CHAPTER VI

_Medical Guidance in Legislation_

All thoughtful members of the medical profession will appreciate

the power of education exercised by law, particularly on the rising

generation. As students of human physiology, knowing the inseparable

connection of mind and body, they can more fully understand how the

laws of a country mould social customs, and recognise the gradual but

widespread deterioration of social morality resulting from unjust laws.

In all legislation which endeavours to protect and improve national

health the medical profession is necessarily consulted. The advice

of experts is indispensable in framing measures which affect such

important subjects as wholesome food-supply, the healthy housing of a

people, the prevention and spread of epidemic diseases, etc. Indeed,

so important is the connection of a sound body with a sound mind,

and so linked together are all classes of society, that common-sense

and rational foresight will more and more recognise that health

regulations are a subject of national concern as well as of individual

instruction, and the advice of the medical profession will be

increasingly needed.

It is, however, equally certain that with the advance of intelligence,

of education, and of political power amongst all members of a

community, the great principle of Justice must become the foundation

on which all legislation, which is to prove of permanent benefit to a

nation, will rest. Expediency, regardless of justice, may sometimes

seem to offer an easy solution of difficult practical problems, but it

is a delusive seeming. The temporary adoption of such expedients, when

contrary to the inexorable requirements of far-seeing or sympathetic

justice, will always degrade, and in the end destroy, the society which

persists in resting upon expediency instead of principle.

For this reason slavery and polygamy are always found to hinder the

progress of any nation that is founded upon them. In our own country

the unjust condonation of adultery, by law, in 1857, against the

strenuous opposition of far-seeing statesmen, has educated more than

one generation in a false and degrading idea of physiology.

In all sanitary legislation, where the authority of the medical

profession is recognised by an appeal to any of its members for

guidance in respect to practical regulations, the counsel given

affects the honour of the whole profession, and it is vital to the

authoritative status of the profession that the advice rendered shall

be based upon a sound knowledge of the creative laws which govern our

complex human nature. Superficial or one-sided statements, made on so

momentous an occasion as an appeal by legislation to medicine, degrade

the profession; and practical measures founded upon unsound knowledge

may debase legislation and intensify the evils they are intended to

diminish.

The most serious of all the subjects on which the advice of the medical

profession is required concerns the legislative enactments or municipal

regulations which affect the relations of the sexes.

The importance of these relations cannot be overrated. They deal with

the very source of society. They may affect the soundness of both body

and mind. If legislation fosters immoral customs which spread disease

and death, then such legislation, corrupting a nation’s life, is

treachery to human nature, and the false counsel that has been given is

defiance of Divine law.

A great physiological fact which requires now to be faced is that

promiscuous intercourse cannot be made physically healthy. The reasons

for this have already been stated.[5] But no practical measures are

sound which do not steadily repress this dangerous and debasing

practice in men and women.

This great problem of sexual evil has never hitherto been studied

from the two sides which Nature presents to us. But sound physiology

requires that the parallel functions and equal attraction in the two

halves of humanity be considered. A Christian nation must recognise

that the purchase of the weaker by the stronger is a cruel and debasing

trade which must be checked, and that the substitution of promiscuous

intercourse for Christian marriage is a physical and moral degradation

to each half of the human race.

When the facts are fully grasped--1st, that men are not made dependent

upon women for the maintenance of individual health and vigour; 2nd,

that women violate a law of nature when they fail to reverence their

potential motherhood--the great principle which should guide sex

legislation will be established.

In all practical measures required to check sex disorders in our midst,

the co-operation of experienced men and women is essential.

Whether it be for the maintenance of good order in the streets, for

purification of the slums, for reduction of brothels, for reform

of marriage laws, or for the extirpation of venereal disease, no

regulations will unite expediency with justice, which do not proceed

from the united wisdom of earnest men and women.

There are encouraging signs in the present day that such a source of

hopeful practical reform will become possible, and that men and women

of large experience are rising into that reverential recognition of

the Creative Power entrusted to the human race, which will enable them

to consult together, and thus gain the wisdom necessary for practical

action.

The awful aberrations of our sexual nature, which produce such

profound social disorder and exercise such degrading influence on the

relations of men and women, result from ignorance of physiological laws

and the adaptation of human physical structure to the maintenance of

those laws.

It is through the recognition of these facts by the medical profession,

and their instruction of parents in the truths of physiology, that the

most powerful impetus to human growth may now be given. The medical

profession can prove, through its knowledge of the physical and mental

structure of the human race, that the great Christian doctrine of one

equal standard of morality for our race is true doctrine based upon our

human constitution.

Our noble profession is summoned to a mighty warfare in the present

deadly strife between good and evil. If as Christian physicians,

believing in a beneficent Creative Power, and imbued with the spirit

of the Master, they recognise the Divine unity manifested through the

compound nature of all life, they will become the vanguard of that

growing army of truth which seeks to know and obey Divine law.

APPENDIX I. (PAGE 24)

Human procreation possesses a double relation--viz., _first_, a

relation to the race; and, _second_, a relation to the individual.

In the former character, as the inevitable method of continuing the

race, it is a great providential law whose mysteries we by no means

comprehend, and which is placed quite beyond the control of the

human will; but in the latter, the exercise of this great power of

procreation possesses the distinctive mark of self-control, and as

an individual act our power and responsibility are great. In this

important subject of procreation, no one can speak with scientific

precision and lay down absolute rules respecting its complete method

of action. It has been wisely said by one of the most skilful and

experienced French physicians:[6] ‘No opinions put forth reconcile

all facts. We are obliged to confess that there is a mystery in this

subject, that our most ingenious theories fail to enlighten.’

In considering this subject in its relation to the individual, the

beneficent educational uses of parentage to the individual must be

realized, and the irreparable loss that human society would sustain

from the absence or serious diminution of the parental relation.

Parentage is the most potent and persistent civilizer and educator

of our race. There is no other influence that will compare with the

deep-seated and unique power of parentage in breaking down the narrow,

unsocial barrier of exclusive individual selfishness. Much has always

been said and written about maternal love, but there is a very deep

significance in the persistence with which the Hebrew Scriptures

exalt the power, the supreme beneficence of fatherhood; and there is

a profound reason why universal Christendom is taught to address,

‘Our Father, who art in heaven.’ It is a special lesson to men. The

mother, by the inevitable facts of her nature, when that nature is not

corrupted, is moulded into tenderness and providential watchfulness

over the weak and helpless; her nature is a harmonious whole, and, as

a beneficent general rule, all women are potential mothers. But Nature

does not so inevitably educate men. It is only when his first-born

child is laid in his arms that the man awakens fully to the wonder

and infinite tenderness of paternity. The character of the childless

woman does not suffer from the absence of that beneficent discipline

and development which come from parentage as does the character of the

man. It is very instructive to observe how unmarried or childless women

replace by adoptions or by pets their unexercised natural affections.

Any failure to realize the Divine purpose in this joining together of

cause and effect amongst the mass of mankind, any efforts which tend to

diminish respect for the parental relation and destroy the perception

of its essential sacredness, must be disastrous to the welfare of a

nation.

The educational influence of parentage as a fundamental fact in human

progress must be borne in mind with all the reverence which is due

to it, when we seek to remedy the hideous perversions of natural

sentiment, which we find in our unhuman slums. It is not by destroying

parentage, but by teaching its responsibilities and by restoring its

educational influence upon the adult, that we must hope for progress.

In seeking to bring into the freedom of humanity, not only the swarms

of poor fellow-creatures sweltering in city slums, but all classes of

human beings struggling in the slough of unrestrained lust, we must

reverently study Nature’s laws as they are gradually discovered in

relation to parentage, by which the Creator gradually develops even the

lowest forms of mankind through parentage.

The fact established by Raciborsky, the famous German physician, in a

former generation is that ‘the period when conception is most likely to

take place is near the time of menstruation, either just before it or

during a few days after the time.’ It is not asserted that conception

in the human race is necessarily limited to this interval of time, for

it is true that great stimulus of the organs produced at any period of

the month may bring about a similar congestion or special aptitude for

conception. But the periodic character of the woman’s constitution

regulates the probability of conception to so great an extent that by

this law higher and lower sentient beings are brought into harmony, and

woman assumes her due place as the regulator of sexual intercourse.

Throughout the animal world procreation is governed by the will of

the female. Not violence, but gentleness, is shown by the male to the

female. Her refusal or desire guides sexual intercourse amongst the

lower animals. To raise the human race to this higher animal level from

which it has fallen is a special task of advanced physiology, which can

show the physical method and reason of this redemption.

Human marriage must be regarded as a life companionship, in which the

satisfaction of physical desires forms a secondary, not a primary,

part. When so entered upon, love will direct its relations for the good

of the two joined together in this unique union. The man joins himself

to the woman in loving companionship, and her constitution henceforward

must determine the times of the special act of physical union.

The foregoing physiological law is a truth full of hope and promise

of infinite progress, for nations have hitherto perished in large

measure through the abuse and degradation of women. The regulation of

sexual intercourse in the best interests of womanhood is the hitherto

unrecognised truth of Christianity, towards which we are slowly

groping. When it is fully accepted, a fresh spring of vigour will have

been discovered for the human race.

APPENDIX II. (PAGE 32)

The following sound advice on sexual physiology from the _Lancet_

should be widely known:

‘Young men in their conflict with temptation to sexual advice often

suffer under the disadvantage of receiving but little help from those

to whom they ought to look for it with confidence. Few parents have

the knowledge and the wisdom to tell their sons the most important

truths about the sexual passion just at the time when it is becoming

developed in them, and the latter are therefore left an easy prey to

their strange desires, and to those “lewd fellows of the baser sort”

who are always at hand to corrupt innocent youth.

‘If it is true that to a very large extent parents are unmindful of

one of their gravest responsibilities, it is no less true that the

medical profession has often failed in its duty in connection with

this subject. Medical writers and medical men generally are too often

silent on this matter, and unfortunately, when the silence has been

broken, it has not always been with words of truth and soberness.

We are constantly hearing and saying that “knowledge is power,” yet

we find that little effort is made to impart the knowledge which

would largely aid in preserving the virtue of the young, and the most

pernicious teaching of those who for the lowest of reasons propagate

error is left unnoticed.

