ECONOMIC HERETICS
I. THE MALTHUSIAN CONTROVERSY
The Economic theory became triumphant. Expounded from new university
chairs, summarised in text-books for schools, advocated in the press,
and applied by an energetic party to some of the most important
political discussions of the day, it claimed the adhesion of all
enlightened persons. It enjoyed the prestige of a scientific doctrine,
and the most popular retort seemed to be an involuntary concession of
its claims. When opponents appealed from 'theorists' to practical men,
the Utilitarians scornfully set them down as virtually appealing from
reason to prejudice. No rival theory held the field. If Malthus and
Ricardo differed, it was a difference between men who accepted the
same first principles. They both professed to interpret Adam Smith as
the true prophet, and represented different shades of opinion rather
than diverging sects. There were, however, symptoms of opposition,
which, at the time, might be set down as simple reluctance to listen
to disagreeable truths. In reality, they were indications of a
dissatisfaction which was to become of more importance and to lead in
time to a more decided revolt. I must indicate some of them, though
the expressions of dissent were so various and confused that it is not
very easy to reduce them to order.
Malthus's doctrine was really at the base of the whole theory, though
it must be admitted that neither Malthus himself nor his opponents
were clear as to what his doctrine really was. His assailants often
attacked theories which he disavowed, or asserted principles which he
claimed as his own.[392] I mention only to set aside some respectable
and wearisome gentlemen such as Ingram, Jarrold, Weyland, and Grahame,
who considered Malthus chiefly as impugning the wisdom of Providence.
They quote the divine law, 'Increase and multiply'; think that Malthus
regards vice and misery as blessings, and prove that population does
not 'tend' to increase too rapidly. Jarrold apparently accepts the
doctrine which Malthus attributes to Suessmilch, that lives have been
shortened since the days of the patriarchs, and the reproductive
forces diminished as the world has grown fuller. Grahame believes in a
providential 'ordeal,' constituted by infant mortality, which is not,
like war and vice, due to human corruption, but a beneficent
regulating force which correlates fertility with the state of society.
This might be taken by Malthus as merely amounting to another version
of his checks. Such books, in fact, simply show, what does not require
to be further emphasised, that Malthus had put his version of the
struggle for existence into a form which seemed scandalous to the
average orthodox person. The vagueness of Malthus himself and the
confused argument of such opponents makes it doubtful whether they are
really answering his theories or reducing them to a less repulsive
form of statement.
In other directions, the Malthusian doctrine roused keen feeling on
both sides, and the line taken by different parties is significant.
Malthus had appeared as an antagonist of the revolutionary party. He
had laid down what he took to be an insuperable obstacle to the
realisation of their dreams. Yet his views were adopted and extended
by those who called themselves thorough Radicals. As, in our days,
Darwinism has been claimed as supporting both individualist and
socialistic conclusions, the theory of his predecessor, Malthus, might
be applied in a Radical or a Conservative sense. In point of fact,
Malthus was at once adopted by the Whigs, as represented by the
_Edinburgh Review_. They were followers of Adam Smith and Dugald
Stewart; they piqued themselves, and, as even James Mill admitted,
with justice, upon economic orthodoxy. They were at the same time
predisposed to a theory which condemned the revolutionary Utopias. It
provided them with an effective weapon against the agitators whom they
especially dreaded. The Tories might be a little restrained by
orthodox qualms. In 1812 Southey was permitted to make an onslaught
upon Malthus in the _Quarterly_;[393] but more complimentary
allusions followed, and five years later the essay was elaborately
defended in an able article.[394] An apology was even insinuated for
the previous assault, though the blame was thrown upon Malthus for
putting his doctrines in an offensive shape. A reference to Owen
suggests that the alarm excited by Socialism had suggested the need of
some sound political economy.
Another controversy which was being carried on at intervals indicates
the line of cleavage between the capitalist and the landed interest.
James Mill's early pamphlet, _Commerce Defended_ (1808), and Torrens's
pamphlet, _Economists Refuted_, were suggested by this discussion.
Although the war was partly in defence of British trade, its
vicissitudes produced various commercial crises; and the patriotic
Tories were anxious to show that we could thrive even if our trade was
shut out from the Continent. The trading classes maintained that they
really supplied the sinews of war, and had a right to some control of
the policy. The controversy about the orders in council and Berlin
decrees emphasised these disputes, and called some attention to the
questions involved in the old controversy between the 'mercantile' and
the 'agricultural' systems. A grotesque exaggeration of one theory was
given by Mill's opponent, William Spence[395] (1783-1860), in his
_Britain independent of Commerce_, which went through several editions
in 1808, and refurbished or perverted the doctrine of the French
economists. The argument, at least, shows what fallacies then needed
confutation by the orthodox. In the preface to his collected tracts,
Spence observes that the high price of corn was the cause of 'all our
wealth and prosperity during the war.' The causes of the high price
('assisted,' he admits, 'by occasional bad seasons') were the
'national debt, in other words, taxation,' which raised the price,
first, of necessaries, and then of luxuries (thus, he says,
'neutralising its otherwise injurious effects'), and the virtual
monopoly by the agriculturist of the home market.[396] All our wealth,
that is, was produced by taxation aided by famine, or, in brief, by
the landowner's power of squeezing more out of the poor. Foreign
trade, according to Spence, is altogether superfluous. Its effect is
summed up by the statement that we give hardware to America, and, in
return, get only 'the vile weed, tobacco.'[397] Spence's writings only
show the effect of strong prejudices on a weak brain. A similar
sentiment dictated a more noteworthy argument to a much abler writer,
whose relation to Malthus is significant--Thomas Chalmers
(1780-1847),[398] probably best remembered at present for his
leadership of the great disruption of 1843. He had a reputation for
eloquence and philosophic ability not fully intelligible at the
present day. His appearance was uncouth, and his written style is
often clumsy. He gave an impression at times of indolence and of
timidity. Yet his superficial qualities concealed an ardent
temperament and cordial affections. Under a sufficient stimulus he
could blaze out in stirring speech and vigorous action. His
intellectual training was limited. He had, we are told, been much
influenced in his youth by the French philosophers of the time, and
had appeared on the side of the more freethinking party in the famous
Leslie controversy. Soon afterwards, however, he was converted to
'evangelical' views. He still accepted Thomas Brown as a great
metaphysician,[399] but thought that in moral questions Brown's
deistical optimism required to be corrected by an infusion of Butler's
theory of conscience. He could adapt Butler's _Analogy_, and write an
edifying Bridgewater Treatise. I need only say, however, that, though
his philosophy was not very profound, he had an enthusiasm which
enables him at times to write forcibly and impressively.
