Not only does the power of resistance of the regulated part /ecrease in a geometrical ratio as the regulating part increases, but the private interests of many in the regulated part itself, make the change of ratio still more rapid. In every circle conversations show that now, when the passing of competitive examinations renders them eligible for the public service, youths are being educated in such ways that they may pass them and get employment under Government. One consequence is that men who might otherwise reprobate some further growth of officialism, are led to look on it with tolerance, if not favourably, as offering possible careers for those dependent on them and those related to them. Any one who remembers the numbers of upper-class and middle-class families anxious to place their children, will see that no small encouragement to the spread of Icgishitive control is now coming from those who, but for the personal interests thus arising, would be hostile to it.
This pressing desire for careers is enforced by the preference for careers which are thought respectable. " Even if his salary is small, his occupation will be that of a gentleman," thinks the father, who wants to get a Government-clerkship for his son. And this relative dignity of State-servants as compared with those occujDied in business, increases as the administrative organization becomes a larger and more powerful element in society, and tends more and more to fix the standard of honour. The prevalent Jimbition with a young Frenchman is to get some small official post in his locality, to rise thence to a place in the local centre of government, and finally to reach some head office in Paris. And in Russia, ^\here that universality of Statc-iegulatiun which charao- 30 THE MAN VERSUS THE STATE.
« t3i':ze.«> the militant type of society has been carried furthest, we see this ambition pushed to its extreme. Says Mr. Wallace, quoting a passage from a play: — " All men, even shopkeepers and cobblers, aim at becoming officers, and the man who has passcnl his whole life without official rank seems to be not a human being."* These various influences working from above downwards meet with an increasing response of expectations and solicitations pro- ceeding from below upwards. The hard- worked and over-burdened who form the great majority, and still more the incapables per- petually helped who are ever led to look for more help, are ready supporters of schemes which promise them this or the other benefit by Stats agency, and ready believers of those who tell them that such benefits can be given, and ought to be given. They listen with eager faith to all builders of political air-castles, from Oxford graduates down to Irish irreconcilables; and every additional tax-snpported appliance for their welfare raises hopes of further ones. Indeed the more numerous public instrumentalities be- come, the more is there generated in citizens the notion that everything is to be done for them, and nothing by them. Each generation is made less familiar with the attainment of desired ends by individual actions or private combinations, and more familiar with the attainment of them by governmental agencies; until, eventually, governmental agencies come to be thought of as the only available agencies. This result was well shown in the recent Trades-Unions Congress at Paris. The English delegates, reporting to their constituents, said that between themselves and their foreign colleagues "the point of difference was the extent to which the State should be asked to protect laboar: " reference being thus made to the fact, conspicuous in the reports of the proceedings, that the French delegates always invoked govern- mental power as the only means of satisfying their wishes.
The diffusion of education has worked, and will work still more, in the same direction. *" We must educate our masters," is the well-known saying of a Liberal who opposed the last extension of the franchise. Yes, if the education were worthy to be so called, and were relevant to the political enlightenment needed, much might be hoped from it. But knowing rules of syntax, being able to add up correctly, having geographical information, and a, memory stocked with the dates of kings' accessions and generals* THE COMING SLAVERY. 31 victories, no more implies fitness to form political conclusions than acquirement of skill in drawing implies expertness in telegraphing, or than ability to play cricket implies proficiency on the violin. *' Surely," rejoins some one, " facility in reading opens the way to political knowledge." Doubtless; but will the way be followed? Table-talk proves that nine out of ten people read what amuses them or interests them rather than what instructs them; and that the last thing they read is something which tells them disa- greeable truths or dispels groundless hopes. That popular edu- cation results in an extensive reading of publications which foster pleasant illusions rather than of those which insist on hard reali- ties, is beyond question. Says " A Mechanic," writing in the Pall Mall Gazette of December 3, 1883:— " Improved education instils the desire for culture — culture instils the desire for many things as yet quite beyond working men's reach...in the furious competition to which the present age is given up they are utterly impossible to the poorer classes; hence they are discontented with things as they are, and the more educated the more discontented. Hence, too, Mr. Ruskin and Mr. Morris are regarded as true prophets by many of us."
And that the connexion of canse and effect here alleged is a real one, we may see clearly enough in the present state of Germany.