‘Knowledge alone will never make a people virtuous, but it is an

invaluable aid to those who are striving to control their passions.

Seeing, on all sides, the terrible physical, mental, and social havoc

wrought by sexual vice, we feel that the medical profession should do

its utmost to stem the evil, and, at any rate, should give utterance

to the truth with no uncertain sound. What are the physiological

facts that ought to be proclaimed by the medical profession? Mainly

these. In the first place, that occasional involuntary emissions of

semen during sleep, and often in association with libidinous dreams,

are natural occurrences in unmarried continent men, and are neither

the cause nor the consequence of disease. The emissions are most

frequent between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five; they vary in

frequency in different men, but are favoured by sedentary occupations

and by lewd thoughts. The subjects of these emissions sometimes

complain of various sensations of malaise, which they attribute to the

depressing influence of these losses; but it is a striking fact that

such symptoms are only met with in those who have an exaggerated or

erroneous conception of the significance of the discharge, and that

they quickly disappear when their real meaning and causation are

understood. To regard such a physiological occurrence as a disease and

name it “spermatorrhœa” is a very serious error.

‘The second fact we wish to insist upon is that sexual continence does

not beget impotence, and that the all-prevailing cause of impotence

is prolonged sexual excess. In support of the opposite conclusion

appeal has been made to analogy. It has been pointed out that unused

muscles and bones waste, and therefore, it is urged, it must be true

that continence will lead to impotence. Such argument is utterly

fallacious, as are most arguments from analogy. Facts in abundance

prove the contrary. Common as is sexual vice, continence is not

unknown among us, and the truth of our statement is not difficult

to verify. The real argument from analogy is drawn from the breast.

This gland is generally inactive for many years after puberty, and

yet, whenever the call for its activity arrives, it is more or less

perfectly responded to. As a matter of fact, impotence does not depend

upon the testicle, but upon the spinal cord; the sexual act is a

physiological nerve-storm, and not simply an act of secretion. Loss

of sexual potency is due to some fault in the nerves of the parts,

or more commonly in the centre, in the spinal cord, which presides

over this function. It is often a solitary nervous phenomenon, and by

itself is not of grave import.

‘The third physiological fact we ought to teach is that no function of

the body is so influenced and controlled by the higher nerve-centres

as the sexual. It is excited by lewd imaginings, loose talk, and

sensuous scenes. It is set in motion by even accidental stimulus of

any part of the nervous system affected by the sexual organism. Hence

the difficulty of continence. On all sides are sights and sounds

that may become the stimulus of sexual excitement. The other side

of the picture is equally true. By the exercise of watchfulness and

self-control the occasions of such excitement may be reduced to a

minimum, and the passion may be subdued.

‘Medical men are sometimes asked to formulate rules of diet and

exercise--hygienic rules--by which immorality is to be banished. The

task is altogether impracticable. Vice is voluntary, and it is only by

the exercise of a resolute self-will that virtue is maintained.

‘We cannot but believe that were these three very elementary but

fundamental physiological truths properly presented and enforced upon

young men very much misery would be avoided. Ignorance of them drives

men into the clutches of ruthless charlatans, leaves them a prey to

groundless fears, and often leads them into vicious habits from which

they are unable to free themselves. To withhold such knowledge is in

many cases to leave youths in ignorance of the one power by which they

can successfully contend against the evil. We feel strongly the urgent

importance of this matter, and hence we speak plainly, and hope that

others, as they have opportunity, will do their best to help young men

in their struggle against vice.’

FOOTNOTES:

[1] See Appendix I., p. 75.

[2] See Acton’s _Functions and Disorders of the Reproductive Organs_,

sixth edition, p. 17.

[3] See Appendix II., p. 79.

[4] See Michel Lévy, _Traité d’Hygiène_ 5th ed., vol. i., pp. 294-299.

[5] _Ante_, p. 53. See also pp. 128, 129.

[6] See Cazeaux, _Des Accouchements_.

MEDICAL RESPONSIBILITY IN RELATION

TO THE

CONTAGIOUS DISEASES ACT

_An Address given to a Meeting of Medical Women in London,

April 27th, 1897._

ADDRESS TO MEDICAL WOMEN

Having been invited to speak to you on ‘The Responsibility of Women

Physicians in relation to the Contagious Diseases Act,’ I have

considered it a duty to accept this invitation for several reasons.

It is twenty-seven years since my attention was first imperatively

called by our philanthropist, Miss Mary Carpenter, to the subject of

regulating or organizing the immorality of women. Since that time I

have necessarily given much thought to this subject.

I have always felt that the National Repeal Societies made a mistake

in relaxing effort after the first check which the Contagious Diseases

Acts suffered in 1886. The fact that, in a House of 670 members, only

245 voted on the side of a great moral question, and that 289 absented

themselves, was worthy of note. It showed that the great campaign

against perverted sex was then only beginning. After that first defeat

the mighty forces of evil, of selfishness, of ignorance, of timidity,

of hypocrisy, and of lust were sure to rally, and many genuine

but short-sighted philanthropists, seeing the shocking results of

unrestrained evil, would grope about for a remedy, and probably again

be misled by a plausible but impossible method of cure.

On studying carefully the important Government Reports just

published--viz., Representations from the Royal College of Physicians,

from the Secretary of State for India, from the Departmental Committee,

from the Army Sanitary Commission, and from Lord George Hamilton’s

despatch--I recognised more fully than ever before the great and

growing danger which is arising from sexual vice. That danger exists,

not only through our army in India, but also through the present

condition of all standing armies. Thus, by the systematic perversion

of the sexual instinct, the gradual destruction of so-called Christian

civilization is taking place.

I felt, moreover, that the reference made in these Reports to the

employment and training of women in India to examine and treat Indian

prostitutes in the military hospitals under the medical officer

demanded the notice of women physicians.

Since 1870 a body of highly educated and reliable women physicians has

grown up in Great Britain and Ireland--a body recognised by the State

as of equal standing with their professional brethren. During that

period also a most important and beneficent medical movement for the

help of our Indian sisters has been established in India, known as the

Dufferin Fund, and promoted by our European women physicians. All women

physicians willingly help the most degraded persons who voluntarily

seek their help. But any proposition that women should be medically

trained in order to prepare the most helpless class of Her Majesty’s

subjects--poor Indian women--for the use of vicious soldiers would be

so gross an insult, as well as extreme folly, that I felt sure that the

responsible gentlemen who authorized the Government Reports could not

realize the meaning of their suggestion. But it laid upon disciplined

and far-seeing medical women, who must carefully consider any practical

measures which concern the relation of the sexes, the imperative duty

of helping in the solution of an urgent and most difficult problem.

It is for these reasons that, as the oldest woman physician, I have

thought it right to accept this invitation, and I earnestly desire

to be aided in what I may suggest by the serious thought of every

experienced physician.

I propose to say a few words under the three following heads:

1st. On the growing and dangerous character of this sexual evil, which

produces venereal disease.

2nd. On the error of Governments in their endeavours to cope with

disease.

3rd. On the right principle which must guide all practical methods of

dealing with it.

I.

_On the Gravity of the Evil of Venereal Disease._

The Royal College of Physicians--our highest medical authority--makes

the following statement:

‘The increase of venereal disease appears to us to be a matter of

serious moment, and to call for the gravest consideration. The

constitutional form of the disease is one of the most serious,

insidious, and lasting of all the contagious diseases that afflict

humanity. Other contagious complaints--_e.g._, smallpox or

scarlatina--are transmissible only for a limited time, and not by

inheritance. With syphilitic disease it is far otherwise: it is the

most lasting in its effects, and most varied in the character of its

specific manifestations; it frequently gives rise to consequences far

removed from its initial symptoms, most seriously implicating and

affecting various organs of the body; it complicates other diseases;

its contagious properties extend over lengthened periods of time,

during which the sufferers are often a source of danger to innocent

people, while they may be, and frequently are as parents, the source

whence specific infection is transmitted to their children....

‘About 13,000 soldiers return to England from India ever year, and

of these, in 1894, over 60 per cent. had suffered from some form of

venereal disease.’[7]

Lord George Hamilton’s despatch quotes from a War Office Report:

‘Of the fatal character of this form of disease’ (syphilis) ‘the

committee, after a visit to the military hospital at Netley, where

invalids from India are sent for treatment, have drawn a dreadful

picture. During their short term of military service a great part

(in some cases more than half) of their time has been spent in

hospital, either in India or at home. Before reaching the age of

twenty-five years these young men have come home presenting a most

shocking appearance: some lay there having obviously but a short time

to live; others were unrecognisable from disfigurement by reason of

the destruction of their features, or had lost their palates, their

eyesight, or their sense of hearing; others, again, were in a state

of extreme emaciation, their joints distorted and diseased. Not a

few are time-expired, but cannot be discharged in their present

condition, incapacitated as they are to earn their livelihood, and in a

condition so repulsive they could not mix with their fellow-men. Their

friends and relatives refuse to receive them, and it is inexpedient

to discharge them only to seek the asylum of the poor-house, so they

remain at Netley in increasing numbers.’

The Government Departmental Committee (p. 11) uses almost the very

words of the French surgeon Diday, who, in writing some years ago of

the dangerous prevalence of venereal disease, so widespread in Paris,

warns his readers how this most insidious disease may be spread by

ordinary contact, by wet-nurses to infants, or by infants to nurses,

by public conveniences, by unsuspected touch, and even by the kiss of

relations.

These reports show that wherever a standing army exists, either in

Europe or America, whether in temperate or tropical climates, at home

or abroad, there exists a focus of the most insidious and dangerous

diseases that afflict human beings--diseases which specially injure

the procreative power, and which are annually spread in varying

amounts amongst the civil population, notwithstanding the most

rigorous measures which the wit of the military mind has been able to

devise--measures which often trample under foot every principle of

justice and mercy.

When we consider also that not only are the standing armies of

every civilized country nurseries of the various forms of venereal

disease, but that the same dangerous diseases prevail in all our large

towns, the gravity of this scourge, which is sapping the vitality of

Christendom, is evident.

