WEBVTT

NOTE The Coming Slavery

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The Man vs. the State by Herbert Spencer

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The Coming Slavery

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The kinship of pity to love is shown, among other ways, in this, that it idealizes its

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object.

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Sympathy with one in suffering suppresses, for the time being, remembrance of his transgressions.

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The feeling which vents itself in, poor fellow, on seeing one in agony, excludes the thought

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of Bad Fellow, which might at another time arise. Naturally, then, if the wretched are

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unknown or but vaguely known, all the demerits they may have are ignored, and thus it happens

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that when the miseries of the poor are dilated upon, they are thought of as the miseries

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of the deserving poor instead of being thought of as the miseries of the undeserving poor,

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which in large measure they should be. Those whose hardships are set forth in pamphlets

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and proclaimed in sermons and speeches which echo throughout society, are assumed to be

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all worthy souls, grievously wronged, and none of them are thought of as bearing the

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penalties of their misdeeds.

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On hailing a cab in a London street, it is surprising how frequently the door is officiously

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opened by one who expects to get something for his trouble.

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The surprise lessens after counting the many lounges about tavern doors, or after observing

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the quickness with which the street performance or procession draws from neighbouring slums

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and stable yards a group of idlers. Seeing how numerous they are in every small area,

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it becomes manifest that tens of thousands of such swarm through London. They have no

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work, you say. Say, rather, that they either refuse work or quickly turn themselves out

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of it. They are simply good-for-nothings who in one way or other live on the good-for-somethings.

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Is it natural that happiness should be the lot of such? Or is it natural that they should

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bring unhappiness on themselves and those connected with them? Is it not manifest that

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that there must exist in our midst an immense amount of misery which is a normal result

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of misconduct and ought not to be dissociated from it. There is a notion, always more or

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less prevalent, and just now vociferously expressed, that all social suffering is removable

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and that it is the duty of somebody or other to remove it. Both these beliefs are false.

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To separate pain from ill-doing is to fight against the constitution of things and will

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will be followed by far more pain. Saving men from the natural penalties of dissolute

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living eventually necessitates the infliction of artificial penalties on solitary cells,

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on tread-wheels and by the lash. I suppose a dictum on which the current creed and the

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creed of science are at one may be considered to have as high authority as can be found.

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Well, the command, if any would not work, neither should the he eat, is simply a Christian

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and enunciation of that universal law of nature under which life has reached its present height.

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The law that a creature not energetic enough to maintain itself must die.

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The sole difference being that the law which is, in the one case, is to be artificially

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enforced is, in the other case, a natural necessity.

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And yet this particular tenet of their religion, which science so manifestly justifies, is

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the one which Christians seem least inclined to accept.

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The current assumption is that there should be no suffering, and that society is to blame

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for that which exists.

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But surely we are not without responsibilities, even when the suffering is that of the unworthy.

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If the meaning of the word we be so expanded as to include with ourselves our ancestors

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and especially our ancestral legislators, I agree.

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I admit that those who made and modified and administered the old poor law were responsible

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for producing an appalling amount of demoralization, which it will take more than one generation

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to remove.

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I admit, too, the partial responsibility of recent and present lawmakers for regulations

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which have brought into being a permanent body of tramps who ramble from union to union,

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and also their responsibility for maintaining a constant supply of felons by sending back

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convicts into society under such conditions that they are almost compelled again to commit

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Crimes.

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Moreover, I admit that the philanthropic are not without their share of responsibility,

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since that they may aid the offspring of the unworthy, they disadvantage the offspring

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of the worthy through burdening their parents by increased local rates.

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Nay, I even admit that these swarms of good-for-nothings, fostered and multiplied by public and private

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agencies, have, by sundry mischievous meddlings, been made to suffer more than they would otherwise

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have suffered. Are these the responsibilities meant? I suspect not. But now, leaving the

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question of responsibilities however conceived, and considering only the evil itself, what

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shall we say of its treatment? Let me begin with a fact. A late uncle of mine, the Reverend

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Thomas Spencer, for some twenty years incumbent of Hinton Charterhouse near Bath, no sooner

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Popper entered on his parish duties, then he proved himself anxious for the welfare

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of the poor by establishing a school, a library, a clothing club and land allotments, besides

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building some model cottages.

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Moreover, up to 1833 he was a pauper's friend, always for the pauper against the overseer.

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There presently came, however, the debates on the poor law, which impressed him with

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the evils of the system then in force.

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Though an ardent philanthropist, he was not a timid sentimentalist.

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The result was that immediately the new Poor Law was passed, he proceeded to carry out

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its provisions in his parish.

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Almost universal opposition was encountered by him, not the poor only being his opponents,

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but even the farmers on whom came the burden of heavy poor rates.

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For, strange to say, their interests had become apparently identified with the maintenance

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of this system which taxed them so largely.

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The explanation is that there had grown up the practice of paying out of the rates a

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part of the wages of each farm servant, make-wages as the sum was called.

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And though the farmers contributed most of the fund from which make-wages were paid,

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Yet, since all other rate-payers contributed, the farmers seemed to gain by this arrangement.

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My uncle, however, not easily deterred, faced all this opposition and enforced the law.

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The result was that in two years the rates were reduced from £700 a year to £200 a

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year, while the conditions of the parish was greatly improved.

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Those who had hitherto loitered at the corners of the streets or at the doors of the beer

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So that out of a population of 800, only 15 had to be sent as incapable paupers to the

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Bath Union, when that was formed, in place of the 100 who received outdoor relief a short

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time before.

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If it be said that the £25 telescope which, a few years after his parishioners presented

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to my uncle marked the gratitude of the rate-payers only, then my reply is the fact that when

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some years later still, having killed himself by overwork in pursuit of popular welfare,

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he was taken to Hinton to be buried, the procession which followed him to the grave included not

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the well-to-do only, but the poor.

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Several motives have prompted this brief narrative.

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One is the wish to prove that sympathy with the people and self-sacrificing efforts on

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on their behalf do not necessarily imply approval of gratuitous aids. Another is the desire

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to show that benefit may result not from the multiplication of artificial appliances to

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mitigate distress, but contrary-wise from diminution of them. And a further purpose

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I have in view is that of preparing the way for an analogy. Under another form, and in

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a different sphere, we are now yearly extending a system which is identical in nature with

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with the system of make-wages under the Poor Law.

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Little as politicians recognize the fact, it is nevertheless demonstrable that these

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various public appliances for working-class comfort, which they are supplying at the cost

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of rate-payers, are intrinsically of the same nature as those which, in past times, treated

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the farmer's man as half-labourer and half-porper.

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In either case, the worker receives in return for what he does money wherewith to buy certain

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and the things he wants. While, to procure the rest of them for him, money is furnished

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out of a common fund raised by taxes. What matters it whether the things supplied by

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ratepayers for nothing, instead of by the employer in payment, are of this kind or of

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that kind? The principle is the same. For some's received, let us substitute the commodities

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and benefits purchased and then see how the matter stands. In old poor law times the farmer

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The farmer gave for work done the equivalent, say, of house rent, bread, clothes and fire,

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while the ratepayers practically supplied the man and his family with their shoes, tea,

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sugar, candles, a little bacon, etc.

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The division is, of course, arbitrary, but unquestionably the farmer and the ratepayers

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furnished these things between them.

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At the present time, the artisan receives from his employer in wages the equivalent

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of the consumable commodities he wants.

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While from the public comes satisfaction for others of his needs and desires, at the cost

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of rate-payers he has in some cases, and will presently have in more, a house at less than

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its commercial value.

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For of course when, as in Liverpool, a municipality spends nearly £200,000 in pulling down and

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reconstructing low-cost dwellings, and is about to spend as much again, the implication

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is that in some way the rate-payers supply the poor with more accommodation than the

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The rents they pay would otherwise have bought. The artisan further receives from them in

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schooling for his children much more than he pays for, and there is every probability

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that he will presently receive it from them gratis. The ratepayers also satisfy what desire

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he may have for books and newspapers and comfortable places to read them in. In some cases, too,

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as in Manchester, gymnasia for his children of both sexes as well as recreation grounds

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are provided. That is to say, he obtains from a fund raised by local taxes certain benefits

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beyond those which the sum received for his labor enables him to purchase. The sole difference,

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then, between this system and the old system of make-wages is between the kinds of satisfactions

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obtained, and this difference does not in the least affect the nature of the arrangement.

