We come now in logical order to the grand and fundamental error that has
been made which lies at the back of all political fallacies, and to
which are to be primarily attributed all industrial and financial ills
from which we suffer, both as a nation and as individuals, since, let
the Government be as good as it may, with this error lying between it
and the industries, it were impossible that evil should not come upon
the people. Hence, let the Government and the public service be as bad
as they may; let the people suffer from bad legislation as much as they
have; the fault is, after all, more to be charged against the system
than against the individuals who, for the time, are its administrators.
No matter how skilful the engineer may be, nor how watchful the fireman;
if the engine itself be faulty in construction, it will explode; or if
the engine be perfect in itself, but connected with other machinery that
is not fitted to run at the same speed as the engine, then the machinery
will fly in pieces. The same is true of the relations between the
Government—the political organisations of the people—and the wealth
producers—the industrial organisation of the people, as we shall see,
for the Government is a machine constructed after the highest known
principles of political mechanism, while intimately connected with it is
the industrial organisation, running upon the very lowest—the
rudimental—industrial mechanism. Consequently, when the political
machinery runs at a high rate of speed, requiring an extra amount of
fuel and water, the industrial machinery, in its efforts to supply this
demand, and urged on by its connection to keep pace with the rapid
motion, flies in pieces; becomes prostrated and useless, as we see it
everywhere in the country now, when to keep the political machinery
running at the present high rate of speed, it has to draw upon its
accumulated stock of fuel, as it is doing now to the amount of
$700,000,000 annually.
If we go back and examine the evolution of government and industry, all
this will be made clear; so clear that all may understand it. Certain
fixed laws direct and regulate the growth of everything, and they are
the same for all departments in the universe. The statement of the laws
by which the sidereal and solar systems have evolved, will also describe
those which the earth has obeyed, and are the laws of all material,
governmental, industrial, intellectual, social, moral and religious
change. This law as applied to government and industry may be stated in
philosophic terms, thus: The progress of government and industry is a
continuous establishment of physical relations within the community, in
conformity with physical relations arising within the environment,
during which the government, industry and the environment pass from a
state of incoherent homogeneity to a state of coherent heterogeneity;
and, during which, the constitutional units of the government and
industry become ever more distinctly individualized.
If we examine the growth of industry and government, and the relations
that exist between them now, in this country, we shall discover how far
they have advanced from incoherent homogeneity toward coherent
heterogeneity. Looking through the dim vistas of the past into the
pre-historic time, we find a time when there were no aggregations of
individuals larger than the family; that the family was the only
government and the only organization for industry; that its head ruled
with arbitrary sway, having no one to whom he was accountable, each
family having to depend wholly upon itself for subsistence. The people
then were in the same state politically and industrially, and this was
the homogeneous or original state. Afterwards we find that, for
protection or for conquest, two or more families combined in a political
sense and formed tribes, having an absolute head, but remaining in the
rudimentary state industrially; next, tribes came together and built
cities, and cities then coalesced and constituted nations (the rulers of
which still using arbitrary power), until single rulers aspired to the
dominion of the world; and in a sense succeeded. But all this time,
industrially, the people remained in the original state. There had been
no coalescing for the purpose of subsistence as there had been for
government. While politically the people had evolved through several
stages of progression, industrially they were still in the rudimentary
state.
Having arrived at the culmination of growth in the line of absolute
power, one man having controlled the destinies of the world (thus
typifying the future yet to be when the world shall be united under a
humanitarian, in place of a despotic government; under the rule of all
instead of that of one), a new departure was set up in the direction of
this future condition, and the power to which one man aspired began to
redistribute itself in limited and constitutional monarchies, down
through kings and queens, nobility and republics, to the people
generally, in this country advancing so far as to be divided practically
among nearly one-half of the people, and theoretically among the whole.
Evolution on this line will go on till every person in the world shall
form a part of the government. Then the great human family will be a
possibility.