Thus we find, as was foretold, that whenever the state be- gins to exceed its oflice of protector, it begins to lose protec- tive power. Not a single supplementary service can it attempt without producing dissent; and in proportion to the amount of dissent so produced by it, the state defeats the end for which it was estabhshed. Let it undertake many additional duties, and there will be scarcely a man who does not object to being taxed on account of one or more of them — scarcely a man, therefore, to whom the state does not in some degree do tlie very opposite of what it is appointed to do. Now this thing wliich the state is appointed to do is the essential thing — the thing by which society is made possible; and these other things proposed to be done are non-essential, for society is possible without them. And as the essential ought not to be sacrificed to the non-essential, the state ought not to do any- thing but protect. " ■ THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 279 It will perhaps be urged, however, that the evil done by a government, when it thus oversteps its original duty, is only an apparent one; seeing that though it diminishes men's spheres of action in one dii-ection, it adds to them in another. All such supplementary functions, an objector may say, subserve in some way or other the wants of society; that is, they facihtate the satisfaction of men's desires; that is, they afford to men greater freedom for the exercise of their faculties. For if you argue that taking away a man's property diminishes his freedom to exercise his faculties, because it diminishes his means of exercising them, then you must in fairness admit, that by procuring for him certain of the objects he desires, or by taking away the obstacles that lie between him and those objects, or by otherwise helping him to his ends, the state is increasing his power to exercise his faculties, and hence is practically increasing his freedom.
To all which the answer is, that cutting away men's opportu- nities on one side, to add to them on another, is at best accom- panied by a loss. Let us remember that the force by which a society, through its government, works out certain results, is never increased by administrative mechanisms, but that part of it escapes in friction. Government evidently cannot create any facihties for the exercise of faculties; all it can do is to re- distribute them. It is easy to calculate what one of these artificial arrangements can effect. Set down the amount of power to satisfy his wants, which it takes from a citizen in extra taxes; deduct the serious waste occurring under official manipulations; and the remainder, transformed into some new shape, is all that can be returned to him. The transaction is consequently a losing one. So that, whilst in attempting to serve the pubhc by undertaking supplementary functions, a government fails in its duty towards all who dissent; it does not reaUy compensate for this by additional advantages afforded 280 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY.
to the rest; to whom it merely gives, with one hand, less than it takes away with the other.
But in truth the transaction is a yet more detrimental one than it thus appears, for even the gift is a delusion — has a minus sign hefore it, unobserved, perhaps, by the many, but sufficiently visible to the analyst. The expediency-philosophy of wliich this general state-superintendence is a practical ex- pression, embodies the belief that government ought not only to guarantee men in the unmolested pursuit of happiness, but • should provide the happiness for them and deliver it at their doors. Now no scheme could be more self-defeating, for no scheme could be more completely at variance with the consti- tution of things. ]\'Ian, as briefly delineated at the outset, (p. 19) consists of a congeries of faculties, qualifying him for surrounding conditions. Each of these faculties, if normally developed, yields to him, when exercised, a gratification consti- tuting part of his happiness; whilst, in the act of exercising it, some deed is done subserving the wants of the man as a whole, and afibrding to the other faculties the opportunity of perform- ing in turn their respective functions, and of producing every one its pecuhar pleasure: so that, when healthily balanced, each subserves all, and all subserve each. We cannot live at all unless this mechanism works with tolerable efficiency; and we can live entirely — that is can have entire happiness — only when the reciprocity between capacities and requirements is perfect. As before said, the complete man is the self-sufficing man — the man who is in every point fitted to his circumstances — the man in whom there are desires corresponding not only to all the acts which are immediately advantageous, but to those which are remotely so. Evidently, one who is thus rightly con- stituted cannot be helped. To do anything for him by some artificial agency, is to supersede certain of his powers — is to leave them unexercised, and therefore to diminish his happi- THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 281 ness. To healthily-developed citizens, therefore, state aid is doubly detrimental. It injures them both by what it takes and by what it does. By the revenues required to support its agencies it absorbs the means on which certain of the faculties depend for their exercise; and by the agencies themselves it shuts out other faculties from their splieres of action.
