a decided and popular President against an intriguing, divided, impotent Chamber. But such hard blows won’t bear repetition. Soldiers—French soldiers, I take it especially, from their quickness and intelligence, are neither deaf nor blind. If there be truth in history or speculation, national forces can’t long be used against the nation: they are unmerciful, and often cruel to feeble minorities; they are ready now for a terrible onslaught on mere Socialists, just as of old they turned out cheerfully for awful dragonnades on the ill-starred Protestants; but once let them know and feel that everybody is against them—that they are alone, that their acts are contemned and their persons despised,—and gradually, or all at once, discipline and habit surely fail, men murmur or desert, officers hesitate or disobey, one regiment is dismissed to the Cabyles, another relegated to rural solitudes; at last, most likely in the decisive moment of the whole history, the rulers, who relied only on their troops, are afraid to call them out; they hesitate, send spies and commissioners to inquire. ‘_Vive le Gouvernement Provisoire!_’—the black and roaring multitude rises and comes on; but two seconds, and the obnoxious institutions are lost in the flood; nothing is heard but the cry of the hour, sounding shrill and angry over the waste of Revolution—‘_Vive le Diable!_’ With such a force behind them, a French Parliament, of whatever nature, with whatever written duties, is, if at the head of the movement, in the critical hour, apt to be stronger than the strongest of the Barons.

Nor do I concur with those who censure the President for ‘recommending’ avowedly the candidates he approves. It is a part of the great question, How is universal suffrage to be worked successfully in such a country as France? The peasant proprietors have but one political idea that they wish the Prince to govern them;—they wish to vote for the candidate most acceptable to him, and they wish nothing else. Why is he wrong in telling them which candidate that is?

Still, no doubt, the reins are now strained a great deal too tight. It is possible, quite possible, that a majority in this Parliament may be packed, but what I would impress on you is that it can’t always be packed. Sooner or later constituencies who wish to oppose the Government will, in spite of _maires_ and _préfets_, elect the opposition candidate: it is in the nature of any, even the least vigorous system of popular election, to struggle forwards and progressively attain to some fair and reasonable correspondence with the substantial views and opinions of the constituent people.

I therefore fall back on what I told you before—my essential view or crotchet about the mental aptitudes and deficiencies of the French people. The French, said Napoleon, are _des machines nerveuses_.

The point is, can their excitable, volatile, superficial, over-logical, uncompromising character be managed and manipulated as to fit them for entering on a practically uncontrolled system of Parliamentary Government? Will not any large and omnipotent Assembly resemble the stormy Constituent and the late Chamber, rather than the business-like, formal, ennui-diffusing Parliament to which in our free and dull country we are felicitously accustomed? Can one be so improved as to keep down a riot? I foresee a single and but a single objection. I fancy, indeed I know, that there is a school of political thinkers not yet in possession of any great influence, but, perhaps, a little on the way thereto, which has improved or invented a capital panacea, whereby all nations are, within very moderate limits of time, to be surely and certainly fitted for political freedom; and that no matter how formed—how seemingly stable—how long ago cast and constructed, be the type of popular character to which the said remedy is sought to be applied. This panacea is the foundation or restoration of provincial municipalities. Now, I am myself prepared to go a considerable length with the school in question. I do myself think, that a due and regular consideration of the knotty points of paving and lighting, and the deciding in the last resort upon them, is a valuable discipline of national character. It exercises people’s minds on points they know, in things of which there is a test. Very few people are good judges of a good Constitution; but everybody’s eyes are excellent judges of good light; every man’s feet are profound in the theory of agreeable stones. Yet I can’t altogether admit, nevertheless, that municipalities are the sufficient and sole, though they may be very likely an essential prerequisite of political freedom. There is the great instance of Hindostan to the contrary. The whole old and national system of that remarkable country—a system in all probability as ancient as the era of Alexander, is a village system; and one so curious, elaborate, I fancy I might say so profound, that the best European observers—Sir Thomas Munro, and that sort of people—are most strenuous for its being retained unimpaired. According to them, the village hardly heard of the Imperial Government, except for the purpose of Imperial taxation. The business of life through that whole vast territory has always been practically determined by potails and parish-vestries, and yet nevertheless and in spite of this capital and immemorial municipal system, our subjects, the Hindoos, are still slaves and still likely to be slaves; still essentially slavish, and likely, I much fear, very long indeed to remain so. It is therefore quite certain that rural and provincial institutions won’t so alter and adapt all national characters, as to fit all nations for a Parliamentary Constitution; consequently, the _onus probandi_ is on those who assert that it will so alter and mould the French. Again, I assure you that the French do think of paving and lighting; not enough, perhaps, but still they have begun. The country is, as you know, divided into departments, arrondissements, and communes; in each of these there is a council, variously elected, but, in all cases, popularly and from the district, which has the sole control over the expenditure of the particular locality for every special and local purpose, and which, if I am rightly informed, has, in theory at least, the sole initiative in every local improvement. The defect, I fancy, is that in the exercise of these, considerable bodies are hampered and controlled by the veto and supervision of the central authority. The rural councils discuss and decide what in their judgment should be then done and what money should be so spent; the better sort of the agricultural population have much more voice in the latter than have the corresponding class in England, in the determination and imposition of our own county rate; but it is the central authority which decides whether such proposals and recommendations shall in fact be carried out. In a word, the provinces have to _ask leave_ of the Parisian Ministry of the Interior. Now I admit this is an abuse. I should maintain that elderly gentlemen with bald heads and local influence ought to feel that they, in the final resort, settle and determine all truly local matters. Human nature likes its own road, its own bridge, its own lapidary obstacles, its own deceptive luminosity. But I ask again, can you fancy that these luxuries, to whatever degree indulged in, alter and modify in any essential particular, the levity and volatility of the French character? How much light to how much logic? How many paving stones to how much mobility? I can’t foresee any such change. And even if so, what in the meantime?