The more careful study of venereal disease in its two forms of

gonorrhœa and syphilis is especially incumbent upon women physicians,

on account of the result of important modern researches. These show

that many of the female complaints which have so largely increased,

and which we are naturally called upon to treat, are now considered by

experienced and clear-headed physicians to be often due to gonorrhœal

infection derived from husbands of former loose life--infection

conveyed either directly or from recrudescent and insidious forms of

trouble hitherto unsuspected.[8]

II.

_The Errors of Official Bodies in dealing with this Subject._

Before I venture to criticise any procedure or suggestion of the

Government, I ask your consideration of certain scientific axioms which

must be laid down as necessary data before any wise course of practical

action can be initiated with rational hope of success. The first refers

to the causes of disease.

_Axiom 1._

‘In combating serious disease it is essential to ascertain the chief

cause of the disease, which must be directly attacked and steadily

removed, or no cure is possible.’

We may as well expect to cure typhoid fever whilst allowing sewer gas

to permeate the house, or cholera whilst bad drinking-water is being

taken, as try to cure venereal disease whilst its chief cause remains

unchecked.

I shall show later that Promiscuous Intercourse, or the resort of many

men to one woman, is a prolific source of venereal disease.

The second axiom refers to the physiological rank and scope of our

human faculties.

_Axiom 2._

‘The sexual organs are not essential to individual life, although they

are essential to the continuance of the race. Neither is their full

exercise by sexual congress indispensable to individual health.’

The blind obstinacy with which these scientific facts are ignored in

education, in social sentiment, and in Government organizations, is a

potent cause of national degeneracy, of impaired procreative power, and

enfeebled offspring.

_Hunger_ is the primary instinct and indispensable condition of human

life. It is that which insures the continuance of the individual.

The sexual instinct, with all its grand power to perpetuate the

race, is only a later development, growing with the unfolding of the

intellectual and moral nature. It is shared equally under varying

aspects by each of the two necessary factors in procreation, woman as

well as man.

This fact of the powerful sexual attraction necessarily existent

and dominating in woman, as mother of the race, seems to be quite

overlooked. In any true meaning of the word ‘strength,’ this potent

social force in women demands far more serious study than it has yet

received, although it may exhibit itself in less spasmodic form than in

men.[9]

There are two branches of the medical art which urgently require fuller

consideration. These are:

1st. The physiological life of the organs of generation in both men

and women.

2nd. The immense influence which the mind can exercise over the body

in controlling disease.

The susceptibility of our sexual nature to mental control and direction

to noble ends is a great and encouraging scientific truth.

From these data of true physiology the possibility of continence is

evident. With further physiological study, its great advantage, up to

the full consolidated adult age, can be proved. By scientific study of

the biological facts that underlie these data, it can be shown from

positive medical experience that promiscuous intercourse between the

sexes, or the resort of many men to the same woman, cannot be made

physically safe. The gradual elimination of this destructive practice

is essential to the progress of the race.

These statements are supported both by historical experience and sound

medical knowledge.

The human race, in advancing through lower stages of development,

passes from polygamy and concubinage to the higher state of Christian

marriage. The scientific basis which underlies this advance has not yet

been realized.

Polygamy, although morally degrading to both parties from its

injustice, tyranny, and impairment of vigour, does not produce the

special physical curse of syphilitic disease.

But promiscuous intercourse inevitably tends to give rise to varying

forms of venereal disease, no matter what precautions may be taken.

In the female subject, irritation, congestion, or inflammation of the

parts are the result of unnatural repetition of the sexual act. By

such irritation the natural and healthy secretions of those organs are

rendered morbid.

The natural secretions of the male organs also become morbid in

licentious men, developing into blennorrhagia, or purulent gonorrhœa,

and thus the danger of promiscuity is intensified.

Neither is it possible, when such injurious practices are allowed, to

cleanse or disinfect the female parts as if they were a plane surface.

The woman’s structure is designed for the passage of a child’s head. It

is consequently composed of immensely distensible or elastic tissue,

forming folds or rugæ, which may retain diseased products. It is also

abundantly supplied with active secretory and absorbent glands, whose

action may become unhealthy.

The special danger of specific disease also arising from the congress

of different races is a well-known fact. The alarming epidemic of

venereal disease, which spread like the plague through Europe in

the fifteenth century, was brought from America by the licentious

conquerors of Peru. This gravest form of racial injury is now being

emphasized by the contrast between the condition of our white and

coloured troops in India.

Although medical investigation has failed to determine precisely the

originating cause of the specific virus which produces the form of

venereal disease named syphilis, yet it is always connected more or

less directly with promiscuous intercourse, especially with the advance

of armies.[10]

We know, however, that morbid changes may take place in the natural

secretions of the male and female organs under impure sexual

intercourse, leading to advanced forms of degeneration in the various

results of gonorrhœa, producing, particularly when the epidermis is

abraded, sores, ulcers, etc. And the poison of diseased secretion is

thus conveyed from one to the other partner in vice.

Nor can the presence of infectivity, once acquired, be detected by

inspection; and no infected immoral person, still carrying on impure

sexual relations, can ever be pronounced healthy or ‘sound’ by means

of examination or ocular investigation. Neither can the absence of the

so-called venereal germ gonococcus be relied on as proving health. Its

specific significance is denied by many competent investigators, and

it is absent in some of the worst forms of disease.

‘Mediate contagion’ is also an important and well-established medical

fact. Thus a famous French harlot, called ‘Casse-noix,’ presented none

of the grosser signs of venereal disease, yet continued to infect the

men who resorted to her.

When to the difficulty of pronouncing the parts with their secretions

healthy, is added the existence of uncleanliness, of drunkenness, etc.,

in either party, the danger of these promiscuous relations is evident.

Now, these positive medical facts appear to be unknown in their full

significance to our Government advisers, judging from the latest

reports and proposals with regard to disease in the Indian army,

which seemed designed to allay national panic rather than to reach

the source of the evil. A mistake was certainly made by Government in

withdrawing a subject of such vital importance to the nation, from full

consideration by our Parliamentary representatives, on account of its

painful character. The consequence is that an active but irresponsible

Press has thrown a mass of unsifted and shocking statistics broadcast

amongst the people, creating widespread alarm.

The army statistics imperatively demand a far more searching

examination, both into facts and their causes, than has yet been given,

before rational or permanent legislation can be adopted. Any thoughtful

person examining the reports referred to, will see that such facts as

the following require elucidation: the actual number of individuals

affected (not the repeated return of the same soldier) and the varying

category of their complaints; the variations in different cantonments,

with the causes of such difference; the effect produced by the

introduction of the short-service system and by increased restrictions

on marriage; the closure of voluntary hospitals and dispensaries; the

influence of malaria and tropical climate on the constitution; the

mixture of different races; and the causes which have produced the

improved health results which are obtained in the army in England.

These points have not been sufficiently investigated by unprejudiced

inquiry. The well-meaning effort of Government to meet a very serious

state of things must inevitably fail, because the necessary bases for

legislation are not yet established.

It is clear that, until all these essential facts have been carefully

looked into by a competent Commission and the results presented to

Parliament, no legislation--which apparently destroys the foundations

of morality, which perverts and weakens our youth, and which, under the

misleading phrase ‘voluntary submission,’ reduces our helpless Indian

sisters to virtual slavery of the most destructive character--can be

permanently accepted by the British nation. We must look forward,

therefore, to a longer and more arduous struggle than the one that was

prematurely quieted in 1888. Neither can the struggle between right and

wrong methods of practical action be confined to our Indian army. It

concerns our work in Great Britain as well as in India and in Africa.

The dire diseases in question are connected with all large towns as

well as with every military station, and as physicians we must study

them in these two relations.

III.

_On the Principle which must guide all Practical Methods of dealing

with Venereal Diseases in the Army._

On this vast subject I can only refer to-day to two practical methods

of gradually extirpating venereal disease from our army in India.

_The first_ is the steady discouragement by Government of promiscuous

intercourse.

_The second_ is the removal of the idleness which curses our soldiery

in an army of occupation.

The first indispensable condition in the prevention of disease is the

steady discouragement of promiscuous intercourse.

Now, I assert positively that such discouragement has never been

seriously and steadily tried in the army by Government, but only by

unofficial efforts--efforts which are most valuable, but which are

entirely lacking in the force of organization and in the important

recognition and help which Government alone can afford.

In the ‘Memorandum of the Army Sanitary Commission,’ No. 2, published

this year, on the first page appears the following noteworthy

statement--so utterly misleading as to amount to virtual falsehood:

‘The efforts to teach the soldiers habits of self-control having

so signally failed, those responsible for the maintenance of the

efficiency of the army in India may well be excused if they look about

for some effective means of arresting the progress of the disease and

preserving their battalions fit for service.’

Now, what are the _Government_ efforts here referred to which are said

to have failed?

In examining the circulars issued from the Quartermaster-General’s

Department from 1870 to 1884 for the adoption of stringent measures

‘to reduce the chances of venereal disease,’ it is found that the

recommendation consists in instructing the soldiers how to cleanse

themselves after dangerous sexual indulgence! No circular is issued

from the Quartermaster’s Department requiring that the soldier shall

be taught how to control his ignorant instincts and honouring such

control (_that_ is left to scattered individual effort), but official

instruction is confined to the vain endeavour of teaching him how to

satisfy lust without extreme risk! Surely this is adding hypocrisy to

culpable disregard of the national welfare.

It is encouragement to continence which the young soldier needs; and

remember that numbers of these soldiers are enlisted between eighteen

and twenty-five years of age--an age when every physician knows that

the male organization is being consolidated, and when continence is

invaluable in helping the physical forces to build up a fine strong

manhood. Encouragement to self-control, therefore, must be afforded

from the soldier’s first introduction to Her Majesty’s service.

It must begin with the recruiting sergeants, who should be moral men,

and understand that continence in the soldiers will be regarded with

the highest honour, as preservative of physical efficiency and moral

bravery.

The inspectors of recruits, and especially the medical staff, must give

the important instructions needed by soldiers of how to restrain their

passions.

The sexual organs are not a permissible subject of trade, and purchase

of the female body should be discouraged in all the manifestations

that official influence or human law can legitimately reach. The army

surgeons must _themselves_ know the physical reasons why the practice

of immorality can never be rendered safe, and by object-lessons taken

from the military hospitals they can teach ignorant soldiers that

no death is to be feared in comparison with the shocking results of

incontinence. They can indicate the rational means of physical exercise

and mental discipline by which the eager passions of youth can be

controlled, whilst at the same time they insist upon the necessity of a

non-stimulating diet in tropical climates.

