, n>^**^^ Hjii}\!jjj. ' iuiM*m**j}j ij. - jii < im,it:. 
 
 .\■..X:A-^.^:.:.::^:...>C 
 
 :v \ ^^^:;vJ^^:c^:rs;::^.:x::^^x:c^ 
 
 ^^tax jjiu£i*^s^xu.'u.sj"ff^t ■ 
 
 mrmm 
 
Utttaca. S^em ^arft 
 
CorneJI University Library 
 
 arVlieOO 
 
 Popular sovereignty. 
 
 3 1924 031 323 268 
 oiin,anx 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tliis book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924031323268 
 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY. 
 
LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
POPULAR SOVEREIGNTY 
 
 BEING SOME THOUGHTS ON 
 DEMOCRATIC REFORM. 
 
 By CHARLES ANTHONY JUN. 
 
 author of 
 'the social and political dependence of women,* etc. 
 
 LONDON : 
 
 LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO, 
 
 1880. 
 
 A II rights reserved. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 The Principle of Liberalism i 
 
 CHAPTER n. 
 Parliamentary Deadlocks i6 
 
 CHAPTER in. 
 Can Parliament be relieved? . . . .36 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 Local Legislation 54 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 Limits of Parliamentary Government . . .73 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 The Electoral Weakness of Liberalism . . 90 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 Liberal Foreign Policy 109 . 
 
vi Contents. 
 
 ■ - ^ CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Land Reform 128 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 Free Trade in Land , 139 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 The Division of Profits in Agriculture . .156 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 Free Trade in Labour 168 
 
 CHAPTER XII. 
 Free Education 181 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 The Burden of Taxation 194 
 
POPULAR' SOVEREIGNTY. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 THE PRINCIPLE OF LIBERALISM. 
 
 The main principle which will be found to 
 underlie the propositions and arguments of these 
 political and social chapters, the leading motive to 
 which they must owe whatever consistency they may 
 lay claim to, is this — that for all the evils to which 
 the State or the community is subject, the fit and 
 sufficient remedies are to be secured by a recourse to 
 the final authority of the people. In other words, 
 the source of power, the object of government, the 
 sanction of law, the remedy of all evils to which 
 the body politic is subject, reside in the community 
 of individuals by whom the State is made up. Does 
 the statute law require amendment ? — it must be done 
 in the interest of the bulk of the nation, for their 
 special behoof, if not at their special solicitation. Is 
 an entirely new law proposed in Parliament ? — it must 
 be for the purpose of increasing the popular welfare, 
 
 B 
 
Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 not for the exclusive benefit of a class. Is the 
 public mind disturbed, or the public peace threatened, 
 or the prosperity of the country jeopardised? — the 
 root of the disorder is to be sought in some abuse 
 or injustice or hardship which has weighed upon the 
 people, and which must be removed as soon as it is 
 discovered, in order that the whole body politic may 
 not suffer. 
 
 We have tried other measures in England, and 
 have found them all more or less mischievous j though 
 the history of this country will show that the idea of 
 the commonwealth, and the rights and privileges of 
 individual EngUshmen, have never been lost sight of 
 altogether. We have legislated for a class, or for the 
 sovereign, at least as often as we have legislated for 
 the people, and when the public mind has been 
 agitated, and the masses have vehemently protested 
 against a tyranny or an injustice, we have fre- 
 quently turned upon them with sword and bayonet 
 and musket, actually aggravating the evils which it 
 was the alleged intention to cure. 
 
 England has had more than enough of these 
 barbarous and empirical methods of treatment, and 
 expects now to see the pure science of self-govern- 
 ment applied by the political medicine-men who take 
 her in hand. She has had (let us believe) her last 
 Peterloo in the provinces, her last turn-out of the 
 
The Principle of Liberalism. 3 
 
 household brigade in the metropolis. The age of 
 dragooning has passed away, and we look at length 
 for the inauguration of an age in which the nation 
 shall live and act as an organised and cultivated unit, 
 self-reliant, self-sufficient, self-restrained, free from 
 the hasty, officious, and exasperating interference to 
 which it has hitherto been subjected. Repression 
 may have been serviceable, or may have been neces- 
 sary, in the tutelage of the nation before it attained 
 the power of self-command. But at the present stage 
 in the development of the English people, it is 
 difficult to imagine circumstances in which the forcible 
 repression of a popular agitation could be either 
 useful or indispensable. 
 
 It may be objected that this amounts to an argu- 
 ment in favour of mob-rule. All we have to reply is 
 that such an argument is the last we should dream of 
 employing. Mob-rule, in fact, may be regarded as 
 simply another name for anarchy, whilst self-govern- 
 ment by the people at large, not by virtue of theoreti- 
 cal justice alone, but as a conquest won by successive 
 generations of political training and development, is 
 itself the very seal and guarantee of an orderly com- 
 munity. In the common acceptation of the term 
 ' mob-rule,' which implies at best the control of the 
 authorities by popular clamour, as distinct from 
 popular opinion and judgment, no reasonable man 
 
Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 can have so much sympathy with it as to desire that 
 it should be held supreme in the last resort. But it 
 is different with the firm opinion and settled judg- 
 ment of the masses of the people. These living and 
 imperishable forces — the forces of the people in the 
 best interpretation of the words ' force ' and ' people,' 
 which are translated in the Greek word ' democracy ' 
 — we fearlessly assert to be the true and the only 
 prudent form of supremacy in England. The people 
 as legislator, as administrator, as guardian and judge, 
 having its destiny in its own hands, and free to will 
 and to perform whatsoever seems best to itself, this 
 we believe to be the groundwork of popular liberties 
 in a developed and an orderly State. 
 
 The whole danger of a democratic scheme of 
 government consists in the danger of prejudice and 
 ignorance in the formation of public opinion, and of 
 undue violence in the expression of popular judgments. 
 If, then, we wish to surround such a scheme of govern- 
 ment with safeguards, we must watch over the modes 
 by which popular opinion and judgments are cast 
 into shape ; and before we can be justified in ad- 
 mitting the full title of the popular voice to speak 
 the last word upon all questions of government, 
 we must feel the assurance and conviction that 
 the popular mind has been adequately enlight- 
 ened, and that the masses are furnished with ample 
 
The Principle of Liberalism. 5 
 
 materials and aids wherewith to form their judg- 
 ments. Now it is because we are able to feel 
 this assurance that we do claim such an authority 
 for the popular will. As for the public expression 
 of this will, the entire course of our national 
 history attests, on the one hand, the struggle of 
 Englishmen for freedom of speech and opinions, in 
 public meeting and in Parliament, together with their 
 determination to make their needs and grievances 
 known to those in authority, and, on the other hand, 
 the constant tendency on all sides to protect and 
 limit these privileges by the sanctions of law. Thus 
 it happens that at the present time there is no 
 country in the world where the right of public 
 meeting is so perfectly recognised and constitution- 
 ally secure, or where parliamentary self-rule (with 
 whatever drawbacks) is established on so firm a 
 basis. 
 
 As for the shaping of public opinion, and the 
 creation of the judgments which give rise to ex- 
 pressions of the popular will, these — which are of 
 course the more important — are placed under equally 
 effectual guarantees, and furnish us with perhaps the 
 strongest warrant of all for our confidence in the final 
 recourse to the decision of the people. For the 
 shaping of popular opinion is the duty and privilege 
 of the wisest individuals in the nation ; and, as the 
 
Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 wisdom of the nation has increased, greater and 
 greater facilities have been obtained for this educa- 
 tional process on the part of individuals. The same 
 freedom of speech and meeting which provides for 
 the expression of popular judgments assures to the 
 instructors of the nation — that is, to the wisest and 
 most prudent individuals — the means of enlightening 
 the popular mind. And, in addition to the facilities 
 of oral persuasion, there is another, a more wide- 
 reaching and generally effectual, method of instruct- 
 ing, guiding, and elevating the people at large ; and 
 it is this method in particular which has been im- 
 proved and expanded within the latter generations of 
 our national history, and which has at length made 
 democratic self-government a possible, a practical, 
 and a promising system for the English people. We 
 refer, of course, to the press, and to that freedom of 
 expression in political and social matters which makes 
 our newspapers, pamphlets, and books so potent in 
 their influence on the public mind. It is, in point of 
 fact, to the press before all things that we must look, 
 and look with a well-founded confidence, for the 
 moulding of popular opinion and the guidance of 
 the popular will. And it is to the gradual purifi- 
 cation and perfection of this mighty instrument of 
 human progress that we shall owe the inestimable 
 blessing o/ a democracy in its highest form, and 
 
The Principle of Liberalism. f 
 
 the avoidance of those dangers which are inseparable 
 from government by a majority. 
 
 Not mob-rule, therefore, but the self-rule of the 
 masses, by the orderly, constitutional, and irresistible 
 supremacy of the popular will, is the just and 
 proper form of government for a nation as free and 
 developed as our own. It is just, because it pro- 
 mises liberty and prosperity to the greatest number, 
 and because a nation, like an individual, ought no 
 longer to be controlled by forcible repression when 
 it is capable of controlling itself by moral restraint. 
 England is in the position of a man whose mind is 
 illuminated and his strength matured, who has left 
 the days of tutelage behind him, and who claims 
 and is entitled to the independence of manhood. 
 Repression is for criminals or for children or for 
 the mentally weak, not for men of integrity, of self- 
 knowledge, of self-command. In England, as we 
 may affirm without boasting, public opinion is, on the 
 whole, and in the long-run, sober, moral, and rightly 
 informed ; its childishness has for the most part fallen 
 away from it ; and its instincts are just and liberal 
 and progressive, though at times it may be warped by 
 enthusiasm or damped by reaction. It has been 
 trained, by ages of varied and noble experience, in the 
 school of effort, perseverance, and success ; it has 
 been dignified by the continuous struggle for personal 
 
8 Popular Sovereignly. 
 
 and political liberty; it has been developed and 
 strengthened by the exercise of public rights, the 
 sanctions of free speech, and the elevating influence 
 of a press which is reverent of order as well as bold in 
 utterance, moral as well as adventurous, moderate as 
 well as logical. This adult public opinion in England, 
 upon which are based deliberate and prudent judg- 
 ments, fits us as a nation for popular self-govern- 
 ment, and justifies us in our demand for democratic 
 institutions, and for the utmost possible freedom from 
 repressive control. 
 
 We would here take occasion to guard against 
 a misconstruction which might be placed, not un- 
 naturally, upon the line of argument adopted in the 
 present volume. The democratic views shadowed 
 forth in the preceding remarks are not intended to 
 involve all that may appear to be implied by the word 
 'democracy,' which is used by different persons in 
 widely different senses. The democracy which seems 
 to us to be wise and indispensable for England, and 
 which is actually established amongst us in the exist- 
 ing order of things, is not so much an aggressive fact 
 or theory as it is a safe, gradual, and logical develop- 
 ment. It is the power of the people which has grown 
 with the steady growth of the national character ; it is 
 the ' moral order ' of Englishmen, which contains all 
 the elements and securities of firm and peaceful 
 
The Principle of Liberalism. 9 
 
 government. It is not a restless, destructive force, 
 which must be ever falling to pieces because it must 
 be ever employed, but a force of that thinking 
 radicalism which would destroy abuses, root and 
 branch, in order to preserve all that is good from 
 corruption. 
 
 If this democratic tendency in Englishmen were 
 really destructive, or if it were aggressive in such a 
 sense as to give reasonable cause for alarm to the 
 contented, unambitious, and property-holding classes 
 of the community, we should have heard a great deal 
 more about its vices and dangers in the past. We 
 should have had more seditious talking and writing 
 on the one hand, and more rancour and menace on 
 the other. We should have had more bloody revolu- 
 tions and more bloodthirsty repressions. But, for- 
 tunately, the recent history of England is compara- 
 tively free from the terrible pages which disfigure the 
 history of some other countries. We have not had 
 our reigns of terror, our noyades, and our communistic 
 outbreaks; we have not often attempted to crush liberty 
 with the bayonet, with the knout, or with Siberia. 
 Our greatest and most sanguinary revolution was 
 caused by the aggressiveness of the Crown against 
 established parliamentary rights, not by any im- 
 patience of just control on the part of the masses. 
 Fiom that time forward we have had nothbg in the 
 
10 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 nature of outbursts of fury, or desperate popular 
 demonstrations against authority. It has often 
 been questioned whether the English people have 
 not been too lax, too submissive, too patient of 
 continuing abuses — with the effect that our agricul- 
 tural classes are now incalculably worse off than 
 those of France, Germany, and other European 
 countries. But it is rarely maintained that they 
 are on the side of political animosity, that they 
 are inclined to an aggressive socialism, that they are 
 unstable and disorderly, or that their aspirations are 
 in any sense a menace to the owners of legitimate 
 privileges. 
 
 That there are great abuses, unjust privileges, 
 cruel inequalities, and even grievous oppressions, in 
 the social institutions of this country cannot fairly be 
 denied ; but all the sufferings of the poorest classes 
 in England, all the indignation excited in the breasts 
 of popular leaders and ambitious demagogues, have 
 not sufficed to drive the masses to violent remedies. 
 At the utmost we have had our mobs, angrily excited, 
 our monster petitions to Parliament, our more or 
 less wild declamations in the public streets. Rarely 
 has blood been shed as a consequence ; and rarely 
 has the Administration or the Legislature failed to 
 meet the popular demand by the timely wisdom of 
 compromise. The secret has been that English de- 
 
The Principle of Liberalism. 1 1 
 
 mocrats have not asked for too much at a time ; ot, 
 if they have done so, they have been satisfied to take 
 the fulfilment of their desires by instalments. There 
 has been, happily for us all, a certain amount of self- 
 restraint on both sides ; for if successive Governments 
 had not been wise enough to concede one or two 
 points of a popular charter or programme of reforms, 
 the demand would have been pressed home with 
 as much vehemence as might have been neces- 
 sary to secure its entire satisfaction. All the great 
 charters on which our national liberties rest have been 
 won by the stern determination of our ancestors — of 
 the aristocracy as well as the democracy ; and it is 
 because this determination in the character of English- 
 men is so well known and respected that, since the 
 signing of the contract between William of Orange 
 and the people of England, no monarch or minister 
 has for long together attempted to withstand a 
 reasonable popular demand. 
 
 Hence it is that English democracy is not formid- 
 able to any candid and well-informed mind. The 
 progressive spirit of Englishmen is moderate, rational, 
 and self-controlled ; it has no sympathy with sub- 
 versive ideas, and is, in fact, the best guarantee of 
 public order which it would be possible to devise. 
 And this same reforming spirit is moderate and 
 rational and self-controlled, because its irresistible 
 
12 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 force is so thoroughly acknowledged, because it has 
 gained such unequivocal triumphs in the past, and 
 because no one doubts that it could at any moment 
 gain similar triumphs in the future. The fact is 
 that we fought our critical struggles for freedom some 
 two centuries ago, and, having fought them, were 
 contented thenceforth to advance by slower degrees, 
 partly because we knew that no desperate efforts were 
 needed, and partly also because we feared to lose by 
 violent contentions what we had already secured. 
 
 Now, however satisfactory it may be to us to 
 reflect upon this unaggressive character of EngHsh 
 democracy, and to know that our fellow-country- 
 men would scarcely under any circumstances come 
 to open hostility in contending over a programme 
 of reform, it is not to be concluded that a tacit 
 agreement exists between the people and their 
 rulers, or between the non-privileged and the privi- 
 leged classes, by which the former are to abstain from 
 the forcible prosecution of their demands, on con- 
 dition that the latter consent to discuss and com- 
 promise any claim which is proved to have an 
 adequate basis. It would be impossible to stipulate 
 such conditions, or to arrive at such an agreement. 
 The hands of both sides are unfettered. They may 
 be restrained by reason, but they are not tied by any 
 immoral or unobseivable contract. Reformers are 
 
The Principle of Liberalism. 1 3 
 
 free to press their case to the utmost point of insist- 
 ence. The democratic party is in no way pledged to 
 leave certain abuses untouched, or to compromise any 
 demand by accepting less than is just. And, as a 
 matter of fact, it will scarcely be denied by any man 
 of liberal and progressive sentiment that an excess 
 of moderation has been displayed by reformers in 
 the last few generations, and by the champions of 
 popular rights. The democracy, in the best sense 
 of the word, has not been sufficiently aggressive, 
 and the classes which enjoy exclusive and unjust 
 privileges have had too much the best of the majority 
 of recent compromises. 
 
 The plain statement of the case is as follows. 
 The masses of the Enghsh people are very far from 
 being as happy, as prosperous, or even as moderately 
 comfortable as the population of this great empire 
 ought to be. But it is in our power, constitutionally, 
 peacefully, without undue violence, to exact reforms 
 and modifications which would vastly improve the 
 condition of the masses. Therefore it is our duty to 
 exert this power, to put it forth energetically, per- 
 sistently, and in the face of all opposition, until 
 we have amended a constitution which is proved 
 to be unsatisfactory. 
 
 The following chapters will be devoted to the con- 
 sideration of certain prominent or special points in 
 
14 Popular Sovereignty . 
 
 which the remodelling of our institutions appears 
 to be necessary for the welfare of the community, 
 and for the preservation of what is best and most 
 venerable in the social fabric. It is in the spirit of 
 true democracy that we would discuss these ques- 
 tions of reform. The much-needed changes are to 
 be arrived at (if the foregoing notions are not con- 
 ceived in absolute ignorance and misapprehension) 
 by a revolutionary, that is to say, a repeated evolution- 
 ary, process of orderly and uncompromising effort. 
 We are to attain a more robust and a more perfect 
 growth by the gradual development of our organic 
 life ; but this development, though gradual and orderly, 
 is to be more rapid in the future than it has been in 
 the past. We are to advance by the law of our poli- 
 tical vitality, which is the same law to-day that it was 
 generations ago — the law of national progression as it 
 may be deduced from our achieved national progress. 
 As the plant grows up to that precise form which was 
 indicated in the undeveloped germ, so the State must 
 become perfect by an equally certain formula of 
 evolution. We Englishmen have a formula of our 
 own, as Frenchmen, Germans, Italians have of their 
 own ; and it might not be very difficult to predict the 
 general outline of the configuration to which we are 
 destined to attain. In fact, such a prediction is un- 
 consciously attempted by every one who conceives a 
 
The Principle of Liberalism. 15 
 
 programme of national reformation ; and the justice 
 of the forecast may be approximately measured by 
 the faith and the determination with which any indi- 
 vidual reformer is led to shape and work out his 
 plans. 
 
 The one thing needful, whether in prediction or 
 in action, whether in drawing up a new programme or 
 in working it out, is to note the law of growth by 
 which the English Constitution has gradually reached 
 its present stage of development. This is the one law 
 which must inform and guide all true and serviceable 
 growth in the future ; and it is the law whereby all 
 authority, all supremacy, all public action within the 
 body politic, finds its true origin and issue, its aim and 
 end, its apology or its remedy, within the sphere of the 
 popular needs and interests. And the attainment 
 of ' the greatest happiness of the greatest number ' 
 is the touchstone by which we must try all political 
 actions, programmes, and opinions. 
 
1 6 Popular Sovereignty, 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 PARLIAMENTARY DEADLOCKS. 
 
 No question can be of greater interest for English- 
 men than that which concerns the management of 
 public affairs in Parhament. All others are in- 
 cluded in or subordinate to it. There is scarcely a 
 single legislative or administrative reform which can 
 be secured without the interposition of the House 
 of Commons, and certainly not one, however bold 
 and comprehensive, which would not be brought 
 nearer to accomplishment by improving our parlia- 
 mentary system. The better the machinery, the better 
 the product. 
 