We are left then, I think, to deal with the French character pretty much as we find it. What stealthy, secret, unknown, excellent forces may, in the wisdom of Providence, be even now modifying this most curious intellectual fabric, neither you nor I can know or tell. Let us hope they may be many. But if we indulge, and from the immense records of revolutionary history, I think, with due distrust, we may legitimately and even beneficially indulge, in system-building and speculation, we must take the _data_ which we have, and not those which we desire or imagine. Louis Napoleon has proposed a system: English writers by the thousand (if I was in harness instead of holiday-making I should be most likely among them) proclaim his system an evil one. What then? Do you know what Father Newman says to the religious reformers, rather sharply, but still well, ‘Make out first of all where you stand—draw up your creed—write down your catechism.’ So I answer to the English eloquence, ‘State first of all what you would have—draw up your novel system for the French Government—write down your political Constitution.’ Don’t criticise but produce; do not find fault but propose—and when you have proposed upon theory and have created upon paper, let us see whether the system be such a one as will work, in fact, and be accepted by a wilful nation in reality—otherwise your work is nought.

And mind, too, that the system to be sketched out must be fit to protect the hearths and homes of men. It is easy to compose polities if you do but neglect this one essential condition. Four years ago, Europe was in a ferment with the newest ideas, the best theories, the most elaborate, the most artistic Constitutions. There was the labour, and toil, and trouble, of a million intellects, as good, taken on the whole, perhaps, as the world is likely to see,—of old statesmen, and literary gentlemen, and youthful enthusiasts, all over Europe, from the Baltic Sea to the Mediterranean, from the frontiers of Russia to the Atlantic Ocean. Well, what have we gained? A Parliament in Sardinia! Surely this is a lesson against proposing politics which won’t work, convening assemblies that can’t legislate, constructing executives that aren’t able to keep the peace, founding Constitutions inaugurated with tears and eloquence, soon abandoned with tears and shame; beginning a course of fair auguries and liberal hopes, but one from whose real dangers and actual sufferings a frightened and terrified people, in the end, flee for a temporary, or may be a permanent, refuge under a military and absolute ruler.

Mazzini sneers at the selfishness of shopkeepers—I am for the shopkeepers against him. There are people who think because they are Republican there shall be no more ‘cakes and ale.’ Aye, verily, but there will though; or else stiffish ginger will be hot in the mouth. Legislative Assemblies, leading articles, essay eloquence—such are good—very good,—useful—very useful. Yet they can be done without. We can want them. Not so with all things. The selling of figs, the cobbling of shoes, the manufacturing of nails,—these are the essence of life. And let whoso frameth a Constitution of his country think on these things.

