What to Do, and How to Do It.

WHEN poor Stephen Blackpool, after many deep ponderings upon the social aspects of civilisation, came to the oft-reiterated conclusion, that it was "a' a muddle," it is not probable that he had read many works on sociology or political economy. If he had exhausted the libraries on these subjects, I cannot aver that the "muddle" would have been any the less appalling. That there is a grievous obfuscation, blundering, and not knowing what to do, or how to do it, is evident enough.

"It will all come right in time." "It was a great deal worse formerly." "There's a good time coming, boys; wait a little longer." These are all comforting assurances. They may cheer the sorrowful, warm the cold, feed the hungry, and be a pleasant solace to those who are suffering any species of injustice. And it surely is a comfort to believe that the world is making progress towards a millennium of justice, peace, plenty, and happiness.

Admitting the doctrine, or the fact, of progress, it is still clear enough that it is neither regular nor universal. After four thousand years of Chinese civilisation, we have the Taepings cutting unnumbered throats and wasting whole provinces. After we know not how many centuries of African barbarism, the British Government is vainly implored to interfere with the "great custom" of the King of Dahomey. In the nineteenth century of the Religion of Peace, a great country full of churches and multitudinous sects is engaged in a bloody and desperate conflict, with portents of unutterable horrors. In this year of England's progress and prosperity, whole pages of the Times newspaper are filled with details of Lancashire distress,-half a million of the industrious and useful people of the most powerful and most civilised of nations compelled to be idle, and kept by charity from starvation and pestilence. Powerful nations have been broken in pieces, and we fill our museum, with the battered monuments of their scarcely-remembered prosperity. Enlightened nations have sunk into semi-barbarism. Where were once great cities and teeming populations, there are now ruins and deserts.

All this, I am quite aware, is no news. But it is well for the enthusiastic optimist to look over the ground. It is well not to trust so much to the idea of natural and inevitable progression, as to make no effort at the improvement of our actual condition. It is not well to trust that the tide will carry us safely to the shore, when we can row or swim. Human progress is one of will and work. It may be that "God helps those who help themselves;" but it is certain that they get helped. Progress is a marching forward with effort, not a mere lazy gliding down the stream. Individuals and nations have, to some extent, the making of their own destinies.

Let us look a moment at some of the movements of our own time, by

way of illustration. It occurred to certain public men, a few years ago, that the country was in danger of foreign invasion, and that it might be well to arouse a military spirit, and give it an effective organisation. How rapidly, zealously, and thoroughly the work was done, is matter of history. The Volunteer Movement sprang into life; but it came of thought, will, and effort. So must come every beneficial movement; and such movements constitute progress. When any thing is to be done, somebody must do it. If it is not done, it is because there is no one who will or who can accomplish it. There must be some to lead, many to follow, and workers in proportion to the magnitude of the work. Railways and telegraphs, oceanic steam-navigation and cheap postage, have not come of hoping for them, dreaming about them, or predicting them. It is work to tunnel the Alps; work to open a Suez canal. Some of these physical works are very costly. Five thousand human lives were expended on the short railway that unites the Atlantic with the Pacific. It was a greater cost, probably, than was needed. It is likely that a little sanitary wisdom would have saved the lives of four out of the five thousand. But it may have been a better economy of life than the expenditure of five times the number upon a bootless battle-field.

In the work of progress, of reform, or of perfecting civilisation, when we have clearly seen what ought to be done, we come to the not less important question of how to do it. In the case of an Irish famine, of Lancashire distress, or destitution in Coventry, the matter seems simple enough; but it is not without its difficulties. We cannot allow people to starve. But it is not determined whether people liable to starvation can demand help as a right, or only ask it as a charity. Is food to the hungry a debt we owe, and are bound to pay; or is it a charity we are free to give or withhold, according to our sense of duty? The collector comes for the rates; and next day we are called upon for a subscription, and are scolded in the newspapers, perhaps, if we refuse to give, or do not give as much as our neighbours. There is a great clamour, and loud calls for help. One appeals to the government; another looks to the bishops. It is every body's business and nobody's. What if the duty of defending the nation were done in the same fashion? Is it not clear that the first thing required is a settled principle, and the second an efficient organisation?

If we look at society, we see that there are certain things which concern a man individually, which he should settle for himself, and which are no one's business but his own. Society has no right to regulate them, or interfere with them in any way. There is no need of any law about them, nor even of any social or family regulation. There are other matters which may properly be regulated in the family; others in the clubs, societies, or other voluntary and spontaneous organisations into which we aggregate ourselves. Many things concern corporations, as of boroughs, towns, and cities. Others, again, appertain to governments; and the nations of an advanced civilisation have the right and duty to

regulate international interests, and to intervene for the common welfare of humanity. One would like to have a clear understanding of the exact function that belongs to each part of this complicated machinery in the great work of what, for lack of a better term, we call civilisation.

The whole subject demands a volume; but our portion of it may be briefly, and perhaps suggestively, if not exhaustively, considered in a few paragraphs. A government which goes beyond its proper function is a despotism. It is despotic whenever it interferes with the rights of the individual, the family, or the corporation wisely established. There is a maxim among democrats and individualists, that "that government is best which governs least;" a proposition liable to a reductio ad absurdum. What we require is a government which does just what it should do,— neither more nor less; that gives us all needed protection, without restricting our rights and liberties; and that gives all needful help, and no hindrance to individual enterprise.

I do not see that such a government would involve the loss of one iota of individual rights or liberties. It would demand no service that every man would not be proud and happy to render. No man that is a man grudges a tax when he gets his money's worth in convenience, security, prosperity, or even of glory. Every brave man is ready to defend his country. All services to the public are honourable, and all should be suitably rewarded. Where, then, is the hardship or the loss? What human right do we surrender in simply doing right?-for it would be a contradiction in terms to assert that there could be any right to do a wrong. So there is no duty that a man is not the better and happier for the doing.