 It has come to be admitted on all hands that the 
 products of Parhament for some years past, if good 
 and serviceable in themselves, have not been turned 
 out in sufficient number, or under sufficiently favour- 
 able conditions. The process of manufacture has 
 been disturbed, and the machinery has not always 
 been equal to the strain put upon it. Other manu- 
 factures have been depressed by the sudden and 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 17 
 
 general decrease of demand ; but there has rarely 
 been a time when effective legislation was more 
 urgently and persistently demanded than it is now. 
 
 Englishmen are only too ready to receive and to 
 pay for good Acts of Parliament. They need, say, a 
 score or a hundred which shall strike at the root of 
 that great upas-tree under whose branches thrive 
 pauperism, subserviency, drunkenness, brutality, and 
 a host of moral and social iniquities. It will hardly 
 be denied that something might be done, in each and 
 all of these cases, to change things for the better by 
 the addition of a chapter to the statute-book. Yet 
 session after session goes by, and many a crying evil 
 is left untouched. Now and then an Act is passed, 
 and every one welcomes the good results which flow 
 from it j but, instead of the rapidity and ardour of 
 reform which the nation might not unreasonably 
 expect, it has been found, at least in recent years, 
 that Parliament has the utmost difficulty in dealing 
 even with a brief and unambitious programme. 
 
 A simple outsider, assuming that every individual 
 legislator is anxious to pass measures which would 
 promote the common welfare, and which have been 
 carefully thought out and drafted, is apt to wonder 
 how such measures can fall to the ground. He 
 thinks it discreditable to the six hundred and fifty-eight 
 picked men of the country, and to the Government 
 
 c 
 
1 8 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 which directs their labours, that they cannot at any 
 rate enact reforms in the principle of .which a 
 majority of the House has concurred. He does not, 
 perhaps, understand or appreciate the difficulties 
 which beset his representative (if he has one) at 
 Westminster ; and thus it is inevitable, in the long- 
 run, that he should begin to question the vaunted 
 excellence of our parliamentary institutions. 
 
 Perhaps members of Parliament themselves will 
 be foremost in admitting that the work of the country 
 has not advanced as it ought to have advanced 
 — that the deliberations of the House have been 
 frequently futile — and that the community has a right 
 to complain. But whether this be admitted or not, 
 the community does complain ; and it will complain 
 still more bitterly if the experience of the past sessions 
 is to be repeated. The mass of Englishmen feel so 
 acutely the need of social and economic legislation, 
 and value this so much more highly than anything 
 else which Parliament can do for them, that they will 
 certainly lose patience if the present state of things is 
 not speedily and thoroughly changed. 
 
 Special emphasis has been given to these con- 
 siderations by the conduct of a section of the Irish 
 representatives in the House of Commons, by the 
 obstruction, justifiable or unjustifiable, which has 
 now developed into a commonplace parliamentary 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 19 
 
 occurrence, by the apparent impotence of the devices 
 adopted to countervail this obstruction, and by the 
 consequent deadlock of the business of the House. 
 Whatever may have been the case five or ten years 
 ago — and there were obstructionists and deadlocks 
 then — it is evident that these things are reaching 
 their climax, and that the efficiency of Parliament 
 as a law-making organisation has been seriously 
 impaired. 
 
 It is not absolutely clear that the voice of the 
 country as a whole (taking franchised and unfran- 
 chised together — those who need reforms and are 
 dumb, as well as those who need reforms and send 
 their delegates to obtain them) is prepared to cast the 
 chief blame for this deadlock upon the obstructionists. 
 Men at the bottom of the ladder will not closely 
 question the motives of those whose restiessness 
 enables them to draw nearer to the top. More than 
 this, it seems probable that a large number of people 
 are inclined, if only from a Hind instinct, to recog- 
 nise in the most outrageous obstruction something 
 else than a single-hearted resolution to make things 
 move more rapidly by placing obstacles in their way, 
 to evoke force by opposition, and to cure sloth by 
 
 delay. 
 
 If we take this phenomenon of obstruction at its 
 worst, and understand it as a display of obstinate 
 
20 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 hostility on the part of a minority towards a majority ; 
 if we believe the aggressive plan of action to be 
 adopted in cold blood, for the deUberate purpose of 
 exacting concessions ; if we conclude that personal 
 pique or wounded vanity has more to do with it than 
 patriotism of any kind ; still, under any circumstances, 
 the fact is one which has to be faced and grappled 
 with. If Parliament is to do its duty to the country, 
 obstruction must be overcome ; and it seems to be 
 hopeless to attempt to stamp it out by force. The 
 remedy might prove worse than the disease; and 
 in the history of the House of Commons there are 
 chapters which are far from encouraging a resort to 
 extreme measures of compulsion. A struggle of many 
 years' duration, and a most unprofitable one to boot, 
 would be necessary before any particular member 
 could be definitively rejected by his fellow-repre- 
 sentatives ; and a doubt would arise as to how 
 far the House is entided to punish a constituency 
 with disfranchisement for no other offence than 
 that of electing the same delegate in Parliament 
 after Parliament. 
 
 Is there not a more excellent way of putting an 
 end to the existing vice of obstruction, and, at the 
 same time, of rendering it less likely to be adopted in 
 the future? Obstruction has recently sprung from 
 two sources in particular : first, from the discontent of 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 21 
 
 Irishmen with the condition of their country ; and, 
 secondly, from a more general, if less bitter, discon- 
 tent with the shortcomings of parliamentary govern- 
 ment. It would surely be a fortunate thing if the 
 discontent in both cases could be removed by one 
 and the same device, so that an end might be put 
 to the notorious and unhappy delays in our public 
 business, which go so far towards stultifying the whole 
 system of parliamentary government. 
 
 We do not mean to say that the proceedings of 
 the Irish Home Rulers in the House of Commons 
 during the past few years, whereby they have given 
 so much trouble to the Government, and have drawn 
 upon themselves so many reproaches from the ma- 
 jority of their colleagues, were instigated by pre- 
 cisely the same reasons as those which prompted 
 certain English and Scotch members below the 
 Gangway to resort to somewhat similar practices. 
 The sources of their action were in some sense 
 distinct, and the remedy, if any can be found, must 
 operate in a different manner on the various dis- 
 contented sections of the popular representatives. 
 The grievances of the Irish members are such as 
 cannot always be appreciated or comprehended by 
 Englishmen, and their conduct in Parliament is in 
 a great measure dictated to them by their constituents. 
 It would be beside the mark to go into the whole 
 
2 2 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 question of Irish disaffection, but it is plain enough 
 that this disaffection is very deeply and generally felt 
 in the sister kingdom, and that the phenomenon 
 presented in the House of Commons, disagreeably 
 as it has often been manifested, is the genuine and 
 legitimate expression of the popular voice in Ireland, 
 exercised in a constitutional manner by the dele- 
 gates of the Irish people. For this reason the Home 
 Rule members have a claim upon our attention ; 
 they must be listened to calmly; and we must do 
 vrhatever may seem possible in order to meet and 
 satisfy their complaints. 
 
 The duty incumbent upon us to hear and redress 
 the grievances of Ireland cannot be any the less 
 imperative because these grievances have been put 
 forward more pertinaciously, or even more unjustifi- 
 ably, than we like, nor because we did something for 
 the country ten years ago, nor yet because a few Irish 
 members have taken such hostile measures in Parlia- 
 ment and in the country as might put them indivi- 
 dually out of court. If their grievances are real, and 
 to the extent in which they are real, we are bound to 
 attend to them, no matter how much we may have 
 already done for Ireland, or how improperly the 
 case has been pressed upon our notice. There is 
 generally a presumption, until the contrary is proved, 
 that when an advocate or an aggrieved person 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 23 
 
 has repeated his plea over and over again, and has 
 finally persisted to the point of making himself ob- 
 noxious to those before whom he pleads, he at least is 
 persuaded of the justice of his case, and is carried 
 away by excess of zeal. In the minds of many per- 
 sons, especially of outsiders to whom the aggrieved 
 man has not made himself personally unpleasant, 
 there is wont to be this further presumption, that the 
 judge has not been sufficiently cool, patient, or dis- 
 cerning, and that a greater display of tact in the 
 earlier stages of the hearing might have prevented 
 the explosions of the pleader, and thus have staved 
 off the extremities of passion and desperation which 
 threatened to take the cause out of the category of 
 judicial and equitable treatment. 
 
 Was there not a time, for instance, when the Irish 
 cause, as presented to the House of Commons by Mr. 
 Butt, might have been fairly and reasonably listened 
 to, even subsequently to the general discussion of its 
 merits in Parliament, but before the members for 
 Meath, Waterford, Dungarvan, and others began to 
 take such an active share in the proceedings of the 
 House? Was it not possible, without too great a 
 stretch of conciUation or complaisance on the part of 
 Enghsh members, to grant the Royal Commission asked 
 for by the Home Rulers? The granting of a Royal 
 Commission does not necessarily imply the concession 
 
24 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 of the whole demand of those who ask for it. It does 
 not mean that the principle involved in the demand 
 is entirely conceded beforehand. The inquiry prayed 
 for was to have been an inquiry into the existing 
 grievances of Ireland, with a view to seeing what re- 
 medy might be applied, and whether the particular 
 remedy of Home Rule would be a real or a practicable 
 one, as maintained by the Irish, and in what sense 
 this term of Home Rule should be construed. The 
 granting of this inquiry would have calmed down 
 the heated minds of the Irish members; and the 
 result might possibly, even probably, have been the 
 attainment of a compromise or a settlement or an 
 understanding by which the Irish question would 
 have been closed for some time to come. In the 
 striking of a bargain, neither side expects to get the 
 full extent of his original demands, and it is certainly 
 conceivable that the Irish might have been satisfied 
 in 187s with considerably less than they thought fit 
 to ask. 
 
 As it is, the extravagance, and above all the 
 acerbity, of their demand has been increased by the 
 resentment not unnaturally called forth amongst 
 English politicians, and every year the difficulty of 
 coming to terms is aggravated. Few will deny that 
 a failure of temper and tact was displayed in the 
 treatment of the Irish members by some of their 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 25 
 
 more unreflecting English colleagues during the Par- 
 liament elected in 1874 ; and from this mistake 
 sprang many of the evils which went to make up 
 one of the greatest political scandals of modern 
 times. The worst error of all was in forgetting that 
 the Home Rule members were direct representatives 
 of a veiy large section of the Irish people, and that 
 every one of them was entitled to a reception and a 
 hearing as a simple mouthpiece of the popular wUl, 
 irrespective of his personal merits or demerits. This 
 is the feeling which should be uppermost in the 
 minds of all, when considering the action of a 
 delegate; and it must be admitted that the feeling 
 has in many instances been conspicuous by its 
 absence. 
 
 Setting aside the motives which Irish obstructionists 
 — to use the accepted term — have obeyed merely 
 as the champions of isolated Irish ambitions, and 
 which have impelled them to assume a bitterly hostile 
 attitude in the Imperial Parliament, for the apparent 
 purpose of forcing us to grant their demands, there re- 
 main other and more reasonable explanations of their 
 conduct, identical with the explanations which may 
 be given of the obstructive attitude of certain of the 
 English and Scotch Liberals below the Gangway. In 
 this sense, applicable to all members of the House 
 who are transparently animated by a zeal for the public 
 
26 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 service, by the desire for reform, and by an impatience 
 of the long and slothful delays in our national progress, 
 we can readily understand the position assumed by 
 those who have had recourse to the forms of the 
 House in order to defend the action of the majority. 
 The position is not entirely a novel one. It had been 
 assumed before the election of 1874, on the Conser- 
 vative as well as on the Liberal side. Now and again, 
 no doubt, obstruction was resorted to from motives of 
 simple obstinacy, or for the purpose of preventing the 
 enactment of a reform which the obstructive deemed 
 to be premature or unsound. The obstruction offered 
 by some Conservative Don Quixote, fighting against 
 the inevitable, has been of this latter description ; and, 
 not being long sustained or continually repeated, it 
 has roused only a transient irritation. But much of 
 the obstruction of later days has been due to more 
 deliberate conviction, and has had far greater reason 
 and justification. 
 
 Undoubtedly the practice of obstruction, legiti- 
 mate or illegitimate, by Irish members or others, has 
 been greatly vulgarised, not to say abused, during 
 Lord Beaconsfield's administration ; but we must not 
 lose sight of the fact that it has resulted in more good 
 than harm, since the attention of statesmen and the 
 public has been drawn more closely to the evil, to its 
 causes and its possible remedies. Whether we ascribe 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 27 
 
 the remarkable growth of the practice to a weak 
 leadership, to individual, class, or national animosities, 
 to the discovery that deep impressions may be made 
 by this means on an otherwise unimpressible House, 
 or to any other cause, it is manifest that the time 
 spent by obstructive members during the past few 
 sessions has not been altogether wasted. We have 
 the question now fully and fairly before us, and can 
 proceed to deal with it in a far more hopeful mind 
 than if we had not gained this new experience. There 
 was indeed plenty of obstruction before Sir Stafford 
 Northcote fell upon evil times in the House of Com- 
 mons. The Bill introduced by Mr. Gladstone's 
 Government for the abolition of purchase in the army 
 was met by persistent obstruction, which threatened 
 to render its passing an impossibility. The Cabinet 
 of the day took a short and summary way of dealing 
 with the difficulty. It was fully justified in believing 
 that the approval of the country at large had stamped 
 its imprimatur on this particular reform. It was evident 
 that the obstruction proceeded solely from the class 
 which would be affected by the measure. There was 
 consequently every legitimate inducement for Mr. 
 Gladstone and his colleagues to proceed by Royal 
 Warrant, and so to overrule the factious opposition. 
 But it is not easy to conceive many other cases in 
 which an equally arbitrary method could be fairly 
 
28 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 adopted. It is not too much to say that a great deal 
 of the obstruction of later years has been quite as 
 legitimate as that which attacked the Army Purchase 
 Bill was illegitimate. The obstruction, for instance, 
 which all but resulted in the abolition of the ' cat,' 
 and which actually reduced the punishment by 
 flogging to a minimum, was entirely justified by its 
 fruits. 
 
 It is easy to conceive the apology for obstruction 
 which might be presented by an independent and 
 jealous advocate of reform, who places the interests 
 of popular progress above the temporary and acci- 
 dental interests of a party. ' Reform,' we may imagine 
 such a one to say, ' is to me the highest and most 
 sacred duty of all. The true work of the nation is 
 to advance, step by step, without unnecessary delay 
 or intermission, towards a state of complete self- 
 government, and towards a condition of universal 
 prosperity and welfare. So many things are requisite 
 before we can approach this end, there are so many 
 abuses to be removed, and so many legislative 
 remedies to be applied, that Parliament has no right 
 to waste a single moment. The people have sent us 
 all here to obtain for them the benefits of which they 
 stand in need, and we have no other sanction for our 
 acts and words than that which we derive from their 
 mandate. I owe it to my constituents, as every other 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 29 
 
 member of Parliament owes it to his, to strive in all 
 possible ways, and to adopt every constitutional means, 
 for the very fullest measure of liberty and privilege. 
 I am also persuaded that parliamentary action is the 
 only method, short of revolution, by which this liberty 
 and privilege can be obtained, so that Parliament 
 alone stands between the peace and welfare of the 
 country and those otherwise inevitable acts of violence 
 which would entail the dissolution of society. From 
 this point of view the reforming activity of Parliament 
 is indispensable to the wellbeing of the country, 
 and in its absence we run the gravest risks of losing 
 much of what we already possess. Therefore, when 
 I find Parliament refusing to move forward in the 
 path of reform, or moving at an almost unappreci- 
 able pace, whether from unwillingness or incom- 
 petence, I consider that there is no better method of 
 performing my personal duty to my constituents than 
 by obstructing a useless course of action in order to 
 arouse a more serviceable activity. A slothful man, 
 checked and startled out of his sloth, may afterwards 
 push forward with some vigour. A machine which 
 works imperfectly may be put in good order by being 
 stopped altogether ; or rather, it cannot be put in 
 good order without stopping it. If you can show 
 me a more effectual plan, I shall be only too happy 
 to follow it, because parliamentary obstruction is 
 
30 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 leither a pleasant nor a safe operation. But the 
 iblest men have been trying other plans for years 
 Dast, without any notable success; and my friends 
 ind I did not assume our role until things had come 
 o their worst. It is not just to say that we bring 
 )arliamentary institutions into jeopardy, since our 
 )bject is to galvanise them into more energetic life, 
 jovernment by representation is jeopardised by those 
 f\iO suffer it to be a sham, and not by those who 
 letermine that it shall be a reality.' 
 
 There is unquestionably much force in these ar- 
 ;uments, especially when they are urged by men 
 irho are above the suspicion of faction, and whose 
 ttachment to parliamentary government is beyond 
 avil. We need not conclude that they are 
 ight or unanswerable, or even that the means of 
 bstruction are justified by the end which is 
 imed at. But there is no doubt that this end is 
 ne which should be steadily kept in view by states- 
 len and politicians of every school ; and it behoves 
 s to consider how we may set about the indis- 
 ensable work of parliamentary reform. The great 
 eed of the day is to make government by re- 
 resentation effectual, to stimulate national progress, 
 ad to do away with the cause as well as the fact of 
 bstruction. 
 Now it is admitted on all hands that one of the 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 31 
 
 principal, if not actually the principal reason for the 
 relative failure of parliamentary institutions, resulting 
 in the feebleness of the legislative system, and the 
 recent deadlock in the public business, is the exces- 
 sive amount of work which has been cast upon our 
 representatives in the House of Commons. They 
 are asked, and they try, to do too much ; and this is 
 probably the main cause of their doing so little. The 
 fact is beyond dispute. It has been demonstrated 
 over and over again, in every session. Whether we 
 take the actual legislative records of successive years, 
 or mark the often startling difference between the 
 promise of a Queen's Speech and the correspond- 
 ing additions to the statute-book, or note the con- 
 stantly overcrowded lists of orders and motions, 
 the unedifying scramble for a hearing, the abortive 
 efforts to push forward measures acknowledged to 
 be serviceable, the talking out, the counting out, 
 the veiled or manifest obstructions by which the 
 business of the country is so repeatedly interrupted, 
 we are met on all sides by unmistakable signs 
 that Parliament undertakes a great deal more than 
 it can perform. 
 
 The operation of this evil is both directly and in- 
 directly injurious. Necessary measures fall to the 
 ground because unnecessary measures are brought for- 
 ward and consume the time of the House. Others 
 
Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 which are passed into law are only partially effective, 
 or are entirely ineffective, for the same reason. The 
 promoters or supporters of Bills which are thrown out 
 not unfrequently give way to irritation or jealousy, 
 and revenge themselves by wrecking other Bills, under 
 the charge of their colleagues, in which they had pre- 
 viously taken no interest whatever. Little creditable 
 as such a course is, there can be no doubt that serious 
 obstruction has often arisen from the cause here 
 indicated. 
 
 Now the constituencies have a clear right to com- 
 plain of this anomalous state of affairs, which prac- 
 tically deprives them of their cherished privilege of 
 self-government. They send representatives to Par- 
 liament in order that, after ample discussion and the 
 vote of a majority, measures may be passed which 
 shall meet the urgent needs of the community. In- 
 stead of that, the elected representatives reach 
 Parliament, in nineteen cases out of twenty, only 
 to find themselves powerless, and almost unable to 
 make the wishes of their constituents known. 
 Honest and energetic men have been goaded before 
 now into rebelling against such a state of things, 
 and so losing their chance of being useful public 
 servants. They either incur the more or less sense- 
 less ridicule of their calmer colleagues by their 
 vain efforts to break through prejudice and eti- 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 33 
 
 quette, or they develop, by virtue of a forcible and 
 resolute character, into a species of obstructives, 
 thoroughly unpopular in the House, if occasionally 
 successful in making an impression on the Government 
 of the day. In any case the constituencies are ill- 
 served. The representative system is rendered prac- 
 tically futile, inasmuch as our delegates are either 
 elbowed out of the way or laughed down, or treated 
 with disfavour or overworked. 
 