" But men are not complete; they are not healthily de- veloped; they have not capacities in harmony with their wants; and therefore, as matters stand, a government does not by its interpositions preoccupy offices which there are faculties to fill." Veiy true; but next to being what we ought to be, the most desirable thing is that we should become what we ought to he as fast as possible. We are undergoing the process of adaptation. We have to lose the characteristics which - fitted us for our original state, and to gain those which will fit us for our present state; and the question to be asked, respect- ing these mechanical remedies for our deficiencies, is — do they faciUtate the change? Certainly not. A moment's thought . will convince us that they retard it. No one can need remind- ing that demand and supply is the law of hfe as well as the law of trade — that strength will show itself only where strength is called for — that an undeveloped capability can be developed only under the stem discipline of necessity. Would you draw out and increase some too feeble sentiment? Then you must set it to do, as well as it can, the work required of it. It must be kept ever active, ever strained, ever inconvenienced by its incompetency. Under this treatment it will, in the slow lapse of generations, attain to efficiency; and what was once its impossible task will become the source of a healthy, pleasurable, and desired excitement. But let a state-instrumentality be thrust between such faculty and its work, and the process of adaptation is at once suspended. Growth ceases; and in its place commences retrogression. The embryo agency now super- seded by some commission — some board and stafi^ of officers, straightway dwindles; for power is as inevitably lost by inac- tivity as it is gained by activity. Hence, humanity no longer 282 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DOTY.
goes on moulding itself into harmony with the natural require- ments of the social state; but begins, instead, to assume a form fitting these artificial requirements. It is consequently stopped in its progress towards that self-sufficingness charac- teristic of the complete man; or, in other words, is prevented from fulfilling the conditions essential to complete happiness. And thus, as before said, not only does a government reverse its function by taking away more property than is needful for protective purposes, but even what it gives, in return for the excess so taken, is in essence a loss.
There is indeed one faculty, or rather combination of facul- ties, for whose shortcomings the state, as far as in it lies, may advantageously compensate — that, namely, by which society is made possible. It is cleax that any being whose constitution is to be moulded into fitness for new conditions of existence must be placed under those conditions. Or, putting the proposition specifically — it is clear that man can become adapted to the social state, only by being retained in the social state. This granted, it follows that as man has been, and is still, deficient in those feelings which, by dictating just conduct, prevent the perpetual antagonism of individuals and their consequent dis- union, some artificial agency is required by which their union may be maintained. Only by the process of adaptation itself can be produced that character which makes social equilibrium spontaneous. And hence, whilst this process is going on, an instrumentality must be employed, firstly to bind men into an associated state, and secondly to check all conduct endangering the existence of that state. Such an instrumentality we have in a government.
And now mark that whether we consider government from this point of view, or from that previously occupied, our con- clusions respecting it are in essence identical. For when government fulfils the function here assigned it, of retaining THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 283 men in the circumstances to ■which they are to be adapted, it fiilfils the function which we on other grounds assigned it — that of protector. To administer justice, — to mount guard over men's rights, — to prevent aggression, — is simply to render society possible, to enable men to Hve together — to keep them in contact with their new conditions. And seeing that the two definitions are thus at root the same, we shall be prepared for the fact that, in whichever way we specify its duty, the state cannot exceed that duty without defeating itself. Por, if regarded as a protector, we find that the moment it does anything more than protect, it becomes an aggressor instead of a protector; and, if regarded as a help to adaptation, we find that when it does anything more than sustain the social state, it retards adaptation instead of hastening it.
Thus much for the positive evidence: let us now enter upon the negative. The expediency-philosophers say that govern- ment has other functions to fulfil besides that of upholding men's lights. If so, what are they? To the assertion that the boundary line of state-duty as above drawn is at the wrong place, the obvious rejoinder is— show us where it should be drawn. This appeal the expediency-philosophers have never yet been able to answer. Their alleged definitions are no defi- nitions at all. As was proved at the outset (p. 3), to say that government ought to do that which is "expedient," or to do that which will tend to produce the " greatest happiness," or to do that wliich will subserve the "general good," is to say just nothing; for there is infinite disagreement respecting the natures of these desiderata. A definition of which the terms are indefinite is an absurdity. Whilst the practical interpreta- tion of "expediency" remains a matter of opinion, to say that a government should do that which is " expedient," is to say that it should do, what we tlrink it should do!