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Moreover, the two are pervaded by a substantially the same illusion. In the one case, as in

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the other, what looks like a gratis benefit is not a gratis benefit. The amount which,

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under the old poor law, the half-pauperized labour received from the parish to eke out

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his weekly income was not really, as it appeared, a bonus, for it was accompanied by a substantially

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equivalent decrease of his wages, as was quickly proved when the system was abolished and the

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and the Wages Rose. Just so it is, with these seeming boons received by working people in

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towns, I do not refer only to the fact that they are unaware as pay in part through the

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raised rents of their dwellings when they are not actual rate-payers, but I refer to

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the fact that the wages received by them are, like the wages of the farm-labourer, diminished

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Read the accounts coming of late from Lancashire concerning the cotton strikes containing proofs, given by artisans themselves, that the margin of profit is so narrow that the less skillful manufacturers, as well as those with deficient capital, fail, and that the companies of cooperators who compete with them can rarely hold their own. And then, consider what is the implication respecting wages. Among the costs of the private sector,

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The interests of production have to be reckoned taxes, general and local. If, as in our large towns, the local rates now amount to one-third of the rental or more, if the employer has to pay this, not on his private dwelling only, but on his business premises, factories, warehouses or the like, it results that the interest on his capital must be diminished by that amount, or the amount must be taken from the wages fund, or partly one and partly the other.

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In business and in other businesses has the effect of so keeping down interest that while

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some gain, others lose, and not a few are ruined, if capital not getting adequate interest

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flows elsewhere and leaves labor unemployed, then it is manifest that the choice for the

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artisan under such conditions lies between diminished amount of work and diminished rate

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of payment for it.

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Moreover, for kindred reasons these local burdens raise the costs of the things he consumes.

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The charges made by distributors are, on the average, determined by the current rates of

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interest on capital used in distributing businesses. And the extra costs of carrying on such businesses

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have to be paid for by extra prices. So that as in the past the rural worker lost in one

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in one way what he gained in another, so in the present does the urban worker, there being

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too in both cases the loss entailed on him by the cost of administration and the waste

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accompanying it.

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But what has all this to do with the coming slavery? will perhaps be asked.

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Nothing directly, but a good deal indirectly, as we shall see after yet another preliminary

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section.

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It is said that when railways were first opened in Spain, peasants standing on the tracks

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were not infrequently run over, and that the blame fell on the engine drivers for not stopping,

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rural experiences having yielded no conception of the momentum of a large mass moving at

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a high velocity. The incident is recalled to me on contemplating the ideas of the so-called

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practical politician into whose mind there enters no thought of such a thing as political

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The Theory of Money and Credit

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provided by Encouraging Population, when Mr. Pitt said,

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Let us make relief in cases where there are a number of children a matter of right and honor,

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instead of a ground for opprobrium and contempt.

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It was not expected that the poor rates would be quadrupled in fifty years,

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that women with many bastards would be preferred as wives to modest women

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because of their incomes from the parish,

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Legislators who in 1833 voted £30,000 a year to aid in building schoolhouses never

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supposed that the step they then took would lead to forced contributions local and general

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now amounting to £6 million.

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They did not intend to establish a principle that A should be made responsible for educating

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B's offspring.

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They did not dream of a compulsion which would deprive poor widows of the help of their elder

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children, and still less did they dream that their successors, by requiring impoverished

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parents to apply to boards of guardians to pay the fees which school boards would not

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remit, would initiate a habit of applying to boards of guardians and so cause pauperization.

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Neither did those who in 1834 passed an act regulating the labour of women and children

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in certain factories, imagine that the system they were beginning would end in the restriction

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and inspection of labour in all kinds of producing establishments where more than fifty people

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are employed. Nor did they conceive that the inspection provided would grow to the extent

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of requiring that before a young person is employed in a factory, authority must be given

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by certifying surgeon who, by personal examination to which no limit is placed, has satisfied

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himself that there is no incapacitating disease or bodily infirmity, his verdict determining

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whether the young person shall earn wages or not. Even less, as I say, does the politician

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who plumes himself on the practicalities of his aims conceive the indirect results which

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follow the direct results of his measures. Thus, to take a case connected with one named

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and above, it was not intended through the system of payment by results to do anything

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more than give teachers an efficient stimulus. It was not supposed that in numerous cases

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their health would give way under the stimulus. It was not expected that they would be led

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to adopt a cramming system and to put undue pressure on dull and weak children, often

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to their great injury. It was not foreseen that in many cases a bodily enfeeblement would

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would be caused which no amount of grammar and geography can compensate for.

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The licensing of public houses was simply for maintaining public order.

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Those who devised it never imagined that there would result an organized interest powerfully

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influencing elections in an unwholesome way.

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Nor did it occur to the practical politicians who provided a compulsory load line for merchant

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vessels that the pressure of ship owners' interests would habitually cause the putting

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Legislators who, some forty years ago, by Act of Parliament, compelled railway companies

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to supply cheap locomotion would have ridiculed the belief, had it been expressed, that eventually

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would punish the companies which improved the supply, and yet this was the result to companies which began to carry third-class passengers by fast trains, since a penalty to the amount of the passenger duty was inflicted on them for every third-class passenger so carried.

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To which instance concerning railways, I had a far more striking one disclosed by comparing the railway policies of England and France.

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The lawmakers who provided for the ultimate lapsing of French railways to the State never

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conceived the possibility that inferior travelling facilities would result, did not foresee that

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reluctance to depreciate the value of property eventually coming to the State would negative

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the authorisation of competing lines, and that in the absence of competing lines locomotion

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would be relatively costly, slow and infrequent. For, as Sir Thomas Farrar has already shown,

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The traveller in England has great advantages over the French traveller in the economy,

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swiftness and frequency with which his journeys can be made.

211
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But the practical politician, who in spite of such experiences repeated generation after

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generation goes on thinking only of proximate results, naturally never thinks of results

213
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still more remote, still more general, and still more important than those just exemplified.

214
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To repeat the metaphor used above, he never asks whether the political momentum set up

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by his measure, in some cases decreasing, but in other cases greatly increasing, will

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or will not have the same general direction with other-like momenta, and whether it may

217
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not join them in presently producing an aggregate energy working changes never thought of, dwelling

218
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only on the effects of his particular stream of legislation and not observing how such

219
00:21:06.900 --> 00:21:13.900
or to leave figures for a more literal statement, he is unconscious of the truth that he is helping to form a certain type of social organization, and that kindred measures affecting kindred changes of organization tend with ever-increasing force to make them better.

220
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Until, passing a certain point, the proclivity towards it becomes irresistible.

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Just as each society aims, when possible, to produce in other societies a structure

222
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akin to its own, just as among the Greeks the Spartans and the Athenians struggled to

223
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spread their respective political institutions, or as, at the time of the French Revolution,

224
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the European absolute monarchies aimed to re-establish absolute monarchy in France while

225
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While the republic encouraged the formation of other republics, so within every society

226
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each species of structure tends to propagate itself.

227
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Just as the system of voluntary cooperation by companies, associations, unions to achieve

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business ends and other ends spreads throughout a community, so does the antagonistic system

229
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of compulsory cooperation under state agencies spread, and the larger becomes its extension,

230
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The more power of spreading it gets.

231
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The question of questions for the politician should ever be,

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what type of social structure am I intending to produce?

233
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But this is a question he never entertains.

234
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Hence we will entertain it for him.

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Let us now observe the general course of recent changes

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with the accompanying current of ideas and see where they are carrying us.

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The blank form of an inquiry daily made is, We have already done this, why should we not

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do that?

239
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And the regard for precedents suggested by it is ever pushing on regulative legislation.

240
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Having had brought within their sphere of operation more and more numerous businesses,

241
00:23:20.480 --> 00:23:24.600
the acts restricting hours of employment and dictating the treatment of workers are now

242
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to be made applicable to shops.

243
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From inspecting lodging houses to limit to the number of occupants and enforce sanitary

244
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conditions, we have passed to inspecting all houses below a certain rent in which there

245
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are members of more than one family, and are now passing to a kindred inspection of all

246
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small houses. The buying and working of telegraphs by the state is made a reason for urging that

247
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the state should buy and work the railways. Supplying children with food for their minds

248
00:23:53.140 --> 00:23:58.620
by public agency is being followed in some cases by supplying food for their bodies,

249
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And after the practice has been made gradually more general, we may anticipate that the supply

250
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now proposed to be made gratis in the one case will eventually be proposed to be made

251
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gratis in the other.