 Moreover, the complaints of the constituencies 
 have been urged, for some time past, in such a 
 manner as to render the redress of the grievance 
 imperative. The press has almost unanimously 
 demanded that the machinery of Parliament shall 
 be overhauled, and the legislative system re- 
 modelled. Many as are the causes to which the 
 evil is ascribed, and various as are the remedies 
 which have been proposed, there is little or no 
 question as to the precise nature of the evil itself, 
 which is acknowledged to be the excessive burden 
 thrown upon the shoulders of our representatives. 
 Some of the most experienced and trusted states- 
 men of the day have kept pace with the organs of 
 public opinion in confessing and confronting the 
 difficulty. 
 
 Thus the wisest, the most experienced, the most 
 candid and trusted statesman of the present genera- 
 
 D 
 
34 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 tion, Mr. Gladstone, has admitted that ' the House of 
 Commons is fast becoming incapable of the due and 
 sufficient discharge of its functions.' Obstruction, 
 such as manifested itself amongst private members 
 in the years 1876-79, he has described as a conse- 
 quence rather than as a cause of the parliamentary 
 deadlock ; and it is not in the ranks of Liberalism that 
 his indication of the true reason will be disputed. ' If 
 those,' he wrote in the Nineteenth Century for August 
 1879, ' who have had the main share in bringing about 
 this state of things are mainly to bear the brand of ob- 
 struction, then, I apprehend, there is no doubt that at 
 this hour the chief obstructionists are the Government 
 On a Parliament already fainting beneath the weight 
 of its necessary burdens they have heaped new cares 
 and engagements mountain-high.' And again, in the 
 same article, Mr. Gladstone complains that the 
 Government had ' reduced the House of Commons, 
 through the doubling of its business, to less than 
 half its efficiency.' 
 
 We do not know that this point has been seriously 
 contested, and it is perhaps superfluous to multiply 
 testimonies all tending to the same conclusion. 
 Some persons may question Mr. Gladstone's assertion 
 that the Executive Government, not the Irish mem- 
 bers, were the chief offenders in obstructing the busi- 
 ness of the House; but hardly one will deny that 
 
Parliamentary Deadlocks. 35 
 
 Parliament has had its capacity for work griev- 
 ously diminished by the multiplicity of its engage- 
 ments. It remains to discover and apply a remedy 
 for this admitted evil, and we invite the reader to 
 accompany us over this ground in the two following 
 chapters. 
 
36 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 CAN PARLIAMENT BE RELIEVED? 
 
 If Parliament is overworked, there is clearly, to begin 
 with, a choice between two modifications which may 
 be introduced into our present system. We may 
 either relieve the House of Commons of a certain 
 portion of its responsibility by excluding particular 
 subjects from its programme altogether, or we may 
 render both Houses more efficient, and, dividing the 
 whole work more evenly between them, render it pos- 
 sible for the two combined to discharge all existing 
 parliamentary functions. 
 
 The last of these alternative courses is scarcely 
 one which will commend itself to practical men. 
 There have, indeed, been various attempts at different 
 times to carry it into effect; but their success has not 
 been such as to encourage reliance upon this device. 
 It would seem to be futile to aim at making the 
 House of Lords a more serviceable part of the legis- 
 lative machinery than it actually is. Young and ener- 
 getic members of that House, like Lord Rosebery 
 
Can Parliament be relieved? 37 
 
 and others before him, have been constrained to 
 expostulate with their fellow-peers on the enforced 
 idleness to which they are condemned. The difficulty 
 lies in getting the peers to undertake arduous and 
 tedious work, in providing that the Lord Chancellor 
 should sit longer on the Woolsack, and in making 
 the discussion of measures introduced into the House 
 of Lords more of a reality, less of a form. And 
 experience has shown that these difficulties are 
 insuperable. 
 
 If the Lords cannot appreciably relieve the Com- 
 mons of their burden, is it possible that the House of 
 Commons itself should be so remodelled, in its mode 
 of work if not in its actual composition, as to make it 
 equal to the task imposed upon it ? 
 
 No doubt much might be done in this direction. 
 It is towards the development of the existing resources 
 of the House that many recent efforts at parlia- 
 mentary reform have looked. Perhaps the most 
 hopeful of the suggestions which have been made in 
 this sense is that greater use should be made of 
 Committees of the House ; so that by ' grand ' or 
 select committees, several of which might be sitting 
 at the same time, the deliberative power of Parlia- 
 ment might be multiplied. The French bureaux may 
 serve as an illustration of the manner in which this 
 system might be expected to work. A Bill is referred 
 
38 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 to a bureau, which discusses it in detail, and it then 
 comes before the entire Chamber with a certain stamp 
 of approval, to which the Chamber, as a rule, is 
 naturally inclined to attach considerable weight. The 
 bureau which moulded it is an integral portion of 
 the Chamber, actuated by the same spirit, and in 
 all probability possessing the full confidence of the 
 majority. 
 
 So it would be, as we may fairly assume, with 
 Grand Committees of the House of Commons. A 
 Bill might be referred to a grand committee, after 
 the second reading, with or without specific instruc- 
 tions as to its treatment; and perhaps in the greater 
 number of cases it would only return to the House as 
 a whole in order to be read a third time and passed. 
 Under ordinary conditions, when there was no very 
 strong or hostile feeling against a measure, this plan 
 would save time, and enable Parliament to do a little 
 more work ; but on the other hand there are manifest 
 objections to it. 
 
 It was comparatively easy in France, where par- 
 liamentary institutions are new, or at least new in 
 their present form, to establish this reasonable method 
 of legislation by the subdivision of labour. But 
 amongst ourselves, the change implied by the adoption 
 of such a method would be greater than the House 
 of Commons cares to impose upon itself. Internal 
 
Can Parliament be relieved? 39 
 
 parliamentary reform has proceeded slowly, rather by 
 precedent and tradition than by deliberate modifica- 
 tion of practice. Nowhere are the rights and pri- 
 vileges of individual members more jealously pro- 
 tected; and it has been represented as an infringement 
 upon these to take away duties once assigned to them, 
 and to make partial a function hitherto regarded as 
 general. The House is afflicted by a double non 
 possumus. It is unable to do its work, and it declares 
 itself unable to abandon any portion of its programme, 
 even to committees organised from amongst its own 
 members. 
 
 In point of fact, this plan of grand committees 
 has been considered and rejected by a select com- 
 mittee of the House, specially charged to report as to 
 the best method of expediting the public business. 
 The report of that select committee was, apparently, 
 futile as it was negative. It proved that the House 
 had too much to do ; it rejected most of the sugges- 
 tions made with the object of relieving the pressure; 
 and it could not bring itself to recommend a thorough 
 and adequate scheme in order to meet the growing 
 evil. 
 
 In the absence of such a scheme (for it would be 
 rash to say that the House could not under any 
 circumstances provide a good working machinery 
 whereby the energies of its six hundred and fifty-eight 
 
40 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 members might be utilised to the fullest extent) it is 
 for us who are outside the House — for the country 
 at large — to consider whether we cannot contribute 
 to the solution of this grave difficulty. The partial 
 failure of our parliamentary institutions affects us in 
 the most serious manner. The grievance is felt in- 
 finitely more by each individual voter or taxpayer 
 or unit of the population, as such, than it is by 
 members of the House of Commons in their special 
 capacity. It is impossible for them to legislate in a 
 satisfactory manner, and hard that they should be 
 called upon to perform duties which they have no 
 adequate means of performing ; but it is still harder 
 for us that we should see the most valuable element 
 of our Constitution rendered nugatory, and our repre- 
 sentatives continually baffled in their efforts to carry 
 out our behests. Our interest and right in the matter 
 are superior to those of the House as a collective 
 body; and, from the moment when it appears that 
 the House cannot extract itself from its difficulty, 
 it becomes our duty to interfere on our own behalf. 
 The House of Commons is oiir instrument and 
 minister ; it rules us and makes laws for us only in 
 the character of a delegation from ourselves. We 
 claim absolute self-government in every particular by 
 means of our representative institutions ; and we cast 
 away the right of self-government when we cease to 
 
Can Parliament be relieved? 41 
 
 control, to direct, even to dictate, the conduct of our 
 deputies. 
 
 Looking, then, at the matter from our own point 
 of view, from the most general point of view, how does 
 it appear that the much-needed reform can be intro- 
 duced into our parliamentary system ? 
 
 As the majority of bodily diseases may be best 
 attacked by applying a remedy direct to the seat and 
 centre of the bodily functions, or as a scientific pro- 
 blem may often be solved by a reference to the first 
 principles on which its conditions rest, so it would 
 appear most reasonable to approach this failure of 
 parliamentary government by going back to the 
 axioms on which our English Constitution is based. 
 Now it may be broadly stated that the right of self- 
 government is that which, more than anything else, 
 underlies our whole fabric of popular liberties, and 
 which figures most characteristically in all our formal 
 and informal charters. We have often claimed and 
 vindicated our title to fix our own taxes, to pass our 
 own laws, to surround our lives, property, homes, and 
 privileges with safeguards of our own devising. We 
 have established this self-government in matters of 
 State more firmly and comprehensively than in matters 
 of local and partial"concern ; but even in this respect 
 the lines have been clearly drawn and the prin- 
 ciples affirmed. We are a genuinely self-governing 
 
42 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 community in a progressive sense. We know what 
 we need far better than we know how to secure it ; 
 and few persons who have fairly thought the subject 
 out will deny that the most hopeful remedy for all the 
 ills to which the body politic is exposed would be a 
 complete and elaborate system of self-government — 
 self-government in as direct and immediate a form 
 as practicable, and in local as well as in imperial 
 concerns. 
 
 Is it not here, in fact, that we are able to discern 
 the root of the evil which mars our parliamentary 
 system, and which affects the nation at large in a 
 double sense — first, as preventing or deteriorating 
 imperial legislation; and next, as taking local au- 
 thority and responsibility out of the hands which 
 ought to wield it ? If the House of Commons, by 
 undertaking the regulation of purely local concerns, 
 overburdens its strength, and renders itself less efficient 
 in dealing with matters of national interest, does not 
 the whole nation suffer by the result of this ineffi- 
 ciency? And if business might well be transacted 
 by town councils and county boards which is now 
 carried, at great expense, often with long delays, to 
 the committee-rooms of the House of Commons, does 
 it not follow that local interests must be prejudiced? 
 It will hardly be denied that English communities 
 (we would of course include Scotch, Welsh, and 
 
Can Parliament be relieved? 43 
 
 Irish communities in the same term) have a just claim 
 to the direction of their own exclusive affairs, so far 
 as it is practicable to place the machinery of direction 
 under their control. Almost every one will contend 
 for the development and better organisation of the 
 municipality or township, or county or division of a 
 county, because every one belongs to a defined com- 
 munity of one sort or another, and must realise the 
 importance of the local government which affects his 
 property, his house, his family, his health, and his 
 personal comfort. However strongly a man may 
 advocate the centralisation of power as a general 
 principle, he is not likely to overlook the fact 
 that what are often called parochial matters can be 
 managed far better in a vestry or a council or a court 
 of quarter sessions than in Parliament. The dif- 
 ference between such a man as this and a man who 
 would make a clean sweep of all the local legislation 
 now taken up to the House of Commons is merely a 
 difference of degree. The line must be drawn some- 
 where, and the only difficulty is to decide where it 
 shall be drawn. 
 
 If, then, we may conclude that the relief of our 
 overburdened House of Commons cannot be wholly 
 effected by increasing the power of the existing legis- 
 lative machinery of Parliament, and if it be admitted 
 that the House undertakes a vast amount of local 
 
44 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 work which it is unable to perform, the question 
 remains, — In what manner can the needed relief be 
 applied, and how are we to lessen the responsibilities 
 of our legislators ? 
 
 It is plain that the tasks, if any, to be withdrawn 
 from Parliament should be those which might be 
 most appropriately performed elsewhere; that is to 
 say, tasks which are of special concern to particular 
 portions of the empire, and which do not immediately 
 affect the empire as a whole. Of these there may be 
 said to be two kinds, which under our present system 
 pass through the various processes of parliamentary 
 discussion and enactment — namely, such as are of 
 strictly local interest, in which the intervention of 
 Parliament scarcely seems to be necessary at all, and 
 such as more plainly require the sanction of the im- 
 perial legislature. Would it not be both practicable 
 and wise to take the former kind out of the hands of 
 Parliament altogether, and, with regard to the latter 
 kind, to devise a plan by which certain regulations, 
 drawn up in detail by local councils having an inti- 
 mate knowledge of the matters at issue, should subse- 
 quently be referred to Parliament for its sanction 
 alone ? 
 
 As for the special descriptions of work which 
 might be at once and entirely transferred from the 
 imperial legislature to local councils, it would not be 
 
Can Parliament be relieved? 45 
 
 easy to determine such a question without first de- 
 ciding what classes of local interests ought to be re- 
 garded as subject to imperial sanction, and what might 
 safely be left under the absolute control of local 
 authorities. It would, of course, be unsafe to draw a 
 hard-and-fast line, but there is one principle which 
 seems to offer as trustworthy a mode of distinction as 
 any other. The great Parliament of the nation 
 reasonably undertakes (or at all events ought to 
 undertake) the control of matters which affect the 
 whole population of the country, whether directly or 
 contingently. By ' contingently ' we mean in such a 
 manner as to influence health or the general safety 
 or convenience, which might be interfered with by the 
 passing or the neglect of local regulations. On the 
 other hand there are matters which can be most fitly 
 treated on the spot, by men whom they concern, and 
 in which the nation as a whole has no interest. If 
 it is possible to say of certain questions pressing for 
 solution in any particular locality that they affect the 
 locality alone, and exclusively, and that the people of 
 another locaHty would not be prejudiced by them, then 
 it might be safe to leave the solution of such questions 
 to the people affected. But if the matters at issue 
 are such that the regulations of one district cannot 
 but affect the inhabitants of another district, actually 
 or contingently, then it would not be safe to 
 
46 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 leave the various districts to legislate for themselves 
 without control. The principle of centralisation must 
 then intervene in order to secure uniformity in all 
 essential respects. Each district should still have 
 a voice in the arrangement, and each should be 
 allowed to settle the details, if any, which are ex- 
 clusively local in their effect ; but the common 
 principle which is to run through the whole body of 
 regulations, the uniformity which is to govern the 
 various local measures or enactments, must be deter- 
 mined by some representative body charged with the 
 interests of the whole population affected. 
 
 These distinctions are, as a matter of fact, already 
 recognised, and all that is necessary is to reduce the 
 various methods of self-government to a coherent and 
 logical system. The Local Government Board is just 
 such a moderating influence as that we have indi- 
 cated. It exists for the purpose of overlooking the 
 regulations drawn up by local bodies throughout the 
 country. In some cases its duty is merely to sanction 
 and give authority to what has been agreed upon by 
 the communities themselves. In other cases it has to 
 listen to protests and complaints, and to interfere 
 whenever interference seems necessary. This relation 
 between the Local Government Board and the ' Local 
 Parliaments ' — as town councils and boards of guar- 
 dians are often called — is, in theory, as nearly perfect 
 
Can Parliament be relieved? 47 
 
 as we have any right to expect it to be, at all events 
 under our existing schemes of popular representation. 
 But there are drawbacks in practice which ought to 
 be removed with all possible despatch, as soon as they 
 are indicated and acknowledged. For nothing is 
 more important to the wellbeing of the community 
 as a whole, and nothing tends more to produce 
 general satisfaction, order, and prosperity, than the 
 constant improvement of the scheme of self-govern- 
 ment under which our national life proceeds. 
 
 Before we consider how this scheme might be 
 improved, and according to what pattern we should 
 attempt to modify or develop our present institutions 
 of legislative self-government, let us review the different 
 classes into which the subject-matter of legislation 
 may be divided, in order that we may discriminate 
 between the proper work of Parliament and the work 
 which should be entrusted to local representative 
 bodies, with or without the control of a State depart- 
 ment 
 
 The necessary work of the Imperial Parliament 
 includes, first and foremost, the regulation of the 
 affairs of the nation as such. All foreign affairs, all 
 affairs of the colonies and of India, all matters con- 
 nected with the organisation of the army and navy, 
 the levying of taxes requisite for the public service, 
 the administration of the higher law-courts, the 
 
48 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 schemes of parliamentary and municipal election, the 
 normal education of the country, so far as system is 
 concerned, the general superintendence of boards of 
 health, the control of the Church, establishment, so 
 long as the connection of Church and State is main- 
 tained — these are among the principal duties of Parlia- 
 ment, reasonably devolving upon it, and incapable of 
 being discharged by any other than an imperial 
 authority. The duties in question partake of both a 
 legislative and an administrative character, and are 
 performed respectively by Parliament in session and 
 by permanent departments of the Imperial Govern- 
 ment. There may be a doubt, with regard to one or 
 more of them, whether the administration might not 
 be to some extent decentralised ; but if we confine 
 our attention to the legislative functions of Parliament 
 itself, we may take it for granted that the great council 
 of the nation could not (with the notable exception of 
 ecclesiastical legislation) be relieved of the work thus 
 falling upon it. 
 
 It is when we cease to regard the interests, needs, 
 and responsibilities of the nation as a whole, and 
 turn to those of the subdivided nation — the needs and 
 interests of the provinces, minor localities, and in- 
 dividuals — that we encounter duties and functions 
 not so clearly devolving upon Parliament To pass 
 at once to the most extensive subdivisions of the 
 
Can Parliament be relieved? 49 
 
 English empire, there are undoubtedly matters es- 
 pecially affecting Ireland (such as its fisheries, its 
 internal systems of locomotion, and the like), Scot- 
 land, Wales, the metropolis of London, which do not 
 extend over the whole of the empire, and which can 
 scarcely be said to affect the general population, out- 
 side the particular subdivisions. And it is reasonable 
 tb ask that matters of this kind should be left un- 
 touched by the Imperial Parliament, and that acts 
 and regulations, locally framed and determined upon, 
 should be subject to State control, if at all, merely by 
 the fact of their compliance with certain stipulations 
 previously laid down by statute or by the order of a 
 department. 
 
 Take, for instance, the case of railways. Under the 
 present system of legislation, every proposal for a new 
 line of railway has to be submitted to ParUament, and 
 to an elaborate inquiry before a select committee. 
 Crowds of witnesses have to be brought up to London, 
 from the most distant parts of the country, and main- 
 tained there, at great expense, often for days and 
 weeks together. Counsel have to be engaged ; and 
 the legal firms watching over the interests of the pro- 
 moters of and objectors to the railway must be per- 
 sonally represented in the metropolis. If the com- 
 mittee report favourably of the Bill, the whole House 
 is required to vote upon it, and the scheme adds one 
 
 E 
 
50 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 more to the hundreds which require to be pushed in 
 any session through the entire series of legislative 
 stages. 
 