StiU then our demand is — a definition. Between the two extremes of its possible power — the everything and the notliing with ■wluch a government may be entrusted, where is the proper limitation? Of the innumerable fields of action lying open to an uncontrolled legislature, which shall it occupy? Shall it ex- tend its interference to the fixing of creeds, as in the old times; or to overlooking modes of manufacture, farming operations, and domestic affairs, as it once did; or to commerce, as of late— to education, as now — to public health, as some wish — to dress, as in China — to literature, as in Austria — to charity, to manners, to amusements? If not to all of them, to which of them? Should the peiplexed inquirer seek refuge in authority, he will find precedents not only for these lout for many more such interferences. If, like those who disapprove of master tailors having their work done ofi' the premises, or like those who want to prevent the produce of industrial prisons displacing that of free artizans, or like those who would restrain charity-school children from competing with seamstresses, he thinks it desir- able to meddle with trade aiTangements, there are plenty of exemplars for him. There is the law of Henry VII., which directed people at what fail's they should sell their goods ■; and that of Edward VI., which enacted a fine of JEIOO for a usmious bargain; and that of James I., which prescribed the quantity of ale to be sold for a penny; and that of Henry VIII., which made it penal to sell any pins but such as are " double headed, and have their head soldered fast to the shank, and well smoothed; the shank well shaven; the point well and round-filed and sharpened." He has the countenance, too, of those enact- ments which fixed the wages of labour; and of those which dictated to farmers, as in 1533, when the sowing of hemp and flax was made compulsory; and of those which forbad the use of certain materials, as that now largely-consumed article, log- wood, was forbidden in 1597. If he approves of so extended a superintendence, perhaps he would adopt M. Louis Blanc's idea that " government should be considered a^ the supreme regulator of production," and having so adopted it, push state control as far as it was once carried in France, when manufacturers THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 285 were pilloried for defects in the materials they employed, and in the texture of their fabrics; when some were fined for weav- ing of worsted a kind of cloth which the law said should he made of mohair, and others because their camlets were not of the specified width; and when a man was not at hberty to choose the place for his establishment, nor to work at all seasons, nor to work for everybody. Is this considered too detailed an in- terference? Then, perhaps, greater favour will be shown to those German regulations by which a shoemaker is pre- vented from following his craft until an inspecting jury has certified to his competence; which disable a man who has chosen one calling from ever adopting another; and which forbid any foreign tradesman from settling in a German town without a hcence. And if work is to be regulated, is it not proper that work should be provided, and the idle compelled to perform a due amount of it? In which case how shall we deal with our vagrant population? Shall we take a hint from rietcher of Saltoun, who warmly advocated the establishment of slavery in Scotland as a boon to " so many thousands of our people who are at this day dying for want of bread "? or shall we adopt the analagous suggestion of IMr. Carlyle, who would remedy the distresses of Ireland by organizing its people into drilled regiments of diggers? The hours of labour too — what must be done about these? Having acceded to the petition of the factory workers, ought we not to entertain that of the journeymen bakers? and if that of the journeymen bakers, why not, as Mr. Cobden asks, consider the cases of the glass-blowers, the nightmen, the iron-founders, the Shefiield knife-grinders, and indeed aU other classes, including the hard- worked M.P.s themselves? And when employment has been provided, and the hours of labour fixed, and trade regulations settled, we must decide how far the state ought to look after peoples' minds, and morals, and health. There is this educa- tion question: having satisfied the prevalent wish for govern- ment schools with tax-paid teachers, and adopted Mr. Ewart's plan for town-libraries and museums, should we not canvass the 286 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY.