Chalmers was from 1803 to 1815 minister of Kilmany, Fifeshire, and his
attention had already been drawn to the question of pauperism. He took
part in the Spence controversy, by an essay upon the _Extent and
Stability of National Resources_.[400] In this he expounds a doctrine
which is afterwards given in his _Political Economy in Connection with
the Moral State and Moral Aspects of Society_.[401] The main purpose
of his early book is the patriotic. It is meant, like Spence's
pamphlet, to prove that Napoleon could do us no vital injury. Should
he succeed, he would only lop off superfluous branches, not hew down
the main trunk. Chalmers's argument to show the ease with which a
country may recover the effects of a disastrous war is highly praised
by J. S. Mill[402] as the first sound explanation of the facts.
Chalmers's position, however, is radically different from the
position of either James or J. S. Mill. Essentially it is the
development of the French economists' theory, though Chalmers is
rather unwilling to admit his affinity to a discredited school.[403]
He has reached some of their conclusions, he admits, but by a
different path.[404] He coincides, in this respect, with Malthus, who
was equally impressed by the importance of 'subsistence,' or of the
food-supply of the labourer. The great bulk of the food required must
be raised within our own borders. As Chalmers says, in 1832, the total
importation of corn, even in the two famine years, 1800 and 1801,
taken together, had only provided food for five weeks,[405] and could
normally represent a mere fringe or superfluous addition to our
resources. His main argument is simple. The economists have fallen
into a fatal error. A manufacturer, he observes, only makes his own
article.[406] The economists somehow imagine that he also supports
himself. You see a prosperous 'shawl-making village.' You infer that
its ruin would cause the destitution of so many families. It would
only mean the loss of so many shawls. The food which supports the
shawl-makers would still be produced, and would be only diverted to
support makers of some other luxury.[407] There would be a temporary
injury to individuals, but no permanent weakening of national
resources. Hence we have his division of the population. The
agriculturists, and those who make the 'second necessaries' (the
cottages, ploughs, and so forth, required by the agriculturist),
create the great wealth of the country. Besides these we have the
'disposable' population, which is employed in making luxuries for the
landowners, and, finally, the 'redundant' or what he calls in his
later book the 'excrescent' or 'superinduced' population,[408] which
is really supported by foreign trade. Commerce, then, is merely 'the
efflorescence of our agriculture.'[409] Were it annihilated this
instant, we should still retain our whole disposable population. The
effect of war is simply to find a different employment for this part
of the nation. Napoleon, he says, is 'emptying our shops and filling
our battalions.'[410] All the 'redundant' population might be
supported by simply diminishing the number of our cart-horses.[411]
Similarly, the destruction of the commerce of France 'created her
armies.' It only transferred men from trade to war, and 'millions of
artisans' were 'transformed into soldiers.'[412] Pitt was really
strengthening when he supposed himself to be ruining his enemy.
'Excrescence' and 'efflorescence' are Chalmers's equivalent for the
'sterility' of the French economists. The backbone of all industry is
agriculture, and the manufacturers simply employed by the landowner
for such purposes as he pleases. Whether he uses them to make his
luxuries or to fight his battles, the real resources of the nation
remain untouched. The Ricardians insist upon the vital importance of
'capital.' The one economic end of the statesmen, as the capitalist
class naturally thinks, should be to give every facility for its
accumulation, and consequently for allowing it to distribute itself in
the most efficient way. Chalmers, on the contrary, argues that we may
easily have too much capital. He was a firm believer in gluts. He
admits that the extension of commerce was of great good at the end of
the feudal period, but not as the 'efficient cause' of wealth, only as
'unlocking the capabilities of the soil.'[413] This change produced
the illusion that commerce has a 'creative virtue,' whereas its
absolute dependence upon agriculture is a truth of capital importance
in political economy. More Malthusian than Malthus, Chalmers argues
that the case of capital is strictly parallel to the case of
population.[414] Money may be redundant as much as men, and the real
causes of every economic calamity are the 'over-speculation of
capitalists,' and the 'over-population of the community at
large.'[415] In this question, however, Chalmers gets into
difficulties, which show so hopeless a confusion between 'capital,'
income, and money, that I need not attempt to unravel his
meaning.[416] Anyhow, he is led to approve the French doctrine of the
single tax. Ultimately, he thinks, all taxes fall upon rent.[417]
Agriculture fills the great reservoir from which all the subsidiary
channels are filled. Whether the stream be tapped at the source or
further down makes no difference. Hence he infers that, as the
landlords necessarily pay the taxes, they should pay them openly. By
an odd coincidence, he would tax rents like Mill, though upon
opposite grounds. He holds that the interest of the landowners is not
opposed to, but identical with, the interest of all classes.