The chaplains of the army have the next and still higher duty to

perform towards each undisciplined youth who is given up body and soul

to the absolute direction of the army authorities. No chaplain should

be appointed to our Indian army who is not only himself a moral man,

but who has also learned the physical possibility and immense advantage

of self-control, and is thus able from the basis of physiological

knowledge to rise to the higher plane of religious instruction. Without

such physiological knowledge, as a sound support of well-grounded

spiritual faith, his sacred calling may seem a badge of hypocrisy, more

deadly and destructive from the profound responsibility of the position

which he has ventured to fill.

The immense influence which commanding officers may exert by their

own example and sympathy cannot be enlarged on here. But until such

influences are brought to bear on the recruits by the _Government_, it

is not true to state that efforts to teach self-control have signally

failed, for they have not been made.[11]

Our responsibilities to the people of India, where England has become

the paramount Power, are very weighty. These responsibilities are due

to its women as well as to its men. It is stated that, according to

the last census, there were the enormous number of 38,047,354 girls

under fifteen years of age in our Indian Empire. What is the duty

of a Christian Government to this helpless mass of human beings?

The formation of poor young Indian women into a class purchasable

by white soldiers--a class despised by their own people, with no

refuge before them, but when used up turned out to die--is a dire

and dastardly disgrace to any Government calling itself civilized.

The removal of temptation by forbidding our soldiers to purchase our

young Indian sisters, and, if necessary, excluding them entirely from

the cantonment, is a distinct duty on the part of any Government that

seriously means to banish venereal disease from our army.

The second urgent preventive measure which should engage our military

authorities is the removal of that dangerous idleness which is a

constant temptation to the soldiers through so many weary hours of

every day. This subject can only be referred to here, for, although

of extreme importance, its practicability and adaptations must first

of all be thoroughly discussed by military men intimately acquainted

with the exigencies of army life. But it is a paramount duty to provide

constant useful employment and healthy recreation for our soldiers in

every army of occupation, during the cooler hours of the evening in

tropical climates, when such employment becomes possible as well as

imperative.

The remarkable organization of an army is the most powerful

training-school, in good or evil, for the poorer classes of men, that

we possess. The conversion of an army of occupation into a school

of the industrial arts needed in its maintenance--with rewards for

industry, sobriety, and self-control--must surely be in the power of

any Government that resolutely determines to accomplish such a noble

transformation. The saving in health and even in money would be a

great economic gain. The Government that carried out such a grand

result would be a mighty benefactor to our race.

It is impossible now to go fully into the various branches of this

vital subject, but I would say to my younger medical sisters, who

will carry on here the grand work of medicine when I have entered

upon another sphere of life, that I most earnestly counsel them to

recognise that the redemption of our sexual relations from evil to

good, rests more imperatively upon them than upon any other single

class of society. It will be a cowardly dereliction of duty to refuse

any longer to study this grave subject of venereal disease now again

forced upon our attention, because the subject--which concerns both

sexes equally--is a repulsive one.

To us medical women, the special guardians of home life, has been

opened the path of scientific medical knowledge, which, as science,

embraces both mind and body; and it is by our advance, independently

but reverently, in that path, guided by our God-given womanly

conscience, that we shall be able to detect clearly the errors in

relation to sex, which lie at the root of our present degeneracy.

It is not conspicuous public action that is required from us, but the

thorough realization of true physiology.

We must ourselves recognise the truth, and instruct parents, that

it is a physiological untruth to suppose that sexual congress is

indispensable to male health. We must warn our young men that no loose

woman picked up in the streets, or in a brothel, or in her own house,

can be pronounced physically safe, no matter how attractive she may

seem to be. We must warn our poor young women patients that yielding

to the solicitations of a supposed lover may unfit them to become

healthy wives and mothers. We must persistently arouse the conscience

of parents to the very grave risks that their daughters run in uniting

themselves to men of former loose life.

This is the confidential but imperative duty of true physicians. It is

by quiet but never-ceasing effort to spread the true view of scientific

medicine amongst our patients, and wherever the opportunity occurs,

that our influence as Christian physicians will gradually permeate

society, and cause truth to prevail over error.

If you perceive that the principles I have laid down are sound, then

hold to them firmly as the most precious truth.

Meet together to mature practical applications of those principles by

intercommunication of experience and mutual encouragement, feeling

sure that where two or three meet together in the everlasting Spirit

of THE CHRIST, you will find, as I have found during a long life, that

light and strength will be given you, and as earnest followers of the

Great Physician you will take part in that mighty work of regeneration,

which from our present small beginnings will, I fully believe, grow and

transfigure the twentieth century.

APPENDIX I. (PAGE 91)

The following testimony is by Dr. T. GAILLARD THOMAS, a recognised

gynæcological authority of New York.

‘Until the last twenty years specific urethritis was regarded, in the

male, as an affection of the most trivial import, as rapidly passing

off, leaving few serious sequelæ, and offering itself as an excellent

subject for jest and good-natured badinage. About two decades ago,

Dr. Emil Noeggerath published a dissertation upon this affection,

which will for ever preserve his name in the list of those who have

accomplished good for mankind, and give him claim to the title of

benefactor of his race. This observer declared, first, that out of

growing young men a very large proportion prior to marriage have

specific urethritis; second, that this affection very generally causes

urethral stricture, behind which a “latent” or low-grade urethritis is

for many years prolonged; third, that even as late as a decade after

the original disease had apparently passed away the man may transmit

it to a wife whom he takes to himself at that time; and fourth, that

the disorder affects, under these circumstances, the ostium vaginæ and

urethra, and thence passes up the vagina into the uterus, through the

Fallopian tubes, where it creates specific catarrh, and by this disease

produces oöphoritis and peritonitis, which becomes chronic, and often

ends in invalidism, and sometimes even in death. For this essay Dr.

Noeggerath was assailed by ridicule and by contradiction. The matter

has now been weighed in the balance, and admitted to its place among

the valuable facts of medicine.

‘My estimate of specific urethritis as a factor in the diseases of

women--and I take no peculiar or exaggerated views concerning the

matter--will be vouched for by all progressive practitioners of

gynæcology to-day. Specific vaginitis, transmitted to virtuous women

by men who are utterly ignorant of the fact that the sins of their

youthful days are at this late period bringing them to judgment, is one

of the most frequent, most active, and most direful of all the causes

of serious pelvic trouble in women--one which meets the gynæcologist

at every turn, and one which commonly proves incurable except by the

dangerous procedure of cœliotomy.

‘Think for a moment of the terrible position in which a high-minded,

upright, and pure man finds himself placed without any very grave or

unpardonable fault on his part. At the age of nineteen or twenty,

while at college, excited by stimulants, urged on by the example of

gay companions, and brought under the influence of that fatal trio

lauded by the German poet--“Wein, Weib, und Gesang”--the poor lad

unthinkingly crosses the Rubicon of virtue! That is all! On the morrow

he may put up the prayer, “Oh, give me back yesterday!” But yesterday,

with its deeds and its history, is as far beyond our reach as a century

ago, and returns at no man’s prayer.

‘Four or five years afterward this youth goes to the marriage bed

suffering, unknowingly, from a low grade of very slight latent

urethritis, the sorrowful memento of that fatal night, which has

existed behind an old stricture, and a result is effected for the

avoidance of which he would most gladly have given all his earthly

possessions.

‘All this sounds like poetry, not prose; like romance, not cold

reality. But there is not a physician in this room who does not know,

and who will not at once admit, that every word that I have uttered is

beyond all question true, and even free from exaggeration.

‘I mentioned, in speaking of the grave duties demanded by puberty,

that one of the important functions of the physician in regard to

the development of the girl during the thirteen years which precede

it, is to instruct her and her guardians how to prepare her for the

approaching issue. In language no less strong I would here insist upon

the physician’s duty to instruct men in all stations of life as to the

importance of a “clean bill of health” in reference to gonorrhœa, both

acute and chronic, before the marriage contract be entered upon.

‘Until a very late period the plan universally followed has been

this: The man about to be married went to his physician, told him the

history of a gonorrhœa, and asked if, now that all discharge appeared

to have ceased, any danger would attend his consummating the tie. The

physician would ask a few questions, examine the virile organ carefully

as to discharge, and, if the “outside of the platter” appeared clean,

give his consent to the union. The evil which has resulted from this

superficial and perfunctory course has been as great as it has been

widespread. To-day the question of stricture, a slight, scarcely

perceptible “latent gonorrhœa,” with its characteristic “gonococcus,”

is looked into, and not until all trace of disease is eradicated is

permission given for the union. A marital quarantine is as necessary

to-day in social life as a national quarantine is for contagious

diseases in general.

‘Few men, however eager for matrimony they may be, would run the great

risks attendant upon precipitancy if they only knew of them clearly

and positively. In no field of medicine is the old adage, “Prevention

is better than cure,” more important than in this one. If physicians

would do their duty fully in the matter, how many unfortunate women now

languishing from “pyosalpinx” would in the next generation be saved!’

APPENDIX II. (PAGE 101)

_The following important Memorandum lately issued is full of promise of

a noble future in the British army._

MEMORANDUM BY THE COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

‘It will be the duty of company officers to point out to the men under

their control, and particularly to young soldiers, the disastrous

effects of giving way to habits of intemperance and immorality; the

excessive use of intoxicating liquors unfits the soldier for active

work, blunts his intelligence, and is a fruitful source of military

crime.

‘The man who leads a vicious life enfeebles his constitution, and

exposes himself to the risk of contracting disease of a kind which has

of late made terrible ravages in the British army.

‘Many men spend a great deal of their short term of service in the

military hospitals, the wards of which are crowded with patients, a

large number of whom are permanently disfigured and incapacitated from

earning a livelihood in or out of the army.

‘Men tainted with this disease are useless to the State while in the

army, and a burden to their friends after they have left it.

‘Even those who do not altogether break down are unfit for service

in the field, and would certainly be a source of weakness to their

regiments and discredit to their comrades if employed in war.