252
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The argument that good bodies as well as good minds are needful to make good citizens being

253
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logically urged as the reason for the extension.

254
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And then, avowedly proceeding on the precedents furnished by the church, the school and the

255
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not precedent only prompts this spread, but also the necessity which arises for supplementing

256
00:24:31.140 --> 00:24:36.140
ineffective measures and for dealing with the artificial easels continually caused.

257
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Failure does not destroy faith in the agencies employed, but merely suggests more stringent

258
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changes in the system.

259
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Failure does not destroy faith in the agencies employed, but merely suggests more stringent

260
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changes in the system.

261
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Laws to check intemperance, beginning in early times and coming down to our own times, not having done what was expected, there come demands for more thoroughgoing laws, locally preventing the sale altogether, and here, as in America, there will doubtless be followed by demands that prevention shall be made universal.

262
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All the many appliances for stamping out epidemic diseases not having succeeded in preventing

263
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outbreaks of smallpox, fevers and the like, a further remedy is applied for in the shape

264
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of police power to search houses for diseased persons and authority for medical officers

265
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to examine anyone they think fit to see whether he is or she is suffering from an infectious

266
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or contagious malady.

267
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The habits of improvidence having for generations been cultivated by the poor law, and the improvident enabled to multiply, the evils produced by a compulsory charity are now proposed to be met by compulsory insurance.

268
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The extension of this policy, causing extension of corresponding ideas, fosters everywhere the tacit assumption that government should step in whenever anything is not going right.

269
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Surely you would not have this misery continue, exclaims someone, if you hint a demurrer to much that is now being said and done.

270
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Observe what is implied by this exclamation. It takes for granted first that all suffering ought to be prevented, which is not true. Much of the suffering is curative and prevention of its prevention of a remedy.

271
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In the second place it takes for granted that every evil can be removed, the truth being

272
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that with the existing defects of human nature many evils can only be thrust out of one place

273
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or form into another place or form, often being increased by the change. The exclamation

274
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also implies the unhesitating belief, here especially concerning us, that evils of all

275
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All kinds should be dealt with by the State. There does not occur the inquiry whether there

276
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are at work other agencies capable of dealing with evils, and whether the evils in question

277
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may not be among those which are best dealt with by these other agencies. And obviously,

278
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the more numerous governmental interventions become, the more confirmed does this habit

279
00:27:21.820 --> 00:27:28.820
of thought grow, and the more loud and perpetual the demands for intervention. Every extension

280
00:27:28.820 --> 00:27:33.980
Extension of the regulative policy involves an addition to the regulative agents, a further

281
00:27:33.980 --> 00:27:40.020
growth of officialism and an increasing power of the organization formed of officials. Take

282
00:27:40.020 --> 00:27:46.060
a pair of scales with many shot in one and a few in the other. Lift shot after shot out

283
00:27:46.060 --> 00:27:51.860
of the loaded scale and put it onto the unloaded scale. Presently you will produce a balance,

284
00:27:51.860 --> 00:27:57.020
and if you go on the position of the scales will be reversed. Supposed the beam to be

285
00:27:57.020 --> 00:28:03.140
The theory of money is to be unequally divided and let the likely loaded scale be at the end of the very long arm.

286
00:28:03.140 --> 00:28:10.420
Then the transfer of each shot producing a much greater effect will far sooner bring about a change of position.

287
00:28:10.420 --> 00:28:20.980
I used the figure to illustrate what results from transferring one individual after another from the regulated mass of the community to the regulating structures.

288
00:28:20.980 --> 00:28:25.300
The transfer weakens the one and strengthens the other in a far greater degree than is

289
00:28:25.300 --> 00:28:31.900
implied by the relative change of numbers. A comparatively small body of officials, coherent,

290
00:28:31.900 --> 00:28:36.860
having common interests and acting under central authority, has an immense advantage over an

291
00:28:36.860 --> 00:28:43.100
incoherent public which has no settled policy, and can be brought to act unitedly only under

292
00:28:43.100 --> 00:28:49.420
strong provocation. Hence an organization of officials, once passing a certain stage

293
00:28:49.420 --> 00:28:57.920
The age of growth becomes less and less resistible, as we shall see in the bureaucracies of the continent.

294
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Not only does the power of resistance of the regulated part decrease in a geometrical ratio

295
00:29:03.520 --> 00:29:08.560
as the regulating part increases, but the private interests of many in the regulated

296
00:29:08.560 --> 00:29:13.280
part itself make the change of ratio still more rapid.

297
00:29:13.280 --> 00:29:18.780
In every circle, conversations show that now, when the passing of competitive examinations

298
00:29:18.780 --> 00:29:22.980
When a business renders them eligible for the public service, youth are being educated

299
00:29:22.980 --> 00:29:28.580
in such ways that they may pass them and get employment under government. One consequence

300
00:29:28.580 --> 00:29:33.580
is that men who might otherwise reprobate further growth of officialism are led to look

301
00:29:33.580 --> 00:29:38.700
on it with tolerance, if not favorably, as offering possible careers for those dependent

302
00:29:38.700 --> 00:29:44.140
on them and those related to them. Anyone who remembers the number of upper-class and

303
00:29:44.140 --> 00:29:49.420
and middle-class families anxious to place their children, will see that no small encouragement

304
00:29:49.420 --> 00:29:54.260
to the spread of legislative control is now coming from those who, but for the personal

305
00:29:54.260 --> 00:29:59.780
interest thus arising, would be hostile to it.

306
00:29:59.780 --> 00:30:03.980
This pressing desire for careers is enforced by the preference for careers which are thought

307
00:30:03.980 --> 00:30:06.300
respectable.

308
00:30:06.300 --> 00:30:11.580
Even should his salary be small, his occupation will be that of a gentleman, thinks the father,

309
00:30:11.580 --> 00:30:18.580
The Prevalent Ambition with a Young Frenchman is to get some small official post in his locality, to rise thence to a place in the local centre of government, and finally to reach some head office in Paris.

310
00:30:41.580 --> 00:30:47.660
And in Russia, where that University of State regulation which characterizes the militant

311
00:30:47.660 --> 00:30:54.140
type of society has been carried furthest, we see this ambition pushed to its extreme.

312
00:30:54.140 --> 00:30:57.500
Says Mr. Wallace, quoting a passage from a play,

313
00:30:57.500 --> 00:31:02.300
All men, even shopkeepers and cobblers, aim at becoming officers, and the man who has

314
00:31:02.300 --> 00:31:08.700
passed his whole life without official rank seems to be not a human being.

315
00:31:08.700 --> 00:31:13.640
These various influences working from above downwards meet with an increasing response

316
00:31:13.640 --> 00:31:18.680
of re-expectations and solicitations proceeding from below upwards.

317
00:31:18.680 --> 00:31:23.620
The hard-worked and over-burdened who form the great majority, and still more the incapables

318
00:31:23.620 --> 00:31:28.980
perpetually helped, who are ever led to look for more help, are ready supporters of schemes

319
00:31:28.980 --> 00:31:34.100
which promise them this or the other benefit of State agency, and ready believers of those

320
00:31:34.100 --> 00:31:39.840
Those who tell them that such benefits can be given, and ought to be given.

321
00:31:39.840 --> 00:31:45.000
They listen with eager faith to all builders of political air castles, from Oxford graduates

322
00:31:45.000 --> 00:31:51.840
down to Irish irreconcilables, and every additional tax-supported appliance for their welfare raises

323
00:31:51.840 --> 00:31:53.920
hopes of further ones.

324
00:31:53.920 --> 00:32:00.080
Indeed, the more numerous public instrumentalities become, the more is there generated in citizens

325
00:32:00.080 --> 00:32:04.980
is the notion that everything is to be done for them and nothing by them.

326
00:32:04.980 --> 00:32:09.800
Each generation is made less familiar with the attainment of desired ends by individual

327
00:32:09.800 --> 00:32:15.160
actions or private combinations and more familiar with the attainment of them by governmental

328
00:32:15.160 --> 00:32:22.000
agencies until, eventually, governmental agencies come to be thought of as the only available

329
00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:23.600
agencies.

330
00:32:23.600 --> 00:32:28.500
This result was well shown in the recent Trades Union Congress at Paris.