Politically, as well as economically, they should be supreme. They
are, 'naturally and properly, the lords of the ascendant,' and, as he
oddly complains in the year of the Reform Bill, not 'sufficiently
represented in parliament.'[418] A 'splendid aristocracy' is, he
thinks, a necessary part of the social edifice;[419] the law of
primogeniture is necessary to support them; and the division of land
will cause the decay of France. The aristocracy are wanted to keep up
a high standard of civilisation and promote philosophy, science, and
art.[420] The British aristocracy in the reign of George IV. scarcely
realised this ideal, and would hardly have perceived that to place all
the taxes upon their shoulders would be to give them a blessing in
disguise. According to Chalmers, however, an established church
represents an essential part of the upper classes, and is required to
promote a high standard of life among the poor.[421] In connection
with this, he writes a really forcible chapter criticising the
economical distinction of productive and unproductive labour, and
shows at least that the direct creation of material wealth is not a
sufficient criterion of the utility of a class.
Chalmers's arguments are of interest mainly from their bearing upon
his practical application of the Malthusian problem. His interest in
the problem of pauperism had been stimulated by his residence in
Glasgow, where from 1815 to 1823 he had been actively engaged in
parochial duties. In 1819 he had set up an organised system of
charity in a poor district, which both reduced the expenditure and
improved the condition of the poor. The experiment, though dropped
some years later, became famous, and in later years Chalmers
successfully started a similar plan in Edinburgh. It was this
experience which gave shape to his Malthusian theories. He was, that
is, a Malthusian in the sense of believing that the great problem was
essentially the problem of raising the self-respect and spirit of
independence of the poor. The great evil which confronted him in
Glasgow was the mischief connected with the growth of the factory
system. He saw, as he thought, the development of wealth leading to
the degradation of the labourer. The great social phenomenon was the
tendency to degeneration, the gradual dissolution of an organism, and
corruption destroying the vital forces. On the one hand, this
spectacle led him, as it led others, to look back fondly to the good
old times of homely food and primitive habits, to the peasantry as
represented in Burns's _Cotter's Saturday Night_ or Scott's _Heart of
Midlothian_, when the poor man was part of a social, political, and
ecclesiastical order, disciplined, trained, and self-respecting, not a
loose waif and stray in a chaotic welter of separate atoms. These were
the facts which really suggested his theory of the 'excrescent'
population, produced by the over-speculation of capitalists. The
paupers of Glasgow were 'excrescent,' and the 'gluts' were visible in
the commercial crises which had thrown numbers of poor weavers out of
employment and degraded them into permanent paupers. The facts were
before his eyes, if the generalisation was hasty and crude. He held,
on the other hand, that indiscriminate charity, and still more the
establishment by poor-laws of a legal right to support, was
stimulating the evil. The poor-law had worked incalculable mischiefs
in England,[422] and he struggled vigorously, though unavailingly, to
resist its introduction into Scotland. Chalmers, however, did not
accept the theory ascribed to the Utilitarians, that the remedy for
the evils was simply to leave things alone. He gives his theory in an
article upon the connection between the extension of the church and
the extinction of pauperism. He defends Malthus against the
'execrations' of sentimentalism. Malthus, he thinks, would not
suppress but change the direction of beneficence. A vast expenditure
has only stimulated pauperism. The true course is not to diminish the
rates but to make them 'flow into the wholesome channel of maintaining
an extended system of moral and religious instruction.'[423] In other
words, suppress workhouses but build schools and churches; organise
charity and substitute a systematic individual inspection for reckless
and indiscriminate almsgiving. Then you will get to the root of the
mischief. The church, supported from the land, is to become the great
civilising agent. Chalmers, accordingly, was an ardent advocate of a
church establishment. He became the leader of the Free Church movement
not as objecting to an establishment on principle, but because he
thought that the actual legal fetters of the Scottish establishment
made it impossible to carry out an effective reorganisation and
therefore unable to discharge its true functions.
Here Chalmers's economical theories are crossed by various political
and ecclesiastical questions with which I am not concerned. His
peculiarities as an economist bring out, I think, an important point.
He shows how Malthus's views might be interpreted by a man who,
instead of sharing, was entirely opposed to the ordinary capitalist
prejudices. It would be idle to ask which was the more logical
development of Malthus. When two systems are full of doubtful
assumptions of fact and questionable logic and vague primary
conceptions, that question becomes hardly intelligible. We can only
note the various turns given to the argument by the preconceived
prejudices of the disputants. By most of them the Malthusian view was
interpreted as implying the capitalist as distinguished from the
landowning point of view.