‘It should not be beyond the power of company officers to exercise

a salutary influence in these matters, more particularly over the

younger men. Many of these join the army as mere lads, and are taken

away early in life from the restraints and influences of home. They

should be encouraged to look to their superiors, both officers and

non-commissioned officers, but more especially to the officers

commanding their troops, batteries, and companies, for example and

guidance amid the temptations which surround them.

‘The Commander-in-Chief expects officers and non-commissioned officers

to be always ready and willing to afford them sympathy and counsel, and

to spare no effort in watching over their physical and moral welfare.

‘Officers should do their utmost to promote a cleanly and moral tone

amongst the men, and to insure that all rowdyism and obscenity in word

or action is kept in check. In no circumstances should public acts or

expressions of indecency be tolerated, and if in any case there is

reason to suspect that immorality is carried on in barracks or other

buildings which are under the control of the military authorities,

vigorous steps should be taken by surprise visits or otherwise to put

a stop to such practices. All persons implicated in them, whatever may

be their rank or position in the Service, should be punished with the

utmost severity.

‘Nothing has probably done more to deter young men who have been

respectably brought up from entering the army than the belief,

entertained by them and by their families, that barrack-room life is

such that no decent lad can submit to it without loss of character or

self-respect.

‘The Commander-in-Chief desires that in making recommendations for

selection for promotion regard should be had to the example set to

the soldier. No man, however efficient in other respects, should be

considered fit to exercise authority over his comrades if he is of

notoriously vicious and intemperate habits.

‘The Commander-in-Chief is confident that officers, non-commissioned

officers, and men in the Queen’s service will spare no pains to remove

from the army the reproach which is due to a want of self-restraint on

the part of a comparatively small number of soldiers, and that officers

of all ranks will do their utmost to impress on their men that, in the

important considerations of morality and temperance, soldiers of Her

Majesty’s army should, as befits their honourable calling, compare

favourably with other classes of the civil population.

‘WAR OFFICE,

‘_April 28, 1898_.’

FOOTNOTES:

[7] In the alarming statistics of disease circulated by the Press no

distinction was drawn between gonorrhœa and syphilis, yet the larger

part of the Government returns of Army Venereal Disease refer to

gonorrhœal affections.--See _Report of Departmental Committee_, 1897,

p. 27.

[8] See Appendix (p. 105). See also Dr. T. More Madden in _Medical

Annual_, 1897; Dr. W. J. Sinclair’s _Gonorrhœal Infection in Women_;

Researches of _Sanger_ and other German Investigators; Dr. Lawson Tait

on _Diseases of Women_; and _The Pathology and Treatment of Diseases of

the Ovaries_, 1877 and 1883, etc.

[9] See _The Human Element in Sex_, pp. 22, 23, and pp. 47-58.

[10] See Hirsch, _Handbook of Geographical and Historical Pathology_,

vol. ii., chap. ii. (The New Sydenham Society).

[11] Since the above was written an event has occurred full of hope for

the future. See Appendix II. (p. 109).

RESCUE WORK IN RELATION TO PROSTITUTION AND DISEASE

_An Address given at the Conference of Rescue Workers held in London,

June, 1881_

RESCUE WORK

The letter inviting me to take part in your deliberations proposed many

important subjects for discussion, and, amongst others, the subject

of venereal disease amongst the fallen. On this point I was asked

more especially to give information. I esteem it a privilege to aid

in any way your very important work. I will begin by stating certain

propositions which are fundamental in rescue work, and which are

susceptible of ample proof.

First. By prostitution is meant mercenary and promiscuous sexual

intercourse, without affection and without mutual responsibility.

Second. Its object is on one side pecuniary gain, on the other side the

exercise of physical lust. It is the conversion of men into brutes and

of women into machines.

Third. So far from its being necessary to humanity, it is the

destruction of humanity. It is the production of disease, of gross

physical cruelty, of moral death.

Lastly. It should be checked by legislative enactment, and destroyed by

social opinion.

Now, to amplify and enforce the foregoing propositions would require

a longer space than it would be right for one person to claim in a

general conference, and would prevent the special consideration of

the subject of disease. I will, therefore, simply offer them for

consideration as fundamental propositions. I will only beg you to

observe the distinct statement in the above, that it is the sexual

intercourse without affection and without responsibility that I have

spoken of. I say nothing about the exercise of the sexual faculties

in legitimate or illegitimate single unions, where affection and

responsibility may enter as elements. However injurious, therefore,

illegitimate but single unions may be to the welfare of society, I

leave them entirely aside in these remarks, as not coming under the

head of prostitution. I speak of the conversion of soulless lust into a

business traffic--of the system of brothels, procurers, and so-called

Contagious Diseases Acts--the system which provides for, not checks,

vice. I solemnly declare that so far from this system being a necessary

part of society, it is the greatest crime that can be committed against

our common humanity.

Let me now lay bare to you the root of the whole evil system, because,

as a physician acquainted with the physiological and pathological laws

of the human frame, and as one who has lived through a generation of

medical practice amongst all classes of the community, I can speak

to you with a positive and practical knowledge rarely possessed by

women. The central point of all this monstrous evil is an audacious

insult to the nature of men, a slander upon their human constitution.

It is the assertion that men are not capable of self-control, that

they are so inevitably dominated by overwhelming physical instincts,

that they can neither resist nor control the animal nature, and that

they would destroy their mental or physical health by the practice

of self-control. Now, it is extremely important that you should

understand exactly the nature of this dangerous falsehood. It is that

most dangerous of all kinds of falsehood--the perversion of truth. I

think it was Swedenborg who said: ‘I saw a truth let down into hell,

and forthwith it became a lie.’ I have often thought of this bold

image when observing in the present day the audacious _lie_ which is

announced as truth, in relation to that grand and universal force of

humanity, the sexual power.

When you see a poor drunkard reeling about the streets, when you

recognise the crimes and misery produced by intemperance, you do not

say that drunkenness is necessary to men, and that it is our duty to

provide clean and attractive gin-shops and any amount of unadulterated

alcohol to meet the craving appetites of old and young. On the

contrary, you form a mighty crusade against intemperance. And how do

you go to work? You recognise the absolute necessity which exists in

human nature for amusement, social stimulus, refreshment, change, and

cheerful hilarity; and so you provide bright entertainments, bands

of hope and excursions for the young, attractive coffee palaces and

clubs for the adults. In your entertainments you substitute wholesome

drinks for ‘fire-water’; you repress the sale of alcohol by legislative

enactments, you arrest drunken men and women, and you establish

inebriate asylums for their voluntary cure. You recognise that

drunkenness is a monstrous perversion of legitimate human necessities,

and you set to work to reform public opinion and social customs.

Whilst on the one hand you legislate, on the other hand you educate.

You perceive that the distinctive feature of humanity is its power

of intellectually guiding life, and you train boys and girls in the

exercise of this specially human faculty, moral self-control.

Now, my friends, lust, unchecked, untransfigured by affection, is like

fiery alcoholic poison to the human constitution. It constantly grows

by indulgence; the more it is yielded to, the fiercer it becomes; an

instinct which at first was governable, and susceptible of elevation

and enlightened direction and control, becomes through constant

indulgence a vicious domination, ungovernable and unrestrainable. When

unsubdued it injures the health, produces disease, and grows into an

irresistible tyrannical possession, which converts human beings into

selfish, cruel, and inhuman devils. This is what the great universal

force of sexual passion becomes when we resolutely ignore it in

childhood and youth, refuse to guide it, but subject it to accumulated

vicious influences in manhood; and when even our churches and religious

organizations are afraid or ashamed to deal with this most powerful

force of our God-created human nature, we suffer lust to grow into a

rampant evil, a real drunkenness, and then we have the audacity to say

in this nineteenth century, ‘This is the nature of men; they have not

the human power of intelligent self-control; women must recognise this

fact, and unbridled lust must be accepted and provided for.’

Now, I say deliberately, speaking as a Christian woman, that such

a statement and such a belief is blasphemy. It is blasphemy on our

Creator who has brought our human nature into being, and it is the

most deadly insult that has ever been offered to men. Do not accept

this falsehood. I state to you as a physician, that there is no fact

in physiology more clearly known than the constantly increasing power

which the mind can exercise over the body either for good or evil. If

you let corrupt servants injure your little children, if you allow

your boys and youths to practise self-abuse and fornication at school

and college, if you establish one law of divorce for a man and another

for a woman, if you refuse to protect the chastity of minors, if you

establish brothels, prostitutes, and procurers, you are using the power

of the mind over the body for evil. You are, indeed, educating the

sexual faculty, but educating it in evil. Our youth thus grows up under

the powerful influence of direct education of the sexual instincts in

vice; but so far, even in our so-called Christian civilization, we are

ashamed to attempt direct education of those faculties for good.

I have made the above remarks as bearing directly on the subject of

disease, as well as to call your attention to the proper place which

‘rescue work’ must occupy in humanitarian work. As prostitution is the

direct result of unbridled licentiousness, you may as well attempt

to ‘mop up the ocean’ as attempt to check prostitution, unless at

the same time the root of the evil--viz., licentiousness--is being

attacked. Let it be distinctly understood, however, that I would

encourage, not discourage, rescue work. I honour the self-denial and

beneficence even of those who cannot see the source of the evil they

are trying to mitigate; but I would much more strongly encourage those

who, being engaged in this work, do at the same time clearly recognise

that the warfare against licentiousness is the more fundamental work,

and who, whilst themselves engaged in rescue work, bid God-speed and

give substantial encouragement to all others who are directly engaged

in the great struggle against every form of licentiousness--against

every custom, institution, or law that promotes sexual vice. Such

earnest rescue workers are not simply mopping up the ocean, they are

also helping by their encouragement of other fundamental work to build

up a strong dyke which will resist the ravages of destructive evil

forces. Thus, any efforts that can be made to teach personal modesty

to the little boys and girls in our Board schools all over the country

form a powerful influence to prevent prostitution. Attention to sexual

morality in educational establishments everywhere, in public and

private schools and colleges, amongst young men and young women, is of

fundamental importance. Also efforts to secure decency in the streets,

in literature, in public amusements, form another series of efforts

which make a direct attack upon licentiousness, and cut away another

cause of prostitution. Again, the abolition of unjust laws and the

establishment of _moral_ legislation form another series of effort, and

a vital attack upon the roots of prostitution. Always remember that the

laws of a country possess a really terrible responsibility through the

way in which they influence the rising generation. Inequality between

the sexes in the law of divorce, tolerance of seduction of minors, the

attempt to check sexual disease by the inspection of vicious women,

whilst equally vicious men are untouched--all these striking examples

of the unjust and immoral attitude of legislation will serve to show

how law may become a powerful agent in producing prostitution through

its direct attitude towards licentiousness. Now, every encouragement

afforded by those engaged in rescue work to fundamental efforts to

check licentiousness, either through subscription of money, through

expressed sympathy, or through active work, is also aid to rescue work,

because such fundamental efforts attack the causes of prostitution.