supplementary proposal to have national lecturers? and if this proposal is assented to, would it not be well to carry out the scheme of Sir David Brewster, who desires to have " men or- dained by the State to the undivided functions of science" — "an intellectual priesthood," "to develop the glorious truths which time and space embosom"?^ Then having established " an intellectual priesthood " to keep company with our re- ligious one, a priesthood of physic such as is advocated by certain feeless medical men, and of which we have already the germ in our union doctors, would nicely complete the trio. And when it had been agreed to put the sick under the care of pub- lic officials, consistency would of course demand the adoption of Mr. G. A. Walker's system of government funerals, under which " those in authority " are " to take especial care " that " the poorest of our brethren " shall have " an appropriate and solemn transmission " to the grave, and are to grant in certain cases " gratuitous means of interment." Having carried out thus far the communist plan of doing everything for everybody, should we not consider the peoples' amusements, and, taking ex- ample from the opera-subsidy in France, estabhsh public baU- roomSj and gratis concerts, and cheap theatres, with state-paid actors, musicians and masters of the ceremonies; using care at the same time duly to regulate the popular taste, as indeed in the case of the Art-Union subscribers oui- present Government proposed to do? Speaking of taste naturally reminds us of dress, in which sundry improvements might be enforced; for instance — the abolition of hats: we should have good precedent either in Edward IV., who fined those wearing " any gown or mantell " not according to specification, and who Umited the superfluity of peoples' boot toes, or in Charles II., who pre- scribed the material for his subjects' grave-clothes. The matter of health, too, would need attending to; and, in deaUng with this, might we not profitably reconsider those ancient statutes which protected peoples' stomachs by restricting the expenses " See Address to the British Association at Edinburgh, in 1850.
THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 287 of their tables: or, remembering bow injurious are our fasbion- able late bours, migbt we not advantageously take a bint from tbe old Norman practice, and fix tbe time at wbicb people sbould put out their fires and go to bed: or might we not with benefit act upon tbe opinion of M. Beausobre, a statesman, who said it was " proper to watch during the fruit season, lest tbe people eat that wbicb is not ripe "? And, then, by way of mating tbe superintendence quite complete, would it not he "well "to follow tbe example of that Danish king "who gave directions to his subjects how they should scour their floors, and poHsb their furniture?
Multiply these questions into a volume full; add to them the endless subordinate ones to which in practice they must give rise; and some idea may be formed of the maze through wbicti the expediency-philosopher has to find his way. Where now is his clue? Again comes tbe inquiry — how does be propose to determine between what should be attempted and what should not? which is his definition? If he would escape tbe charge of poUtical empiricism, be must show us some scientific test by which he can in each case determine whether or not state-superintendence is desirable. Between the one extreme of entire non-interference, and the other extreme in which every citizen is to be transformed into a grown-up baby, " with bib and pap-spoon,", there he innumerable stopping places; and be who would have tbe state do more than protect is required to say where be means to draw tbe hue, and to give us substantial reasons why it must be just there and nowhere else.
After the difficulty of finding out tbe thing to be done, there comes the other difficulty of finding out the way to do it. Let us excuse the expediency-philosopher one half of bis task — let us for the occasion assume something to be unanimously agreed to as a proper undertaking; and now suppose we en- quire of him — How about your means of accomplishing it?
288 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DDTY.
Are you quite sure they will answer? Are you quite sure that your apparatus will not break down under its work? quite sure that it wiU produce the result you wish? quite sure that it will not produce some very different result? quite sure that you will not get into one of those imbroglios that so many have lost themselves in? There is no lack of warnings. " Let us put down usury," said to themselves the rulers of the middle ages: they tried; and did just the reverse of what they intended; for it has turned out, that " all regulations inter- fering with the interest of money render its terms more rigorous and burdensome." " We will exterminate Protestantism," whispered the continental Catholics to each other: they tried; and instead of doing this they planted in England the germs of a manufacturing organization which has to a great extent su- perseded tlieir own. " It will be well to give the labouring classes fixed settlements " thought the Poor Law legislators; and having acted out this thought there eventually gi-ew up the clearance system, with its overcrowded cottages, and non- resident labour-gangs. "We must suppress these brothels," decided the authorities of Berlin in 1845: they did suppress them; and in 1848, the registrar's books and the hospital returns proved matters to be considerably worse than before*. " Suppose we compel the London parishes to maintain and educate their pauper cliildren in the country," said statesmen in the time of George III; " ' it would greatly tend to the preservation of the lives of the infant parish poor: ' " so they passed the 7 Geo. III., c. 39; and by-and-by there began the business of child-farming, ending in the Tooting tragedy. Are not such warnings worthy of attention? Or does the expe- diency-pliilosopher value those facts only which are embodied in Blue-books and Board of Trade tables?