331
00:32:28.500 --> 00:32:33.780
The English delegates reporting to their constituents said that between themselves and their foreign

332
00:32:33.780 --> 00:32:38.220
colleagues, the point of difference was the extent to which the state should be asked

333
00:32:38.220 --> 00:32:43.620
to protect labor, reference being thus made to the fact conspicuous in the reports of

334
00:32:43.620 --> 00:32:48.340
the proceedings that the French delegates always invoked governmental power as the only

335
00:32:48.340 --> 00:32:51.940
means of satisfying their wishes.

336
00:32:51.940 --> 00:32:58.120
The diffusion of education has worked and will work still more in the same direction.

337
00:32:58.120 --> 00:33:03.480
We must educate our masters, is the well-known saying of a liberal who opposed the last extension

338
00:33:03.480 --> 00:33:04.920
of the franchise.

339
00:33:04.920 --> 00:33:10.520
Yes, if the education were worthy to be so called, and were relevant to the political

340
00:33:10.520 --> 00:33:15.020
enlightenment needed, much might be hoped from it.

341
00:33:15.020 --> 00:33:20.120
But knowing rules of syntax, being able to add up correctly, having geographical information

342
00:33:20.120 --> 00:33:25.000
and a memory stocked with the dates of kings' accessions and generals' victories, no more

343
00:33:25.000 --> 00:33:30.000
More implies fitness to form political conclusions than acquirement of skill in drawing implies

344
00:33:30.000 --> 00:33:35.080
correctness in telegraphing, or than ability to play cricket implies proficiency on the

345
00:33:35.080 --> 00:33:36.080
violin.

346
00:33:36.080 --> 00:33:43.280
Surely, rejoins someone, facility in reading opens the way to political knowledge.

347
00:33:43.280 --> 00:33:47.440
Doubtless, but will the way be followed?

348
00:33:47.440 --> 00:33:51.820
Table-talk proves that nine out of ten people read what amuses them rather than what instructs

349
00:33:51.820 --> 00:33:58.820
that popular education results in an extensive reading of publications which foster pleasant illusions rather than those which insist on hard penalties is beyond question, says a mechanic writing in the Palm Al-Gazette of 3rd of December 1883,

350
00:33:58.820 --> 00:34:05.620
That popular education results in an extensive reading of publications which foster pleasant

351
00:34:05.620 --> 00:34:12.140
illusions rather than those which insist on hard penalties is beyond question, says a

352
00:34:12.140 --> 00:34:19.620
mechanic writing in the Palme Al-Gazette of 3rd of December 1883, Improved education

353
00:34:19.620 --> 00:34:25.140
instills the desire for culture. Culture instills the desire for many things as yet quite beyond

354
00:34:25.140 --> 00:34:55.140
In the furious competition to which the present age is given up, they are utterly impossible to the poorer classes. Hence they are discontented with things as they are, and the more educated, the more discontented. Hence, too, Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Morris are regarded as true prophets by many of us, and that the connection of cause and effect here alleged is a real one we may see clearly enough in the present state of Germany.

355
00:34:55.140 --> 00:35:00.140
Excessed of electoral power, as are now the hot mass of those people who are thus led

356
00:35:00.140 --> 00:35:05.940
to nurture sanguine anticipations of benefits to be obtained by social reorganization, it

357
00:35:05.940 --> 00:35:10.900
results that whoever seeks their votes must at least refrain from exposing their mistaken

358
00:35:10.900 --> 00:35:17.580
beliefs, even if he does not yield to the temptation to express agreement with them.

359
00:35:17.580 --> 00:35:22.420
Every candidate for parliament is prompted to propose or support some new piece of ad

360
00:35:22.420 --> 00:35:29.140
Capitandum Legislation. Nay, even the chiefs of parties, those anxious to retain office

361
00:35:29.140 --> 00:35:35.580
and those to wrest it from them, severely aim to get adherence by outbidding one another.

362
00:35:35.580 --> 00:35:40.660
Each seeks popularity by promising more than his opponent has promised, as we have lately

363
00:35:40.660 --> 00:35:45.700
seen, and then, as divisions in Parliament show us, the traditional loyalty to leaders

364
00:35:45.700 --> 00:35:52.300
overrides questions concerning the intrinsic propriety of proposed measures. Representatives

365
00:35:52.300 --> 00:35:56.220
Communists are unconscious enough to vote for bills which they believe to be wrong

366
00:35:56.220 --> 00:36:01.740
in principle because party needs and regard for the next election demand it, and thus

367
00:36:01.740 --> 00:36:06.300
a vicious policy is strengthened even by those who see its viciousness.

368
00:36:06.300 --> 00:36:12.100
Meanwhile, there goes on out of doors an act of propaganda to which all these influences

369
00:36:12.100 --> 00:36:14.340
are ancillary.

370
00:36:14.340 --> 00:36:19.020
Communistic theory is partially endorsed by one act of parliament after another, and tacitly

371
00:36:19.020 --> 00:36:24.020
are being advocated more and more vociferously by popular leaders, and urged on by organized societies.

372
00:36:24.020 --> 00:36:29.020
There is the movement for land nationalization which, aiming at a system of land tenure equitable in the abstract, is, as all the world knows, pressed by Mr. George and his friends with avowed disregard for the just claims of existing owners,

373
00:36:29.020 --> 00:36:34.020
and as the basis of a scheme going more than halfway to state socialism.

374
00:36:34.020 --> 00:36:50.020
Aiming at a system of land tenure equitable in the abstract is, as all the world knows, pressed by Mr George and his friends with avowed disregard for the just claims of existing owners, and as the basis of a scheme going more than halfway to state socialism.

375
00:36:50.020 --> 00:36:56.020
And then there is the thoroughgoing democratic federation of Mr Hindman and his adherents.

376
00:36:56.020 --> 00:37:08.020
We are told by them that the handful of marauders who now hold possession of the land have and can have no right save brute force against the tens of millions whom they wrong.

377
00:37:08.020 --> 00:37:15.020
They exclaim against the shareholders who have been allowed to lay hands upon our great railway communications.

378
00:37:15.020 --> 00:37:24.020
They condemn above all the active capitalist class, the loan mongers, the farmers, the mine exploiters, the contractors, the middlemen, the factory lords,

379
00:37:24.020 --> 00:37:41.020
These, the modern slave-drivers, who exact more and yet more surplus value out of the wage slaves whom they employ, and they think it high time that trade should be removed from the control of individual greed.

380
00:37:41.020 --> 00:37:49.020
It remains to point out that the tendencies thus variously displayed are being strengthened by press advocacy, daily more pronounced.

381
00:37:49.020 --> 00:37:53.860
Journalists always cheery of saying that, which is distasteful to their readers, are

382
00:37:53.860 --> 00:37:57.860
some of them going with the stream and adding to its force.

383
00:37:57.860 --> 00:38:02.060
Legislative meddlings, which they would once have condemned, they now pass in silence if

384
00:38:02.060 --> 00:38:08.020
they do not advocate them, and they speak of laissez-faire as an exploded doctrine.

385
00:38:08.020 --> 00:38:12.280
People are no longer frightened at the thought of socialism, is a statement which meets us

386
00:38:12.280 --> 00:38:14.080
one day.

387
00:38:14.080 --> 00:38:18.920
On another day, a town which does not adopt the Free Libraries Act is sneered at as being

388
00:38:18.920 --> 00:38:22.720
are being alarmed by a measure so moderately communistic.

389
00:38:22.720 --> 00:38:27.360
And then, along with editorial assertions that this economic evolution is coming

390
00:38:27.360 --> 00:38:28.840
and must be accepted,

391
00:38:28.840 --> 00:38:33.640
there is prominence given to the contributions of its advocates.

392
00:38:33.640 --> 00:38:37.600
Meanwhile, those who regard the recent course of legislation as disastrous

393
00:38:37.600 --> 00:38:41.680
and see that its future course is likely to be still more disastrous

394
00:38:41.680 --> 00:38:45.520
are being reduced to silence by the belief that it is useless to reason

395
00:38:45.520 --> 00:38:55.880
See, then, the many concurrent causes which threaten continually to accelerate the transformation

396
00:38:55.880 --> 00:38:57.840
now going on.

397
00:38:57.840 --> 00:39:02.400
There is that spread of regulation caused by following precedents which become the more

398
00:39:02.400 --> 00:39:06.240
authoritative the further the policy is carried.