Having thus stated distinctly the aspect under which rescue work must

always be regarded--as a precious outgrowth of Christian charity, but

not as a fundamental reform--I will speak more fully on those points

upon which my opinion has been particularly asked for--viz., the

question of venereal disease as affecting individuals and posterity,

and the effect of late legislation on prostitution.

This subject of venereal disease is a very painful one to the

non-professional mind, and I would not bring it before an ordinary

audience. But this is an assembly of experienced women dealing directly

with the vicious classes of society. I think such persons are bound

to inform themselves on this subject. It is needed to their effective

work, and I consider it an honourable duty to furnish what necessary

medical knowledge I can.

Venereal diseases, syphilis, gonorrhœa, are all names distinctively

used for the diseases of vice, which exist in various forms. All

forms of these diseases are injurious to the health of the diseased

individuals. All forms also are injurious to the health of the

partner in sexual intercourse. But only one form of such disease is

transmissible to offspring. I shall not enter upon the question of the

extent to which these diseases endanger the health of the community. My

long public and private medical observation leads me entirely to concur

in the opinion of Sir John Simon (formerly Medical Officer of the

Privy Council), as to the exaggerated statements that have been made

respecting the extent of these diseases. I fully recognise, however,

the very grave character of venereal disease, and as a hygienist I

consider that _any_ danger from such a cause should be checked.

These diseases are called the diseases of vice because they spring

directly from the promiscuous intercourse of men and women. Syphilis

never arises from the single union of a healthy man and woman. We

do not know the exact conditions under which promiscuity produces

these diseases. Dirt and excess of all kinds favour their production;

but we also know that, however apparently healthy the individuals

may be who give themselves up to indiscriminate debauch, yet these

diseases will speedily arise amongst them. Now, I wish to point out

with emphasis (to you who are engaged with the criminal classes)

this chief originating cause of disease--viz., promiscuity. It is a

cardinal fact to notice in studying this subject, for it furnishes

a solid basis of observation from which you may judge legislation

and all proposed remedial measures. If you will bear in mind that

unchecked licentiousness or promiscuity contains in itself the faculty

of _originating_ venereal disease, you will possess a test by which

you may judge of the good or evil effects of any proposed measure.

Ask yourself whether any particular legislative Act tends to check

licentiousness in both men and women; if not, it is either useless

or injurious to the nation, because it does not check that source of

constantly increasing danger--viz., promiscuity. The effect of brothels

and Contagious Diseases Acts, of establishments and laws which do not

tend to check promiscuous intercourse, is to facilitate, not stop,

such vice, and cannot eradicate the diseases of vice which spring from

such intercourse. The futility of any system which leaves the causes

of disease unchecked, and only tries to palliate its effects, is

evident. The futility of such a false method would remain, even if it

compelled the inspection of vicious men as well as women. But when a

system attempts only to establish an examination of women, leaving men

uninspected, and allowing free scope to the licentiousness of all, it

becomes a direct encouragement to vice. It tends to facilitate that

brutal custom of promiscuous intercourse without affection and without

responsibilities which is the disgrace of humanity--the direct source

of physical disease as well as of measureless moral evil.

But I do not advocate letting disease and vice alone. There is a right

way as well as a wrong way of dealing with venereal disease. I consider

that legislation is needed on this subject. It is unwise to propose to

do nothing because legislation has unhappily done wrong. It is out of

the question to suppose that in this age, when we justly boast of the

progress of hygiene or preventive medicine, so great an evil as the

unchecked spread of venereal disease should be allowed to continue.

It was the necessity of providing some check to the spread of disease

which operated a few years ago, when the unjust and immoral Contagious

Diseases Acts were so unhappily introduced into England by those who

certainly could not have realized their injustice and immorality. All

legislation upon the diseases of vice which can be durable--_i.e._,

which will approve itself to the conscience of a Christian people--must

be based upon two fundamental principles--the principles, viz., of

equal justice and respect for individual rights. These principles

are both overturned in the Contagious Diseases Acts--Acts which are,

therefore, sure to be abolished in a country which, however many

blunders it makes, is equally distinguished for its love of justice

and its love of liberty. Respect for individual rights will not allow

compulsory medical examination and treatment. The right of an adult

over his or her own body is a natural fundamental right. We should

uproot our whole national life, and destroy the characteristics of the

Anglo-Saxon race, if we gave up this natural right of sovereignty over

our own bodies.

Society, however, has undoubtedly the right to prevent any individual

from injuring his neighbour. Interference to prevent such injury is

just. The same sacredness which attaches to individual right over one’s

own person exists for one’s neighbour over his or her own person.

Therefore, no individual suffering from venereal disease has a right

to hold sexual intercourse with any other person. In doing so he goes

outside his individual right and injures his neighbour. The wise

principle on which legislation should act in dealing with venereal

disease is therefore perfectly clear. Society has a right to stop any

person who is spreading venereal disease; but it has no right to compel

such a person to submit to medical treatment. It is of vital importance

to recognise the broad distinction between these two fundamental

points--viz., the just protection which society must exercise over its

members, and the inherent right of self-possession _in_ each of its

members.

Accepting, therefore, one essential legislative principle so strongly

emphasized by the Contagious Diseases Acts--viz., that the State

has a right to interfere with sexual intercourse when its vicious

action injures society--what we must strive for is an enlightenment

of public opinion which will insist upon a _just_, practical law upon

this subject. The contagious diseases legislation indicates that the

time has arrived when the intervention of law is needed to place

greater restraint upon the brutal lust which tramples on the plainest

social obligations. A law wisely enforced, making the communication

of venereal disease by man or woman a legal offence, would place

a necessary check on brutal appetite. Such a law would not be the

introduction of a new principle into legislation. The principle of

considering sexual intercourse for the good of society has always

been recognised, and must necessarily be developed with the growth of

society. It was reaffirmed, but in an injurious manner, a few years ago.

It is the just and moral application of this principle that must be

insisted on, instead of an unjust, immoral, and tyrannical perversion

of the principle. The necessary safeguards in the working of such a

law, the special inquiry, the protection of innocence, the avoidance of

public scandal, etc., must be sought for with care. But the people have

a right to require that legislators shall seek for and find the right

method of enforcing any law which is just in principle and necessary

for the welfare of society. It is not only a duty, it is the greatest

privilege of enlightened statesmen to embody the broad common-sense

and righteous instinct of a Christian people in the institutions of a

nation.

A law which makes it a legal offence for an individual suffering from

venereal disease to hold sexual intercourse with another person, and

a ground for separation, is positively required in order to establish

a true principle of legislation, a principle of just equality and

responsibility which will educate the moral sense of the rising

generation and protect the innocent. Any temporary inconveniences which

might arise before the wisest methods of administering the law had

been established by experience, would be as nothing compared with the

elevating national influence of substituting a right method of dealing

with the diseases of vice for the present unjust and evil method. The

first direct means, therefore, for checking venereal disease is to make

the spreading of this disease a legal offence.

Secondly, a necessary regulation to be established in combating

the spread of this disease is its free treatment in all general

dispensaries and hospitals supported by public or charitable funds.

Such institutions have hitherto refused to receive persons suffering

from disgraceful diseases, or have made quite insufficient provision

for them. This refusal or neglect has left venereal diseases more

uncared for than ordinary diseases. It was a perception of this

neglect which induced the establishment of special institutions for

the cure of such disease. But no general hospitals, supported by

charitable funds given to cure the sick, have a right to refuse to

make adequate provision for any class of curable suffering which is

not infectious--_i.e._, dangerous to the health of the other inmates.

The rigid exclusion in the past of venereal diseases from our general

medical charities, on the ground of their disgraceful nature, has done

great mischief by producing concealment or neglect of disease. This

mischief cannot be repaired in the present day by establishing special

or so-called Lock hospitals. A strong social stigma will always rest

on the inmates of special venereal hospitals, a stigma we ought not to

insist upon inflicting, but no such stigma rests on the inmates of a

general hospital. These hospitals are established for the purpose of

relieving human suffering, and such suffering constitutes a rightful

claim to admission not to be set aside.

While thus advocating the careful framing of a law to make

communication of venereal disease by man or woman a recognised legal

offence, and whilst insisting upon the claim of this form of physical

suffering to free treatment in all general medical charities, I would

most earnestly caution you against the dangerous sophism of attempting

to treat women as prostitutes. Never do so. Never fit women for a

wicked and dangerous trade--a trade which is utterly demoralizing to

both men and women and an insult to every class of women. The time

is coming when Christian men and women will see clearly that this

hideous traffic in female bodies, this frightful danger of promiscuous

intercourse, must be stopped. Men themselves will see that they are

bound to put a check upon lust, and forbid the exercise of physical

sex to the injury of another individual. Serious consideration will

then be given to the ways in which sexual power may be rightfully

exercised, and preserve its distinctly human features of affection

and mutual responsibility. Whilst social sentiment is growing towards

such recognition, it is our duty as women unflinchingly to oppose

prostitution--_i.e._, mercenary indiscriminate sexual intercourse--and

to refuse utterly to countenance it. The tenderest compassion may be

shown to the poor creature who _ceases_ to be a prostitute; the most

beneficent efforts may be exerted, and sympathy for the individual

human soul shown in the merciful endeavour to help every woman to leave

this vile traffic, but never fit her for it.