To Southey as to Chalmers the great evil of the day was the growth of
the disorganised populace under the factory system. The difference is
that while Chalmers enthusiastically adopted Malthus's theory as
indicating the true remedy for the evil, Southey regards it with
horror as declaring the evil to be irremediable. Chalmers, a shrewd
Scot actively engaged in parochial work, had his attention fixed upon
the reckless improvidence of the 'excrescent' population, and welcomed
a doctrine which laid stress upon the necessity of raising the
standard of prudence and morality. He recognised and pointed out with
great force the inadequacy of such palliatives as emigration,
home-colonisation, and so forth.[424] Southey, an ardent and impulsive
man of letters, with no practical experience of the difficulties of
social reform, has no patience for such inquiries. His remedy, in all
cases, was a 'paternal government' vigorously regulating society; and
Malthus appears to him to be simply an opponent of all such action.
Southey had begun the attack in 1803 by an article in the _Annual
Review_ (edited by A. Aikin) for which the leading hints were given by
Coleridge, then with Southey at Keswick.[425] In his letters and his
later articles he never mentions Malthus without abhorrence.[426]
Malthus, according to his article in the _Annual Review_, regards
'vice' and 'misery' as desirable; thinks that the 'gratification of
lust' is a 'physical necessity'; and attributes to the 'physical
constitution of our nature' what should be ascribed to the 'existing
system of society.' Malthus, that is, is a fatalist, a materialist,
and an anarchist. His only remedy is to abolish the poor-rates, and
starve the poor into celibacy. The folly and wickedness of the book
have provoked him, he admits, to contemptuous indignation; and Malthus
may be a good man personally. Still, the 'farthing candle' of
Malthus's fame as a political philosopher must soon go out. So in the
_Quarterly Review_ Southey attributes the social evils to the
disintegrating effect of the manufacturing system, of which Adam Smith
was the 'tedious and hard-hearted' prophet. The excellent Malthus
indeed becomes the 'hard-hearted' almost as Hooker was the
'judicious.' This sufficiently represents the view of the sentimental
Tory. Malthus, transformed into a monster, deserves the 'execrations'
noticed by Chalmers. There is a thorough coincidence between this view
and that of the sentimental Radicals. Southey observes that Malthus
(as interpreted by him) does not really answer Godwin. Malthus argues
that 'perfectibility' gives an impossible end because equality would
lead to vice and misery. But why should we not suppose with Godwin a
change of character which would imply prudence and chastity? Men as
they are may be incapable of equality because they have brutal
passions. But men as they are to be may cease to be brutal and become
capable of equality. This, indeed, represents a serious criticism.
What Malthus was really concerned to prove was that the social state
and the corresponding character suppose each other; and that real
improvement supposes that the individual must somehow acquire the
instincts appropriate to an improved state. The difference between him
and his opponents was that he emphasised the mischief of legislation,
such as that embodied in the poor-law, which contemplated a forcible
change, destroying poverty without raising the poor man's character.
Such a rise required a long and difficult elaboration, and he
therefore dwells mainly upon the folly of the legislative, unsupported
by the moral, remedy. To Godwin, on the other hand, who professed an
unlimited faith in the power of reason, this difficulty was
comparatively unimportant. Remove political inequalities and men will
spontaneously become virtuous and prudent.
Godwin accordingly, when answering Dr. Parr and Mackintosh,[427] in
1801, welcomed Malthus's first version of the essay. He declares it to
be as 'unquestionable an addition to the theory of political economy'
as has been made by any writer for a century past; and 'admits the
ratios to their full extent.'[428] In this philosophical spirit he
proceeds to draw some rather startling conclusions. He hopes that, as
mankind improves, such practices as infanticide will not be necessary;
but he remarks that it would be happier for a child to perish in
infancy than to spend seventy years in vice and misery.[429] He refers
to the inhabitants of Ceylon as a precedent for encouraging other
practices restrictive of population. In short, though he hopes that
such measures may be needless, he does not shrink from admitting their
possible necessity. So far, then, Godwin and Malthus might form an
alliance. Equality might be the goal of both; and both might admit the
necessity of change in character as well as in the political
framework; only that Malthus would lay more stress upon the evil of
legislative changes outrunning or independent of moral change. Here,
however, arose the real offence. Malthus had insisted upon the
necessity of self-help. He had ridiculed the pretensions of government
to fix the rate of wages; and had shown how the poor-laws defeated
their own objects. This was the really offensive ground to the
political Radicals. They had been in the habit of tracing all evils to
the selfishness and rapacity of the rulers; pensions, sinecures,
public debts, huge armies, profligate luxuries of all kinds, were the
fruits of bad government and the true causes of poverty. Kings and
priests were the harpies who had settled upon mankind, and were
ruining their happiness. Malthus, they thought, was insinuating a base
apology for rulers when he attributed the evil to the character of the
subjects instead of attributing it to the wickedness of their rulers.
He was as bad as the old Tory, Johnson,[430] exclaiming:--
'How small of all that human hearts endure
That part which kings and laws can cause or cure!'
He was, they held, telling the tyrants that it was not their fault if
the poor were miserable. The essay was thus an apology for the
heartlessness of the rich. This view was set forth by Hazlitt in an
attack upon Malthus in 1807.[431] It appears again in the _Enquiry_ by
G. Ensor (1769-1843)--a vivacious though rather long-winded Irishman,
who was known both to O'Connell and to Bentham.[432] Godwin himself
was roused by the appearance of the fifth edition of Malthus's _Essay_
to write a reply, which appeared in 1820. He was helped by David Booth
(1766-1846),[433] a man of some mathematical and statistical
knowledge. Hazlitt's performance is sufficiently significant of the
general tendency. Hazlitt had been an enthusiastic admirer of Godwin,
and retained as much of the enthusiasm as his wayward prejudices would
allow. He was through life what may be called a sentimental Radical,
so far as Radicalism was compatible with an ardent worship of
Napoleon. To him Napoleon meant the enemy of Pitt and Liverpool and
Castlereagh and the Holy Alliance. Hazlitt could forgive any policy
which meant the humiliation of the men whom he most heartily hated.