Being possessed of electoral power, as are now the mass of those who are thus led to nurture sanguine anticipations of benefits to be obtained by social reorganization, it results that whoever seeks their votes must at least refrain from exposing their mistaken beliefs; even if he does not yield to the temptation to express agreement with them. Every candidate for Parliament is prompted to propose or support some new piece of ad capiandum legislation Nay, even the chiefs of parties — these anxious to retain oflBce and those to wrest it from them — severally aim to get adherents by outbidding one another. Each seeks popularity by promising more than his opponent has promised, as we have lately seen. And then, as divisions in Parliament show us, the traditional loyalty to leaders overrides questions concerning the intrinsic propriety of IDroposed measures. Representatives are unconscientious enough to vote for Bills which they believe to be wrong in principle, be cause party-needs and regard for the next election demand it. And thus a vicious policy is strengthened even by those who see it& viciousness.
S2 THE MAN VEnSUS THE STATE.
Meanwliilc there goes on out-of-doors an active pro;)agacda to Avliich all these influences arc ancillary. Communistic theories, partially indorsed by one Act of Parliament after another, and tacitly if not avowedlj' favoured by numerous public men seckinc^ teupporters, are being advocated more and more vociferously under one or other form by popular leaders, and urged on by organized societies. There is the movement for land-nationalization \yhich, aiming at a system of land-tenure equitable in the abstract, is, as all the world knows, pressed by Mr. George and his friends with avowed disregard for the just claims of existing owners, and as the basis of a scheme going more than half-way to State-socialism. And then there is tlie thorough-going Democratic Federation of Mr. Hyudman and his adherents. We are told by them that " the handful of marauders who now hold possession [of the land] have and can have no right save brute force against the tens of millions whom they wron^," They exclaim against "the shareholders who have been afow^d to lay hands upon (!) our great railway communica- tions." They condemn " above all, the active capitalist class, the loan-mongers, the farmers, the mine exploiters, the contractors, the olddle-men, the factory-lords — these, the modern slave drivers** 'svho exact " more and yet more surplus value out of the v/age- slaves whom they employ." And they think it "high time" that trade should bo " removed from the control of individual greed."* It remains to point out that the tendencies thus variously displayed, are being strengthened by press-advocacy, daily more pronounced. Journalists, always chary of saying that which is distasteful to their readers, are some of them going with the stream and adding to its force. Legislative meddlings which they would once have condemned they now pass in silence, if they do nob advocate tbem; and they speak of laissez-faire as an exploded doctrine. " People are no longer frightened at the thought of socialism," is the statement which meets us one dc.j. On another day, a town which does not adopt the Free Libraries Act is sneered at as being alarmed by a measure so moderately communistic. And then, along with editorial assertions that this economic evolution is coming and must be accepted, there is prominence given to the <;ontrIbutions of its advocates. Meanwhile those who regard the recent course of legislation as disastrous, and see that its futuro * Socialism made Plain. Reeves, 1S5, Fleet Slrcct.
THE COMING SLAVERY. 33 course is likely to be still more disastrous, are being reduced to silence by the belief that it is useless to reason with people in a state of political intoxication.
See, then, the many concurrent causes which threaten continually to accelerate the transformation now going on. There is that spread of regulation caused by following precedents, which become the more authoritative the further the policy is carried. There is that increasing need for administrative compulsions and restraints, which results from the unforeseen evils and shortcomings of pre- ceding compulsions and restraints. Moreover, every additional State-interference strengthens the tacit assumption that it is the duty of the State to deal with all evils and secure all benefits. Increasing power of a growing administrative organization is accompanied by decreasing power of the rest of the society to resist its further growth and control. The multiplication of careers opened by a developing bureaucracy, tempts members of the classes regulated by it to favour its extension, as adding to the chances of safe and respectable places for their relatives. The people at large, led to look on benefits received through public agencies as gratis benefits, have their hopes continually excited by the prospects of more. A spreading education, furthering the diffusion of pleasing errors rather than of stern truths, renders such hopes both stronger and more general. Worse still, such, hopes are ministered to by candidates for public choice, to augment their chances of success; and leading statesmen, in pursuit of party ends, bid for popular favour by countenancing them. Getting repeated justifications- from new laws harmonizing with their doctrines, political enthusiasts and unwise philanthropists push their agitations with growing confidence and success. Journalism, ever responsive to popular opinion, daily strengthens it by giving it voice; while counter-opinion, more and more discouraged, finds little utterance.
