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have gained; and in this way literally hundreds of sham enterprises, that would not else have seen the light, have been fostered into being; and thousands of families have been ruined who would never have been so but for legislative efforts to make them more secure.

Moreover, when these topical remedies applied by statesmen do not exacerbate the evils they were meant to cure, they constantly-we believe invariably-induce collateral evils; and these often graver than the original ones. It is the vice of this empirical school of politicians that they never look beyond proximate causes and immediate effects. In common with the uneducated masses they habitually regard each phenomenon as involving but one antecedent and one consequent. They do not bear in mind that each phenomenon is a link in an infinite seriesis the result of myriads of preceding phenomena, and will have a share in producing myriads of succeeding ones. Hence they overlook the fact, that, in disturbing any natural chain of sequences, they are not only modifying the result next in succession, but all the future results into which this will enter as a part cause. The serial genesis of phenomena, and the interaction of each series upon every other series, produces a complexity utterly beyond human grasp. Even in the simplest cases this is so. A servant who mends the fire sees but few effects from the burning of a lump of coal. The man of science, however, knows that there are very many effects. He knows that the combustion establishes numerous atmospheric currents, and through them moves thousands of cubic feet of air inside the house and out. He knows that the heat diffused causes expansions and subsequent contractions of all bodies within its range. He knows that the persons warmed are affected in their rate of respiration and their waste of tissue; and that these physiological changes must have various secondary results. He knows that,

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could he trace to their ramified consequences all the forces disengaged, mechanical, chemical, thermal, electric-could he enumerate all the subsequent effects of the evaporation caused, the gases generated, the light evolved, the heat adiated; a volume would scarcely suffice to enter them.

If now from a simple inorganic change such complex results arise, how infinitely multiplied, how utterly incal culable must be the ultimate consequences of any force brought to bear upon society. Wonderfully constructed as it is mutually dependent as are its members for the satisfaction of their wants-affected as each unit of it is by his fellows, not only as to his safety and prosperity, but in his health, his temper, his culture; the social organism cannot be dealt with in any one part, without all other parts being influenced in ways that cannot be foreseen. You put a duty on paper, and by-and-by find that, through the medium of the jacquard-cards employed, you have inadvertently taxed figured silk, sometimes to the extent of several shillings per piece. On removing the impost from bricks, you discover that its existence had increased the dangers of mining, by preventing shafts from being lined and workings from being tunnelled. By the excise on soap, you have, it turns out, greatly encouraged the use of caustic washing-powders; and so have unintentionally entailed an immense destruction of clothes. In every case you perceive, on careful inquiry, that besides acting upon that which you sought to act upon, you have acted upon many other things, and each of these again on many others; and so have propagated a multitude of changes more or less appreciable in all directions.

We need feel no surprise, then, that in their efforts to cure specific evils, legislators have continually caused collateral evils they never looked for. No Carlyle's wisest man, nor any body of such, could avoid causing them. Though their production is explicable enough after

it has occurred, it is never anticipated. When, under the New Poor-law, provision was made for the accommodation of vagrants in the Union-houses, it was hardly expected that a body of tramps would be thereby called into existence, who would spend their time in walking from Union to Union throughout the kingdom. It was little thought by those who in past generations assigned parishpay for the maintenance of illegitimate children, that, as a result, a family of such would by-and-by be considered a small fortune, and the mother of them a desirable wife; nor did the same statesmen see, that, by the law of settlement, they were organizing a disastrous inequality of wages in different districts, and entailing a system of clearing away cottages, which would result in the crowding of bedrooms, and in a consequent moral and physical deterioration. The English tonnage law was enacted simply with a view to regulate the mode of measurement: its framers overlooked the fact that they were practically providing "for the effectual and compulsory construction of bad ships;" and that "to cheat the law, that is, to build a tolerable ship in spite of it, was the highest achievement left to an English builder.”* Greater commercial

security was alone aimed at by the partnership law. We now find, however, that the unlimited liability it insists upon is a serious hindrance to progress; it practically forbids the association of small capitalists; it is found a great obstacle to the building of improved dwellings for the people; it prevents a better relationship between artisans and employers; and by withholding from the working-classes good investments for their savings, it checks the growth of provident habits and encourages drunkenness. Thus on all sides are well-meant meausures producing unforeseen

* Lecture before the Royal Institution, by J. Scot. Russell, Esq., “On Wave-line Ships and Yachts," Feb. 6, 1852.

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mischiefs-a licensing law that promotes the adulteration of beer; a ticket-of-leave system that encourages men to commit crime; a police regulation that forces street-hucksters into the workhouse. And then, in addition to the obvious and proximate evils, come the remote and less distinguishable ones, which, could we estimate their accumulated result, we should probably find even more serious.

But the thing to be discussed is, not so much whether, by any amount of intelligence, it is possible for a govern ment to work out the various ends consigned to it, as whether its fulfilment of them is probable. It is less a question of can than a question of will. Granting the absolute competence of the State, let us consider what hope there is of getting from it satisfactory performance. Let us look at the moving force by which the legislative machine is worked, and then inquire whether this force is thus employed as economically as it would otherwise be.

Manifestly, as desire of some kind is the invariable stimulus to action in the individual, every social agency, of what nature soever, must have some aggregate of desires for its motive power. Men in their collective capacity can exhibit no result but what has its origin in some appetite, feeling, or taste common among them. Did not they like meat, there could be no cattle-graziers, no Smithfield, no distributing organization of butchers. Operas, Philharmonic Societies, music-publishers, and street organboys, have all been called into being by our love of melodious sounds. Look through the trades' directory; take up a guide to the London sights; read the index of Bradshaw's time-tables, the reports of the learned societies, or the advertisement of new books; and you see in the publi cation itself, and in the things it describes, so many pro

jects of human activity, stimulated by human desire. Under this stimulus grow up agencies alike the most gigantic and the most insignificant, the most complicated and the most simple-agencies for national defence and for the sweeping of crossings; for the daily distribution of letters, and for the collection of bits of coal out of the Thames mud-agencies that subserve all ends, from the preaching of Christianity to the protection of ill-treated animals; from the production of bread for a nation to the supply of groundsel for caged singing-birds. The accumulated desires of individuals being, then, the moving power by which every social agency is worked, the question to be considered is-Which is the most economical kind of agency? The agency having no power in itself, but being merely an instrument, our inquiry must be for the most efficient instrument-the instrument that costs least, and wastes the smallest amount of the moving power-the instrument least liable to get out of crder, and most readily put right again when it goes wrong. Of the two kinds of social mechanism exemplified above, the spontaneous and the governmental, which is the best?

From the form of this question will be readily foreseen the intended answer--that is the best mechanism which contains the fewest parts. The common saying, "What you wish well done you must do yourself," embodies a truth equally applicable to political as to private life. The experience of the agriculturist who finds that farming by bailiff entails loss, while tenant-farming pays, is an experience still better illustrated in national history than in a landlord's account books. The admitted fact, that jointstock companies are beaten wherever individuals compete with them, is a still more certain fact when the joint-stock company comprehends the whole nation. This transference of power from constituencies to members of parlia ment, from these to the executive, from the executive to a

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