His attack upon Malthus was such as might satisfy even Cobbett, whose
capacity for hatred, and especially for this particular object of
hatred, was equal to Hazlitt's. The personal rancour of which Hazlitt
was unfortunately capable leads to monstrous imputations. Not only
does Malthus's essay show the 'little low rankling malice of a parish
beadle ... disguised in the garb of philosophy,' and bury 'false
logic' under 'a heap of garbled calculations,'[434] and so forth; but
he founds insinuations upon Malthus's argument as to the constancy of
the sexual passion. Malthus, he fully believes, has none of the
ordinary passions, anger, pride, avarice, or the like, but declares
that he must be a slave to an 'amorous complexion,' and believe all
other men to be made 'of the same combustible materials.'[435] This
foul blow is too characteristic of Hazlitt's usual method; but
indicates also the tone which could be taken by contemporary
journalism.
The more serious argument is really that the second version of Malthus
is an answer to his first. Briefly, the 'moral check' which came in
only as a kind of afterthought is a normal part of the process by
which population is kept within limits, and prevents the monstrous
results of the 'geometrical ratio.' Hazlitt, after insisting upon
this, admits that there is nothing in 'the general principles here
stated that Mr. Malthus is at present disposed to deny, or that he has
not himself expressly insisted upon in some part or other of his
various works.'[436] He only argues that Malthus's concessions are
made at the cost of self-contradiction. Why then, it may be asked,
should not Hazlitt take the position of an improver and harmoniser of
the doctrine rather than of a fierce opponent? The answer has been
already implied. He regards Malthus as an apologist for an unjust
inequality. Malthus, he says, in classifying the evils of life, has
'allotted to the poor all the misery, and to the rich as much vice as
they please.'[437] The check of starvation will keep down the numbers
of the poor; and the check of luxury and profligacy will restrain the
multiplication of the rich. 'The poor are to make a formal surrender
of their right to provoke charity or parish assistance that the rich
may be able to lay out all their money on their vices.'[438] The
misery of the lower orders is the result of the power of the upper. A
man born into a world where he is not wanted has no right, said
Malthus, to a share of the food. That might be true if the poor were a
set of lazy supernumeraries living on the industrious. But the truth
is that the poor man does the work, and is forced to put up in return
with a part of the produce of his labour.[439] The poor-laws recognise
the principle that those who get all from the labour of others should
provide from their superfluities for the necessities of those in
want.[440] The 'grinding necessity' of which Malthus had spoken does
not raise but lower the standard; and a system of equality would
lessen instead of increasing the pressure. Malthus, again, has
proposed that parents should be responsible for their children. That
is, says Hazlitt, Malthus would leave children to starvation, though
he professes to disapprove infanticide. He would 'extinguish every
spark of humanity ... towards the children of others' on pretence of
preserving the 'ties of parental affection.' Malthus tries to argue
that the 'iniquity of government' is not the cause of poverty. That
belief, he says, has generated discontent and revolution. That is,
says Hazlitt, the way to prevent revolutions and produce reforms is to
persuade people that all the evils which government may inflict are
their own fault. Government is to do as much mischief as it pleases,
without being answerable for it.[441] The poor-laws, as Hazlitt
admits, are bad, but do not show the root of the evil. The evils are
really due to increasing tyranny, dependence, indolence, and
unhappiness due to other causes. Pauperism has increased because the
government and the rich have had their way in everything. They have
squandered our revenues, multiplied sinecures and pensions, doubled
salaries, given monopolies and encouraged jobs, and depressed the poor
and industrious. The 'poor create their own fund,' and the necessity
for it has arisen from the exorbitant demands made by the rich.[442]
Malthus is a Blifil,[443] hypocritically insinuating arguments in
favour of tyranny under pretence of benevolence.
Hazlitt's writing, although showing the passions of a bitter partisan,
hits some of Malthus's rather cloudy argumentation. His successor,
Ensor, representing the same view, finds an appropriate topic in the
wrongs of Ireland. Irish poverty, he holds, is plainly due not to
over-population but to under-government,[444] meaning, we must
suppose, misgovernment. But the same cause explains other cases. The
'people are poor and are growing poorer,'[445] and there is no mystery
about it. The expense of a court, the waste of the profits and money
in the House of Commons, facts which are in striking contrast to the
republican virtues of the United States, are enough to account for
everything; and Malthus's whole aim is to 'calumniate the people.'