Then as to his administrative mechanisms — can he answer for the satisfactory working of them? The common remark that public business is worse managed than all other business, is not altogether unfounded. To-day he will find it illustrated in • Reports of Dr. Fr. J. Behrend. See Medical Tivies, March 16, 1850.
THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY. 289 the doings of a department whicli makes a valuable estate like the New Forest, a loss to the country of £3000 a year; -which allowed Salcey Forest to be wholly cut down and made away with by a dishonest agent; and which, in 1848, had its accounts made up to March, 1839, only. To-morrow he may read of Admiralty bunglings — of ships badly built, pulled to pieces, re-built and patched — of nearly a million spent on iron war- steamers which are now found not to stand cannon shot — and of a sluggishness which puts the national dockyards " about seven years " behind all others. Now the exposure is of an' extravagance which builds gaols at a cost of £1200 per prisoner; and now of a carelessness which permits important legal records to rot amongst rubbish. Here is a sailor of whom the State demanded sixpence a month towards a hospital which was never provided, and whose pension from the Merchant-Seamen's Fund is nothing like what it would have been from an ordinary assurance society; and there, on the other hand, is a Mint moneyer who gets more than £4000 a year for doing what a tithe of the amount would amply pay for. Official delay is seen in the snail-paced progress of the Museum Catalogue; official mismanagement in the building of Houses of Parhament not fit for speaking in; and official perversity in the opposition uniformly made to improvement by the Excise, the Customs, and the Post Office authorities. Does the expediency-philoso- pher feel no apprehensions on contemplating such evidence? Or, as one specially professing to be guided by experience, does he think that on the whole experience is in his favour?
Perhaps he has not heard that of ten mechanical inventions, usually some nine fail; and that, before the tenth can be made to answer, endless obstacles that had never been dreamed of have to be surmounted. Or, if he has heard this, does he think that the properties of humanity beiug so much easier to under- stand than those of iron and brass, and an institution con- structed of living men being a simple thing as compared with an inanimate mechanism, legislative schemes are not likely thus to miscarry?
u 290 THE LIMIT OF STATE-DUTY.
" It is a gross delusion to believe ia tte sovereign power of political machinery," says M. Guizot. True: and it is not only a gross delusion, but a very dangerous one. Give a child exaggerated notions of its parent's power, and it will by-and-by cry for the moon. Let a people believe in government-omni- potence, and they will be pretty certain to get up revolutions to achieve impossibHities. Between their exorbitant ideas of what the state ought to do for them on the one side, and its miser- able performances on the other, there will surely be generated feelings extremely inimical to social order — feelings which, by adding to the dissatisfaction otherwise produced, may occasion outbreaks that would not else have occurred.
But this belief in " the sovereign power of political machi- nery " is not bom with men; they are taught it. And how are they taught it? Evidently by these preachers of universal legislative superintendence — by the pretensions of statesmen themselves — and by having seen, firom their childhood, all kinds of functions undertaken by government officials. The idea which, in his critique upon the late events in France, M. Guizot calls a " gross delusion," is an idea which he, in common with others, has been practically inculcating. Following in the steps of his predecessors, he has kept in action, and in some cases even extended, that system of official supervision to which this idea owes its birth. Was it not natural that men, living under the regulation of legions of prefects, sub -prefects, in- spectors, controllers, intendants, commissaries, and other civil employes to the number of 535,000 — men who were educated by the government, and taught religion by it — who had to ask its consent before they could stir from home — who could not publish a handbill without a permit from the authorities, nor circulate a newspaper after the censor's veto — who daily saw it dictating regulations for railways, inspecting and managing