I conclude, as I ought, with my best thanks for the insertion of these letters; otherwise I was so full of the subject that I might have committed what Disraeli calls ‘the extreme act of human fatuity,’ I might have published a pamphlet: from this your kindness has preserved me, and I am proportionally grateful.

I am, yours,

AMICUS.

II.

_CÆSARISM AS IT EXISTED IN 1865._

[Lest the preceding letters should be supposed to express Mr.
Bagehot’s complete and final judgment on the character of the
imperial _régime_ of Louis Napoleon, it has been thought well
to publish a paper which he contributed to the _Economist_
after a visit to France in 1865, of a nature to correct the
misapprehensions to which the somewhat youthful essays which
precede might give rise. It appeared soon after the publication
of the Emperor’s Life of Julius Cæsar.]

That the French Emperor should have spare leisure and unoccupied reflection to write a biography, is astonishing, but if he wished to write a biography, his choice of a subject is very natural. Julius Cæsar was the first who tried on an imperial scale the characteristic principles of the French Empire,—as the first Napoleon revived them, as the third Napoleon has consolidated them. The notion of a demagogue ruler, both of a fighting demagogue and a talking demagogue, was indeed familiar to the Greek Republics; but their size was small, and their history unemphatic. On the big page of universal history, Julius Cæsar is the first instance of a democratic despot. He overthrew an aristocracy—a corrupt, and perhaps effete aristocracy, it is true, but still an aristocracy—by the help of the people, of the unorganised people. He said to the numerical majority of Roman citizens, ‘I am your advocate and your leader: make me supreme, and I will govern for your good, and in your name.’ This is exactly the principle of the French Empire. No one will ever make an approach to understanding it, who does not separate it altogether, and on principle, from the despotisms of feudal origin and legitimate pretensions. The old Monarchies claim the obedience of the people upon grounds of duty. They say they have consecrated claims to the loyalty of mankind. They appeal to conscience, even to religion. But Louis Napoleon is a Benthamite despot. He is for the ‘greatest happiness of the greatest number.’ He says, ‘I am where I am, because I know better than any one else what is good for the French people, and they know that I know better.’ He is not the Lord’s anointed; he is the people’s agent.

We cannot here discuss what the effect of this system was in ancient times. These columns are not the best place for an historical dissertation; but we may set down very briefly the results of some close and recent observation of the system as it now exists, as it is at work in France. Part of its effects are well understood in England, but a part of them are, we think, but mistily seen and imperfectly apprehended.

In the first place, the French Empire is really the _best finished_ democracy which the world has ever seen. What the many at the moment desire is embodied with a readiness, and efficiency, and a completeness which has no parallel, either in past history or present experience. An absolute Government with a popular instinct has the unimpeded command of a people renowned for orderly dexterity. A Frenchman will have arranged an administrative organisation really and effectually, while an Englishman is still bungling, and a German still reflecting. An American is certainly as rapid, and in some measure as efficient, but his speed is a little head-long, and his execution is very rough; he tumbles through much, but he only tumbles. A Frenchman will not hurry; he has a deliberate perfection in detail, which may always be relied on, for it is never delayed. The French Emperor knows well how to use these powers. His bureaucracy is not only endurable, but pleasant. An idle man who wants his politics done for him, has them done for him. The welfare of the masses—the present good of the present multitude—is felt to be the object of the Government and the law of the polity. The Empire gives to the French the full gratification of their main wishes, and the almost artistic culture of an admirable workmanship, of an administration finished as only Frenchmen can finish it, and as it never was finished before.

It belongs to such a Government to care much for material prosperity, and it does care. It makes the people as comfortable as they will permit. If they are not more comfortable, it is their own fault. The Government would give them free trade, and consequent diffused comfort, if it could. No former French Government has done as much for free trade as this Government. No Government has striven to promote railways, and roads, and industry, like this Government. France is much changed in twelve years. Not exactly by the mere merit of the Empire, for it entered into a great inheritance; it succeeded to the silent work of the free monarchy which revolution had destroyed and impeded. There were fruitful and vigorous germs of improvement ready to be elicited—ready to start forth—but under an unintelligent Government they would not have started forth; they would have lain idle and dead, but under the adroit culture of the present Government, they have grown so as to amaze Europe and France itself.