 In this way there is a lavish expenditure of the 
 time of our legislators, as well as of the money 
 invested by the public in railway enterprises ; 
 and it may be doubted whether the results are 
 in any way commensurate with the outlay. Is it 
 necessary that all this should be done ? Could not 
 the merits and demerits of the scheme be equally 
 well considered by a court of inquiry on the spot, 
 which would at once reduce the unproductive outlay 
 of the investors by a very large amount ? Would it 
 not suffice to send dowp an inspector and an assessor, 
 as is done in many important cases by the Local 
 Government Board, who would impartially hear 
 evidence and arrive at a decision ? There are doubt- 
 less some details of railway construction and manage- 
 ment which must always be determined by statute ; 
 such, for instance, as the question of minimum fares, 
 and especially the whole group of questions affecting 
 the safety of life and limb. Parliament must always 
 control such questions as these, in the case of rail- 
 ways as in the case of mines and factories ; but there 
 is no more need for the Imperial legislature to 
 superintend the bringing of a railway company than 
 there is for it to undertake the formation of a mining 
 
Can Parliament be relieved? 51 
 
 or a manufacturing company. As for the necessary 
 compulsion in the acquisition of the land over which 
 a railroad is intended to run, this could be applied 
 in respect of a scheme prepared and examined out- 
 side Parliament, and guaranteed by the representa- 
 tive of a Government department as satisfying the 
 requisite conditions. 
 
 There are, as a matter of fact, many Bills, like those 
 drafted for the Metropolitan Board of Works, which 
 exact much less of the time and attention of Parlia- 
 ment than railway Bills, and which nevertheless 
 involve an equal amount of enterprise, and embody 
 pompulsory powers. Even in regard to these it may 
 be said that, as they do not touch Imperial interests, 
 so they do not demand the care of an Imperial legis- 
 lature, but might with reason and safety be left to the 
 solicitude of local or partial representative bodies. 
 It may be that no representative bodies actually in 
 existence are of sufficient weight or influence to 
 undertake the full charge of legislation in the case of 
 the largest non-Imperial measures. That is certainly 
 a defect in our system of general self-government 
 which presses for remedy, and which in the mean- 
 while prevents us from affording the necessary 
 relief to Parliament. It cannot be denied that a 
 bold scheme of provincial councils, representative in 
 the most ungrudging popular sense, having a legis- 
 
52 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 lative power in all but the ultimate sanction of the 
 most comprehensive measures, is urgently needed. 
 We shall consider in a succeeding chapter how such 
 a scheme might best be attained ; but first it may be 
 as well to enumerate some other of the leading mat- 
 ters of which Parliament might fairly be relieved. 
 
 What we have said in connection with railway 
 Bills would apply almost equally to Bills dealing 
 with all descriptions of Public Works, such as the 
 construction and maintenance of highroads, canals, 
 and every other mode of intercommunication ; to 
 Bills regulating the locomotion of men and domestic 
 animals ; to Bills aifecting health, the safety of life 
 and property, the diseases of cattle, asylums, the relief 
 of the poor, the levying and appropriation of rates, 
 and the like. In regard to some of these, no doubt, 
 the existing machinery of local self-government 
 works fairly well ; and it is obvious that the con- 
 trol of the Imperial legislature is indispensable in 
 cases where the general welfare would be pre- 
 judiced by the neglect of any individual local board, 
 and where it is desirable that uniformity of method 
 should pervade the whole system of local regulations. 
 
 Of course, the intervention of the State, in some 
 form or another, is requisite as an informing and 
 controlling power. Based as it is on the authority of 
 popular representation, it is the fittest and fairest 
 
Can Parliament be relieved? 53 
 
 mode of controlling the self-government of local com- 
 munities ; and it is also necessary, in certain cases, as 
 an umpire between different parties within the same 
 community, or between two or more communities. 
 But, whenever such intervention is not necessary, it 
 is unadvisable and even mischievous. The State ought 
 never to intervene either to check local measures or 
 to undertake legislation for local interests, except on 
 good cause shown, and for strong national considera- 
 tions. But, as the existing system of local self- 
 government is incomplete, it would be impossible 
 to take away the superfluous work of Parliament 
 and hand it over to the charge of efficient bodies 
 throughout the country. We cannot hope to do this 
 until we have perfected the machinery by which 
 communities govern, or will hereafter govern, them- 
 selves. 
 
54 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 LOCAL LEGISLATION. 
 
 The tendency of recent legislation, or attempted legis- 
 lation, for the improvement of local self-govern- 
 ment in England has been in the direction of estab- 
 lishing larger councils than those which already exist, 
 covering a wider area, and exercising a weightier 
 authority. A development in this sense has at differ- 
 ent times been demanded by men of all parties, more 
 or less urgently ; though of course the schemes pro- 
 posed have varied considerably. Some have been too 
 ambitious in their aim, as though it were possible to 
 secure theoretical perfection without passing through 
 the intermediate stages of a systematic progress. 
 Others have been propounded by cautious members 
 of the governing classes, who would be afraid to 
 disturb the existing order of things in the provinces 
 unless they saw a chance of adding to the influence 
 and power of the magistracy. 
 
 One of the latest suggestions of this kind was em- 
 bodied by Mr. Clare Sewell Read, the member for 
 
Local Legislation. 55 
 
 Norfolk, in a resolution which he succeeded in carry- 
 ing against the Government, and which was followed 
 in due time by the introduction of a Bill for the 
 establishment of County Boards, fortunately abor- 
 tive. Mr. Read is a tenant-farmer, and at the same 
 time a respected unit of the Conservative party; 
 and the conjunction is hardly one from which we 
 should expect a very bold or thoroughgoing reform 
 of the present system. Nevertheless, the resolution 
 which he carried was one which aimed at the 
 popularisation of local self-government by with- 
 drawing a certain amount of power from the magis-> 
 trates, and giving it to the representatives of the 
 ratepayers. And both he and the other Conserva- 
 tives who voted against the general body of their 
 party made it clear that they had a genuine desire 
 for such a real change, although they stopped short 
 of the development which would have found favour 
 with the majority of Liberals. 
 
 Undoubtedly, the most essential principle to be 
 observed in any and every amendment of the pre- 
 sent plan of so-called self-rule by communities is 
 this, that the masses of the ratepayers must be more 
 fi^lly and more directly represented, and that their 
 interests, as distinct from the mere privileges of the 
 landowners, must be regarded as the primary concern 
 of the elected councils. The ratepayers, who, for 
 
56 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 purposes of organisation, are to be regarded as being 
 the nation itself, must be veritably and actually pos- 
 sessed of the power of self-government by sections, by 
 communities, by local aggregations, each complete 
 and distinct, each well-defined and independent, 
 and yet all framed and governed on a common 
 plan, and subordinated to a common national au- 
 thority, to wit the central council, or Parliament of 
 the nation. 
 
 If the question be asked, on what plan or system 
 this division of the nation into self-governing commu- 
 nities might best be effected, we would reply that this 
 is a matter of comparatively small moment. The 
 one thing necessary to a healthy national life is that 
 the subdivision should exist. And it is clear that an 
 OTganisation based on and developed from such a 
 groundwork as we find ready to our hands would be 
 infinitely preferable to any artificial scheme which 
 might be adopted as more theoretically perfect. In 
 fact it would be impossible that any artificial arrange- 
 ment of districts for the purposes of self-government 
 should be successfully applied. The truest justification 
 of the claim to local self-rule consists in the identity 
 of interests and feelings amongst the general body of 
 the community putting forward the claim ; and this 
 justification would not exist in the case of districts 
 mapped out on a scale of miles or population alone. 
 
Local Legislation. 57 
 
 There is, indeed, no necessity for the districts 
 to be equal, or even approximately equal, to each 
 other in size. These considerations may rightly apply 
 to a system of representation, as, for instance, in de- 
 ciding the extent of parliamentary constituencies ; but 
 so far as the size of self-governing communities is 
 concerned, it does not appear that numerical equality 
 is an indispensable requirement. 
 
 We have in England various subordinate divisions 
 of the State, all governed more or less on principles of 
 local and exclusive application, which it is impossible 
 to neglect in any attempt to secure a more thorough 
 organisation. 
 
 1. We have the very imperfect village community, 
 \vith its outline of parochial government, with its 
 vestry, its guardians, its parish officers, its police, its 
 unpaid magistrate or magistrates, resident in the village 
 or close at hand. 
 
 2. We have the like machinery in the smaller 
 towns, a little better arranged and more efficient ; and, 
 as the towns rise in importance, we have bodies of 
 town commissioners, in addition to the boards of 
 guardians, police courts, school boards, and so forth. 
 
 3. We have the municipal corporations, with 
 mayors and aldermen, presiding over the town 
 councils, with or without recorders or stipendiary 
 magistrates. 
 
58 Popular Sovereignty, 
 
 4. We have the county court districts, with their 
 resident judges, and the legal machinery set in motion 
 by them. 
 
 5. We have the lord-lieutenants and deputy- 
 lieutenants of counties, the sheriflfs and unpaid magis- 
 tracy, whose jurisdiction extends over a whole county^ 
 primarily in petty sessions, and then, with larger 
 authority, by way of appeal from the petty sessions 
 as well as of general government, in the courts of 
 quarter sessions. 
 
 6. For certain restricted purposes we have the 
 union of several adjoining counties. 
 
 7. Lastly we have, in actual existence, and with 
 by no means absolute force, the distinct laws, regu- 
 lations, customs, and privileges of Scotland, Ireland, 
 the Isle of Man, the Channel Islands, all diifering in 
 some respects from the laws and privileges of Eng' 
 land. 
 
 Throughout this scale of local self rule, in which 
 so many distinctions are to be observed, we find 
 everywhere present, though in different forms, the 
 evidence of a fulfilled desire for local self-govern- 
 ment amongst our fellow-countrymen, asserted at 
 various times, and obtained piecemeal, without much 
 harmony in the method of application. To a very 
 large extent, unknown in many countries where the 
 system of subdivision is theoretically superior, the 
 
Local Legislation. 59 
 
 people of England do already govern themselves in 
 their local communities, and hold themselves inde- 
 pendent of external control. With more than a few 
 reservations, it is true, but still in a very real sense, 
 the nation is self-governing, and enjoys communal 
 freedom ; and hence it follows that the great need for 
 us at the present moment is rather to develop what 
 we already possess than to seek for something new of 
 its kind. 
 
 How, then, may we develop our existing institu- 
 tions? How may they be further harmonised and 
 organised, so as to combine them into a complete 
 and efficient system of self-rule, capable not only of 
 satisfying the needs and aspirations of the communi- 
 ties, not only of utilising the actual forces of the com- 
 munities to the fullest extent, but also undertaking the 
 whole work which may fairly devolve upon them, and 
 so relieving the Imperial councils from non-Imperial 
 duties ? 
 
 One of the first things which would be likely to 
 strike a foreigner in taking his survey of our English 
 modes of local government (though the remark 
 applies in some measure to Imperial concerns as well) 
 is the notable extent of the voluntary service ren- 
 dered by Enghshmen to the communities in which 
 they live. Very many of the officials we have men- 
 tioned are entirely unpaid and unrewarded, except 
 
6o Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 by 'the dignity and occasional influence attaching 
 to their office. The magistrates in particular, upon 
 whom a large amount of practical local work, of 
 a most important and often critical character, is 
 thrown, who exercise the functions of judges of 
 first and second instance, and who are responsible 
 for the general condition and expenditure of their 
 several counties, are wholly unpaid. So also are 
 the vestries, the boards of guardians, the town 
 commissioners, the town councils and mayors, the 
 school boards. This is a fact of which Englishmen 
 have reason to be proud. No doubt there are special 
 cases in regard to which the honorary character of 
 particular offices is a disadvantage, and in which the 
 work might be better done by paid officials. But in 
 the majority of cases the existence of this voluntary 
 co-operation in self-government is a matter for 
 congratulation j and it would be a most dangerous 
 experiment, not to say a fatal mistake, to sweep all 
 this elaborate machinery on one side. 
 
 It may be urged that the individuals who perform 
 these duties without imposing any charge for their 
 services upon the resources of the ratepayers are, 
 necessarily, independent men, of more or less con- 
 siderable private fortune, so that the dignity and 
 satisfaction of office in local communities fall to the 
 wealthy alone, thus aggravating the evils which spring 
 
Local Legislation. 6i 
 
 from class distinctions. This is trae ; but it is in- 
 evitable. They who can devise a method by which 
 men who work hard for their living, whether as 
 artisans, or as tradesmen, or as professional men, can 
 also contrive to exercise the duties of magistrates, or 
 town councillors, or members of school boards, and 
 the like, may be in a position to suggest a remedy 
 for the evil ; but meanwhile there seems to be no 
 alternative but to submit. It is only when indi- 
 viduals of the hard-working classes have begun to 
 make their way, and to have some portion of their 
 time at their own disposal, that they can aspire to 
 take their places on the boards and benches of our 
 local parliaments. We do not say that there is no 
 unreasonable exclusiveness on these boards and 
 benches. On the contrary, we believe that much 
 may be done to render the work of local self-govern- 
 ment a more open career. The appointments of 
 magistrates, for instance, too frequently depend on 
 the mere caprice of a lord-lieutenant, or on the 
 party feeling of local wirepullers. But the cliquism 
 and exclusiveness of the magistracy has its counter- 
 part in the same unworthy phenomena amongst 
 town councillors and vestrymen. The principle of 
 popular election is a valuable one, but it does not 
 guarantee us against unworthy influences. It would, 
 undoubtedly, be for the public welfare if the higher 
 
62 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 honorary positions were easier of attainment to men 
 of character of slenderer means, and if the similar 
 positions of a subordinate character, commonly occu- 
 pied by tradesmen and retired tradesmen, were more 
 easily accessible to artisans. 
 
 We believe it is in this direction that we may see 
 our way to one of the initial modifications of existing 
 institutions which would lead to greater efficiency in 
 the general organisation. By thoroughly systematising 
 and popularising the voluntary work which is rendered 
 to the community in so many various modes, we 
 should improve our local administration, especially 
 by the increase of its capacity for undertaking large 
 and wide-reaching measures, and so relieving the 
 Imperial legislature. 
 
 It is no doubt inevitable that voluntary offices 
 of every kind should be discharged principally by 
 wealthy men ; partly because such men have the ne- 
 cessary time at their disposal, and because they secure 
 authority and dignity by their independence, but also, 
 to some extent, because they have had special train- 
 ing for their work, whether in the occupations of busi- 
 ness before they obtained their independence, or by 
 previous education and preparation for the task. But 
 whilst it is advantageous to the community that the 
 services of independent volunteers should be retained, 
 and whilst these volunteers yviU always, in the nature 
 
Local Legislation. 63 
 
 of things, perform the bulk of the work, they ought 
 not in any shape or form to have the exclusive privi- 
 lege of discharging the functions depending on volun- 
 tary effort. There ought to be no monopoly of 
 voluntary service. This should be a simple truism, 
 and nothing more ; but the fact is, that an exclusive 
 privilege and a monopoly really do exist, and consti- 
 tute a grievance to a numerous section of the com- 
 munity. This grievance might be largely obviated by 
 abolishing the property qualification for office, wher- 
 ever it still survives. It is not easy to see a reason 
 for a property qualification of any kind, or for any sort 
 of oflSce. A guarantee or security is necessarily re- 
 quired from clerks and others who are intrusted with 
 considerable sums of money. But the man who is 
 elected to discharge certain duties, however important, 
 by his fellow-citizens ought not to be barred by the 
 absence of a property qualification, which is really 
 only a pecuniary guarantee in a disguised forrn. 
 
 By this and other modifications, the voluntary 
 service of the community might be made more of an 
 open career, and the effect would be to increase the 
 general intellectual force of our local governing bodies. 
 But the question would then remain, whether the 
 powers now given to boards, benches, and com- 
 mittees of voluntary workers are in every case rightly 
 so given, and whether some of their functions might 
 
64 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 not profitably be withdrawn from them? It is 
 dear that there are certain kinds of duties which 
 would be better performed by paid than by unpaid 
 officials, as, for instance, when the performance re- 
 quires a special professional training, like that of a 
 barrister-at-law, or of a judge. Paid servants are 
 more amenable to discipline, and more under the 
 control of a department or a minister, than are the 
 voluntary servants over whom no rod of terror (ex- 
 cept that of dismissal) can be held. Even public 
 opinion has less command over an unpaid than over 
 a paid official ; and there are duties the discharge of 
 which ought to be continually subject to public 
 animadversion and criticism. 
 
 Of such a character are the duties of the 
 unpaid magistracy, in so far as their jurisdiction 
 in petty sessions is concerned. It has long been a 
 question whether the administration of the law now 
 intrusted to the borough and county magistrates ought 
 not to be handed over to stipendiaries, who would 
 bring their special training and experience to the 
 task, and so avoid many a scandal otherwise inevit- 
 able, arising from ignorance or prejudice or class 
 feeling, justifiable or not. The balance of argument, 
 in our opinion, conclusively tends to such a substitu- 
 tion of paid for unpaid services on the bench. But 
 in the case of county magistrates, and supposing that 
 
Local Legislation. 65 
 
 stipendiaries do not take their places, it would seem 
 to be preferable that the power of selection, now 
 exercised by the lords-lieutenant, should be vested 
 in the communities themselves. For if the magis- 
 tracy were made to depend upon popular election 
 there would be additional reason for ordaining that the 
 choice should be made amongst men who are most 
 fitted for the magisterial bench, by reason of their 
 conduct, character, and attainments. A number of 
 magistrates (though happily a small minority) ap- 
 pointed under the present system are notoriously 
 devoid of all these three qualifications. 
 
 But if this ' stipendiary reform ' were accom- 
 plished, and the country gentlemen were relieved of 
 their duties as administrators of the law, it would 
 be necessary to utilise their services in some other 
 mode than as magistrates sitting in petty and quarter 
 sessions. A large and very important part of their 
 work — the financial and economical government of 
 the counties, the management of roads and bridges, of 
 police, of asylums, and so forth — would still remain 
 to be done. It would be done all the better for the 
 abolition of their magisterial functions ; and all the 
 better, too, for the removal of such barriers as that of 
 the property qualification. Moreover, the argument 
 which tells against the conclusive appointment of the 
 county magistrates by the lords-lieutenant would apply 
 
 F 
 
66 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 with still greater force against the arbitrary selection of 
 a body of men who, no longer judges, would yet have 
 the whole local government of the country on their 
 shoulders. 
 
 It follows that this change, so steadily demanded 
 by popular opinion, would lead to a system of 
 representative county boards, as a reaUty and not 
 a mere name, and as a substitute for, not an addi- 
 tion to, the local magistracy. We can easily con- 
 ceive the shock of such an idea to those who value 
 the magistracy as an institution of the country. To 
 some the idea may seem to involve almost a revolu- 
 tionary programme, not to say a profanation or a 
 confiscation. But can it be doubted that this is the 
 tendency of the proposal for county boards as intro- 
 duced into the House of Commons by a Conservative, 
 and there adopted by a majority and accepted by the 
 Government? There is nothing revolutionary in 
 the scheme, except in a good sense. The dignity of 
 a member of the boards would not be less than that 
 of a magistrate under the existing order of things. 
 Rightly estimated, the mandate of the community in 
 which a man lives, bestowed by a free and popular 
 vote, is superior to the mandate of a lord-heutenant. 
 And there is no doubt that the best of the present 
 magistrates, and a considerable majority of them, 
 recruited by others of worth and ability, would 
 
Local Legislation. 67 
 
 receive the popular vote in their candidature for 
 the local parliaments. 
 