Let no one countenance this human trade in any way by assisting to

make vice itself attractive and triumphant over our human nature. I

therefore earnestly counsel all those engaged in rescue work to keep

this rule clearly in mind. Plead earnestly and affectionately with

the female prostitute to leave her vile trade. Offer her remunerative

occupation--every rescue worker should be able to do this.[12] If she

has children whom society may justly remove from her deadly influence,

work upon her maternal feeling to induce her to become worthy of the

care of the innocent and regain her children; but do nothing to raise

the condition of prostitutes as such, any more than you would try to

improve the condition of thieves as thieves.

There is, however, another suggestion which I will present to you,

because it bears directly upon your way of dealing with the vicious and

enforcing law, and I believe that its acceptance is only a question of

time. I refer to the introduction of a certain number of superior women

into the police organization, to act, amongst other duties, as heads

of stations where women offenders are brought. I know the scenes which

station-houses witness. I know that policemen themselves often dread

more to arrest a half-drunken woman than a man, and that it requires

more than one man to overpower the maniac who, with tooth and nail

and the fury of drink, fights more like a demon than a human being. I

know that such wretched outcasts rage in their cells like wild beasts,

filling the air with shrieks and blasphemy that make the blood run

cold. Nevertheless, wherever a wretched woman must be brought, there a

true woman’s influence should also be brought. When the drink is gone,

and only the bruised, disfigured womanhood remains, then the higher

influence may exert itself by its respect for the womanhood which still

is there.

There are many special advantages to be derived from the introduction

of a few superior women into the police-force. I think that the

services of a lady like the late Miss Merryweather, for instance,

would be invaluable, both for the actual service such a woman would

render in the management of female offenders, and also for the higher

tone that such appointments would infuse into the police force itself.

It is only the appointment of a few superior women that I should

recommend, and these must be solely responsible to the highest head of

the organization. The introduction of ordinary women corresponding to

the common policeman, or in any way subordinate to lower officials,

would be out of the question and extremely mischievous. But to secure

the insight and influence of superior and proved women in dealing

with female offenders, by placing them in positions of authority and

responsibility, would be a great step made towards the solution of

some of the most difficult problems of society. The problems which

grow out of the relations of the sexes have hitherto proved insoluble,

the despair of legislation. With the most conscientious endeavour

to act wisely, even our ablest statesmen do not know how to deal

with them. It is impossible that men alone can solve these sexual

problems, because there are two human elements to be considered in such

questions, which need the mutual enlightenment which can only result

from the intelligent comparison of those two elements. The necessary

contribution of wise practical suggestion which is needed from the

intelligence of women, can only come through the enlarging experience

gained by upright women. The reform now suggested is one of the steps

by which this necessary experience may be reached--viz., the placing

of some superior women in very responsible positions in the police

organization--positions where their actual practical acquaintance with

great social difficulties may enlighten as well as stimulate their

intelligent devotion in the search for remedies.[13]

Let me, in conclusion, heartily bid God-speed to the noble efforts of

your rescue societies, and to all those engaged in reinstating our

fallen womanhood. I hail with deep satisfaction the meeting of this

Conference. It is a brave and sincere action on the part of Christian

women to meet together and hold serious counsel upon the wisest methods

of overcoming the deep practical heathenism of our society--the

heathenism of tolerating and protecting mercenary promiscuous sexual

intercourse.

FOOTNOTES:

[12] The power of being able to offer fair remunerative occupation is

becoming more and more evidently a necessary condition of rescue work.

The pitiful response, ‘It is my bread,’ is now often addressed to those

many noble-hearted young men who, instead of yielding to, remonstrate

with, the street-walkers.

[13] I cannot now enter upon a subject most difficult and important,

a most prolific source of prostitution--viz., a standing army. I

will only state to you for a special reason that my observations

on the Continent of Europe have convinced me that the prevalence

there of the system of universal military conscription--_i.e._, the

compulsory enrolment of the entire male youth of the nation in the

military service of a great standing army, where purity of life is

not encouraged--is the greatest barrier that can exist to the gradual

humanizing of sexual life. Let us, therefore, most gratefully recognise

that in our own country we have not the gigantic evil of military

conscription to overthrow, and let us ever hold in honour the memory of

our ancestors, who have preserved us from that measureless curse.

PURCHASE OF WOMEN:

THE GREAT ECONOMIC BLUNDER

CONTENTS

PAGE

PREFACE 135

CHAPTER I

THE FOUNDATIONS OF TRADE 142

CHAPTER II

TRADE IN WOMEN 155

PREFACE

The object of this work is to show the real meaning of those relations

of the sexes, which are commonly known under the term of ‘ordinary

immorality.’

Customs in the midst of which we are brought up often befog the vision.

Nations, like individuals, may journey on unsuspicious of danger, if no

fresh wind lift the veil which hides the fatal precipice towards which

they are rapidly moving.

Much has been heard of late respecting criminal immorality--_i.e._, the

abuse of the sexual powers, which human law recognises as crime. The

boundary of criminal immorality has of late been extended in the hope

of protecting young girls. When fathers and mothers begin to realize

what the destruction of their children by lust really means, natural

horror is felt at the corruption or torture of young children of

either sex, and a storm of righteous indignation compels an attempt to

provide a remedy. But at the same time the very causes which directly

lead to and produce the monstrous crimes, are not clearly seen. Horror

at effects, diverts attention from vicious customs which lie at the

root of evil, and which inevitably produce crime. Many of those who

are most actively engaged in devising safeguards for the very young,

draw at the same time a radical distinction between so-called ordinary

immorality and what, at that particular epoch, has been labelled

criminal by process of law.

It is a fatal imperfection of human laws that, being only an endeavour

to enforce fragments of Divine Law, they carry the evil of such

disruption with them, and whilst checking wrong in one direction

strengthen it in another.

This evil is shown in the broad distinction now drawn between different

kinds of sexual immorality, and the results which follow such

distinction.

Some persons who would shrink from the guilt of being the authors of a

first seduction, or of running the risks of legal prosecution, will not

hesitate to engage in ‘ordinary immorality’--that is, they will without

scruple purchase the temporary use of a consenting woman for a little

money; they will justify the transaction by the plea that what women

will sell men may buy; they may even consider that they show a little

contemptuous kindness to women in such buying, as industrial conditions

press most heavily on women. Women also accept false theories of human

nature that blaspheme their Creator, and degrade their exalted rank of

motherhood by welcoming profligates and sacrificing their daughters in

mercenary marriages.

Until the higher law of human relations is more clearly understood,

great confusion of thought will necessarily exist as the result of

ignorance and selfishness. But as old errors are gradually proved, an

inevitable and growing discussion will arise in the present age as to

the natural relations of the sexes. The most contradictory theories are

even now brought forward and actively spread abroad, and in the course

of this unavoidable growth of the mental faculties, the necessity

or expediency, the wisdom or the guilt, of what is called ordinary

immorality must finally be brought before the highest court of public

opinion--_i.e._, the enlightened conscience of men and women.

Although, however, the widest diversity of opinion may still exist on

abstract questions, there is one practical point on which all persons

are compelled to agree. It is this--viz., if temporary bargains are

made, either expressly or tacitly, by which one party gives money to

another for a certain return, such a bargain is trade. If few such

bargains are made it is a limited trade, if many it is an extensive

trade, but in each case the transactions are equally trade, and are

necessarily subject to the laws which govern trade. If, therefore,

women are made the subjects of temporary purchase they become the

subjects of trade. Now, trade is always directed by the rules and

customs prevailing at the time, and the economic aspect requires to be

studied; for the laws which govern trade are not fanciful theories, but

very real practical facts, which lie at the foundation of our social

institutions and silently mould our every-day life.

This is seen clearly by the effects which trade in land produces,

for the methods by which land is held and treated will alter the

character of a people as well as change the face of a country. The

thrifty farms of New England help to create a sturdy, self-respecting

people, whilst the Bonanza machine-managed land monopolies of the West

create luxurious absentees and permanent paupers or tramps. Extensive

enclosure of hills and commons will destroy the country tastes and

habits of generations, whose walks are confined to dusty high roads,

and the destruction of a hamlet fills the slums of a city. So the

Custom-houses and protective tariffs which municipalities create within

their limits, hamper productive industry and help to produce paupers.

Even such a modern practice as bicycling has created an extensive

trade, with dress and habits and various arrangements, all acting

and reacting on the life of the younger generation. Whatever becomes

an article of trade, will become at once subject to the methods and

regulations of trade, with the ever-widening circle of effects which

belong to all industrial action.

Every civilized nation is compelled to cope with the most difficult

of all social problems--viz., sexual evil--and the great modern

development of benevolence and reform has created a new force

endeavouring to solve the same problem. The most varied methods of

action have been called forth. Religion and morality, physiology and

expediency, pity and severity, have all been invoked in turn to rescue

the fallen and to restrain the vicious.

But the subject of ordinary immorality as a trade necessity, governed

by the economic laws which regulate trade, has not been seriously

examined in the light of political economy, nor has the inevitable

effect which trade in women must exercise on the character of a nation,

been clearly shown.

There is widespread mental evasion or unconscious hypocrisy on this

subject. So many wrongs in our social state require to be dealt

with, that reformers willingly avoid the painful consideration of

sexual evil. Hope is felt that some of the great reforms of the day,

in which all thoughtful individuals take a special interest, will

prove fundamental in their curative effects, and heal this gravest of

our diseases. Thus free access to land, co-operation and abolition

of interest, total abstinence, universal suffrage, emigration,

arbitration, State-socialism, etc., are all amongst the popular

panaceas of the present day, each important reform or theory being

chiefly relied on by its special advocates, to change all social

relations and eradicate any serious social disorder.

Favourable, however, as improved material or legislative conditions

may undoubtedly be to the extension of health and morality amongst

a people, these reforms can only be palliative, not curative, if

the fundamental conditions of growth and freedom to use them be

not guaranteed to all portions of a people. Every really curative

measure which will insure the healthy growth of society presupposes a

recognition of the needs of our human constitution and an adaptation

of our social methods to those needs. It is only by such recognition

and such adaptation that any human measure becomes an embodiment of

Divine law. Our conscience must recognise this law, and our Will must

render it obedience, in both individual and collective life, for there

is no other possible method of securing durable and progressive growth.

No human effort can change the supremacy of law written on the human

constitution. Human perversity is free to thwart it temporarily, with

delusive results which serve to bewilder our short vision; but the law

is rewritten with wonderful persistency on each fresh generation of

men, and it remains inexorable in its demand for obedience.