399
00:39:06.240 --> 00:39:11.320
There is that increasing need for administrative compulsions and restraints which results from

400
00:39:11.320 --> 00:39:16.560
on the unforeseen evils and shortcomings of preceding compulsions and restraints.

401
00:39:16.560 --> 00:39:21.800
Moreover, every additional state interference strengthens the tacit assumption that it is

402
00:39:21.800 --> 00:39:26.840
the duty of the state to deal with all evils and secure all benefits.

403
00:39:26.840 --> 00:39:31.160
Increasing power of a growing administrative organization is accompanied by decreasing

404
00:39:31.160 --> 00:39:36.520
power of the rest of the society to resist its further growth and control.

405
00:39:36.520 --> 00:39:41.280
The multiplication of careers opened by a developing bureaucracy tempts members of the

406
00:39:41.280 --> 00:39:47.200
classes regulated by it to favour its extension as adding to the chances of safe and respectable

407
00:39:47.200 --> 00:39:49.960
places for their relatives.

408
00:39:49.960 --> 00:39:54.860
The people at large, led to look on benefits received through public agencies as gratis

409
00:39:54.860 --> 00:40:00.280
benefits have their hopes continually excited by prospects of more.

410
00:40:00.280 --> 00:40:05.860
A spreading education furthering the diffusion of pleasing errors rather than of stern truths

411
00:40:05.860 --> 00:40:12.100
renders such hopes both stronger and more general. Worse still, such hopes are ministered

412
00:40:12.100 --> 00:40:20.700
to by candidates for public choice to augment their chances of success, and leading statesmen

413
00:40:20.700 --> 00:40:27.820
in pursuit of party ends bid for popular favor by countenancing them. Getting repeated justifications

414
00:40:27.820 --> 00:40:33.660
from new laws harmonizing with their doctrines, political enthusiasts and unwise philanthropists

415
00:40:33.660 --> 00:40:38.780
push their agitations with growing confidence and success.

416
00:40:38.780 --> 00:40:43.820
Journalism ever responsive to popular opinion duly strengthens it by giving it voice, while

417
00:40:43.820 --> 00:40:48.460
counter-opinion more and more discouraged finds little utterance.

418
00:40:48.460 --> 00:40:53.860
Thus, influences of various kinds conspire to increase corporate action and decrease

419
00:40:53.860 --> 00:40:59.540
individual action, and the changes being on all sides aided by schemers, each of whom

420
00:40:59.540 --> 00:41:04.340
William thinks only of his pet plan, and not at all of the general reorganization which

421
00:41:04.340 --> 00:41:08.860
his plan, joined with others such, are working out.

422
00:41:08.860 --> 00:41:12.700
It is said that the French Revolution devours its own children.

423
00:41:12.700 --> 00:41:17.380
Here, an analogous catastrophe seems not unlikely.

424
00:41:17.380 --> 00:41:22.460
The numerous socialistic changes made by Act of Parliament, joined with the numerous others

425
00:41:22.460 --> 00:41:28.380
presently to be made, will by and by be all merged in state socialism, swallowed in the

426
00:41:28.380 --> 00:41:33.780
and the vast wave which they have little by little raised.

427
00:41:33.780 --> 00:41:36.900
But why is this change described as the clamming slavery?

428
00:41:36.900 --> 00:41:40.260
Is a question which many will still ask.

429
00:41:40.260 --> 00:41:42.480
The reply is simple.

430
00:41:42.480 --> 00:41:46.760
Socialism always involves slavery.

431
00:41:46.760 --> 00:41:50.100
What is essential to the idea of a slave?

432
00:41:50.100 --> 00:41:53.820
We primarily think of him as one who is owned by another.

433
00:41:53.820 --> 00:41:58.260
To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slave's actions

434
00:41:58.260 --> 00:42:03.620
A Control which is habitually for the benefit of the controller.

435
00:42:03.620 --> 00:42:08.200
That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to

436
00:42:08.200 --> 00:42:11.080
satisfy another's desires.

437
00:42:11.080 --> 00:42:16.220
The relation admits of sundry gradations, remembering that originally the slave is a

438
00:42:16.220 --> 00:42:19.420
prisoner whose life is at the mercy of his captor.

439
00:42:19.420 --> 00:42:25.100
It suffices here to note that there is a harsh form of slavery in which, treated as an animal,

440
00:42:25.100 --> 00:42:29.860
He has to expend his entire effort for his owner's advantage.

441
00:42:29.860 --> 00:42:34.880
Under a system less harsh, though occupied chiefly in working for his owner, he is allowed

442
00:42:34.880 --> 00:42:41.060
a short time in which to work for himself, and some ground on which to grow extra food.

443
00:42:41.060 --> 00:42:45.380
A further amelioration gives him power to sell the produce of his plot and keep the

444
00:42:45.380 --> 00:42:46.380
proceeds.

445
00:42:46.380 --> 00:42:52.260
Then we come to the still moderated form, which commonly arises where, having been a

446
00:42:52.260 --> 00:42:58.300
When a free man working on his own land, conquest turns him into what we distinguish as a serf,

447
00:42:58.300 --> 00:43:03.860
and he has to give to his owner each year a fixed amount of labour or produce or both,

448
00:43:03.860 --> 00:43:10.860
retaining the rest himself. Finally, in some cases, as in Russia before serfdom was abolished,

449
00:43:10.860 --> 00:43:16.260
he is allowed to leave his owner's estate and work or trade for himself elsewhere under

450
00:43:16.260 --> 00:43:22.180
the condition that he shall pay an annual sum. What is it which, in these cases, leads

451
00:43:22.180 --> 00:43:36.180
It is as to qualify our conception of the slavery as more or less severe, evidently the greater or smaller extent to which effort is compulsorily expended for the benefit of another instead of for self-benefit.

452
00:43:36.180 --> 00:43:42.180
If all the slave's labour is for his owner, the slavery is heavy, and if but little it is light.

453
00:43:42.180 --> 00:44:01.180
Take now a further step. Suppose an owner dies and his estate, with its slaves, comes into the hands of trustees, or suppose the estate and everything on it be bought by a company. Is the condition of the slave any the better if the amount of his compulsory labour remains the same?

454
00:44:01.180 --> 00:44:14.180
Suppose that for a company we substitute the community, does it make any difference to the slave if the time he has to work for others is as great and the time left for himself is as small as before?

455
00:44:14.180 --> 00:44:24.180
The essential question is, how much is he compelled to labor for the benefit other than his own, and how much can he labor for his own benefit?

456
00:44:24.180 --> 00:44:30.660
The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced

457
00:44:30.660 --> 00:44:36.260
to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain. And it matters not whether his master

458
00:44:36.260 --> 00:44:42.820
is a single person or a society. If without option he has to labor for that society and

459
00:44:42.820 --> 00:44:48.260
receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave

460
00:44:48.260 --> 00:45:07.260
Socialistic arrangements necessitate an enslavement of this kind, and towards such enslavement, many recent measures, and still more the measures advocated, are carrying us. Let us observe first their proximate effects, and then their ultimate effects.

461
00:45:07.260 --> 00:45:14.260
The policy initiated by the Industrial Dwellings Act admits of development and will develop.

462
00:45:15.260 --> 00:45:20.020
Where municipal bodies turn housebuilders, they inevitably lower the values of houses

463
00:45:20.020 --> 00:45:26.040
otherwise built and check the supply of more. Every dictation respecting modes of building

464
00:45:26.040 --> 00:45:31.100
and conveniences to be provided diminishes the builder's profits and prompts him to

465
00:45:31.100 --> 00:45:35.160
to use his capital where the profit is not thus diminished.

466
00:45:35.160 --> 00:45:41.020
So too the owner, already finding that small houses entail much labour and many losses,

467
00:45:41.020 --> 00:45:45.840
already subject to troubles of inspection and interference and to consequent costs,

468
00:45:45.840 --> 00:45:51.380
and having his property daily rendered a more undesirable investment, is prompted to sell.

469
00:45:51.380 --> 00:45:56.220
And as buyers are for like reasons deterred, he has to sell at a loss.