 These county boards would in reality be local 
 parliaments ; and no words are needed to prove that 
 they would be capable of a far greater amount of 
 work than the present quarter sessions, or any other 
 existing local machinery. It is a question which 
 would have to be considered, how far the duties of 
 the boards of guardians might be merged in those 
 of the county boards — or, in other terms, how the 
 guardians might be subordinated to these boards. 
 The scheme introduced by Mr. Sclater Booth (which 
 of course did not contemplate any interference with 
 the magisterial duties of the magistrates) provided for 
 the partial constitution of the boards by the elected 
 guardians. The boards would have been only partially 
 elective. The bulk of their members were to have 
 been chosen by the lords-lieutenant, others by the 
 guardians, and scarcely any (if any) by direct repre- 
 sentation. Such a plan, it is manifest, would never 
 have satisfied the aspirations of the country for an 
 increased measure of self-government, as indeed it 
 did not satisfy the desires of the country gentlemen 
 and tenant farmers who had asked for the establishment 
 of boards. What is really necessary in the interests 
 of the community at large is a local parliament in 
 every county, or division of a large county, elected 
 
68 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 by the broadest possible constituency, with the fewest 
 possible restrictions, with power to transact as much of 
 the local business as may safely be taken out of the 
 hands of the Imperial Parliament. Some such plan 
 as this appears to be indispensable if we are to give 
 satisfaction to the ardent and characteristic desire of 
 Englishmen for self-rule in local communities. 
 
 It is not necessary to consider, before the general 
 principle of this reform is accepted, what ought to be 
 the details of a scheme which would organise the 
 whole of Great Britain and Ireland for purposes of 
 local self-rule. The wildest idea of all would include 
 India and the Colonies in the network of commu- 
 nities exercising quasi-parliamentary, or at all events 
 definite municipal, powers. The fact is that most of 
 the larger colonies of England already enjoy the auto- 
 nomy which (in a qualified sense of the word) is asked 
 for on behalf of English counties. In any case it 
 would be sacrificing a great opportunity of concilia- 
 tion, and many would cease to struggle for the reform 
 at all, if such a scheme were contemplated without 
 taking account of the requirements of Ireland. Not 
 only Ireland but Scotland and Wales might have to 
 be regarded as separate communities, entitled to se- 
 parate self-rule. In England it would suffice to give 
 representative councils to the forty counties ; though 
 the metropolis (with or without half a dozen of the 
 
Local Legislation. 69 
 
 largest provincial towns) might be taken apart from 
 the county limits, and governed in local matters by a 
 separate municipal council 
 
 It would be impossible, and very unwise even 
 if possible, to destroy the existing municipal self- 
 government of the towns, and nothing which we have 
 said is intended to imply this. It is a question 
 for consideration whether and how far the local 
 government of our cities and towns should be identi- 
 fied with, or subordinated to, the new county govern- 
 ments thus created ; but whatever might be done in 
 this direction, the internal affairs of a town already 
 enjoying self-rule could not be arbitrarily handed 
 over to a county board or the general council of a 
 county. 
 
 Let it be assumed that these General Councils or 
 Boards have been established, the members being 
 elected by ballot from a constituency of ratepayers, 
 with a franchise certainly not less broad than is indi- 
 cated in the payment of county rates. The leading 
 classes of subjects which come within the domain of 
 these councils would be as follows : — 
 
 1. The assessment and levying of the county 
 rate ; and, possibly, the levying of the Queen's taxes 
 as assessed by the Imperial Parliament. 
 
 2. The annual discussion of the county budget. 
 
 3. The public works of the counties, including 
 
Jo Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 the making and maintenance of roads, and the con- 
 trol of every mode of intercommunication within the 
 county, limited by whatever imperial control might be 
 deemed to be indispensable. 
 
 4. The regulation of asylums and other public 
 institutions within the county. 
 
 5. The police and sanitary arrangements. 
 
 6. The charge of the poor. 
 
 7. The control of the administration of justice, so 
 far as local control might be permissible. 
 
 8. Generally speaking, the control of schools, 
 prisons, and local administration of every kind, sub- 
 ject to the direction or sanction of the several depart- 
 ments of the State, which would see to the mainten- 
 ance of uniformity of system throughout. 
 
 The first observation which occurs in connection 
 with this programme of local self-rule is that some of the 
 labours of the county boards or councils could not be 
 carried out without affecting the inhabitants of adjoin- 
 ing counties, or even of the country as a whole. Such 
 would be the control of modes of intercommunication, 
 the management of the poor, sanitary regulations, and 
 the regulations affecting the transit of cattle. In addi- 
 tion to these, there would be a necessary balancing of 
 accounts between county and county, which would 
 involve a periodical conference on the part of dif- 
 ferent boards. 
 
Local Legislation. 71 
 
 Now it is precisely here that the most important 
 relief of the Imperial Parliament might be brought 
 about. A great deal, of course, would be done with 
 this result by leaving to local legislation the bulk of 
 the work which is now effected by private Bills in 
 Parliament, and by select committees of the House. 
 But the relief might go further, and Parliament might 
 wash its, hands of much of what it now undertakes 
 in the character of an umpire, or for the purpose 
 of insuring uniformity in the regulations of different 
 localities, or the like. That which would be neces- 
 sary would be the occasional or periodical conference 
 of the boards of contiguous counties, or of a group of 
 counties, in order that a common course of action 
 might be agreed upon whenever it might be requisite. 
 This common course (as, for instance, in the con- 
 struction and working of a railway, canal, or high-road, 
 or in the framing of by-laws for the management of a 
 river, or in the regulations affecting the transit of 
 animals, or the movements of tramps from district to 
 district) would have to be sanctioned by a Govern- 
 ment department, to which also might be referred any 
 protests or appeals on the part of minorities of rate- 
 payers. 
 
 We are aware of the slender nature of these sug- 
 gestions on matters of such vast interest and concern 
 to the community at large. But they are only sug- 
 
72 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 gestions, and are not put forward as being definite 
 propositions in their ultimate and most practical form. 
 No apology is needed for the expression of opinions 
 calculated to stimulate the discussion of topics so 
 closely affecting the welfare of the nation ; and there 
 are few topics which will answer this description 
 better than that of the system of local self-govern- 
 ment, as it actually exists, and as it might be modi- 
 fied and developed. This is, indisputably, one of 
 the great questions of the day, and the one which 
 presses most urgently for solution. A hundred par- 
 ticular reforms will be found to be involved in it; 
 and the statesman who is bold enough, wise enough, 
 and happy enough to work out the problem will 
 deserve well of his country. 
 
Limits of Parliamentary Government. 73 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 LIMITS OF PARLIAMENTARY GOVERNMENT. 
 
 If there is one thing more than another on which 
 Englishmen fix their attention, when discussing a 
 fact or a problem in the domain of English govern- 
 ment, it is the authority and supremacy of Par- 
 liament. Nor is this in any sense a matter for sur- 
 prise. Parliament is at once the means, the sym- 
 bol, the bulwark of our popular liberties, it has 
 originated and developed by virtue of our national 
 character, and is indissolubly associated with our 
 national strength and glory. It was through Parlia- 
 ment that we exacted and maintained the great 
 charters of Enghsh freedom, through Parliament that 
 we curtailed the prerogative of the Crown and en- 
 tered into an equitable contract with the Houses of 
 Orange and Brunswick. Parliament has laid its 
 restraining hand upon the sacerdotalism of the Church, 
 and has held in check, though it has never adequately 
 disarmed, the masterful spirit of feudalism. An Act 
 of Parliament has come to be the most effective and 
 
74 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 mighty instrument of authority in the nation, for it 
 can alter the most venerable law, overrule the most 
 powerful individual, and circumscribe the privileges 
 of the monarch himself. 
 
 All this being admitted, we think that we are apt 
 to lose sight of the limits by which the authority of 
 Parliament is bounded. Or rather, we are apt to 
 regard Parliament and parliamentary government 
 in their present form as nearer to perfection than 
 they can fairly claim to be. No doubt the repre- 
 sentative expression of the popular will, pro- 
 nounced in the national assembly within a reasonable 
 time after a general election of delegates, is the 
 highest authority which it is possible to conceive 
 in a self-governed, democratic State. A parlia- 
 mentary institution such as this responds to the very 
 conception and definition of political Kberty as it 
 has always been understood in England. But in 
 order to attain satisfaction in the development of 
 this idea, it is necessary that the system shall be 
 carried out in its most thorough signification. It 
 would be absurd to speak of parliamentary govern- 
 ment as the best kind of State rule so long as the 
 system of election, representation, and legislation 
 is so far from what it ought to be. Government 
 by means of party, in a Parliament of the present 
 complexion, cannot be such as we should care to 
 
Limits of Parliamentary Government. 75 
 
 stereotype and abide by. But the Parliament which 
 we can picture as the ultimate development of demo- 
 cratic ideas in England, the members of which should 
 be freely and frequently elected by the widest possible 
 electorate, unshackled by qualifications of property or 
 income, unimpeded by personal influence or intimi- 
 dation, and sitting in the national assembly as dele- 
 gates faithful to the behests of their constituents — a 
 Parliament chosen for the purpose of giving effect to 
 a particular programme, and incapable of continuing 
 in session for years after that programme has been 
 completed or abandoned — a Parhament thoroughly 
 master of its own time and energies, in harmony with 
 the manifest tone of public opinion, and incapable 
 of acting in contradiction to it, — this would be as 
 near an approximation to our ideal as we have any 
 right to expect. It would approach perfection as the 
 popular mind which informed it approached the 
 condition of perfect intelligence, education, and self- 
 restraint. 
 
 The extension of the franchise to the poorest 
 of responsible ratepayers, and to ratepayers inde- 
 pendent of sex, together with the shortening of 
 parliaments to three or five years, would take us 
 very far towards that goal of genuine self-government 
 which we aspire to reach. We cannot as a nation have 
 a complete control over our destinies, nor can we 
 
76 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 take the entire responsibility for our present fortunes 
 and future welfare, until we are able to trust the 
 people as a whole, in every class, with the right to 
 exercise its choice of representatives. Nor can we 
 look to Parliament for full and faithful obedience 
 to those from whom its commission is derived, so 
 long as it has the power of setting the constituencies 
 at defiance for the greater part of a seven-years' term. 
 Almost all other necessary reforms would follow 
 from the attainment of these two ; and without them 
 very little can be done to popularise our national 
 assembly. 
 
 The grand requisite in all parliamentary reforms 
 is that we should recognise the popular supremacy as 
 the central and deciding principle. Parliament must 
 be essentially the servant and instrument of the 
 people ; and so each member of Parliament must be, 
 in the best sense, the servant and instrument of his 
 constituents. The time has gone by when a man, 
 having bought or otherwise secured the ornamental 
 letters M.P. as a garnish to his name, could maintain 
 without fear of contradiction that a member, once 
 elected, was virtually independent of his constituents, 
 and not their responsible delegate. The idea and 
 the statement are not very old, and they may still be 
 adhered to by men who regard the House of Commons 
 rather as a comfortable club than as an assembly of 
 
Limits of Parliamentary Government, "jj 
 
 capable and hard-working representatives. But the 
 notion would no longer be maintained by any one 
 worthy of the repute of statesmanship. It is im- 
 possible logically to exclude the idea of delegacy 
 from any system of representative government. A 
 delegacy implies a commission given by a body of 
 constituents to the man whom they select to represent 
 them, and this again implies that the delegate 
 should perform his mission, and consider himself 
 responsible for the exact representation of their views 
 and wishes. Hence it follows that a Parliament must 
 be individually and collectively answerable to and 
 dependent upon the wishes of the constituencies. 
 
 It seems to be an unavoidable conclusion, and 
 one not superfluous to draw when there are so many 
 men who absent themselves from divisions or even 
 turn their backs upon their professions, and yet 
 refuse to resign and appeal again for election (if 
 they please) on their new platform — it seems to us, 
 we say, a logical and righteous necessity that no 
 member of Parliament is justified in retaining his 
 seat after he ceases either to represent or to hold the 
 opinions of the constituents who elected him, and 
 who sent him to Parliament, not for his own pleasure 
 or to follow his own diversions, but to work and to 
 vote in the spirit of his solemn engagement. And, 
 of course, the same argument applies to Parliament 
 
78 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 as a whole, and to the party of the majority, and 
 their leaders in the Cabinet, in particular. No 
 Cabinet can justifiably remain in office after the 
 balance of public opinion in the country has turned 
 against them. 
 
 But there are occasions, and any of us can call 
 such occasions to mind, when it is more or less 
 doubtful whether the constituencies are decisively 
 adverse to the Government of the day. Sometimes 
 the country will speak unmistakably. Speech after 
 speech, meeting after meeting, backed by the un- 
 equivocal voice of the press, will declare against a 
 ministry, which will be driven from power amidst a 
 storm of obloquy. But this is not always the case ; 
 and it is natural that ministers should be slow to 
 recognise the change of public opinion and sentiment, 
 even when a candid looker-on is convinced that 
 they ought to give way. It is easy to see how 
 such a state of things, when it occurs, is likely 
 to affect the welfare of the nation. No useful legis- 
 lation is possible so long as there is reasonable 
 doubt as to the acceptability of the Government 
 to the general body of the community. Discontent 
 outside of Parliament, languor and indifference 
 within, is inseparable from a condition of affairs 
 in which the legitimacy of the popular commission 
 has come to be suspected. We have had too 
 
Limits of Parliamentary Government. 79 
 
 many illustrations of this evil during recent years 
 not to be aware of the waste of time which may be 
 caused by the continuance of a Government in 
 office after its commission has virtually expired. 
 It is surely contrary to the interests of the nation 
 that a Parliament elected in a given year, for the 
 accomplishment of a given purpose, may continue 
 to exist five or six years later, under a very different 
 set of circumstances, and when the tone and even 
 character of the constituencies may have been modified 
 in an important manner. 
 
 What, then, is the remedy for this evil? And 
 how may we save ourselves the loss and injury 
 entailed by these moribund and unimpressionable 
 Governments ? 
 
 The answer is contained in what has already been 
 said on the subject of shorter Parliaments. The com- 
 missions of the people to its representatives should be 
 given more frequently. There should be a narrower 
 limit to the term of office of any individual or group 
 of individuals, and the constituencies should be 
 oftener called upon to express their approval or 
 disapproval of the work of their delegates. The 
 result would not be that a worthy minister, an 
 efficient Government, or a serviceable Parlia- 
 ment regarded as a whole, would be dismissed 
 from power more speedily than they are at 
 
8o Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 present. On the contrary, the country would be 
 likely to retain its best servants for a longer 
 time ; since a three or four-years' mission, faithfully 
 performed, would constitute a stronger claim to the 
 renewed suffrages of the voters than if it had 
 been succeeded by one or two wasted sessions. 
 
 It will probably be admitted that triennial or even 
 quinquennial parliaments are theoretically preferable 
 to the seven-years' term now permitted by the Con- 
 stitution. It was one of the affirmations of the Bill 
 of Rights that ' for the redress of all grievances, and 
 for the amending, strengthening, and preserving of the 
 laws. Parliaments ought to be held frequently.' This 
 was a provision directed against the practical abroga- 
 tion of parliamentary government under the Stuarts ; 
 and the principle there laid down has been so well 
 observed that there has never been a year since the 
 accession of William III. to the throne without a ses- 
 sion of Parliament. As for the natural duration of a 
 Parliament when once elected, nothing definite was 
 laid down before the year 1694, when the Triennial 
 Bill limited the term to three years. In 17 16 
 the Septennial Bill was passed, the Jacobite dis- 
 affection and the general disturbed condition of the 
 country having much to do with this retrograde step. 
 But many proposals to return to the triennial system 
 have been made since that time. That the attempt 
 
Limits of Parliamentary Government. 8i 
 
 has not succeeded, is chiefly, perhaps, because 
 the power of Parliament has rarely been abused 
 by the persistence in office of a specially obnoxious 
 Government J though there have been occasions 
 within the past two centuries when the claims of 
 the people in this respect have been scandalously 
 ignored. 
 
 The main issue involved in this question of parlia- 
 mentary terms is this. What would be the most 
 potent remedy for the evil suffered by the constituen- 
 cies when a Parliament outlives the spirit of the com- 
 mission intrusted to it by the people? It is the busi- 
 ness of a progressive and broadening Constitution to 
 furnish a remedy for every proved evil ; and if, for this 
 particular evil, there is a remedy which is within the 
 spirit of that Constitution, and is easy of application, 
 no minor obstacles ought to be permitted to stand 
 in the way of its acceptance. Is not such a remedy 
 to be found in giving to the country the opportunity 
 to elect its representatives at more frequent intervals ? 
 Is it not such a remedy that will most effectually 
 restrain the undue influence of the Crown, and 
 vindicate the supremacy of the popular will ? 
 
 It has been argued that more frequent general 
 elections, with all the attendant expense, excitement, 
 and interruption of regular employment, would do 
 more harm than good. Candidates would have to 
 
 G 
 
82 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 spend more money, the popular mind would be more 
 subject to a hurtful political ferment, and there would 
 be an increased tendency amongst the voters to 
 neglect their ordinary pursuits. The objections urged 
 in the great debate in 1780, when Burke delivered 
 one of his most impassioned but least effective 
 speeches against the repeal of the Septennial Act, 
 may be compressed into these three contentions, 
 beyond which we do not know that there are any 
 reasons against triennial parliaments which are still 
 forcibly or tenaciously maintained. 
 
 What, then, is the value of these contentions? 
 Let it be remembered that the average duration of 
 parliaments is considerably under seven years ; it 
 is under six years; and if those parliaments be 
 excepted which have been dragged out in violation 
 of the spirit of the Bill of Rights, the average 
 duration would be found to be under five years. 
 Thus the return to the older term of three years 
 would not necessitate a general election twice as 
 frequently as at present. The probability is that the 
 tliree-year term would rarely be shortened by a dis- 
 solution out of due course, or at all events less rarely 
 than the longer term. 
 
 But as to the argument of expense, in so far 
 as it is a strong one, it tells on the other side. 
 The cost of 'getting into Parliament,' as the phrase 
 
Limits of Parliamentary Government. 83 
 
 goes, is a scandal and disgrace upon our repre- 
 sentative institutions, which we confidently look 
 forward to see gradually removed. Something has 
 already been done in that direction by lowering 
 the property qualification, and by amending the 
 electoral laws; though it cannot be admitted that 
 the property qualification has been abolished so long 
 as a candidate is compelled to give security for the 
 payment of his share of what is really needless 
 as well as needful expenditure. When it becomes 
 practicable for any man (the poorest as much 
 as the richest) to stand upon his merits, and to 
 represent any, the poorest, constituency, the argu- 
 ment based on the cost of a general election 
 will dwindle away. In this view the advantages of 
 frequent parliaments are so great, and the saving 
 to the country would be so immense, that the con- 
 tention in that case would be absurd. Moreover, the 
 expense often incurred under the present rotten 
 system by ' nursing ' a constituency, and by playing 
 the role of candidate through one or t:wo or seven 
 years, is probably much heavier to candidates and 
 members than the pecuniary fine would be if the 
 triennial system were adopted. 
 
 As for the hurtful ferment of the constituencies, 
 which, it is alleged, would be greater in the case of 
 triennial than in that of septennial parliaments, Aye do 
 
84 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 not believe it. The political eSccitement implied in dis- 
 cussing and agitating for reform is essentially healthy, 
 and can be deprecated by no man who desires that the 
 country should advance step by step, reason by reason. 
 The really hurtful excitement, injurious to individuals 
 and to the community, is that which springs from the 
 neglect of popular wishes, from the delay of much- 
 needed measures, from the presence in office of men 
 in whom the country has lost confidence, and from 
 other obstructions of national progress. Much would 
 be done to clear away these obstructions if there 
 were a regular appeal to the country once in every 
 three years. As it is, the last two or three years of a 
 septennial parliament — in some cases, as no living 
 Englishman can be ignorant, the last four or five years 
 — are apt to be a period of constant and harassing 
 discontent, agitation, and political passion. So far 
 from evil of this kind arising out of the change of 
 system, we believe that the effect of triennial elec- 
 tions would be in the opposite direction, and that 
 the heat of politics, in the most obnoxious sense, 
 would be mitigated and allayed. The certainty 
 that every third autumn would bring an oppor- 
 tunity of intrusting a fresh mission, either to the 
 same or to fresh representatives, would prevent the 
 constituencies from agitating for a dissolution, or 
 would reduce such agitation within the narrowest 
 
Limits of Parliamentary Government. 8 5 
 
 limits. The renewal of Parliament would be effected 
 as punctually as the renewal of the school boards, 
 except on the rare occasions when a single session, 
 or two sessions, sufficed to show not only that some 
 particular Government could not satisfy the country 
 or lead the House, but also that no combination 
 amongst the party leaders could carry on the public 
 business. 
 