If, indeed, as is often laid down, the _present happiness_ of the greatest number was the characteristic object of the Government, it would be difficult to make out that any probable French Government would be better, or indeed nearly so good, as the present. The intelligence of the Emperor on economical subjects—on the bread and meat of the people—is really better than that of the classes opposed to him. He gives the present race of Frenchmen more that is good than any one else would give them, and he gives it them in their own name. They have as much as they like of all that is good for them. But if not the present happiness of the greatest number, but _their future elevation_, be, as it is, the true aim and end of Government, our estimate of the Empire will be strangely altered. It is an admirable Government for present and coarse purposes, but a detestable Government for future and refined purposes.

In the first place, it stops the _teaching apparatus_, it stops the effectual inculcation of important thought upon the mass of mankind. All other mental effort but this, the Empire not only permits but encourages. The high intellect of Paris is as active, as well represented, as that of London, and it is even more keen. Intellect still gives there, and has always given, a distinctive position. To be a _Membre de l’Institut_ is a recognised place in France; but in London, it is an ambiguous distinction to be a ‘clever fellow.’ The higher kinds of thought are better discussed in Parisian society than in London society, and better argued in the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ than in any English periodical. The speculative thought of France has not been killed by the Empire; it is as quick, as rigorous, as keen as ever. But though still alive, it is no longer powerful; it cannot teach the mass. The _Revue_ is permitted, but newspapers—effectual newspapers—are forbidden. A real course of free lectures on popular subjects would be impossible in Paris. _Agitation_ is forbidden, and it is agitation, and agitation alone, which teaches. The crude mass of men bear easily philosophical treatises, refined articles, elegant literature; there are but two instruments penetrative enough to reach their opaque minds—the newspaper article and the popular speech, and both of these are forbidden.

In London the reverse is true. We may say that only the loudest sort of expression is permitted to attain its due effect. The popular organs of literature so fill men’s minds with incomplete thoughts, that deliberate treatment, that careful inquiry, that quiet thought have no hearing. People are so deafened with the loud reiteration of many half truths, that they have neither curiosity nor energy for elaborate investigation. The very word ‘elaborate’ is become a reproach: elaboration produces something which the mass of men do not like, because it is above them,—which is tiresome, because it needs industry,—difficult, because it wants attention,—complicated, because it is true. On the whole, perhaps, English thought has rarely been so unfinished, so piecemeal, so _ragged_ as it is now. We have so many little discussions, that we get no full discussion; we eat so many sandwiches, that we spoil our dinner. And on the Continent, accordingly, the speculative thought of England is despised. It is believed to be meagre, uncultivated, and immature. We have only a single compensation. Our thought may be poor and rough and fragmentary, but it is effectual. With our newspapers and our speeches—with our clamorous multitudes of indifferent tongues—we beat the ideas of the few into the minds of the many. The head of France is a better head than ours, but it does not move her limbs. The head of England is in comparison a coarse and crude thing, but rules her various frame and regulates her whole life.

France, _as it is_, may be happier because of the Empire, but France _in the future_ will be more ignorant because of the Empire. The daily play of the higher mind upon the lower mind is arrested. The present Government has given an instalment of free trade, but it could not endure an agitation for free trade. A democratic despotism is like a theocracy; it assumes its own correctness. It says, ‘I am the representative of the people; I am here because I know what they wish, because I know what they should have.’ As Cavaignac once said, ‘A Government which permits its principles to be questioned is a lost Government.’ All popular discussion whatever which aspires to teach the Government is radically at issue with the hypothesis of the Empire. It says that the Cæsar, the omniscient representative, is a mistaken representative, that he is not fit to be Cæsar.