470
00:45:56.220 --> 00:46:01.460
And now these still multiplying regulations, ending, it may be, as Lord Gray proposes,

471
00:46:01.460 --> 00:46:06.120
in one requiring the owner to maintain the salubrity of his houses by evicting dirty

472
00:46:06.120 --> 00:46:12.480
tenants, and thus adding to his other responsibilities that of inspector of nuisances, must further

473
00:46:12.480 --> 00:46:20.380
prompt sales and further deter purchases, so necessitating greater depreciation.

474
00:46:20.380 --> 00:46:22.080
What must happen?

475
00:46:22.080 --> 00:46:26.840
The multiplication of houses, and especially small houses, being increasingly checked,

476
00:46:26.840 --> 00:46:31.080
there must come an increasing demand upon the local authority to make up for the deficient

477
00:46:31.080 --> 00:46:32.760
supply.

478
00:46:32.760 --> 00:46:37.200
More and more the municipal or kindred body will have to build houses, or to purchase

479
00:46:37.200 --> 00:46:43.200
houses rendered unsaleable to private persons in the way shown, houses which, greatly lowered

480
00:46:43.200 --> 00:46:48.480
in value as they must become, it will in many cases pay to buy rather than to build new

481
00:46:48.480 --> 00:46:49.480
ones.

482
00:46:49.480 --> 00:46:56.000
May, this process must work in a double way, since every entailed increase of local taxation

483
00:46:56.000 --> 00:47:02.600
still further depreciates property. And when in towns this process has gone so far as to

484
00:47:02.600 --> 00:47:07.200
make the local authority the chief owner of houses, there will be a good precedent for

485
00:47:07.200 --> 00:47:13.680
publicly providing houses of the rural population, as proposed in the radical program and as

486
00:47:13.680 --> 00:47:26.680
is urged by the Democratic Federation, which insists on the compulsory construction of healthy artisans and agricultural laborers' dwellings in proportion to the population.

487
00:47:26.680 --> 00:47:38.680
Manifestly, the tendency of that which has been done, is being done, and is presently to be done, is to approach the socialistic ideal in which the community is sole house proprietor.

488
00:47:38.680 --> 00:47:43.680
Such, too, must be the effect of the daily growing policy on the tenure and utilization

489
00:47:43.680 --> 00:47:45.440
of land.

490
00:47:45.440 --> 00:47:50.640
More numerous public benefits to be achieved by more numerous public agencies at the cost

491
00:47:50.640 --> 00:47:56.960
of augmented public burdens must increasingly deduct from the returns on land, until, as

492
00:47:56.960 --> 00:48:01.640
the depreciation in value becomes greater and greater, the resistance to change of tenure

493
00:48:01.640 --> 00:48:03.880
becomes less and less.

494
00:48:03.880 --> 00:48:10.040
Already, as everyone knows, there is in many places difficulty in obtaining tenants, even

495
00:48:10.040 --> 00:48:16.400
at greatly reduced rents, and land of inferior fertility in some cases lies idle, or when

496
00:48:16.400 --> 00:48:19.940
farmed by the owner is often farmed at a loss.

497
00:48:19.940 --> 00:48:25.880
Clearly, the profit on capital invested in land is not such that taxes, local and general,

498
00:48:25.880 --> 00:48:30.860
can be greatly raised to support extended public administrations without an absorption

499
00:48:30.860 --> 00:48:35.740
and of it, which will prompt owners to sell and make the best of what reduced price they

500
00:48:35.740 --> 00:48:41.720
can get by emigrating and buying land not subject to heavy burdens, as indeed some are

501
00:48:41.720 --> 00:48:43.760
now doing.

502
00:48:43.760 --> 00:48:49.640
This process carried far must have the result of throwing inferior land out of cultivation,

503
00:48:49.640 --> 00:48:55.400
after which there will be raised more generally the demand made by Mr. Arch, who addressing

504
00:48:55.400 --> 00:49:00.560
The Radical Association of Brighton lately, and contending that existing landlords do

505
00:49:00.560 --> 00:49:05.400
not make their land adequately productive for the public benefit, said,

506
00:49:05.400 --> 00:49:11.280
He should like the present government to pass a compulsory cultivation bill, an applauded

507
00:49:11.280 --> 00:49:16.880
proposal which he justified by instancing compulsory vaccination, thus illustrating

508
00:49:16.880 --> 00:49:20.280
the influence of precedent.

509
00:49:20.280 --> 00:49:25.020
And this demand will be passed not only by the need for making the land productive, but

510
00:49:25.020 --> 00:49:29.540
and also by the need for employing the rural population.

511
00:49:29.540 --> 00:49:33.820
After the Government has extended the practice of hiring the unemployed to work on deserted

512
00:49:33.820 --> 00:49:39.060
lands or lands acquired at nominal prices, there will be reached a stage whence there

513
00:49:39.060 --> 00:49:43.980
is but a small further step to that arrangement which, in the programme of the Democratic

514
00:49:43.980 --> 00:49:47.940
Federation, is to follow nationalisation of the land.

515
00:49:47.940 --> 00:49:53.940
The organisation of agricultural and industrial armies under State control on co-operative

516
00:49:53.940 --> 00:49:56.620
of Principles.

517
00:49:56.620 --> 00:50:01.860
To one who doubts whether such a revolution may be so reached, facts may be cited showing

518
00:50:01.860 --> 00:50:03.740
its likelihood.

519
00:50:03.740 --> 00:50:08.920
In Gaul during the decline of the Roman Empire, so numerous were the receivers in comparison

520
00:50:08.920 --> 00:50:13.780
with the payers and so enormous the weight of taxation that the labourer broke down,

521
00:50:13.780 --> 00:50:19.020
the plains became deserts, and woods grew where the plough had been.

522
00:50:19.020 --> 00:50:23.700
In a human-like manner, when the French Revolution was approaching, the public burdens had become

523
00:50:23.700 --> 00:50:29.020
such that many farms remained uncultivated and many were deserted. One quarter of the

524
00:50:29.020 --> 00:50:35.020
soil was absolutely lying waste, and in some provinces one half was in heath.

525
00:50:35.020 --> 00:50:41.400
Nor have we been without incidents of a kindred nature at home. Besides the fact that under

526
00:50:41.400 --> 00:50:46.620
the poor law the rates had in some parishes risen to half the rental, and that in various

527
00:50:46.620 --> 00:50:53.620
In these places farms were lying idle. There is the fact that in one case the rates had absorbed the whole proceeds of the soil.

528
00:50:53.620 --> 00:51:03.620
At Cholesbury in Buckinghamshire in 1832, the poor rate suddenly ceased in consequence of the impossibility to continue its collection,

529
00:51:03.620 --> 00:51:09.620
the landlords having given up their rents, the farmers their tenancies, and the clergyman his glebe and his ties.

530
00:51:09.620 --> 00:51:21.620
The clergyman Mr. Jeston states that in October 1832 the parish officers threw up their books, and the poor assembled in a body before his door while he was in bed asking for advice and food.

531
00:51:21.620 --> 00:51:33.620
Partly from his own small means, partly from the charity of neighbours, and partly by rates in aid imposed on the neighbouring parishes, they were for some time supported.

532
00:51:33.620 --> 00:51:39.440
And the commissioners add that the benevolent rector recommends that the whole of the land

533
00:51:39.440 --> 00:51:45.560
should be divided among the able-bodied paupers, hoping that after help afforded for two years

534
00:51:45.560 --> 00:51:49.260
they might be able to maintain themselves.

535
00:51:49.260 --> 00:51:53.060
These facts, giving colour to the prophecy made in Parliament that continuance of the

536
00:51:53.060 --> 00:51:58.260
old poor law for another thirty years would throw the land out of cultivation, clearly

537
00:51:58.260 --> 00:52:05.280
show that increase of public burdens may end in forced cultivation under public control.

538
00:52:05.280 --> 00:52:08.240
Then again comes state ownership of railways.

539
00:52:08.240 --> 00:52:11.920
Already this exists to a large extent on the continent.

540
00:52:11.920 --> 00:52:16.320
Already we have had here a few years ago a loud advocacy of it.

541
00:52:16.320 --> 00:52:21.340
And now the cry which was raised by sundry politicians and publicists is taken up afresh

542
00:52:21.340 --> 00:52:27.840
by the Democratic Federation, which proposes state appropriation of railways with or without

543
00:52:27.840 --> 00:52:34.200
but compensation. Evidently, pressure from above joined by pressure from below is likely

544
00:52:34.200 --> 00:52:39.400
to affect this change dictated by the policy everywhere spreading, and with it must come

545
00:52:39.400 --> 00:52:46.020
many attendant changes. For railway proprietors at first owners and workers of railways only

546
00:52:46.020 --> 00:52:51.660
have become masters of numerous businesses directly or indirectly connected with railways,

547
00:52:51.660 --> 00:52:54.580
and these will have to be purchased.

