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. Scott Russell, Esq., "On Wave-line Ships and Yachts," Feb. 6, 1852.

ORIGIN OF SOCIAL AGENCIES.

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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 government 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 order, 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 parliament, from these to the executive, from the executive to a

SLUGGISHNESS OF OFFICIALISM.

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board, from the board to its inspectors, and from inspectors through their subs down to the actual workers-this operating through a series a levers, each of which absorbs in friction and inertia part of the moving force; is as bad, in virtue of its complexity, as the direct employment by society of individuals, private companies, and spontaneously-formed institutions, is good, in virtue of its simplicity. Fully to realize the contrast, we must compare in detail the working of the two systems.

Un

Officialism is habitually slow. When non-governmental agencies are dilatory, the public has its remedy: it ceases to employ them, and soon finds quicker ones. der this discipline all private bodies are taught promptness. But for delays in State-departments there is no such easy cure. Life-long Chancery suits must be patiently borne; Museum-catalogues must be hopelessly waited for. While, by the people themselves, a Crystal Palace is designed, erected, and filled, in the course of a few months, the legislature takes twenty years to build itself a new house. While by private persons, the debates are daily printed and dispersed over the kingdom within a few hours of their utterance, the Board of Trade tables are regularly published a month, and sometimes more, after date. And so throughout. Here is a Board of Health .which, since 1849, has been about to close the metropolitan graveyards, but has not done it yet; and which has so long dawdled over projects for cemeteries, that the London Necropolis Company has taken the matter out of its hands. Here is a patentee who has had fourteen years' correspondence with the Horse Guards, before getting a definite answer respecting the use of his improved boot for the Army. Here is a Plymouth port-admiral who delays sending out to look for the missing boats of the Amazon until ten days after the wreck.

Again, officialism is stupid. Under the natural course

:

of things each citizen tends towards his fittest function. Those who are competent to the kind of work they undertake, succeed, and, in the average of cases, are advanced in proportion to their efficiency; while the incompetent, society soon finds out, ceases to employ, forces to try something easier, and eventually turns to use. But it is quite otherwise in State-organizations. Here, as every one knows, birth, age, back-stairs intrigue, and sycophancy, determine the selections, rather than merit. The "fool of the family" readily finds a place in the Church, if " the family" have good connections. A youth, too ill-educated for any active profession, does very well for an officer in the Army. Gray hair, or a title, is a far better guarantee of naval promotion than genius is. Nay, indeed, the man of capacity often finds that, in government offices, superiority is a hindrance--that his chiefs hate to be pestered with his proposed improvements, and are offended by his implied criticism. Not only, therefore, is legislative machinery complex, but it is made of inferior materials. Hence the blunders we daily read of the supplying to the dockyards from the royal forests of timber unfit for use; the administration of relief during the Irish famine in such a manner as to draw labourers from the field, and diminish the subsequent harvest by one-fourth ;* the filing of patents at three different offices and keeping an in-. dex at none; the building of iron, war-vessels that should be of wood, and the insisting on wood, for mail-steamers that should be of iron. Everywhere does this bungling show itself, from the elaborate failure of House of Commons ventilation down to the publication of the London Gazette, which invaribly comes out wrongly folded.

A further characteristic of officialism is its extravagance. In its chief departments, Army, Navy, and Church,

* See Evidence of Major Larcom.