The deterioration of the future is one inseparable defect of the imperial organisation, but it is not the only one,—for the moment, it is not the greatest. The greatest is the corruption of the present. A greater burden is imposed by it upon human nature than human nature will bear. Everything requires the support, aid, countenance of the central Government, and yet that Government is expected to keep itself pure. Concessions of railways, concessions of the privilege of limited liability,—on a hundred subjects, legal permission, administrative help, are necessary to money-making. You concentrate upon a small body of leading official men the power of making men’s fortunes, and it is simple to believe they will not make their own fortunes. The very principle of the system is to concentrate power, and power is money. Sir Robert Walpole used to say, ‘No honest man could be a “Minister;”’ and in France the temptations would conquer all men’s honesty. The system requires angels to work it, and perhaps it has not been so fortunate as to find angels. The nod of a minister on the Bourse is a fortune, and somehow or other ministers make fortunes. The Bourse of Paris is still so small, that a leading capitalist may produce a great impression on it, and a leading capitalist working with a great minister, a vast impression. Accordingly, all that goes with sudden wealth; all that follows from the misuse of the two temptations of civilisation, money and women, is concentrated round the Imperial court. The Emperor would cure much of it if he could, but what can he do? They say he has said that he will not change his men. He will not substitute fleas that are hungry for fleas which at least are partially satisfied. He is right. The defect belongs to the system, to these men; an enormous concentration of power in an industrial system ensures an accumulation of pecuniary temptation.

These are the two main disadvantages which France suffers from her present Government; the greater part of the price which she has to pay for her present happiness. She endures the daily presence of an efficient immorality; she sacrifices the educating apparatus which would elevate Frenchmen yet to be born. But these two disadvantages are not the only ones.

France gains the material present, but she does not gain the material future. All that secures present industry, her Government confers; in whatever needs confidence in the future she is powerless. _Credit_ in France, to an Englishman’s eye, has almost to be created. The _country_ deposits in the Bank of France are only 1,000,000_l._ sterling; that bank has fifty-nine branches, is immeasurably the greatest country bank in France. All discussions on the currency come back to the _cours forcé_, to the inevitable necessity of making inconvertible notes an irrefusable tender during a revolution. If you propose the simplest operations of credit to a French banker, he says, ‘You do not remember 1848; I do.’ And what is the answer? The present Government avowedly depends on, is ostentatiously concentrated in, the existing Cæsar. Its existence depends on the permanent occupation of the Tuileries by an extraordinary man. The democratic despot—the representative despot—must have the sagacity to divine the people’s will and the sagacity to execute it. What is the likelihood that these will be hereditary? Can they be expected in the next heirs—a child for Emperor, and a woman for Regent? The present happiness of France is happiness on a short life-lease; it may end with the life of a man who is not young, who has not spared himself, who has always thought, who has always _lived_.

Such are the characteristics of the Empire as it is. Such is the nature of Cæsar’s Government as we know it at the present. We scarcely expect that even the singular ability of Napoleon III. will be able to modify, by an historical retrospect, the painful impressions left by actual contact with a living reality.[34]

III.

_MEMOIR OF THE RIGHT HON. JAMES WILSON._[35]

Perhaps some of the subscribers to the _Economist_ would not be unwilling to read a brief memoir of Mr. Wilson, even if the events narrated were in no respect peculiar. They might possibly be interested in the biography of an author of whose writings they have read so many, even if the narrative related no marked transitions and no characteristic events. But there were in Mr. Wilson’s life several striking changes. The scene shifts from the manufactory of a small Scotch hatter in a small Scotch town, to London—to the Imperial Parliament—to the English Treasury—to the Council Board of India. Such a biography may be fairly expected to have some interest. The life perhaps of no _Political Economist_ has been more eventful.

James Wilson was born at Hawick, in Roxburghshire, on June 3, 1805. His father, of whose memory he always spoke with marked respect, was a thriving man of business, extensively engaged in the woollen manufacture of that place. He was the fourth son in a family of fifteen children, of whom, however, only ten reached maturity. Of his mother, who died when he was very young, he scarcely retained any remembrance in after life. As to his early years little is now recollected, except that he was a very mild and serious boy, usually successful during school hours, but not usually successful in the play-ground.

As Mr. Wilson’s father was an influential Quaker, he was sent when ten years old to a Quaker school at Ackworth, where he continued for four years. At that time—it may surprise some of those who knew him in later life to be told—he was so extremely fond of books as to wish to be a teacher; and as his father allowed his sons to choose their line in life, he was sent to a seminary at Earl’s Colne in Essex, to qualify himself for that occupation. But the taste did not last long. As we might expect, the natural activity of his disposition soon induced him to regret his choice of a sedentary life. He wrote to Hawick, ‘I would rather be the most menial servant in my father’s mill than be a teacher;’ and he was permitted to return home at once.