If trade in women be contrary to the Divine law written on the human

constitution, it will destroy society. Insignificant as the needs of

women’s lives may seem to superficial politicians or self-worshipping

wordlings, yet these apparently weak lives, because God-created, will

prove stronger than _all_ their unstable laws and customs. No arrogant

rebellion against the methods of moral progress, however splendid in

its material force and its money-worship, can change the awful reality

of Divine law.

Is the trade in women such a violation? Does it destroy the freedom,

and therefore the necessary conditions of growth, in one-half the human

race?

The time has certainly come when earnest reformers should consider

to what extent trade in the human body exists in this civilized and

Christian nation, and what its effect upon the nation is.

In a subject so vital to human welfare as the social relations which

are established between men and women, it is pusillanimous to refuse to

examine them. If the human conscience, slowly awakening, discovers that

the necessary laws of progress have been ignorantly violated during the

gradual development of humanity, none but pessimists will fold their

hands in despair, none but the partially blind will continue to rebel

against the Divine law of growth.

CHAPTER I

_The Foundations of Trade_

The wealth of a nation is that which contributes to its real and

lasting well-being, which makes it powerful in the present, and durable

and progressive in the future. A happy and intelligent people, with

just and far-seeing rulers or guides amongst them, is a rich nation,

and one that is fulfilling its duty by carrying on the gradual growth

and ever higher development of the human race.

Political economy is the study of wealth, and particularly of those

results of human activity, which spring from the necessary physical

relation of human beings to their surroundings. It is this relation

which makes the firm foundation on which political economy rests.

The subject leads to three great branches of inquiry--viz., the things

which constitute wealth, the method of their production, and the way in

which they are distributed.

The study of wealth must always take in this large scope in any lasting

system of political economy, because the many special branches which

the subject includes are all connected together. Every part is built

up on the sure foundation of the relation of human needs to their

surroundings. If our knowledge of this relation is unsound, the edifice

will in time fall down.

In seeking truth in any branch of political economy, whether it be the

relations of labour and capital, land tenure, or free trade, etc.,

examination must be made of this foundation of knowledge. Artificial

arrangements which do not recognise the primitive needs of human nature

can only lead at last to misery.

Reason shows us that physical needs are imperative in a material world

where mind works through matter. They come first in order of growth

as the primary condition of life, through which and out of which the

higher moral and intellectual forces grow. They are like the first

gasping inspiration of the infant, which sets in motion the astonishing

mechanism of conscious human life. Trade and commerce are a necessary

first outcome of a nation’s physical needs; the nature of its trade and

commerce and the methods by which they are carried on are inextricably

woven in with social life, and stamp the character of a nation.

Trade and commerce being the direct result of human needs in relation

to the material world will be governed by fixed laws respecting the

production and distribution of wealth.

The term ‘law,’ however, is often erroneously applied to temporary

phases in the arrangements of human industry, which vary with age and

country. But a fixed law in political economy can only become such

when, and because, it expresses the necessary relation between human

growth or nature, and the conditions which promote it. It is only the

result of this necessary relation that can claim the name of Law.

Political economy must, therefore, necessarily be a progressive

study, because, although human desires are unlimited, human power or

ability to discover law is much more limited. This power grows with

intelligence, and intelligence is of slower development than the

motive-spring of human life, which is desire, emotion, will.

The methods of producing and distributing wealth must, therefore,

necessarily vary. The interval of growth between the Esquimaux

bartering his skins, and the Englishman exporting machinery is great.

Even the objects and definition of wealth change with race and epoch.

There can be no such thing as finality in the applications of human

knowledge, because the law of progress--progress of individuals and

of races--is stamped on our nature. Political economy, as every other

subject of knowledge, must be revised, extended, and re-adapted from

age to age.

Although the methods of producing and distributing wealth may vary,

the creative Divine laws which determine the welfare of the human race

cannot vary. Below the changing phenomenon of epoch, country, and race

are fixed principles on which trade (which may be designated human)

must be based. The search for these necessary or fixed laws, and their

discrimination from temporary arrangements or adaptations, is not

only a legitimate but an indispensable subject of inquiry. It affects

not only the foundation, but also the whole edifice of life, which is

built upon it in every stage of its construction, helping or injuring

each individual of the community, as well as that collective mass of

individuals which we vaguely style the nation.

No religious teacher, any more than the (technically styled) social

reformer, can afford to ignore this great subject of political economy.

A knowledge of its objects, and of the laws which must govern industry,

in its march to the promised land of human welfare, constitute a Divine

revelation. It is a revelation gradually made through the honest use

of our intellectual faculties, and constantly grows from imperfect

beginnings, to clearer guidance under an earnest search for truth.

A distinct recognition of the different kinds of wealth must precede

any wise or efficient regulation of trade and commerce; for the same

method of production and distribution cannot be applied to all. We can

neither produce air nor sunshine, nor legitimately attempt to make them

the subject of trade, as, being essential to life, they are necessarily

supplied free to all. Neither can we produce earth, which (as far as

it is essential to life) cannot be made a subject of trade on exactly

the same methods, as products which can be indefinitely multiplied.

Neither can strength, energy, or character, which constitute a valuable

part of a nation’s wealth, be grown in a similar way to corn, or thrown

off by machinery like calico. Education is a different process from

printing, and if reduced to the mechanism of manufacture, or converted

into a system of money-getting, is self-destructive, frustrating the

object of education--viz., the drawing out of the infinitely varied

human faculties.

The growth of reason and conscience in the leading nations of the

world, is more and more differentiating the various kinds of wealth;

data are thus being collected from which the progressive laws of

political economy can be deduced. By the leading nations, of course

is here meant those communities where a large number of unselfish

and thoughtful men, inspired by truth, find their teaching accepted

by the uncorrupted though crude intelligence of a patient multitude.

Unfortunately, the so-called ruling classes in these nations, are now

too often the creators or the creatures of the barbarous and savage

hordes which false methods of political economy have produced in our

midst. But the possession of a band of honest truth-seekers with

earnest listeners eager to be guided, marks the really progressive

nation.

It will be found that a true system of political economy must rest

upon a moral basis. Trust, freedom, and gradually evolved sympathy are

the foundations on which all systems of industry are built up that

permanently civilize races.

_Trust._--Trust is the beginning of exchange. Nordenfeld, in his

record of observation round the Arctic circle, relates how money or

articles were left in perfect safety, and faithfully replaced by

equivalent articles in exchange. A striking instance of the necessity

of re-creating trust as the foundation of industry where it has been

lost by long-continued oppression, is related by a gentleman who many

years ago went as mineral viewer to the Nerbudda Valley. Almost alone,

and far removed from the possibility of obtaining white labour, the

natives refused to dig for him. He felt compelled to capture a few

men and enforce a day’s work, which he at once honestly paid for with

the copper currency of the region. But it seemed to the natives the

grossest folly on his part that, having gained the labour, he should

pay for what he had already obtained, and feeling sure that he would

not repeat such folly, they hid away on the following day. The capture

had to be repeated during many successive days, and the heavy coin

brought at great inconvenience for the daily payment, before the habit

of trust could be fairly established; then an oversupply of willing

workers crowded round the encampment.

_Freedom._--A great advance was made in the onward march of humanity,

when the reasons for abolishing slavery became clear to the conscience

of the minority, those nations who lead the van of human progress. The

production and sale of human beings as articles of merchandise can be

made extremely profitable as a money-making trade. It has been truly

said that ‘if the reproduction of capital is the one great means of

a nation’s wealth’; if demand and supply, the employment of labour

by capital, and profits limited only by the wages of maintenance,

are laws of political economy and the right guides of industry, ‘why

should sentimental notions about justice and abstract rights of freedom

interfere with the national good? Why not grow corn on the sweating

system? Why not buy slaves? There is no reason, on so-called economic

grounds, why slaves should not be bred like cattle--bred to the exact

wants of the agriculturist, and when no more wanted melted down in the

sulphuric acid tank and drilled in with the root crops. Any farmer

who would have courage to carry on the economy of labour and the

reproduction of capital in that way, would farm at a splendid profit.’

For long ages the trade in human beings has been, and is still, carried

on. It has only very gradually dawned upon human intelligence, that

short-sighted trading customs which destroy the conditions of human

development, injure equally the sellers and the sold, and gradually

degrade and destroy the societies that practise them. This second

foundation of political economy--freedom--still remains unrecognised

by the large majority of the human race. But when the destructive

character or essential wrong of human slavery was once thoroughly

understood by a portion of our nation, they never rested from the fight

until it was abolished. The abolition of slavery was the revolt of

conscience and intelligence against a false mercantile system which

converts everything into money value.

The wisdom of Wilberforce and his heroic band made a great step in

advance by laying down a permanent law for the guidance of human

industry. They saw that the human being belongs to a different category

of creation from the subjects of his industry, and that he may not

be made a thing of trade, that he owes duties to himself and to his

neighbours, and that he can neither sell another adult, nor his

child, nor himself; that the purpose of human life and the methods of

attaining it, are both destroyed when the condition of human freedom

is violated by converting human bodies into chattels. The abolition of

slavery forbade henceforward the purchase or sale of any individual,

whether adult or child.

The same uprisings against injustice in the kindred nation of

the United States, has produced a similar advance in intelligent

conscientiousness. However much the American Revolution may be

misunderstood, the facts remain which prove the great moral movement

which preceded it--two generations of united and resolute lovers of

freedom, although a minority, had fought to the death for the cause of

justice, and prepared the way for the great Emancipation Act of 1863.

It could not be denied that temporary phases of political economy were

being set at nought by the abolitionists. There was no flaw in the

logic of maintaining slavery as a money-making machine. Vast tracts of

land were to be cultivated, useful products raised, craving desires

satisfied, great profits realized, and a clever, energetic race was

able to abuse a weak, childish one. But the abolition of slavery united

the two leading branches of the Anglo-Saxon race in setting a limit to

trade. They established the law that no human being may be bought or

sold. They recognised the fundamental conditions of human industry,

trust, and freedom, and thus established that higher law that removes

human beings from the operations of a mercantile system which measures

all things by the standard of money.