Godwin in 1820 takes up the same taunts. Malthus ought, he thinks, to
welcome war, famine, pestilence, and the gallows.[446] He has taught
the poor that they have no claim to relief, and the rich that, by
indulging in vice, they are conferring a benefit upon the country. The
poor-laws admit a right, and he taunts Malthus for proposing to
abolish it, and refusing food to a poor man on the ground that he had
notice not to come into the world two years before he was born.[447]
Godwin, whose earlier atheism had been superseded by a vague deism,
now thinks with Cobbett that the poor were supported by the piety of
the mediaeval clergy, who fed the hungry and clothed the naked from
their vast revenues, while dooming themselves to spare living.[448] He
appeals to the authority of the Christian religion, which indeed might
be a fair _argumentum ad hominem_ against 'Parson Malthus.' He
declares that Nature takes more care of her work than such irreverent
authors suppose, and 'does not ask our aid to keep down the excess of
population.'[449] In fact, he doubts whether population increases at
all. Malthus's whole theory, he says, rests upon the case of America;
and with the help of Mr. Booth and some very unsatisfactory
statistics, he tries to prove that the increase shown in the American
census has been entirely due to immigration. Malthus safely declined
to take any notice of a production which in fact shows that Godwin
had lost his early vigour. The sound Utilitarian, Francis Place, took
up the challenge, and exploded some of Godwin's statistics. He shows
his Radicalism by admitting that Malthus, to whose general benevolence
he does justice, had not spoken of the poor as one sprung like himself
from the poor would naturally do; and he accepts modes of limiting the
population from which Malthus himself had shrunk. For improvement, he
looks chiefly to the abolition of restrictive laws.
II. SOCIALISM
The arguments of Hazlitt and his allies bring us back to the Socialist
position. Although it was represented by no writer of much literary
position, Owen was becoming conspicuous, and some of his sympathisers
were already laying down principles more familiar to-day. Already, in
the days of the Six Acts, the government was alarmed by certain
'Spencean Philanthropists.' According to Place they were a very feeble
sect, numbering only about fifty, and perfectly harmless. Their
prophet was a poor man called Thomas Spence (1750-1815),[450] who had
started as a schoolmaster, and in 1775 read a paper at Newcastle
before a 'Philosophical Society.'[451] He proposed that the land in
every village should belong to all the inhabitants--a proposal which
Mr. Hyndman regards as a prophecy of more thoroughgoing schemes of
Land Nationalisation. Spence drifted to London, picked up a precarious
living, partly by selling books of a revolutionary kind, and died in
1815, leaving, it seems, a few proselytes. A writer of higher literary
capacity was Charles Hall, a physician at Tavistock, who in 1805
published a book on _The Effects of Civilisation_.[452] The effects of
civilisation, he holds, are simply pernicious. Landed property
originated in violence, and has caused all social evils. A great
landlord consumes unproductively as much as would keep eight thousand
people.[453] He gets everything from the labour of the poor; while
they are forced to starvation wages by the raising of rents. Trade and
manufactures are equally mischievous. India gets nothing but jewellery
from Europe, and Europe nothing but muslin from India, while so much
less food is produced in either country.[454] Manufactures generally
are a cause and sign of the poverty of nations.[455]
Such sporadic protests against the inequalities of wealth may be taken
as parts of that 'ancient tale of wrong' which has in all ages been
steaming up from the suffering world, and provoking a smile from
epicurean deities. As Owenism advanced, the argument took a more
distinct form. Mill[456] mentions William Thompson of Cork as a 'very
estimable man,' who was the 'principal champion' of the Owenites in
their debates with the Benthamites. He published in 1824 a book upon
the distribution of wealth.[457] It is wordy, and is apt to remain in
the region of 'vague generalities' just at the points where specific
statements would be welcome. But besides the merit of obvious
sincerity and good feeling, it has the interest of showing very
clearly the relation between the opposing schools. Thompson had a
common ground with the Utilitarians, though they undoubtedly would
consider his logic to be loose and overridden by sentimentalism. In
the first place, he heartily admired Bentham: 'the most profound and
celebrated writer on legislation in this or any other country.'[458]
He accepts the 'greatest happiness principle' as applicable to the
social problem. He argues for equality upon Bentham's ground. Take a
penny from a poor man to give it to the rich man, and the poor man
clearly loses far more happiness than the rich man gains. With
Bentham, too, he admits the importance of 'security,' and agrees that
it is not always compatible with equality. A man should have the
fruits of his labour; and therefore the man who labours most should
have most. But, unlike Bentham, he regards equality as more important
than security. To him the main consideration is the monstrous mass of
evil resulting from vast accumulations of wealth in a few hands. In
the next place, he adapts to his own purpose the Ricardian theory of
value. All value whatever, he argues, is created by labour. The
labourer, he infers, should have the value which he creates. As things
are, the labourer parts with most of it to the capitalist or the owner
of rents. The capitalist claims a right to the whole additional
production due to the employment of capital. The labourer, on the
other hand, may claim a right to the whole additional production,
after replacing the wear and tear and allowing to the capitalist
enough to support him in equal comfort with the productive
labourers.[459] Thompson holds that while either system would be
compatible with 'security,' the labourer's demand is sanctioned by
'equality.' In point of fact, neither system has been fully carried
out; but the labourer's view would tend to prevail with the spread of
knowledge and justice. While thus anticipating later Socialism, he
differs on a significant point. Thompson insists upon the importance
of 'voluntary exchange' as one of his first principles. No one is to
be forced to take what he does not himself think a fair equivalent for
his labour. Here, again, he would coincide with the Utilitarians.
They, not less than he, were for free trade and the abolition of every
kind of monopoly. But that view may lead by itself to the simple
adoption of the do-nothing principle, or, as modern Socialists would
say, to the more effectual plunder of the poor. The modern Socialist
infers that the means of production must be in some way nationalised.