 Much the same considerations will apply to 
 the third contention, namely, that triennial elections 
 would unduly interrupt the business of the country. 
 The regularity of the interruption, and the avoid- 
 ance of the long seasons of suspense which form 
 one of the strongest arguments in favour of an 
 amendment of the law, would be preferable in a 
 dozen respects to all men of business. In point of 
 fact, the objections appear to shrink away the moment 
 they are grasped, and we know of no substantial 
 reason that can be brought forward against this pro- 
 posed change in the duration of Parliaments. 
 
 The most important advantage which would be 
 gained by undoing the hasty work of 17 16 would be 
 that the control of Parliament by the people, now 
 almost at a vanishing point, might be restored. This 
 control, which ought to have been increasing, seems ■ 
 to have been growing weaker and weaker. Re- 
 cent history has shown that a 'Ministry' may not 
 
86 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 only be a powerful and autocratic ' Government,' but 
 also a virtually despotic Council of Twelve, during 
 nearly seven complete years. It has been shown that 
 a Premier, assuming office without a definite com- 
 mission from the country, beyond the understanding 
 that he will give the people rest from so-called 
 exhausting political effort, may devise and carry out 
 a policy absolutely startling by its bold and novel 
 enterprise. It may be a good or a bad policy ; but 
 anyhow it is the offspring of Lord Beaconsfield's 
 ingenuity. Coming into power more by the dismissal 
 of his rival than for any confidence inspired in him- 
 self, he has acted as though he personally had been 
 chosen to do that which his ambition, or his con- 
 nections, persuaded him to attempt. If the policy 
 thus entered upon happens to be rash and injurious, 
 still the man who has devised it, the leader of a 
 triumphant party, is sure of support in the House 
 of Commons ; and the more skilfully he contrives 
 to give to his action the colour of patriotism and 
 popularity, the more certain he is of keeping his 
 parliamentary majority. 
 
 Under these circumstances a majority in the 
 country is cajoled into accepting the ideas of an 
 ambitious statesman, or else the burden is thrown 
 upon it of exposing and counteracting his schemes. 
 But, under our existing system, this is an immensely 
 
Limits of Parliamentary Government. 87 
 
 difficult task. To begin with, the majority which 
 sees through the device and cajolery may be a small 
 one. Time will be needed to build up a strong and 
 resolute opinion, proof against the subtleties by 
 which the shallower masses are misled. Even then 
 the power of expression is limited ; and still more 
 limited are the means by which popular opinion may 
 receive operative effect. There may be abundant 
 passion, vigour of speech, determination to seize the 
 first opportunity of driving the Government from 
 office J but the difficulties are enormous. There may 
 be four, five, or six years to wait for a general elec- 
 tion, and meantime the whole advantage of the 
 situation lies with those who are on the defensive. 
 
 The supremacy of the popular will, in a condition 
 of things in which all this is possible, is clearly 
 baulked. It may exist theoretically, and may be 
 asserted in the long-run ; but the country may be 
 brought to the verge of ruin before the voice of the 
 majority is obeyed, or, which is the same thing, be- 
 fore the voice of the majority is elicited by an 
 appeal to the constituencies. There is no true 
 self-government, no genuine democratic freedom, 
 under such circumstances. Nor is it possible that 
 there should be, so long as the powers of Parlia- 
 ment are not limited by an easy, a speedy, and an 
 effectual appeal to the people. 
 
88 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 There is one more consideration which must be 
 taken into account in estimating what the claims and 
 the force of the popular will really amount to. Public 
 opinion is the opinion not of voters only, but also of 
 a very large body of men and women who are not 
 voters. Some of these are amongst the best ranks of 
 the population, persons of intellectual as well as social 
 eminence, whose thoughts and words are in the highest 
 degree influential, whilst others constitute whole strata 
 of society, to whom a jealous electoral law has yet 
 denied a vote. The unfranchised include all women, 
 ratepayers or not, all members of families not being 
 actual householders, all dwellers outside the boroughs 
 who do not rent a house of considerable value, as well 
 as the agricultural labourers in a body, and very many 
 respectable artisans coming just below the assigned 
 standard. None of these must be omitted from the 
 list of persons who create and control public opinion ; 
 and yet they are wont to be left out of sight in con- 
 sidering the relations which ought to exist between an 
 elected Parhament and the people at large. Virtually 
 it is to them, as well as to the voters, that an appeal 
 is made at a general election, and it is into their 
 hands, unfranchised as they are, that the limitation 
 of parliamentary government must ultimately be 
 confided. 
 
 A clever election agent knows the value and 
 
Limits of Parliamentary Government. 89 
 
 the power of non- voters no less than of the voters. 
 How long will it be before the Legislature per- 
 ceives that the surest foundation of any representative 
 system is upon the voice and the will of the entire 
 nation ? 
 
go Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 CHAPTER VI. 
 
 THE ELECTORAL WEAKNESS OF LIBERALfSM. 
 
 It is often mentioned as a reproach against Liberals 
 that they are not sufficiently united amongst them- 
 selves to be a strong political party for party pur- 
 poses. Whilst the Conservatives are disciplined, 
 and acknowledge the subordination of ranks, from 
 the parliamentary leader to the humblest voter, 
 their opponents are generally split up into factions, 
 each doing what is right in its own eyes, and 
 obeying their appointed officers only when their 
 own pet projects and crotchets are not involved. 
 Thus it happens that Liberals are often beaten in 
 detail when they could have commanded an actual 
 majority, and the Conservatives gain victory after 
 victory by the mere force of superior organisation. 
 
 This is true enough. The reactionary or stationary 
 party ought rarely or never to hold office in England, 
 except as a stop-gap at particular crises, or during 
 periods of reactionary panic. Their success is due 
 at all times to their greater adhesion to one another 
 
Electoral Weakness of Liberalism. 9 1 
 
 to their mass-thinking and mass-voting, and to the 
 wilful independence of thought and action displayed 
 by the party of progress. It is a matter of course 
 (though there are plenty of Conservatives who will 
 deny the fact) that the bulk of the population of 
 Great Britain is essentially Liberal in tendency, 
 not to say democratic or radical. Limited as the 
 franchise still is, the great majority of the voters 
 are thoroughly Liberal in opinion. In 1874, during 
 the most notable reaction of modern times, it has 
 been shown that a Conservative Parliament was 
 returned by an aggregate vote which was of a Liberal 
 complexion. The paradox is accounted for partly 
 by the unequal distribution of seats, which gives a 
 representative to a hundred votes in one part of the 
 kingdom, to twenty thousand in another. But it 
 is also explained by the fact that in a number 
 of boroughs and counties the nominees of differ- 
 ent sections of Liberals were found scrambling 
 for a seat, thus dissipating a Liberal majority of 
 electors, and allowing a minority of Conservatives to 
 bring in their candidate. And a further explanation, 
 still more unsatisfactory, is that many who had pre- 
 viously voted for supporters of Mr. Gladstone were 
 known to have abstained from exercising their fran- 
 chise in 1874, or to have recorded their votes for a 
 Conservative, because on one or two special questions 
 
92 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 the Administration of 1868 had displeased them. Yet 
 these voters, however misguided, are still in the long- 
 run to be regarded as Liberals, and will probably vote 
 for a Liberal candidate during the remainder of their 
 lives. 
 
 We are aware that Conservative theorists have 
 tried to show that the bulk of English voters are 
 not necessarily, or even actually, Liberal ; and they 
 maintain that the lower we may choose to carry 
 the franchise in the social scale, the more likely 
 we are to hit upon political strata which are charac- 
 teristically and constitutionally Conservative. They 
 bring forward the election of 1874 as an illustra- 
 tion of this alleged fact; and occasion was taken 
 of the result of that election to extol the wisdom and 
 foresight of Lord Beaconsfield, who extended the- 
 suffrage in 1867. Even Liberals have been attracted 
 by this paradox, and men as sound in their general 
 sentiment as Mr. Lowe have brought themselves to 
 think that the further lowering of the franchise would 
 be prejudicial to the cause of progress. 
 
 It is not always easy to expose a fallacy, and 
 perhaps there is no need in the present case to 
 attempt it. There are probably not very many 
 Liberals who have accepted the paradox thus 
 adroitly provided by Lord Beaconsfield and his 
 friends. But it certainly does not seem consistent 
 
Electoral Weakness of Liberalism. 93 
 
 with a robust Liberalism to be so sceptical of the 
 common sense, the self-interest, we had almost said 
 the sanity, of the poorer classes of Englishmen as to 
 doubt that they will use their enfranchisement, as fast 
 as they attain it, in the steady pursuit of radical 
 reform. Nothing which has gone before amounts to 
 a proof that the voters added to the constituencies 
 in 1867 turned the scale in favour of the Con- 
 servatives in 1874. The behaviour of the artisans, 
 both then and since, tends in an entirely opposite 
 direction, and justifies our confidence in their political 
 constancy. As for the lodger franchise, there may 
 be a doubt upon the point, but that franchise was 
 not an extension in the sense we have been con- 
 sidering. 
 
 At any rate the new regulation of 1867 would not 
 account for the electoral weakness of the Liberal 
 party, which had often been noted before that date, 
 and which has received a more conspicuous illustra- 
 tion only vrithin the past decade. The nature of this 
 weakness, its causes and its justifications, must be 
 sought for in the very elements of Liberalism itself. 
 Liberals are the worst possible components of a militant 
 political party, considered as a party alone. Each 
 individual is so eager in his opinions and aims that 
 it is impracticable for long together to keep a large 
 number of them in the ranks. Aggressive resolu- 
 
94 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 tions in favour of popular progress, reform of abuses, 
 and the like, are arrived at by deliberation and 
 conviction ; and a man whose principles are thus 
 formed is not suited for a discipline in which 
 convictions must often be kept in the background, 
 and principles postponed to the word of command. 
 Amongst a thousand Liberals, all able to give a 
 reason for the faith that is in them, there are of 
 necessity almost a thousand distinct parties ; for each 
 one is tolerably sure to lay stress upon some par- 
 ticular plan or measure of reform, which he is tempted 
 to press forward in season and out of season, at the 
 expense of every other. Conservatives have the in- 
 estimable advantage — from the party point of view — 
 of having no specially definite programme, except 
 the negative one of checking progress and staving off 
 reform. No doubt they do this with a conscientious 
 motive, in order to make assurance doubly sure as to 
 the value or necessity of every attempted change. 
 They are like a farmer who puts off his own seed- 
 time until the summer, though he would gladly reap 
 his neighbour's corn in the autumn. But even 
 this is not more unreasonable than the conduct 
 of many Liberals, who expect that all their neigh- 
 bours should neglect the great staple crops in order 
 to come and help him with his little harvest. 
 
 The rank and file of the Liberal party can 
 
Electoral Weakness of Liberalism. 95 
 
 nowhere be studied more effectually than in the heat 
 of an electoral contest. It is precisely then, when 
 they ought to be at their strongest, that they are not 
 infrequently the weakest. There are, perhaps, half a 
 dozen candidates, where there ought only to be one or 
 two ; there are a dozen test-questions, when all should 
 be united upon a broad and simple platform. A good 
 candidate may have been secured and approved by 
 the general body of the party ; but there are a few 
 crotchet-mongers (enough to turn an election) who 
 will not be satisfied unless they can extract a series 
 of pledges from him in favour of a score of more 
 or less trivial, and sometimes incongruous, devices. 
 The unlucky candidate writes his address and delivers 
 his speech, but as often as not he has to stand the 
 fire of a tedious cross-questioning from men who are 
 more zealous than wise. All these things are ob- 
 stacles to successful party discipline, and are rarely 
 met with amongst our political opponents. But at the 
 same time they show, far better than mere serried 
 ranks and imperturbable silence, the eager pohtical 
 feeling, the enthusiasm for reform, which characterise 
 the Liberal party. And this feeling of enthusiasm is 
 a stronger foundation on which to build and rely 
 than the passive resistance to the advance of the 
 nation which often stands for political principle. 
 The story of Mrs. Partington and her mop admirably 
 
96 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 illustrates the conduct of those who consider re- 
 sistance to change as the cardinal point of their 
 political faith. The result of such a faith is that 
 the triumph of those who profess it never endures 
 longer than the period of reaction which brings them 
 to the front. Whilst the tide is ebbing, the mop may 
 be effectual, but as soon as the ebb is finished, and 
 the waves advance again, a whole army of old women 
 will not suffice to check the flood. 
 
 The time when the real strength of the two oppos- 
 ing parties may be most effectively compared is 
 when the country is bent upon a great forward 
 movement, a genuine and thorough reform, the im- 
 portance of which is admitted by the bulk of the 
 nation, and in behalf of which public opinion speaks 
 with overwhelming force. How is it that at a crisis 
 of this kind, when a ready and powerful instrument 
 is required to carry out the national behest, it 
 is always the Liberal party which is summoned for 
 the task ? How is it that Conservatives answer our 
 purpose only when we want to rest from legislation ; 
 when we are in doubt and in panic, and want to stand 
 back from the struggle ; when we are alarmed by the 
 rapidity of our progress, and weakly conclude that we 
 have advanced too far? Is it not that the desire 
 to move forward in the path of reform is itself 
 the essence of Liberalism — that when the nation 
 
Electoral Weakness of Liberalism. 97 
 
 is robust in its aspirations and its efforts it is then, 
 in the aggregate, a Liberal nation ; but when it 
 grows faint of purpose, relaxed and reactionary, it is 
 Conservative, or Tory, or indifferent, or anything you 
 will, but not a Liberal nation ? And does not this 
 amount to much the same thing as saying that 
 Liberalism is the name by which we describe the 
 active energies and ambitions of the community, 
 the best and loftiest qualities of the nation, the 
 robust and effective forces of the constituencies ? 
 
 It may be urged that this is a one-sided and 
 partisan statement of the distinction between the two 
 parties. We do not think so. Speaking without 
 reference to individual opinions and convictions, 
 and without personal inference of any kind, may it 
 not be said that the Conservative leaders scarcely 
 know what it is to have a definite programme of 
 domestic action, and hardly ever propose one for the 
 satisfaction of their followers ? The great rallying-cry 
 of the party for many years has been to turn out 
 the Liberals. No doubt this has been represented as 
 a high and imperative duty, as the protection of 
 the Constitution from attacks, as the defeat and 
 destruction of revolutionary violence. But this policy 
 at its best has been a policy of party, and the 
 struggle has been a struggle for place. It might have 
 been legitimate enough, if it had not been accom- 
 
 H 
 
98 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 panied by gross misrepresentations, and even these 
 misrepresentations might be overlooked, or soon for- 
 gotten, if Tory Governments had identified them- 
 selves with beneficent programmes of domestic and 
 economic reform. But this they have not done, 
 owing in part to the fact that such programmes 
 were already characteristic of Liberal statesmen, 
 being, as we have just claimed, the essence of 
 Liberal statesmanship. Not that there is any reason 
 why the Conservative party at some crises should 
 not identify itself with special branches of domestic 
 reform, and gather round itself the traditions of a 
 special domestic policy. This might have been done, 
 nay, if we go back to the first half of the present 
 century, we shall find that it has been done, and 
 done with success. Even when the policy has been 
 adopted from the programme of the Liberals (and 
 usually of the most advanced Liberals) — when the 
 Tories have ' stolen the clothes ' of their oppo- 
 nents, or have 'dished the Whigs' — this adoption 
 of a distinct reforming policy has been successful 
 in a remarkable degree. It was a Tory who intro- 
 duced free-trade, but he lost his sting as a 
 Tory in doing so. And within recent experience 
 a Tory Premier introduced and carried a Reform Bill, 
 ' educating ' his party in order to do it, though (more 
 skilful and less scrupulous than Sir Robert Peel) 
 
Electoral Weakness of Liberalism. 99 
 
 deepening the tinge of his own and his followers' 
 Toryism immediately afterwards. 
 
 It may be freely admitted, then, that Tory con- 
 versions, Tory reactions from Toryism, have not 
 been rare in our history, whilst they furnish the 
 brightest pages in the records of the party. But 
 the spasmodic efforts of the Conservatives to pro- 
 mulgate a policy of domestic reform, as it were in 
 cold blood, and when not necessary as a weapon 
 to combat their Liberal rivals, have not been suc- 
 cessful or creditable. As good an example as could 
 be needed occurred in 1874, when Mr. Disraeli 
 practically came into office on a programme of 
 domestic reform. The political speeches of January 
 and February in that year might have led a stranger 
 to believe that the Conservative policy had been, 
 was, and ever would be based upon the grand 
 principle of sanitary reform. Problems of hygiene 
 and sewage were elevated to the front rank of poli- 
 tical questions, the omnia sanitas of the Conserva- 
 tive leader was regarded as a sort of watchword for 
 the coming strife, and the keystone of the legislative 
 edifice which the Conservative architects were bent on 
 raising. Sanitary measures in the first place, with 
 some kind of relief for the agricultural interest, and 
 a general reassurance of alarmed and 'harassed' 
 interests — this was the promise held out to the 
 
 H 2 
 
lOO Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 country by Mr. Disraeli, bidding for office and place. 
 But no sooner was the remarkable result of that 
 election known, and no sooner were the Conser- 
 vatives established with their unexpected majority, 
 than experienced politicians began to look doubt- 
 fully upon the great principle of sanitation, so far 
 as its effect on legislation was concerned. As a 
 programme of active parliamentary work, the fore- 
 shadowings of the candidate for Buckinghamshire 
 were soon thrown into the background, and it was 
 evident that the new Premier saw his way to making 
 a great deal more of his opportunity than anything 
 which could be effected by studying the public 
 health, or even by consoling harassed interests. 
 Domestic reform gradually became the sham which it 
 must almost necessarily be under a Tory regime, and 
 at length the discovery of the magic idea of Imperial- 
 ism relieved the Conservative leaders of all com- 
 pulsion to observe their electoral pledges. 
 
 In the face of the lavish promises of Mr. Disraeli 
 and his friends in 1874, and of the alliance of so 
 many powerful interests, the Liberal party had no 
 chance whatever. Exhausted by an arduous series of 
 campaigns, unable to rely on the gratitude of those 
 whom it had benefited, pursued by the enmity of 
 those with whom it had interfered, the Government 
 of Mr. Gladstone fell a victim to its own honesty and 
 
Electoral Weakness of Liberalism. loi 
 
 excessive energy. It had done so much that the 
 country (fickle and short-sighted as it often is) was 
 not in the mood to hsten to another ambitious pro- 
 gramme, even if one had been offered to it. What 
 might have been done by a thoroughly Radical and 
 popular declaration in the winter of 1873-74 it is 
 impossible to say; but, suddenly confronted with a 
 summons to fight, and seeing before it in its semi- 
 blindness no other cause than a remission of taxation 
 for the upper and middle classes, the country lost 
 heart, and the spirit of Liberalism shrank back 
 discomfited. It may be questioned whether the 
 genuine sentiment of Liberalism, the enthusiasm for 
 reform, the eagerness to advance, can ever be so 
 relaxed as to fail in a moment of trial by its own 
 inanition. It is doubtful whether the rank and file of 
 the party of progress could ever be so far behind 
 their leaders as to make an unfavourable response 
 when called upon for a worthy purpose, clearly 
 understood. But it is in accordance with their 
 character and past history that they should refuse to 
 put forth all their powers when lassitude from past 
 struggles is aggravated by indifference to the pro- 
 gramme of the future. Such was unquestionably the 
 case with the more advanced section of Liberals in 
 1874; and such will be the case again whenever 
 the Liberals who are in office, or who are leading 
 
I02 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 the Opposition in Parliament, fail to give due heed to 
 the wishes of Radical reformers. 
 