Thus influences of various kinds conspire to increase corporate action and decrease individual action. And the change is being on all sides aided by schemers, each of whom thinks only of his pet project and not at all of the general re-organization which his, joinet? with others such, are working out. It is said that the French Revolution devoured its own children. Here an analogous catas- trophe seems not unlikely. The numerous socialistic changes made by Act of Parliament, joined with the numerous others presently to be made, will by -and -by be all merged in tt.ate- D 34 THE MAN f Ens us THE STATE.
Socialism — swallowed in the vast wave which they have little by little raised.
' *'But why is this change described as ' the coming slavery'? " is a question which many will still ask. The reply is simple. All socialism involves slavery.
What is essential to the idea of a slave? "We primarily think of him as one who is owned by another. To be more than nominal, however, the ownership must be shown by control of the slave's actions — a control which is habitually for the benefit of the con- troller. That which fundamentally distinguishes the slave is that he labours under coercion to satisfy another's desires. The relation admits of sundry gradations. Remembering that originally the slave is a prisoner whose life is at the mercy of his captor, it suffices here to note that there is a harsh form of slavery in which, treated as an animal, he has to expend his entire effort for his owner's advantage. Under a system less harsh, though occupied chiefly in working for his owner, he is allowed a short time in which to work for himself, and some ground on which to grow extra food. A further amelioration gives him power to sell the pi'oduce of his plot and keep the proceeds. Then we come to the still more moderated form which commonly arises where, having been a free man working on his own land, conquest turns him into what we distinguish as a serf; and he has to give to his owner each year a fixed amount of labour or produce, or both: retaining the rest himself. Finally, in some cases, as in Russia until recently, he is allowed to leave his owner's estate and work or trade for himself elsewhere, under the condition that he shall pay an annual sum. What is it which, in these cases, leads us to .qualify our conception of the slavery as more or less severe? Evidently the greater or smaller extent to which effort is com- pulsorily expended for the benefit of another instead of for self- benefit. If all the slave's labour is for his owner the slavery is heavy, and if but little it is light. Take now a further step. Suppose an owner dies, and his estate with its slaves comes into the hands of trustees; or suppose the estate and everything on it to be bought by a company; is the condition of the slave any the better if the amount of his compulsory labour remains the same? Sup- pose that for a company we substitute the community; does it make any difference to the slave if the time he has to work for THE COMING SLiVVERY. 35 otliers is as great, and the time left for himself is as small, aa before? The essential question is — How much is he compelled to labour for other benefit than his own, and how much can he laboul for his own benefit? The degree of his slavery varies according to the ratio between that which he is forced to yield up and that which he is allowed to retain; and it mattors not whether his master is a single person or a society. If, without option, he has to labour for the society, and receives from the general stock such portion as the society awards him, he becomes a slave to the society. Socialistic arrangements necessitate an enslavement of this kind; and towards such an enslavement many recent mea- sures, and still more the measures advocated, are carrying us. Let us observe, first, their proximate effects, and then their ultimate effects.
The policy initiated by the Industrial Dwellings Acts admits of development, and will develop. Where municipal bodies turn house-builders, they inevitably lower the values of houses other- wise built, and check the supply of more. Every dictation re- specting modes of building and conveniences to be provided, diminishes the builder's profit, and prompts him to use his capital where the profit is not thus diminished. So, too, the owner, already finding that small houses entail much labour and many losses — already subject to troubles of inspection and interference, and to consequent costs, and having his property daily rendered a more undesirable investment, is prompted to sell; and as buyers are for like reasons deterred, he has to sell at a loss. And now these still-multiplying regulations, ending, it may be, as Lord Grey proposes, in one requiring the owner to maintain the salubrity of his houses by evicting dirty tenants, and thus adding to his other responsibilities that of inspector of nuisances, must further prompt sales and further deter purchasers: so necessitating greater depre- ciation. What must happen? The multiplication of houses, and especially small houses, being increasingly checked, there must come an increasing demand upon the local authority to make up for the deficient supply. More and more the municipal or kimired body will have to build house^s, or to purchase houses rendered unsaleable to private persons in the way shown — houses which, greatly lowered in value as they must become, it will, in many casefe, pay to buy rather than to build new ones. Nay, this, process must w ork in a double way; since every entailed increase of local 36 THE MAN VERSUS THE STATE, taxation si ill further depreciates property.* And then, when in towns this process lias gone so far as to make the local aathority the chief owner of houses, there will be a good precedent for publicly providing houses for the rural population, as proposed in the Radical programme,t and as urged by the Democratic Federa- tion; which insists on " the compulsory construction of healthy artisans' and agricultural labourers' dwellings in proportion to the population." Manifestly, the tendency of that which has been done, is being done, and is presently to be done, is to approach tho socialistic ideal in which the community is sole house-proprietor.