Thompson does not contemplate such a consummation. He denounces, like
all the Radicals of the day, monopolies and conspiracy laws. Sinecures
and standing armies and State churches are the strongholds of tyranny
and superstition. The 'hereditary possession of wealth' is one of the
master-evils, and with sinecures will disappear the systems of entails
and unequal distribution of inheritance.[460] Such institutions have
encouraged the use of fraud and force, and indirectly degraded the
labourer into a helpless position. He would sweep them all away, and
with them all disqualifications imposed upon women.[461] This once
done, it will be necessary to establish a universal and thoroughgoing
system of education. Then the poor man, freed from the shackles of
superstition and despotism, will be able to obtain his rights as
knowledge and justice spread through the whole community. The desire
to accumulate for selfish purposes will itself disappear. The labourer
will get all that he creates; the aggregate wealth will be enormously
multiplied, though universally diffused; and the form taken by the new
society will, as he argues at great length, be that of voluntary
co-operative associations upon Owen's principles.
The economists would, of course, reject the theory that the
capitalists should have no profits; but, in spite of this, they might
agree to a great extent with Thompson's aspirations. Thompson,
however, holds the true Socialist sentiment of aversion to Malthus. He
denies energetically what he takes to be the Malthusian doctrine: that
increased comfort will always produce increased numbers.[462] This has
been the 'grand scarecrow to frighten away all attempts at social
improvement.' Thompson accordingly asserts that increased comfort
always causes increased prudence ultimately; and looks forward to a
stationary state in which the births will just balance the deaths. I
need not inquire here which theory puts the cart before the horse. The
opposition possibly admits of reconciliation; but here I only remark
once more how Malthus stood for the appeal to hard facts which always
provoked the Utopians as much as it corresponded to the stern
Utilitarian view.
Another writer, Thomas Hodgskin, honorary secretary of the Birkbeck
Institution, who published a tract called _Labour defended against the
Claims of Capital, or the Unproductiveness of Capital proved_ (1825),
and afterwards gave some popular lectures on political economy, has
been noticed as anticipating Socialist ideas. He can see, he says, why
something should go to the maker of a road and something be paid by
the person who gets the benefit of it. But he does not see why the
road itself should have anything.[463] Hodgskin writes without
bitterness, if without much logic. It is not for me to say whether
modern Socialists are well advised in admitting that these crude
suggestions were anticipations of their own ideas. The most natural
inference would be that vague guesses about the wickedness of the rich
have been in all ages current among the poor, and now and then take
more pretentious form. Most men want very naturally to get as much and
to work as little as they can, and call their desire a first principle
of justice.
Perhaps, however, it is fairer to notice in how many points there was
unconscious agreement; and how by converting very excellent maxims
into absolute dogmas, from which a whole system was deducible, the
theories appeared to be mutually contradictory, and, taken separately,
became absurd. The palpable and admitted evil was the growth of
pauperism and demoralisation of the labourer. The remedy, according to
the Utilitarians, is to raise the sense of individual responsibility,
to make a man dependent upon his own exertions, and to give him
security that he will enjoy their fruit. Let government give education
on one hand and security on the other, and equality will follow in due
time. The sentimental Radical naturally replies that leaving a man to
starve does not necessarily make him industrious; that, in point of
fact, great and growing inequality of wealth has resulted; and that
the rights of man should be applied not only to political privilege,
but to the possession of property. The Utilitarians have left out
justice by putting equality in the background. Justice, as Bentham
replied, has no meaning till you have settled by experience what laws
will produce happiness; and your absolute equality would destroy the
very mainspring of social improvement. Meanwhile the Conservative
thinks that both parties are really fostering the evils by making
individualism supreme, and that organisation is necessary to
improvement; while one set of Radicals would perpetuate a mere blind
struggle for existence, and the other enable the lowest class to
enforce a dead level of ignorance and stupidity. They therefore call
upon government to become paternal and active, and to teach not only
morality but religion; and upon the aristocracy to discharge its
functions worthily, in order to stamp out social evils and prevent a
servile insurrection. But how was the actual government of George IV.
and Sidmouth and Eldon to be converted to a sense of its duties? On
each side appeal is made to a sweeping and absolute principle, and
amazingly complex and difficult questions of fact are taken for
granted. The Utilitarians were so far right that they appealed to
experience, as, in fact, such questions have to be settled by the slow
co-operation of many minds in many generations. Unfortunately the
Utilitarians had, as we have seen, a very inadequate conception of
what experience really meant, and were fully as rash and dogmatic as
their opponents. I must now try to consider what were the intellectual
conceptions implied by their mode of treating these problems.
FOOTNOTES:
[392] The discussions of population most frequently mentioned are:--W.
Godwin, _Thoughts occasioned by Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon_, etc., 1801;
R. Southey, in (Aikin's) _Annual Review for 1803_, pp. 292-301; Thomas
Jarrold, _Dissertations on Man_, etc., 1806; W. Hazlitt, _Reply to the
Essay on Population_, 1807; A. Ingram, _Disquisitions on Population_,
1808; John Weyland, _Principles of Population_, etc., 1806; James
Grahame, _Inquiry into the Principle of Population_, 1816; George
Ensor, _Inquiry concerning the Population of Nations_, 1818; W.