Many years later he often narrated that, after leaving Earlscome, he had much wished to study for the Scottish bar, but the rules of the Society of Friends, as then understood, would not allow his father to consent to the plan. He was sometimes inclined half to regret that he had not been able to indulge this taste, and he was much pleased at being told by a great living advocate that ‘if he had gone to the bar he would have been very successful.’ But at the time there was no alternative, and at sixteen he accordingly commenced a life of business. He did not, however, lose at once his studious predilections. For some years at least he was in the habit of reading a good deal, very often till late in the night. It was indeed then that he acquired almost all the knowledge of books which he ever possessed. In later life he was much too busy to be a regular reader, and he never acquired the habit of catching easily the contents of books or even of articles in the interstices of other occupations. Whatever he did, he did thoroughly. He would not read even an article in a newspaper if he could well help doing so; but if he read it at all, it was with as much slow, deliberate attention as if he were perusing a Treasury minute.

At the early age we have mentioned he commenced his business life by being apprenticed to a small hat manufacturer at Hawick; and it is still remembered that he showed remarkable care and diligence in mastering all the minutiæ of the trade. There was, indeed, nothing of the _amateur_ man of business about him at any time. After a brief interval, his father purchased his master’s business for him and for an elder brother, named William, and the two brothers in conjunction continued to carry it on at Hawick during two or three years with much energy. So small a town, however, as Hawick then was, afforded no scope for enterprise in this branch of manufacture, and they resolved to transfer themselves to London.

Accordingly, in 1824, Mr. Wilson commenced a mercantile life in London (the name of the firm being Wilson, Irwin, & Wilson), and was very prosperous and successful for many years. His pecuniary gains were considerable, and to the practical instruction which he then obtained he always ascribed his success as an economist and a financier. ‘Before I was twenty years of age,’ he said at Devonport in 1859, ‘I was a partner in a firm in London, and I can only say if there is in my life one event which I regard with satisfaction more than another, it is that I had then an opportunity of obtaining experience by observation which has contributed in the main to what little public utility I have since been to my country. During these few years I became acquainted—well acquainted—with the middle classes of this country. I also became acquainted in some degree with the working classes; and also, to a great extent, with the foreign commerce of this country in pretty nearly all parts of the world; and I can only say the information and the experience I thus derived have been to me in my political career of greater benefit than I can now describe.’

In 1831, the firm of Wilson, Irwin, & Wilson was dissolved by mutual consent. But Mr. Wilson (under the firm of James Wilson & Co.) continued to carry on the same kind of business, and continued to obtain the same success. He began in 1824 with 2,000_l._, the gift of his father, and in 1837 was worth nearly 25,000_l._—a fair result for so short a period, and evincing a steady business-like capacity and judgment; for it was the fruit not of sudden success in casual speculation, but of regular attention during several years to one business. From circumstances which we shall presently state, he was very anxious that this part of his career should be very clearly understood.

During these years Mr. Wilson led the usual life of a prosperous and intellectual man of business. He married,[36] and formed an establishment suitable to his means, first near his manufactory in London, and afterwards at Dulwich. He took great pleasure in such intellectual society as he could obtain; was specially fond of conversing on political economy, politics, statistics, and the other subjects with which he was subsequently so busily occupied.[37] Through life it was one of his remarkable peculiarities to be a _very animated_ man, talking by preference and by habit on _inanimate_ subjects. All the _verve_, vigour, and life which lively people put into exciting pursuits, he put into topics which are usually thought very dry. He discussed the Currency or the Corn Laws with a relish and energy which made them interesting to almost every one. ‘How pleasant it is,’ he used to say, ‘to talk a subject out,’ and he frequently suggested theories in the excitement of conversation upon his favourite topics which he had never thought of before, but to which he ever afterwards attached, as was natural, much importance. The instructiveness of his conversation was greatly increased as his mind progressed and his experience accumulated. But his genial liveliness and animated vigour were the same during his early years of business life as they were afterwards when he filled important offices of state in England and in Calcutta. Few men can have led a more continuously prosperous and happy life than he did during those years. Unfortunately it was not to continue.