Such, too, must be the effect of the daily-growing policy on the tenure and utilization of the land. More numerous public benefits, to be achieved by more numerous public agoncie?, at the cost of augmented public burdens, must increasingly deduct from the returns on land; until, as the depreciation in value becomes greater and greater, the resistance to change of tenure becomes less and less. Already, as every one knows, there is in many places difficulty in obtaining tenants, even at greatly reduced rents; and land of inferior fertility in some cases lies idle, or when farmed by the owner is often farmed at a loss. Clearly tho profit on capital invested in land is not such that taxes, local and general, can be greatly raised to support extended public administrations, without an absorption of it which will prompt owners to sell, and make the best of what reduced price they can get by emigrating and buying land not subject to heavy burdens; as, indeed, some are now doing. This process, carried far, must have the result of throwing inferior land out of cultivation; after which there will be raised more generally * If any one thinks such fears are groundless, let him contemplate the fact that from 1867-8 to 1880-1, our annual local expenditure for the Unite I Kingdom has grown from £36,132,831 to £63,276,283; and that during tho same 13 years, the municipal expenditure in England and Wales alone, ha» grown from 13 millions to 30 millions a year! How ihe increase of public burdens will join with other causes in bringing about public ownership, is ^hown by a statement mtide by Mr. W. Eathbone, M.P., to which my attentiiu hi* been drawn since the above paragraph was in type, lie says, "within my own experience, local taxation in New York has risen from 12.?. 6d. per cent, to €2 12s. Gd. per cent, on the capital of its citizens — a charge which would more ihan absorb the Avhole income of an average English lai.dlord." — yineteeuth Century, February, 1883.
t Fortniahtly Review, Noyember, 1883, pp 619-20.
THE COMING SLAVEllY. 37 the demand inade by Mr. Arch, who, addressing the Radical Association of Brighton lately, and contending that existing landlords do not make their land adequately productive for the public benefit, said " he should like the present Government to pass a Compulsory Cultivation Bill:" an applauded proposal which he justified by instancing compulsory vaccination (thus illustrating the influence of precedent). And this demand will be pressed, not only by the need for making the land productive, but also by the need for employing the rural population. After tlie Government has extended the practice of hiring the unemployed to work on deserted lands, or lands acquired at nominal prices, there will be reached a stage whence there is but a small further step to that arrangement which, in the programme of the Democratic Federation, is to follow nationalization of the land — the " organization of agricultural and industrial armies under State control on co-operative principles," To one who doubts whether snch a revolution may be so reached, facts may be cited showing its likelihood. In Gaul, during the decline of the Roman Empire, " so numerous were the receivers in com- parison with the payers, and so enormous the weight of taxation, that the labourer broke down, the plains became deserts, and woods grew where the plough had been."* In like manner, when the French Revolution was approaching, the public burdens had become such, that many farms remained uncultivated and many were deserted: one quarter of the soil was absolutely lying waste; and in some provinces one-half was in heath. f Nor have we been without incidents of a kindred nature at home. Besides the facts that under the old Poor Law the rates had in some parishes risen to half the rental, and that in various places farms were lying idle, there is the fact that in one case the rates had absorbed the whole proceeds of the soil.
At Cholesbury, in Buckinghamshire, in 1832, the poor-rate " suddenly ceased in consequence of the impossibility to continue its collection, the landlords having given up their rents, the farmers their tenancies, and th3 clergyman his glebe and his tithes. The clergyman, Mr. Jeston, states that in October, 1832, the parish officers threw up their books, and the poor assembled in a body before his door while he was in bed, asking for advice and food. Partly from his own small means, partly from the charity of * Lactant. Be M. Persecut., cc. 7, 23.
t Taine, VAncien Regime, pp. 337-8 (in the English Translation).