Godwin, _On Population_, 1820; Francis Place, _Principles of
Population_, 1822; David Booth, _Letter to the Rev. T. R. Malthus_,
1823; M. T. Sadler, _Law of Population_, 1830; A. Alison, _Principles
of Population_, 1840; T. Doubleday, _True Law of Population_, 1842.
[393] _Quarterly Review_, Dec. 1812 (reprinted in Southey's _Moral and
Political Essays_, 1832).
[394] _Quarterly Review_, July 1817, by (Archbishop) Sumner, Malthus's
commentator in the _Records of Creation_. Ricardo's _Letters to
Trower_, p. 47.
[395] _Spence's Tracts on Political Economy_ were collected with a
preface in 1822. Spence is better known as an entomologist, and
collaborated with William Kirby.
[396] _Tracts_ (1822), p. xiii.
[397] _Ibid._ p. 59.
[398] Chalmers's _Works_ were published in twenty-five volumes in
1841-42.
[399] Chalmers's _Works_, i. 237.
[400] This essay is not in his collected _Works_, though in vol. xxi.
it is promised for the next volume.
[401] _Works_, xix. and xx.
[402] Mill's _Political Economy_, bk. i. ch. v. Sec. 7 and 8. See
Chalmers, xix. 140.
[403] _National Resources_ (Appendix).
[404] _Works_, xix. 306.
[405] _Ibid._ xix. 226, 233.
[406] _National Resources_, p. 48.
[407] _Works_, xix. 64.
[408] _Works_, xix. 226.
[409] _Ibid._ xix. 235.
[410] _National Resources_, p. 158.
[411] _Ibid._ p. 160.
[412] _Works_, xix. 262.
[413] _Works_, xix. 75.
[414] _Ibid._ xix. 118-47.
[415] _Ibid._ xix. 343.
[416] See _Ibid._ xix. 171. J. S. Mill speaks of Chalmers's
speculations with a respect which it is difficult to understand.
[417] Chalmers holds that the Ricardian doctrine of rent inverts the
true order. Fertile lands do not pay rent because poor lands are
brought into cultivation, but poor lands are cultivated because
fertile lands pay rent. He apparently wishes, like Malthus, to regard
rent as a blessing, not a curse. The point is not worth arguing. See
_Works_, xix. 320.
[418] _Works_, xix. 304-5.
[419] _Ibid._ xix. 370.
[420] _Ibid._ xix. 366.
[421] _Ibid._ xix. 322.
[422] _Works_, xx. 247, 296.
[423] _Ibid._ xx. 290.
[424] _Works_, xix. 380.
[425] The copy of Malthus's second edition with Coleridge's notes used
by Southey is in the British Museum.
[426] See Southey's _Political_.
[427] _Thoughts occasioned by Dr. Parr's Spital Sermon._ A copy
annotated by Coleridge is in the British Museum.
[428] _Thoughts_, etc., pp. 56, 61, 62.
[429] _Ibid._ p. 71.
[430] Lines added to Goldsmith's _Traveller_.
[431] _Reply to the Essay on Population_, etc., 1807. The book was
anonymous. The first three letters had appeared in Cobbett's
_Register_. Two others with an appendix are added.
[432] Bentham's _Works_, x. 603, 604; and _Dictionary of National
Biography_.
[433] See _Dictionary of National Biography_.
[434] Hazlitt's _Reply_, p. 19.
[435] _Ibid._ pp. 139-41.
[436] _Ibid._ p. 117.
[437] _Reply_, p. 263.
[438] _Ibid._ p. 344.
[439] _Ibid._ p. 284.
[440] _Ibid._ p. 287.
[441] _Reply_, p. 351.
[442] _Ibid._ pp. 362-64.
[443] _Ibid._ p. 352.
[444] Ensor's _Enquiry_, p. 294.
[445] _Ibid._ p. 441.
[446] _Godwin on Population_, p. 506.
[447] _Ibid._ p. 553.
[448] _Ibid._ p. 558.
[449] Godwin, p. 219.
[450] See account of him reprinted from Mackenzie's _History of
Newcastle_ and _Dictionary of National Biography_.
[451] Reprinted by Mr. Hyndman in 1822, with a preface.
[452] See _Dictionary of National Biography_. Hall's book was
reprinted by J. M. Morgan in the 'Phoenix Library,' 1850. See Anton
Menger's _Das Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_ (second edition,
1891), for notices of Hall, Thompson, and others.
[453] _Effects of Civilisation_ (1850), p. 86.
[454] _Ibid._ p. 71.
[455] _Ibid._ p. 115.
[456] _Autobiography_, p. 125. See Holyoake's _History of
Co-operation_, i. 16, 109, 278-83, 348, for some interesting notices
of Thompson. Menger (_Recht auf den vollen Arbeitsertrag_, p. 100
_n._) holds that Thompson not only anticipated but inspired Marx:
Rodbertus, he says, drew chiefly upon St. Simon and Proudhon.
[457] _An Inquiry into the Principles of the Distribution of Wealth
most conducive to Human Happiness; applied to the Newly Proposed
System of Voluntary Equality of Wealth._--1824.
[458] _Distribution of Wealth_, p. 327.
[459] _Distribution of Wealth_, p. 167, etc.
[460] _Ibid._ p. 310.
[461] He wrote, as J. S. Mill observes, an _Appeal_ [1825] against
James Mill's views on this matter--a fact which no doubt commended him
to the son.
[462] _Distribution of Wealth_, pp. 425, 535, etc.
[463] _Labour Defended_, p. 16.