 More and more every year this claim of the ad- 
 vanced section for consideration will make itself 
 felt, with the result of increasing the electoral weak- 
 ness of the Liberal party, and undermining the 
 most strenuous efforts at organisation. Nor will 
 it avail much to lament or protest against the want 
 of subordination with which Radicals are reproachedj 
 since they know beforehand the effect of their 
 independent course of action, on which they have 
 very deliberately decided. They believe that good 
 rather than evil must accrue from the feebler 
 organisation of Liberals ; or at least they are per- 
 suaded that this feebler organisation is the conse- 
 quence and sign of the best qualities of reformers. 
 They have no sympathy with the mere intriguing 
 politicians, who are influenced solely by party 
 traditions and individual loyalties instead of by 
 principles and pledges. To the expostulations of 
 whips and election agents, or of writers who look 
 upon party subordination as the highest of political 
 duties in all circumstances, the typical Radical re- 
 former might reply in such terms as these : — 
 
 ' If I am a Liberal, and if I am of any use to you 
 at all as a member of the great Liberal party, it is 
 on account of my strong and deep convictions. My 
 
Electoral Weakness of Liberalism. 103 
 
 ardent desire for reform, which I am never weary of 
 demanding and pursuing, in season and out of season, 
 caused me to be dubbed a Radical, as much in con- 
 tempt as in anything else ; and that desire is the 
 outcome of my strong convictions. I believe that the 
 objects of my ambition may be gained by unceasing 
 perseverance in every constitutional method of ad- 
 vance, if only I and my comrades proceed resolutely, 
 never relaxing our eiforts, determined to fight without 
 fear and without favour. But for these convictions I 
 should be something else — a revolutionist or a Tory, 
 but not a Radical reformer. Now, having these 
 convictions, and having made these resolutions, I am 
 constrained to carry on the struggle in accordance 
 with them, and not to rest even if the leaders or 
 organisers of my party rest. I am sorry that I should 
 be called upon to judge and decide when my party 
 leaders are in the right and when they are in the 
 wrong — when they have done all that is possible, and 
 when they withhold their hands without sufficient 
 justification. But what am I to do ? Governed by 
 conviction, and that by deep and strong conviction, I 
 cannot stand still simply because others do. I cannot 
 measure my bushel by other people's corn. Before I 
 could do so I should have to abandon the convictions 
 which make me a Radical. You know best what 
 becomes of the majority of those who, having been 
 
I04 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 ardent Radicals at one period of their life, cease to be 
 so. Whither did Mr. Disraeli betake himself when 
 he lost the force of his earlier convictions ? For what 
 did Mr. Roebuck at the last count in the reckoning 
 of the Liberal organisers ? And these are only the 
 distinguished types of many insignificant men who 
 have been frightened or cajoled out of their reforming 
 energy. 
 
 ' Believe me, I and my fellows are much more 
 serviceable to you (and to the nation, which is better) 
 whilst we retain our enthusiasm, our intolerance of 
 delay, our heat and energy and resolution, than we 
 should be if we meekly submitted to you, and asked you 
 to choose our candidates, select our measures, dictate 
 our votes, and count us as mere units in your paper 
 reckoning. If we made you this submission, you 
 know as well as we do that the Liberal party would 
 suffer in the long-run. It is easy to say what would 
 happen — because the like thing has happened so 
 often before. If all classes of Liberals were gathered 
 under a single flag, and marshalled with strict 
 discipline, the Tories might for the time be left 
 absolutely out of consideration. You would out- 
 number them by two to one, and you could return 
 your nominees all over the country. Parliament being 
 thus at your disposal, if you had a Gladstone ready to 
 your hands, we should have a programme of great and 
 
Electoral Weakness of Liberalism. 105 
 
 heroic refonns, favoured by the breath of popular 
 enthusiasm, which would cause all liberal English- 
 men to rejoice, and would promote the welfare of 
 humanity. If you had not a Gladstone, we should 
 still secure a moderately satisfactory programme, and 
 carry a few measures of constitutional reform. But 
 when your lease of power was drawing to a close, 
 when the programme was exhausted and the future 
 had to be faced, how would you then stand ? Let the 
 year 1873 answer the question. Selfish or half-hearted 
 Liberals in the House would be lax in their support 
 of the Premier, the whips would be harassed, the 
 majorities would begin to fluctuate in an ominous 
 manner. Selfish or half-hearted Liberals out of doors 
 would be growing lukewarm, even if they did not turn 
 round upon their leaders for injuring them in some 
 fashion by their additions to the statute-book. The 
 country would be hesitating as to what would come 
 next ; and you, specially responsible for keeping the 
 party as a party together, would be balancing and 
 compromising with the best possible intentions accord- 
 ing to your lights. 
 
 'That would be precisely the moment when the 
 unexhausted and inexhaustible reserve of reforming 
 energy in the popular mind ought to be drawn upon 
 for a new infusion of strength, and when the spirit 
 of every true Radical would be burning to advance 
 
io6 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 towards new victories. But the exigencies of party 
 Liberalism, as distinct from reforming energy, would 
 seem to you to require some mild middle course ; and 
 we should either fall back into a sleepy Pahnerstonian 
 riginu, enduring for dozens of years, or collapse 
 ignominiously, as in 1874, by trying to please both 
 extremes of the party, and so pleasing neither. Is it 
 for this that you would have us Radicals efface our- 
 selves, and sink to the dead level of spasmodic, half- 
 reforming Liberals ? ' 
 
 There would be so much truth in these remarks 
 that they could not feil to exact the acquiescence, 
 up to a certain point, of the liberal party leaders. 
 No doubt the intensity of the political feith of 
 the advanced section of reformers is the principal 
 cause of our general electoral weaknes ; and it is 
 a cause which must continue to exist as long as 
 jxuty itsel£ We must face it as an inevitable feet, 
 and not protest ag-iinsr it, ot attaaapt to remove it 
 It would seem that liberals m-j^t live togedier by 
 concordats, by cranpacts for a given r-erlod, by com- 
 binations for a distinct rurpose, or fcr the accom- 
 plishment oi a stated programme, and is:ist make 19 
 their minds for more or less of di?3ijca in tie 
 inter\-als. The ahemativie is thai lie eagia and 
 democratic section sho-ild s«nd irvsrt ftwn r^e rest, 
 and constitute a party in iss™ r^-Iyi^ ^'i its own 
 
Electoral Weakness of Liberalism. 107 
 
 force, and conquering opposition from whatever 
 quarter. For this the age is scarcely ready, though it 
 would be unsafe to say that the time is not close at 
 hand when a democratic party will be strong enough to 
 set all but professed democrats at defiance. Even then, 
 in the ranks of English democracy, there would be 
 the advanced and the reluctant sections, and there 
 would be a division over some such question as the 
 remodelling of the House of Lords, or the enfran- 
 chisement of the land, or the restriction of the 
 royal prerogative. 
 
 No Englishman, of a surety, need be alarmed at 
 such a project, and still less need any Radical 
 politician be ashamed or humiliated by this law of 
 perpetual subdivision in the ranks of reformers. 
 The growth of Liberal sentiment is susceptible 
 of a close analogy with the growth of an organic 
 body in nature, which proceeds by the constant 
 multiplication and differentiation of corpuscles. It 
 is in politics as in corporeal existence — the dif- 
 ferentiation and development are tokens of strength, 
 not of weakness. The question most worthy of 
 being taken into account is that which touches the 
 kind of differentiation at any particular instant in 
 the progress of development. On this point Liberals 
 are pretty certain to disagree in every age, but it 
 is not necessary for them to agree. The one thing 
 
io8 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 necessary is that all alike should be animated by 
 the spirit of reform. When this spirit is roused, the 
 scattered elements will be gathered together into a 
 party sufficiently strong and united to carry any 
 programme which may have been dictated by the 
 genuine wishes of the community. More than this it 
 is useless, in the very nature of things, to expect from 
 the general body of Liberals. Strong at particular 
 seasons, but weak as a party, and especially weak as 
 a collective opposition — this they always have been, 
 and are likely always to be. 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 109 
 
 CHAPTER VII. 
 
 LIUERAL FOREIGN POLICY. 
 
 It is sometimes urged against the Liberal party, or 
 at least mentioned as one of the drawbacks from 
 which they suffer in the opinion of the country at 
 large, that their leaders are too devoted to home 
 interests, too intent on what is called parochial 
 legislation, and therefore too apt to neglect foreign 
 politics and ' imperial ' concerns. This is a familiar 
 part of the political jargon of the day, and it is worth 
 while to examine it with some attention, and to make 
 sure whether there is any justice in the complaint. It 
 is not only within the past few years that this flaw has 
 been discovered in the texture of English Liberalism. 
 The charge is a comparatively old one, and has been 
 brought against the popular or democratic parties 
 in every European state. The French monarchical 
 sections are fond of levelling it against their Repub- 
 lican rivals, and they have been in a position to 
 do so with some show of reason, inasmuch as the 
 majority of the old trained diplomatists, who had 
 
no Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 made their way under monarchical regimes, and at 
 monarchical courts, naturally fought shy of the 
 Republican service, and found it convenient to 
 deprecate the efforts of their successors. But 
 amongst the many debts which we owe to the party 
 which has now been dominant in France for the 
 best part of a decade, is this, that it has reversed 
 the judgment of its detractors in the matter of demo- 
 cratic statesmanship, and proved it to be perfectly 
 possible that a Republic in Europe, built on the 
 broadest popular basis, may do more than hold 
 its own against the diplomacy of other nations, and 
 retain all that is valuable in the old traditions of state- 
 craft. A notable illustration of this was afforded at 
 the Congress of Berlin, when the dignity of France 
 suffered no whit from being intrusted to M. Wadding- 
 ton and his colleagues, though they were one and all 
 ardent Republicans, and though they were pitted in 
 council against the ablest statesmen and diplomatists 
 of ancient European dynasties. 
 
 It will be sufficient, however, to consider the 
 question as it is presented to us in our own country, 
 and as it is illustrated by the history of the past ten 
 or a dozen years. For the contrast is rather between 
 advanced Liberals, or Democrats, and Conservatives 
 of the 'Imperialist' persuasion, than between the 
 Whigs and Tories who faced each other under 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 1 1 1 
 
 previous [conditions of political life. The par- 
 liamentary arena — and of course the arena of public 
 discussion which bears such intimate relations with 
 that of the two Houses of Parliament — is very 
 different from the arena in which Lord Palmerston 
 and the late Lord Derby were the most prominent 
 opposing figures. Lord Palmerston himself, whether 
 we call him a Liberal or a Whig, or, as some would 
 put it, a Conservative out of place, did quite enough 
 on his own account to show that foreign politics had 
 a constant and lively interest for, his party. He was 
 rarely in office without finding some active work 
 abroad, either for Enghsh diplomacy or for English 
 arms. No doubt he believed, or tried to believe, in 
 the principle of non-intervention in the abstract, and 
 abided by the maxims of that doctrine with tolerable 
 fidelity. Europe had been only too glad to rest after 
 the exhausting struggles brought to an end in 1815, 
 and it was not Lord Palmerston's fault that Eng- 
 land did more than any other nation to break through 
 the limits of peace and war in 1854. The quarrel 
 between Russia and Turkey at that date might 
 have been confined to the south-eastern corner of 
 Europe, without the active interference of western 
 Europe; and Lord Palmerston would have been ready 
 enough to play the part of a mediator instead of a 
 combatant. 
 
112 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 Nevertheless, as a general rule, and in matters 
 which came immediately under his control, Lord 
 Palmerston was at least as much disposed to inter- 
 ference in foreign affairs, and to the assertion of 
 English influence abroad, as were the Conservatives 
 of his own day. He made himself the advocate 
 and champion of almost every cause urged by an 
 Englishman against a foreign Government, and 
 believed that the British arms ought to be at the 
 service of British trade and dignity throughout the 
 world, at a moment's notice, as a matter of course. 
 We fired on Greek merchant shipping in the 
 interest of Don Pacifico, and assisted in vindicating 
 the sacredness of our opium traffic with China 
 by inflicting immense damage upon the Chinese 
 people. We made it a boast that, owing to his 
 energetic conduct in supporting his fellow-countrymen 
 in foreign countries, an Englishman on his travels had 
 nothing to do but to proclaim himself a citizen of 
 Britain to secure immunity from attack or insult. 
 So that it was scarcely under Lord Palmerston, or 
 under Lord John Russell as his Foreign Secretary, 
 that the titular Liberals can have earned their reputation 
 for indifference in foreign affairs, or for suffering the 
 influence of England to be neglected in the councils 
 of the European Powers. 
 
 As for the independent action of Lord John 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 113 
 
 Russell during his short Premiership in succession to 
 Lord Palmerston, he certainly did not err on the side 
 of abstention from diplomatic interventions. He 
 spoke out boldly in behalf of the Italians as against 
 the Austrians, and in other similar cases, showing 
 that he was ready to use the prestige and influence 
 of England in bringing pressure to bear upon the 
 most powerful European Governments. And as 
 for our failure to espouse the cause of Denmark 
 against Germany, the responsibility of this cannot 
 be fairly laid to the account of one party more than 
 another. There was no strong demand that the 
 Government should interfere with Germany ; there 
 was no, hope of its doing so with success ; and the 
 desirability of such a course was not very seriously 
 maintained until several years later. 
 
 Thus we come to the Administration of Mr, 
 Gladstone, extending from 1868 to 1874. If there 
 is any ground for the charge made by Conservative 
 critics, it must be within this period that England 
 lost so much of her prestige and consideration 
 abroad — or at all events that the indifference of 
 Liberal statesmen as compared with Conservatives 
 became so manifest. Let us see how far this accusation 
 is justified by the facts as they are presented within 
 the past thirteen years. 
 
 Mr. Gladstone took office with a clear and distinct 
 I 
 
114 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 mandate from the people to carry out a series of 
 reforms in Ireland, and coincidently in England and 
 Scotland, when there was no great foreign complication 
 to distract us from domestic concerns, though amongst 
 the responsibilities left over for him by the preceding 
 Government was the balance of the charge incurred 
 in the Abyssinian war. This petty (but very ex- 
 pensive) war was a natural outcome of the old Pal- 
 merstonian spirit, which held the life or the safety of 
 half a dozen Englishmen as being ample reason for 
 putting forth the whole power of the country against 
 the meanest or the most powerful potentate rash 
 enough to threaten them. In its origin, its progress, 
 its result, and its enormous cost the Abyssinian 
 war found a close counterpart in the Ashantee cam- 
 paign ; and the one may be set against the other, 
 so far as either might be any guide to the policy of 
 the Government which entered upon it. 
 
 We come, then, to the Alabama arbitration, which 
 apparently struck the first blow at the reputation of 
 Liberal foreign policy, and roused the indignation of 
 certain classes of Englishmen against the 'want of 
 spirit' displayed by Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet. But 
 on this particular topic Liberals are prepared with a 
 firm and unhesitating reply to their critics, which is of 
 a nature to close 'at once whatever argument might 
 have risen out of it. We look upon the Geneva 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 1 1 5 
 
 award, and upon the negotiations which led up to it, 
 as a subject of supreme congratulation and pride, not 
 merely for Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet, not merely for the 
 Liberal party, but for England and humanity. Our 
 assent to arbitrate on the matter of the Alabama 
 claims was an act of high moral courage, of justice, 
 and of policy, and will be regarded hereafter as the 
 first great step towards the substitution of inter- 
 national arbitration for avoidable and bloody wars. 
 It was a spirited, not a spiritless, action, and earned 
 us a higher repute and prestige than any aggression 
 or any appeal to arms in passion and an unjust cause 
 has ever earned for a powerful and self-seeking nation. 
 The facts of the Alabama case were simply 
 these. The vessel was made for the Confederates 
 in an English port, and sold to them in contravention 
 of a clear law, and of our solemn undertaking to 
 observe neutrality between the American belligerents. 
 The Government had been warned of what was 
 going on, and failed to stop the illegal trarisaction. 
 We were entirely responsible for the depredations 
 made by this vessel on the property of American 
 citizens, and from the first it was evident that equity 
 as well as international law rendered us liable 
 for the mischief done. The Governnlent of the 
 United States made its claims — exaggerated and 
 exorbitant, it may be, but still just in principle. 'The 
 
1 1 6 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 negotiations were protracted for a long time, and 
 English statesmen, not prepared for the pertinacity 
 with which the Americans continued to urge their 
 derqands, tried by refusal, delay, and diplomacy to 
 evade a settlement of the dispute. The consequence 
 was that England and the United States were on the 
 worst possible terms. Acrimonious language was used 
 by the press on both sides, and the relations of the two 
 Governments were often of the most critical character. 
 A rupture seemed imminent, and many believed that 
 the quarrel, if a less obstinate spirit were not allowed 
 to prevail, would eventually lead to hostilities between 
 the two countries. 
 
 It was under these circumstances that the Cabinet 
 of Mr. Gladstone at length consented to refer the 
 matter to arbitration. It was open to it still to say, 
 ' We may or may not have caused you an injury, we 
 may or may not be liable to pay you damages, come 
 and recover your damages from us if you dare.' This 
 would have been the 'spirited foreign policy' which 
 many would have had us follow, and which 
 many openly urged us to follow. But it was not 
 the kind of policy of which Mr. Gladstone and 
 his colleagues were capable. Their courage and 
 spirit rose to a higher level ; they dared submit to 
 be just. We have nothing to say concerning the 
 technical ability with which the cause of England 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 117 
 
 was argued at Geneva. It is possible that with 
 other advocates, or with stricter contentions before 
 the arbitrators, we might have had less to pay in 
 order to purge our offence, though we do not see 
 how this could have been. What we do say is, that 
 the conduct of our Government over the Alabama 
 arbitration was characterised by the loftiest spirit, and 
 was inspired by the most statesmanlike policy. 
 Those who maintain that we ought to show 
 ourselves ready to fight for our material interests, 
 apart from considerations of abstract morality and 
 justice, are wont to hold that we sacrificed our 
 dignity, as well as our money, at Geneva, Liberals 
 of the consistent and genuine sort are not of this 
 opinion. They think that it is better to be just and 
 pay what is due from us than to fight unjustly at 
 whatever cost or gain. This is why tfiey remember the 
 Alabama arbitration with pride, and refuse to consider 
 it as a matter for argument on the lines of political 
 expediency and State policy. 
 
 We need not stop to discuss other minor ques- 
 tions which arose from time to time between 1868 
 and 1870, and which went to confirm the uneasy 
 suspicion of certain more spirited Conservatives, 
 that Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues guided them- 
 selves in foreign affairs by the clumsy notions of 
 moral constraint We may pass on to the time of the 
 
ii8 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 Franco German war, which produced a very remark- 
 able effect upon EngUsh politicians, and which put so 
 keen an edge upon the criticisms of the Liberal 
 foreign policy. 
 