In 1836, or thereabouts, Mr. Wilson was unfortunately induced to commence a speculation in indigo, in conjunction with a gentleman in Scotland. It was expected that indigo would be scarce, and that the price would rise rapidly in consequence. Such would indeed appear to have been the case for a short period, since the first purchases in which Mr. Wilson took part yielded a profit. In consequence of this success, he was induced to try a larger venture,—indeed to embark most of his disposable capital. Unfortunately, the severe crisis of 1837 disturbed the usual course of all trades, and from its effect or from some other cause, indigo, instead of rising rapidly, fell rapidly. The effect on Mr. Wilson’s position may be easily guessed. A very great capitalist would have been able to hold till better times, but he was not. ‘On January 1,’ he said at Devonport, ‘in a given year, my capital was nearer 25,000_l._, than 24,000_l._, and it was all lost.’ Numerous stories were long circulated most of them exaggerated, and the remainder wholly untrue, as to this period of misfortune in Mr. Wilson’s life; but the truth is very simple. As is usual in such cases, various arrangements were proposed and agreed to, were afterwards abandoned, and others substituted for them. A large bundle of papers carefully preserved by him records with the utmost accuracy the whole of the history. The final result will be best described in his own words at Devonport, which precisely correspond with the balance sheets and other documents still in existence. They are part of a speech in answer to a calumnious rumour that had been circulated in the town:—

‘Now, how did I act on this occasion? and this is what this placard has reference to. By my own means alone, I was enabled at once to satisfy in full all claims against me individually, and to provide for the early payment of one-half of the whole of the demands against the firm, consisting of myself and three partners. I was further enabled, or the firm was enabled, at once to assign property of sufficient value, as was supposed, to the full satisfaction of the whole of the remainder of the liabilities. An absolute agreement was made, an absolute release was given to all the partners; there was neither a bankruptcy nor insolvency, neither was the business stopped for one day. The business was continued under the new firm, with which I remained a partner, and from which I ultimately retired in good circumstances. Some years afterwards it turned out that the foreign property which was assigned for the remaining half of the debts of the old firm, of which I was formerly a partner, proved insufficient to discharge them. The legal liability was, as you know, all gone; the arrangement had been accepted—an arrangement calculated and believed by all parties to be sufficient to satisfy all claims in full; but when the affairs of the whole concern were fully wound up, finding that the foreign property had not realised what was anticipated, I had it, I am glad to say, in my power to place at my banker’s, having ascertained the amount, a sum of money to discharge all the remainder of that debt, which I considered morally, though not legally, due. This I did without any kind of solicitation—the thing was not named to me, and I am quite sure never were the gentlemen more taken by surprise than when a friend of mine waited on them privately in London, and presented each of them with a cheque for the balance due to them. Now, perhaps, I have myself to blame for this anonymous attack. I probably brought it on myself, for I always felt that if this matter were made public, it might look like an act of ostentatious obtrusion on my part, and therefore, when I put aside the sum of money necessary for the purpose, I made a request, in the letter I wrote to my bankers, desiring them as an especial favour that they would instruct their clerks to mention the matter to no one; and in order that it should be perfectly private, I employed a personal friend of my own in the city of London, in whose care I placed the whole of the cheques, to wait on those gentlemen and present each of them with a cheque, and I obtained from him a promise, and he from them, not to name the circumstance to any one.’ The secrecy thus enjoined was well preserved. Many of the most intimate friends of Mr. Wilson, and his family also, were entirely unacquainted with what he had done, and learnt it only through, the accidental medium of an electioneering speech. It may be added, too, that some of those who knew the circumstances, and who have watched Mr. Wilson’s subsequent career, believe that at no part of his life did he show greater business ability, self command, and energy, than at the crisis of his mercantile misfortunes.

It is remarkable that the preface to Mr. Wilson’s first pamphlet, on the ‘Influences of the Corn Laws,’ is dated March 1, 1839, the precise time at which he was negotiating with his creditors for a proper arrangement of his affairs; and to those who have had an opportunity of observing how completely pecuniary misfortune unnerves and unmans men—mercantile men, perhaps, more than any others—it will not seem unworthy of remark that a careful pamphlet, with elaborate figures, instinct in every line with vigour and energy, should emanate from a man struggling with extreme pecuniary calamity, and daily harrassed with the painful details of it.