548
00:52:54.580 --> 00:53:00.120
Already exclusive letter carrier, exclusive transmitter of telegrams, and on the way to

549
00:53:00.120 --> 00:53:06.220
become exclusive carrier of parcels, the State will not only be exclusive carrier of passengers,

550
00:53:06.220 --> 00:53:12.420
goods and minerals, but will add to its present various trades many other trades.

551
00:53:12.420 --> 00:53:18.420
Even now, besides erecting its naval and military establishments and building harbours, docks,

552
00:53:18.420 --> 00:53:25.420
and when the railways have been appropriated, with or without compensation, as the democratic federationists say, it will have to become locomotive engine builder, carriage maker, tarpaulin and grease manufacturer, passenger vessel owner, coal miner, stone quarry or omnidust proprietor, etc.

553
00:53:25.420 --> 00:53:32.320
Army Clothier and Bootmaker, and when the railways have been appropriated, with or without compensation,

554
00:53:32.320 --> 00:53:38.320
as the Democratic Federationists say, it will have to become locomotive engine-builder, carriage-maker,

555
00:53:38.320 --> 00:53:46.820
tarpaulin and grease-manufacturer, passenger-vessel owner, coal-miner, stone-quarrier, omnidust-proprietor, etc.

556
00:53:46.820 --> 00:53:52.320
Meanwhile, its local lieutenants, the municipal governments, already in many places supplier of water,

557
00:53:52.320 --> 00:54:06.880
And when the State, directly or by proxy, has thus come into possession of or has established

558
00:54:06.880 --> 00:54:11.920
numerous concerns for wholesale production and for wholesale distribution, there will

559
00:54:11.920 --> 00:54:17.020
be good precedence for extending its function to retail distribution.

560
00:54:17.020 --> 00:54:21.840
Following such an example, say, as is offered by the French government, which has long been

561
00:54:21.840 --> 00:54:29.280
in a Retail Tobaconist. Even then, the changes made, the changes in progress and the changes

562
00:54:29.280 --> 00:54:34.120
urged will carry us not only towards state ownership of land and dwellings and means

563
00:54:34.120 --> 00:54:39.560
of communication, all to be administered and worked by state agents, but towards state

564
00:54:39.560 --> 00:54:44.920
usurpation of all industries, the private forms of which, disadvantaged more and more

565
00:54:44.920 --> 00:54:50.120
in competition with the state, which can arrange everything for its own convenience, will more

566
00:54:50.120 --> 00:54:56.280
more and more die away, just as many voluntary schools have in presence of board schools,

567
00:54:56.280 --> 00:55:01.880
and so will be brought about the desired ideal of the socialists.

568
00:55:01.880 --> 00:55:07.960
And now, when there has been compassed this desired ideal, which practical politicians

569
00:55:07.960 --> 00:55:13.320
are helping socialists to reach, and which is so tempting on that bright side which socialists

570
00:55:13.320 --> 00:55:19.920
contemplate, what must be the accompanying shady side which they do not contemplate?

571
00:55:19.920 --> 00:55:24.840
It is a matter of common remark, often made when a marriage is impending, that those possessed

572
00:55:24.840 --> 00:55:30.120
by strong hopes habitually dwell on the promised pleasures and think nothing of the accompanying

573
00:55:30.120 --> 00:55:31.120
pains.

574
00:55:31.120 --> 00:55:36.480
A further exemplification of this truth is supplied by these political enthusiasts and

575
00:55:36.480 --> 00:55:43.760
fanatical revolutionists, impressed with the miseries existing in our present social arrangements,

576
00:55:43.760 --> 00:55:48.460
and not regarding these miseries as caused by the ill-working of a human nature, but

577
00:55:48.460 --> 00:55:54.100
Partially adapted to a social state, they imagine them to be forthwith curable by this

578
00:55:54.100 --> 00:56:00.380
or that rearrangement. Yet even did their plans succeed, it could only be by substituting

579
00:56:00.380 --> 00:56:06.140
one kind of evil for another. A little deliberate thought would show that under their proposed

580
00:56:06.140 --> 00:56:11.180
arrangements their liberties must be surrendered in proportion as their material welfare were

581
00:56:11.180 --> 00:56:13.860
cared for.

582
00:56:13.860 --> 00:56:19.140
For no form of cooperation, small or great, can be carried on without regulation and an

583
00:56:19.140 --> 00:56:25.380
implied submission to the regulating agencies. Even one of their own organizations for effecting

584
00:56:25.380 --> 00:56:31.740
social changes yields them proof. It is compelled to have its councils, its local and general

585
00:56:31.740 --> 00:56:38.420
officers, its authoritative leaders, who must be obeyed under penalty of confusion and failure.

586
00:56:38.420 --> 00:56:43.060
And the experience of those who are loudest in their advocacy of a new social order under

587
00:56:43.060 --> 00:56:47.980
Under the paternal control of a government shows that even in private voluntarily formed

588
00:56:47.980 --> 00:56:54.180
societies the power of the regulative organization becomes great, if not irresistible, often

589
00:56:54.180 --> 00:56:59.740
indeed causing grumbling and restiveness amongst those controlled.

590
00:56:59.740 --> 00:57:04.660
Trade unions which carry on a kind of industrial war in defense of workers' interests versus

591
00:57:04.660 --> 00:57:10.800
employers' interests find that subordination, almost military in its strictness, is needful

592
00:57:10.800 --> 00:57:17.920
to secure efficient action, for divided councils prove fatal to success, and even in bodies

593
00:57:17.920 --> 00:57:24.080
of co-operators formed for carrying on manufacturing or distributing businesses and not needing

594
00:57:24.080 --> 00:57:29.240
the obedience to leaders which is required where the aims are offensive or defensive

595
00:57:29.240 --> 00:57:35.840
is still found that the administrative agency gains such supremacy that there arise complaints

596
00:57:35.840 --> 00:57:55.840
Judge then what must happen when, instead of relatively small combinations to which men may belong or not as they please, we have a national combination in which each citizen finds himself incorporated, and from which he cannot separate himself without leaving the country.

597
00:57:55.840 --> 00:58:02.000
Judge what must under such conditions become the despotism of a graduated and centralized

598
00:58:02.000 --> 00:58:08.400
officialism, holding in its hands the resources of the community and having behind it whatever

599
00:58:08.400 --> 00:58:13.400
amount of force it finds requisite to carry out its decrees and maintain what it calls

600
00:58:13.400 --> 00:58:21.760
orders. Well, may Prince Bismarck display leanings towards state socialism.

601
00:58:21.760 --> 00:58:26.800
And then, after reorganizing, as they must if they think out their scheme, the power

602
00:58:26.800 --> 00:58:32.320
possessed by the regulative agency and the new social system so temptingly pictured,

603
00:58:32.320 --> 00:58:37.360
let its advocates ask themselves to what end this power must be used.

604
00:58:37.360 --> 00:58:41.880
Not dwelling exclusively as they habitually do on the material well-being and the mental

605
00:58:41.880 --> 00:58:47.520
gratifications to be provided for them by a beneficent administration, let them dwell

606
00:58:47.520 --> 00:58:50.680
a little on the price to be paid.

607
00:58:50.680 --> 00:58:56.280
The officials cannot create the needful supplies. They can but distribute among individuals

608
00:58:56.280 --> 00:59:02.160
that which the individuals had joined to produce. If the public agency is required to provide

609
00:59:02.160 --> 00:59:08.120
for them, it must reciprocally require them to furnish the means. There cannot be, as

610
00:59:08.120 --> 00:59:15.240
under our existing system, agreement between employer and employed. This the scheme excludes.

611
00:59:15.240 --> 00:59:20.140
There must in place of it be command by local authorities over workers and acceptance by

612
00:59:20.140 --> 00:59:24.460
by the workers of that which the authorities assign to them.

613
00:59:24.460 --> 00:59:29.500
And this, indeed, is the arrangement distinctly, but it would seem inadvertently, appointed

614
00:59:29.500 --> 00:59:33.340
to by the members of the Democratic Federation.