38, THE MAX VERSUS THE STATS.
neighbours, and partly by rates in aid, imposed on the neighbouring parishes, they were for some time supported."* And the Comrnissioners add that "the benevolent rector recommends that the whole of the land should be divided among the able-bodied paupers: " hoping that after help afforded for two years, they might be able to mamtain themselves. These facts, giving colour to the prophecy m;ide in Parliament that continuance of the old Poor Law for anotlicr thirty years would throw the land out of cnitivation, clearly show that incrense of public burdens may end in forced cultivation under public control.
Then, ngain, comes State-ownership of railways. Already this exists to a large extent on the Continent. Already we have had here a few years ago loud advocacy of it. And now the cry, which was raised by sundry politicians and publicists, is taken up afresh by the Democratic Federation; which proposes " State-appropriation of railways, with or without compensation." Evidently, pressure from above joined by pressure from below, is likely to effect this change dictated by the policy everywhere spreading; and with it must come many a.ttendant changes. For railway-proprietors, at first owners and workers of railways only, have become masters of numerous businesses directly or indirectly connected with railways; and these will have to be purchased by Government when the rail- ways are purchased. Already exclusive letter-carrier, exclusive transmitter of telegrams, and on the way to become exclusive carrier of parcels, the State will not only be exclusive carrier of passengers, goods, and minerals, but will add to its present various trades many other trades. Even now, besides erecting its naval and military establishments and building harbours, docks, breakwaters, &c., it does the work of shipbuilder, cannon-founder, small-arms maker, manufacturer of ammunition, army-clothier and bootmaker; and when the railways have been appropriated "with or without compensation," as the Democratic Federationists say, it will have to become locomotive-engine-builder, carriage-maker, tarpaulin and grease manufacturer, passenger- vessel owner, coal-miner, stone- quarrier, omnibus propietor, &c. Meanwhile its local lieutenants, the municipal governments, already in many places suppliers of water, gas-makers, owners and workers of tramways, proprietors of baths, will doubtless have undertaken various other businesses. And w^hen • Eeport of Commissioners for Inquiry into the Administration and Practical Operation of the Poor Laws, p. 37. February 20, 1834.
THE COMING SLAVERY. 39 the State, directly or by proxy, has thus come into possession of, or has established, numerous concerns for wholesale production and for wholesale distribution, there will be good precedents for extending its function to retail distribution: following such an example, say. as is offered by the French Government, which has long been a retail tobacconist.
Evidently then, the changes made, the changes in progress, and the changes urged, will carry us not only towards State-ownership of land and dwellings and means of communication, all to be adminis- tered and worked by State-agents, but towards State-usurpation of all industries: the private forms of which, disadvantaged more and more in competition with the State, which can arrange everything for its own convenience, will more and more die away; just as many voluntary schools have, in presence of Board- schools. And so will be brought about the desired ideal of the socialists.
And now when there has been compassed this desired ideal, which *^ practical " politicians are helping socialists to reach, and which is so tempting on that bright side which socialists contemplate, what must be the accompanying shady side which they do not con- template? It is a matter of common remark, often made when a mari-iage is impending, that those possessed by strong hopes habi- tually dwell on the promised pleasures and think nothing of the accompanying pains. A further exemplification of this truth is supplied by these political enthusiasts and fanatical revolutionists. Impressed with the miseries existing under our present social arrangements, and not regarding these miseries as caused by the- ill- working of a human nature but partially adapted to the social' state, they imagine them to be forthwith curable by this or that re- arrangement. Yet, even did their plans succeed it could only bor by substituting one kind of evil for another. A little deliberate thought would show that under their proposed arrangements, their liberties must be surrendered in proportion as their material wel- fares were cared for.
For no form of co-operation, small or great, can be carried on without regulation, and an implied submission to the regulating agencies. Even one of their own organizations for effecting social changes yields them proof. It is compelled to have its councils, its local and general officers, its authoritative leaders, who must be obeyed under penalty of confusion and failure. And the experience 40 THE MAN VERSUS THE STATE.