After 1839 Mr. Wilson continued in business for several years, and with very fair success, considering that his capital was much diminished, and that the hat manufacture was in a state of transition. He finally retired in 1844, and invested most of his capital in the foundation and extension of the _Economist_.

These facts prove, as we believe, the conclusion which he was very desirous to make clear—that, though unfortunate on a particular occasion, Mr. Wilson was by no means, as a rule, unsuccessful in business. He did not at all like to have it said that he was fit to lay down the rules and the theory of business, but not fit to transact business itself. And the whole of his life, on the contrary, proves that he possessed an unusual capacity for affairs—an extraordinary _transacting_ ability.

It may, however, be admitted that Mr. Wilson was in several respects by no means an unlikely man to meet, especially in early life, with occasional misfortune. To the last hour of his life he was always sanguine. He naturally looked at everything in a bright and cheerful aspect; his tendency was always to form a somewhat too favourable judgment both of things and men. One proof of this may be sufficient: he was five years Secretary of the Treasury, and he did not leave it a suspicious man.

Moreover, Mr. Wilson’s temperament was very active and his mind was very fertile. And though in many parts of business these gifts are very advantageous, in many also they are very dangerous, if not absolutely disadvantageous. Frequently they are temptations. Capital is always limited; often it is _very_ limited; and therefore a man of business, who is managing his own capital, has only defined resources, and can engage only in a certain number of undertakings. But a person of active temperament and fertile mind will soon chafe at that restriction. His inventiveness will show him many ways in which money might easily be made, and he cannot but feel that with his energies he would like to make it. If he have besides a sanguine temperament, he will believe that he can make it. The records of unfortunate commerce abound in instances of men who have been unsuccessful because they had great mind, great energy, and great hope, but had not money in proportion. Some part of this description was, perhaps, applicable to Mr. Wilson in 1839, but exactly how much cannot, after the lapse of so many years, be now known with any accuracy.

Mr. Wilson’s position in middle life was by no means unsuitable to a writer on the subjects in which he afterwards attained eminence. He had acquired a great knowledge of business through a long course of industrious years; he had proved by habitual success in business that his habitual judgment on it was sound and good. If he had been a man of only ordinary energy and only ordinary ability, he would probably have continued to grow regularly richer and richer. But by a single error natural to a very sanguine temperament and a very active mind, he had destroyed a great part of the results of his industry. He had a new career to seek. He was willing to expend on it the whole of his great energies. He was ready to take all the pains which were necessary to fit himself for success. When he wrote his first pamphlet he used to say that he thought ‘the sentences never would come right.’ In later life he considered three leading articles in the _Economist_, full of facts and figures, an easy morning’s work, which would not prevent his doing a good deal else too. Mr. Wilson was a finished man of business obliged by necessity to become a writer on business. Perhaps no previous education and no temporary circumstances could be conceived more likely to train a great financial writer and to stimulate his powers.

In 1839, Mr. Wilson published his ‘Influences of the Corn Laws;’ in 1840, the ‘Fluctuations of Currency, Commerce, and Manufactures;’ in 1841, ‘The Revenue; or, What should the Chancellor do?’ in September, 1843, he established the ‘Economist.’ The origin of the latter may be interesting to our readers, Mr. Wilson proposed to the editor of the _Examiner_ that he should furnish gratuitously a certain amount of writing to that journal on economical and financial subjects; but the offer was declined, though with some regret, on account of the expense of type and paper. A special paper was, therefore, established, which proved in the end as important as the _Examiner_ itself. From the first, Mr. Wilson was the sole proprietor of the _Economist_, though he obtained pecuniary assistance—especially from the kindness of Lord Radnor. He embarked some capital of his own in it from the first, and afterwards repaid all loans made to him for the purpose of establishing it.

It would not be suitable to the design of this memoir to give any criticism of Mr. Wilson’s pamphlets, still less would it become the _Economist_ to pronounce in any manner a judgment on itself. Nevertheless, it is a part of the melancholy duty we have undertaken to give some account of Mr. Wilson’s characteristic position as a writer on Political Economy, and of the somewhat peculiar mode in which he dealt with that subject.