615
00:59:33.340 --> 00:59:38.300
For they propose that production should be carried on by agricultural and industrial

616
00:59:38.300 --> 00:59:44.500
armies under state control, apparently not remembering that armies presuppose grades

617
00:59:44.500 --> 00:59:49.220
of officers by whom obedience would have to be insisted upon, since otherwise neither

618
00:59:49.220 --> 01:00:12.220
But the governing agency would be master, which he and others made and kept constantly in check, and one which would therefore would not control him or others more than was needful for the benefit of each and all.

619
01:00:12.220 --> 01:00:17.540
To which reply the first rejoinder is that, even if so, each member of the community as

620
01:00:17.540 --> 01:00:21.900
an individual would be a slave to the community as a whole.

621
01:00:21.900 --> 01:00:27.060
Such a relation has habitually existed in militant communities, even under quasi-popular

622
01:00:27.060 --> 01:00:29.380
forms of government.

623
01:00:29.380 --> 01:00:33.980
In ancient Greece the accepted principle was that the citizen belonged neither to himself

624
01:00:33.980 --> 01:00:39.620
nor to his family, but belonged to his city, the city being with the Greek equivalent to

625
01:00:39.620 --> 01:00:42.780
of the Community.

626
01:00:42.780 --> 01:00:47.980
And this doctrine proper to a state of constant warfare is a doctrine which socialism unawares

627
01:00:47.980 --> 01:00:53.020
reintroduces into a state intended to be purely industrial.

628
01:00:53.020 --> 01:00:58.880
The services of each will belong to the aggregate of all, and for these services such returns

629
01:00:58.880 --> 01:01:02.380
will be given as the authorities think proper.

630
01:01:02.380 --> 01:01:08.220
So that even if the administration is of the beneficent kind intended to be secured, slavery

631
01:01:08.220 --> 01:01:38.220
A second rejoinder is that the administration will presently become not of the intended kind, and that the slavery will not be mild. The socialist's speculation is vitiated by an assumption, like that which vitiates the specializations of the practical politician. It is assumed that officialism will work as it is intended to work, which it never does. The machinery of communism is not the same as that of the socialists.

632
01:01:38.220 --> 01:01:49.220
like existing social machinery, has to be framed out of existing human nature, and the defects of existing human nature will generate in the one the same evils as in the other.

633
01:01:49.220 --> 01:02:07.220
The love of power, the selfishness, the injustice, the untruthfulness, which often in comparatively short times bring private organizations to disaster, will inevitably, where their effects accumulate from generation to generation, work evils far greater and far less remedyable.

634
01:02:07.220 --> 01:02:13.580
Since, vast and complex, and possessed of all the resources, the administrative organizations,

635
01:02:13.580 --> 01:02:18.340
once developed and consolidated, must become irresistible.

636
01:02:18.340 --> 01:02:22.360
And if there needs proof that the periodic exercise of electoral power would fail to

637
01:02:22.360 --> 01:02:27.460
prevent this, it suffices to instance the French government, which, purely popular in

638
01:02:27.460 --> 01:02:32.720
origin and subject at short intervals to popular judgment, nevertheless tramples on the freedom

639
01:02:32.720 --> 01:02:48.000
The final result would be a revival of despotism.

640
01:02:48.000 --> 01:02:52.920
A disciplined army of civil officials, like an army of military officials, gives supreme

641
01:02:52.920 --> 01:02:58.920
power to its head, a power which has often led to usurpation, as in medieval Europe and

642
01:02:58.920 --> 01:03:05.560
and still more in Japan, nay, has thus so led among our neighbours within our own times.

643
01:03:05.560 --> 01:03:10.720
The recent confessions of Monsieur de Maupin have shown how readily and constitutionally

644
01:03:10.720 --> 01:03:17.080
head, elected and trusted by the whole people may, with the aid of a few unscrupulous confederates,

645
01:03:17.080 --> 01:03:23.000
paralyse the representative body and make himself autocrat. That those who rose to power in

646
01:03:23.000 --> 01:03:28.360
a socialistic organisation would not scruple to carry out the aims at all costs, we have

647
01:03:28.360 --> 01:03:58.360
When we find that shareholders who, sometimes gaining but often losing, have made that the railway system by which national prosperity has been so greatly increased are spoken of by the Council of the Democratic Federation as having laid hands on the means of communication, we may infer that those who directed a socialistic administration might interpret with extreme perversity the claims of individuals and classes under their control.

648
01:03:58.360 --> 01:04:23.360
And when, further, we find members of this same council urging that the state should take possession of the railways, with or without compensation, we may suspect that the heads of the ideal society desired would be but little deterred by considerations of equity from pursuing whatever policy they thought needful, a policy which would always be one identified with their own supremacy.

649
01:04:23.360 --> 01:04:30.620
It would need but a war with an adjacent society or some internal discontent demanding forcible

650
01:04:30.620 --> 01:04:36.760
suppression to at once transform a socialistic administration into a grinding tyranny like

651
01:04:36.760 --> 01:04:42.520
that of ancient Peru, under which the mass of the people, controlled by grades of officials

652
01:04:42.520 --> 01:04:47.380
and leading lives that were inspected out of doors and indoors, laboured for the support

653
01:04:47.380 --> 01:04:52.740
of the organization which regulated them, and were left with but a bare subsistence

654
01:04:52.740 --> 01:04:59.380
for Themselves, and then would be completely revived under a different form, that regime

655
01:04:59.380 --> 01:05:05.980
of status, that system of compulsory cooperation, the decaying tradition of which is represented

656
01:05:05.980 --> 01:05:13.300
by the old Tourism, and towards which the new Tourism is carrying us back.

657
01:05:13.300 --> 01:05:17.940
But we shall be on our guard against all that, we shall take precautions to ward off such

658
01:05:17.940 --> 01:05:25.500
Disasters, will doubtless say the enthusiasts. Be they practical politicians with their new

659
01:05:25.500 --> 01:05:30.940
regulative measures, or communists with their schemes for reorganizing labor, their reply

660
01:05:30.940 --> 01:05:37.640
is ever the same. It is true that plans of kindred nature have, from unforeseen causes

661
01:05:37.640 --> 01:05:42.980
or adverse accidents or the misdeeds of those concerned, been brought to failure, but this

662
01:05:42.980 --> 01:05:48.660
This time we shall profit by past experiences and succeed.

663
01:05:48.660 --> 01:05:54.180
There seems no getting people to accept the truth, which nevertheless is conspicuous enough

664
01:05:54.180 --> 01:05:59.020
that the welfare of a society and the justice of its arrangements are at bottom dependent

665
01:05:59.020 --> 01:06:04.260
on the characters of its members, and that improvement in neither can take place without

666
01:06:04.260 --> 01:06:09.200
that improvement in character which results from carrying on peaceful industry under the

667
01:06:09.200 --> 01:06:13.500
and the restraints imposed by an orderly social life.

668
01:06:13.500 --> 01:06:18.900
The belief not only of the socialists but also of those so-called liberals who are diligently

669
01:06:18.900 --> 01:06:24.400
preparing the way for them is that by due skill an ill-working humanity may be framed

670
01:06:24.400 --> 01:06:27.280
into well-working institutions.

671
01:06:27.280 --> 01:06:29.280
It is a delusion.

672
01:06:29.280 --> 01:06:34.440
The defective nature of citizens will show themselves in the bad acting of whatever social

673
01:06:34.440 --> 01:06:37.280
structure they are arranged into.

674
01:06:37.280 --> 01:06:44.280
There is no political alchemy by which you can get golden conduct out of lead and instincts.

675
01:06:46.060 --> 01:06:52.320
Two replies by socialists to the foregoing article have appeared since its publication.

676
01:06:52.320 --> 01:06:59.320
Socialism and Slavery by H. M. Hindman and Herbert Spencer on Socialism by Frank Fairman.

677
01:07:00.420 --> 01:07:05.620
Notice of them here must be limited to saying that, as usual with antagonists, they ascribe

678
01:07:35.620 --> 01:07:41.480
and Catallactics. But I am quite unconscious of any such change as he alleges. Looking

679
01:07:41.480 --> 01:07:46.860
with a lenient eye upon the irregularities of those whose lives are hard by no means

680
01:07:46.860 --> 01:07:49.540
involves tolerance of good for nothings.