What, then, are the rights, the duties, or, in other words, the proper functions, of a national government? Clearly they are all those acts which concern the general welfare,-things proper and necessary to be done by the whole people for the whole,-whatever all, acting as one through a central organisation, can best do for the general safety, prosperity, and happiness.

The defence of the state is the interest of every citizen; therefore the government raises and controls army and navy, builds fortifications, and provides munitions of war, for which men are taxed according to their means, or according to the property they have to protect. The soldier who volunteers, enlists, or is draughted, has his compensation. It is also the office of the government to give internal protection to life, reputation, and property, by maintaining an efficient police, courts of law, prisons, and the gallows. It fails in its duty when malefactors are at large, and person or property is in danger. It fails if there is denial or defeat of justice. It fails if one man can oppress or defraud another without due remedy.

The public health is, to a certain extent, the care of the government. It cannot prevent an individual taking a cold or an indigestion; but it can prohibit nuisances, forbid the sale of unhealthy food and drink, establish

quarantines, and insist upon out-door cleanliness and a certain amount of ventilation. It might refuse a license to any place of amusement, and forbid the opening of any public place or conveyance, where pure air was not provided for all comers. It could use preventive measures against epidemic diseases. As many diseases are of a contagious character, it may be the duty of a government to instruct people how to avoid them.

How far the government may rightfully interfere in education, is a vexed question. If it is the interest of the whole people that every one shall have the means of education, according to his position or capacity, then a government may provide universities, and schools of every grade. If education is the cheap defence of nations, let us have an army of schoolmasters. If, furthermore, every man has a right to the opportunity, at least, for some degree of education, and is defrauded if left in ignorance, then it is the duty of the government to see that no one is deprived of that right. And if education, of any kind, or to any degree, will make better citizens, or if ignorance is a general evil, and tends to vice and crime, and so to burden or endanger the state,-then education, or the providing of the means of education, is the right and duty of the go

vernment.

The diffusion of intelligence is so far a recognised duty of government, that every civilised country has its postal system. Our government distributes letters, newspapers, magazines, and books over the whole empire. Railways are subsidised on land for this purpose, and steamers on the ocean. Thousands of persons are employed in this organism of intellectual circulation. It is a general convenience, and promotes the national prosperity. The cost is not equally levied. It may cost as much to convey one letter in a certain case, as it does to distribute a thousand in another; yet each is served so cheaply and so well, that all are satisfied.

There seems to be no good reason why the more rapid circulation of intelligence by telegraph should not be a part of the postal system. The same arguments apply to both; or, if there is any difference, the telegraph, on account of its military importance, is even more necessary to the government than the postal department; and if its use is not so universal, its being made to pay its expenses, or even yield a revenue, disposes of that objection.

It is even contended that the government should either own or have supreme control of all railways. They are post-roads, necessary for the conveyance of the mails. They are also military roads, necessary for the conveyance of troops, stores, and ordnance. They should be the Queen's highways, therefore, and not subject to the interests and caprices of stockholders. It is presumed, however, that a wise government has in these respects secured its own rights; or, what is the same thing, the rights and interests of the whole people.

Taking advantage of a postal system already established, the government has given it other functions than the distribution of intelligence. It is to some extent a carrier of merchandise, since any article not dangerous

to carry may be sent by post for which people are willing to pay the price. Stationery, medicines, jewelry, and a hundred light and valuable articles, are distributed by the government. It does more: it receives, safely keeps, and transports, our money. The government has become the banker and exchange-broker of the whole people. It has long coined our money, and borrowed it on interest; now it undertakes to hoard for us our smallest savings.

Who can draw the line which may not be passed in this direction? The postal system in our empire is like the nervous circulation in the human body. There is a circulation of the blood as well.

Who shall

say that the small packages of the post-office are all the government has a right to convey, and that corn, coal, and cotton must circulate on different principles? If savings-banks can be superseded by the post-office department, why may not there be some department that will supersede all other banks, and give us loans and exchanges?

Let us speculate a little. Would there be any harm if we made "assurance doubly sure" by the establishment of a government bureau of life assurance, by means of which every man could, by paying a certain yearly amount, entitle his widow and children to a government pension at his death? The advantage of absolute security would go for something, and the margin of profits would go to diminish taxation. And if this were found to succeed, it could readily be extended to fire, marine, and all other kinds of assurance. In that case we might dispense with the income tax, and probably lower the duties upon some important articles.

No, sir; I do not want the government to do every thing. I only throw out a suggestion; but if you come to that, why not insure a man's life or ship, as well as a letter or remittance, or a poor man's savings? Is there any difference? Of course you "must draw the line somewhere,” and the place to draw it is where the government cannot do a thing so well, so safely, so cheaply, or so much to the advantage of the public, as can be done by private individuals, or, if you please, corporations, which have not always too much of safety or responsibility.

For three centuries the government of England has undertaken to assure a subsistence to every person in the kingdom. It has said, no one in England, and it now says, no one in the United Kingdom, shall want for food, clothing, and shelter. The necessaries of life shall be assured to every human being, be he the most worthless vagabond or the vilest wretch. He has a legal claim, whatever the right may be, to the necessaries of life. He need not ask for charity; he is forbidden to ask it. He may be punished if he but hold out his hand for alms. The government undertakes to feed him; and if not as a matter of charity, then as a matter of right. We need not discuss the mode of relief, or the efficiency with which the law is carried into effect. The poor-rate is levied every where. In prosperous places it is very light, in others it is a terrible burden; but it is paid. And by this means every person in England is placed in such a relation to the whole community, and the

VOL. VII.

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