 The unexpectedly sudden victory of Germany 
 over France, the crushing completeness of the 
 triumph of Moltke's military skill and Bispiarck's 
 diplomatic astuteness, and the wonderful efficacy of 
 the scientific methods pursued by the Germans in 
 the field and in the council chamber, roused a 
 feeling amongst Englishmen which was neither 
 envy nor alarm nor a desire of emulation, but 
 rather a mixture of the three. As for our alarm, 
 this was sufficiently illustrated by the vote of two 
 millions for equipping an extra twenty thousand 
 men. Mr. Gladstone offered little resistance to the 
 demand pressed upon him by the War Office, the 
 Houses of Parliament, and the country, though 
 he probably felt that the expenditure of pubhc 
 money was due to a panic which would presently 
 subside. But there was more than panic in the 
 spirit which from this time forward began to in- 
 crease and spread amongst Englishmen of aggres- 
 sive and imperiaUstic tendencies. The loudest of 
 these men, whether members of the military pro- 
 fession or the greediest of those who earn money in 
 connection with the fighting services, or the most 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 119 
 
 impatient of those who had an object in discrediting 
 the Government, envied the marvellous success of 
 Germany, longed to do something equally grand and 
 brilliant, and went about suggesting that every Power 
 except England was alert and ready for war, and bent 
 ion increasing its prestige and prosperity. ' The 
 Governments of Europe,' they argued, 'have been 
 settling their plans and carrying out their programmes, 
 whilst we have been expending our energies in par- 
 ochial discussions. The three Eastern Powers have 
 entered into a solemn pact, by which they will help 
 each other to satisfy their several ambitions ; they 
 have set to work, and will proceed as though England 
 were a mere cipher, and very possibly at England's 
 expense. They have humbled France, our old ally^ 
 they have destroyed the balance of power between 
 East and West, they have even contemplated an 
 interference with the neutral position of Belgium. 
 We remain practically without an ally in Europe, and 
 it may well be that they have ulterior designs against 
 ourselves.' 
 
 There was some surface plausibility in these 
 contentions, and their force was increased when 
 Russia took advantage of France's overthrow to de- 
 mand the relaxation of the Treaty of Paris. But Mr. 
 Gladstone's Government instantly rejected Russia's 
 demand ; Germany and France agreed with us ; 
 
I20 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 Italy approved our policy ; and Austria, though 
 she was not so decided at first, ultimately expressed 
 her wish for the withdrawal of Russia's assumption. 
 And it was not until Russia had made an uncondi- 
 tional retractation that Mr. Gladstone's Government 
 proceeded to substitute another condition for the one 
 to which Russia had objected. Nor was this new 
 condition tantamount to a simple abrogation of the 
 old one ; for the effect of the fresh arrangement 
 was to provide more thoroughly for the defence of 
 the Turks in accordance with the scope and purpose 
 of the Treaty of Paris. 
 
 Now these facts have been grossly misrepresented 
 — they have been sometimes even inverted. And thus 
 we arrive, we think, at the origin and the growth 
 of an idea in the minds of many Englishmen that 
 this country was losing prestige on the Continent, and 
 that with our prestige was falling away some of our 
 power and influence. But is it not absurd to charge 
 the responsibility upon the Government of the day ? 
 In what respect had Mr. Gladstone or Lord Granville 
 contributed by sins of omission or commission to 
 prejudice the position of England on the Continent? 
 What would the Conservatives themselves have 
 done, if they had been in power for the past few 
 years ? They did not, in the first place, seek to 
 oppose any determined resistance to the earlier 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 121 
 
 movements of German consolidation. They did 
 not demand that England should make war upon 
 Prussia rather than permit her to absorb Schleswig- 
 Holstein. They did not, as a party, espouse the cause 
 of France against Germany, or warn the Government 
 that the result of German victory would be to bring 
 humiliation upon England (as they subsequently 
 declared that it did). They could not have prevented 
 Russia from making her demand as to the Black Sea 
 clauses of the Treaty of Paris. What would they or 
 could they have done different from what was done ? 
 Lord Granville made it manifest that the English 
 Government did not consider the Treaty of Paris 
 a dead letter ; and he not only protested, in language 
 worthy of this country, against the repudiation of 
 treaty engagements under such circumstances as those 
 of which the Russian Government had taken advan- 
 tage, but he carried his point. There were some, 
 indeed, who blamed the Liberal Foreign Secretary 
 for going as far as he did ; but would Lord Derby — 
 would even Lord Salisbury — if he had been in office, 
 have gone any further ? 
 
 The only thing that could have been dongr to 
 vindicate our importance in the eyes of Europe 
 (supposing it to have been depreciated, which it 
 was not) was to return an absolute negative to every 
 claim made by Russia. But what would have been 
 
122 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 the effect of our insistance at a moment when France 
 was prostrate, when Italy was playing her careful 
 game for the recovery of Rome, when the three 
 Eastern States were known to have arrived at a 
 common understanding ? If we had flatly refused to 
 accept any modification of the Treaty at that time, 
 we should have caused the utmost embarrassment to 
 Germany, and should also have held out a great en- 
 couragement to France. Russia would naturally have 
 pressed her point with all the more persistence because 
 of the concern of Germany in the matter. And it 
 would have been necessary for Prince Bismarck to 
 decide between throwing over Russia and running 
 the tremendous risk of an Anglo-Russian war, which 
 could never have been kept distinct from the Franco- 
 German war. Granting that Russia might have had 
 to yield, and that England might have gained a di- 
 plomatic victory, who can say what would have [been 
 the effect of breeding bitter enmity between ourselves 
 and Russia, between ourselves and Germany, between 
 Russia and Germany ? 
 
 Well, one effect would possibly have been that 
 Russia could never have punished Turkey for her 
 crimes, and the Christian populations of the East 
 would not have been liberated. That, at all events, 
 would be no cause for satisfaction in the opinion of 
 the majority of Englishmen. 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 
 
 But is it possible to suppose that England would 
 have avoided a most terrible and costly war — a war 
 which would have set Europe in flames, and have 
 checked the whole course of civilisation ? Mr. Glad- 
 stone and his colleagues had other considerations 
 to take into account besides the temptation to adopt 
 a spirited foreign policy, or the yet paltrier Jingo 
 sentiments which animated so many Englishmen. 
 It is quite true that there was a strong antecedent 
 distaste for war, or warlike threats, amongst the 
 members of the last Liberal Administration, as we 
 are grateful to know that there is amongst the whole 
 Liberal party. The arbitrament of the sword, when 
 not absolutely inevitable, was in itself utterly repug- 
 nant to Mr. Gladstone and most of his colleagues ; 
 and we repeat that, so far as this feeling is concerned, 
 the Liberals are less disposed to seek triumphs abroad, 
 military or diplomatic, than the Conservatives. The 
 Liberals are comparatively indifferent to the lustre 
 which may be shed on English arms, and on an 
 English minister, by our quarrels with foreign Powers ; 
 and Mr. Gladstone would have needed a strong and 
 a just cause to withdraw him from the domestic pro- 
 gramme of his party, and to make him abandon a 
 policy of ' peace, retrenchment, and reform,' since so 
 painfully and disastrously contrasted by the follies 
 and crimes of his successors, for the purpose of com- 
 
124 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 passing the fame of a war minister. That strong 
 and just cause was not to be found in the humihation 
 of Russia in 187 1. The Liberals had ceased to be 
 very proud of the results of the Crimean war ; they 
 had come to consider (as many of them had always 
 considered) that the virtual exclusion of Russia from 
 the Black Sea was an arbitrary, an unnatural, an 
 unnecessary proceeding ; and they had the moral 
 courage to admit that this particular section of the 
 Paris Treaty was more harsh than it was fair or 
 politic. 
 
 It seems to follow from these considerations 
 that the conduct of foreign affairs by the Liberal 
 Administration of 1868-74 affords no ground for 
 the charge which has been so freely brought against 
 the party. Nor is it true to say that the Liberals 
 have neglected English interests abroad, in any 
 matter during recent years, or that they have shown 
 either indifference or incapacity in dealing with 
 foreign affairs. What can be said properly enough, 
 and what we rejoice to feel and to know, is that 
 the Cabinet of Mr. Gladstone regarded the domestic 
 concerns of the country as entitled to its chief 
 attention. As for English honour, that was safe in 
 the hands of men who performed a lofty moral 
 duty at Washington and Geneva. As for Eng- 
 lish interests, who would now dare to say that the 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 125 
 
 Cabinet in question neglected them, or failed to pro- 
 tect them? Of course it cannot be known exactly 
 what Mr. Gladstone and his colleagues would have 
 done if they had remained in office up to 1876 or 
 1877, though we do know, equally of course, that 
 they would have done something, in regard to our 
 connection with Turkey, which would have conduced 
 infinitely more to the interests of England and 
 humanity than their successors accomplished, and 
 in a totally different spirit. But it is written in 
 history that the Liberal Administration did not 
 conceive it to be its duty to pick a quarrel on the 
 Continent for the purpose of raising the prestige of 
 the country ; or to support a tyrannous and craven 
 Government in order to foil a rival ; or to create an 
 Indian difficulty in order to overcome it gloriously ; 
 or to- force a scheme of confederation on unwilling 
 colonists at the price of an inglorious savage war. 
 In place of any spirited foreign policy of this kind, 
 it laboured to improve the condition of the English 
 people, to remove the grievances of Ireland, to re- 
 trench the public expenditure, to strengthen the 
 Constitution. For thus attending to the business 
 of the country, and living in peace with its neigh- 
 bours, it was reproached alternately with being 
 a 'parochial' and an 'heroic' administration. But 
 it may be that posterity will see its chief virtue in 
 
126 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 that very non-intervention in foreign affairs which 
 some of its contemporaries have stigmatised as its 
 principal shortcoming. 
 
 It is a truism — in a sense only a little less 
 sweeping than is generally implied — that the way 
 to secure freedom and good government abroad 
 is to be diligent in securing and amending them 
 at home. But there are occasions when nations, 
 like individuals, cannot stand idle spectators, with 
 hands tied, and see enormous crime done. We 
 are as much in favour of that foreign policy which 
 is prepared for even the awful contingency of war 
 under some circumstances as we are opposed to that 
 •narrow, that selfish, that un-English foreign poHcy 
 which rests upon the doctrine of ' Peace-at-any-price.' 
 It would often happen that a threat or a protest, if made 
 boldly and in solemn earnest, would be successful 
 without any shedding of blood. But it is better to die 
 defending the innocent than to live and see them 
 murdered before your eyes. If this consideration, 
 which may be supposed to influence every good citizen, 
 could come to be accepted as the principle of our foreign 
 policy, under the quick and genuine control of the 
 people, it is impossible to estimate the immense effect 
 it would have for good on the public opinion of Europe 
 and the world. The difficulty would still reside in 
 the imperfection of the human instruments— of the 
 
Liberal Foreign Policy. 127 
 
 ministers, with their passions, jealousies, crotchets, 
 enmities. But whilst this difficulty must exist, and 
 make itself felt, in any and every society, the best 
 check or remedy will be found in the instincts and 
 common-sense of a free people, easily and constitu- 
 tionally applied. 
 
 The moral of these facts and arguments is not 
 difficult to read, and it confirms the principles 
 which have been laid down as the basis of Liberal 
 political action. A genuinely Liberal Government, 
 such as can alone give satisfaction to the mass of 
 the English people, must live by and for the general 
 body of the nation. It must not direct the popular 
 mind from its chosen path at home by artificially 
 raising questions of extraneous interest. Foreign 
 affairs in every nation, but especially in an insular, 
 commercial, well-defined, and peaceably disposed 
 nation like England, should be dealt with firmly and 
 thoroughly when they are forced upon us from with- 
 out by the claims of justice or of freedom; but they 
 must not be courted and stirred up to the sacrifice of 
 popular aims and ends. For the welfare of a nation is 
 most surely maintained and extended when we pro- 
 mote the advance of the people within its own 
 borders, by the cultivation of peace and industry 
 under the fostering influences of self-government. 
 
128 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 LAND REFORM, 
 
 As in the case of every other reform, there are 
 plenty of people who maintain that the reform of 
 the land laws is important before all others, and 
 that it ought to be placed first in any programme 
 of the Liberal party. And there is more of justice 
 in this contention than there is in the majority 
 of parallel cases. The disadvantages arising to all 
 classes from the anomalous condition of the land 
 in England are now admitted, and treated as a 
 matter of deep concern j whilst it is easy to note a 
 distinct connection between the system of laws relat- 
 ing to land transfer and tenure and a multitude of 
 other disadvantages under which the community 
 in general labours. A reform of the land laws, 
 therefore, seems to be called for with more urgency 
 than the great mass of reforms which are com- 
 monly advocated. If these positions are conceded, 
 it only remains for our publicists and statesmen 
 to devise in what manner the amendments of the 
 
Land Reform. 129 
 
 statute-books may be most efficiently and safely 
 made. And in this inquiry it behoves all parties con- 
 cerned — the landovraers as much as the classes 
 which expect to profit by the popularisation of the 
 land — to take a part. If a reform of some sort is 
 inevitable, it is clearly to the interest of those whose 
 property is to be affected to exercise their influence 
 in discussing and modelling the new arrangement. 
 
 The proposals which have been made are extremely 
 various, and of course a few of them have been wild 
 and impracticable. In one guise or another, the 
 ' nationalisation ' of the land is a favourite nostrum 
 with a large number of people, who argue that there 
 must be injustice in appropriating the soil to any in- 
 dividual possessors, rich or poor, by great or by small 
 quantities. The land, they say, the common parent, 
 is also the common possession, and should be held in 
 fee by the community as a whole, for the benefit of 
 all. Any partial occupancy is an injury to the rest of 
 the nation, unless the occupancy is temporary, for a con- 
 sideration in the shape of rent, which rent should be 
 applied to State purposes. The State, being thus the 
 universal landlord, should make such a provision that" 
 every individual might be furnished with a plot of 
 ground, whereon to support his wife and family, and 
 to earn his share of the revenue. The rent payable 
 for these tenancies, though in itself moderate, would 
 
 K. 
 
Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 suffice (in the opinion of the most enthusiastic and 
 theoretically fair advocates of this particular idea of 
 land reform) in the first place to buy out the interests 
 of present owners, and, when that has been done, to 
 return a handsome national income, which would 
 afford immense relief to taxpayers. 
 
 These persons maintain that the bulk of those 
 who now receive the rent of land, or who keep large 
 estates untilled, have no indefeasible claim to them. 
 They argue that absolute property in land cannot 
 reside in individuals, and that the utmost which a 
 so-called landowner can equitably claim is a sum 
 representing the value of what he has added to 
 his estate, together with the estimated worth of his 
 tenancy. The argument would be a forcible one if 
 we could accept the original proposition that absolute 
 ownership rests in the community alone. But this 
 is a proposition the logical consequences of which 
 would be too severe for any wide acceptance. The 
 temper of the English people would not permit 
 them to act upon a principle so drastic in its infer- 
 ences. If it should come to be admitted that the 
 nationalisation of the soil is indispensable for the 
 popular welfare, the spirit of conciliation and com- 
 promise would secure to every possessor of title-deeds 
 a price of redemption based upon the market value 
 of his property. Confiscation is not in the genius of 
 
Land Reform. 131 
 
 the English people; and every practical man must 
 leave these considerations on one side, and look 
 forward to a totally different solution of the diffi- 
 culties. 
 
 There is, indeed, a kind of partial nationalisation, 
 or rather an application of the theory to lands already 
 under national control, or that may be hereafter brought 
 under national control, which is sufficiently within the 
 domain of practical politics. Not only might the 
 present State lands, which may be taken to include 
 the Crown lands and such other areas of the soil 
 as are more or less at the disposal of the State, be 
 utilised for the purpose of creating a large class of 
 State tenancies, but there is no reason — no objection 
 in principle — why the Legislature should not buy 
 out the landed proprietors, if the purchase could be 
 shown to be for the welfare of the community at 
 large. It is contended that the tenants of the State 
 thus brought into existence would as a rule be in a 
 better position, more independent, and less subject 
 to caprice, than the tenants of individual owners ; 
 and that, what is more important, an opportunity 
 might be found in this way of instituting peasant 
 occupancies, not to say peasant proprietorships, such 
 as have often been recommended with the object of 
 restoring the ' divorced ' incumbents of the soil. 
 
 We have spoken in this place of peasant ' tenancies,' 
 
132 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 not of peasant 'proprietors,' because the suggestion 
 arises out of the ideas of men who advocate the na- 
 tionalisation of the soil under the one proprietorship 
 of the nation at large. But the argument is not quite, 
 though it is very much, the same when we apply it to 
 the case of property in land ; and, indeed, this is the 
 form in which we most frequently hear of peasant 
 farming as a remedy for existing evils. Yet whether 
 it be a question of peasant tenancy or of peasant pro- 
 prietorship, the advantage of settUng a vast number 
 of the people on small plots of land, each plot 
 sufficient for the occupation and control of its cul- 
 tivator, has never been generally condemned as im- 
 moral or impracticable, however warmly some writers 
 have impugned its wisdom. On the contrary, its 
 advocates have grown more confident and more 
 persistent in the past few years ; so that now we 
 seldom hear any objection raised against the estab- 
 lishment of a peasant proprietorship. The chief 
 objection has been all along, and still is, that such 
 legislation will have no beneficial result ; and, what- 
 ever view we may take of the objection, there is no 
 doubt that it continues to be urged with considerable 
 heat and persistence. 
 
 It follows, then, that assuming the evils which now 
 exist connected with the land are great, extraordinary, 
 and difficult to be overcome, the desirability of any 
 
Land Reform. 133 
 
 exceptional enactments diminishes in proportion to 
 the provision of other remedies ; and that it would 
 be better in every aspect that the reform should 
 be introduced in accordance with actual facts 
 and circumstances, and by the expansion of exist- 
 ing system.s. We see that the one paramount 
 necessity is that the reform should come without fail, 
 without delay, to the benefit of the people at large, 
 and in obedience to the popular demand. The 
 people is manifestly on the point of taking up this 
 complicated subject in earnest ; Conservative as well 
 as Liberal statesmen have begun to discuss the 
 question with a candour and seriousness which have 
 brought it within the region of pressing and practical 
 politics ; and whilst the problem is sure to be thoroughly 
 and honestly solved, it is as certainly not too late to 
 solve it without disturbing, much less dislocating, the 
 framework of society. 
 
 Now the task of providing a remedy for the evils 
 arising out of our system of land tenure will be 
 easier if we can fix upon some one point in the 
 system most open to criticism, and in regard to 
 which a change could be most readily effected. 
 Nor is there much diflSculty in laying the finger 
 on the principal blot, which consists, by very large 
 consent, in the aggregation of the bulk of English 
 soil in the hands of a very few landowners, and 
 
134 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 in the legal obstacles which prevent or retard them 
 from transferring any portion of their inheritance 
 to would-be purchasers. This, without doubt in 
 our opinion, is the chief reason why English farm- 
 ing cannot be brought to the highest state of per- 
 fection, why tenant-farmers are ruined and rents de- 
 creased, why the food-production of the country is 
 lamentably insufficient, why the labourers are barely 
 able to earn a subsistence. The condition of agriculture 
 amongst us is thoroughly artificial. Landowners them- 
 selves, or tenants who are rich enough to spend 
 largely on the breeding of stock and the cultivation 
 of crops, may show grand results at our agricul- 
 tural shows ; but it has come to be a comparative 
 rarity for an ordinary farmer, living as it were from 
 hand to mouth, to keep himself financially above water. 
 The trade of farming, that is to say, of food-produc- 
 tion, is passing through a period of grave depres- 
 sion, graver than that which has affected most other 
 trades. There is not sufficient reason to account for 
 this in the alleged want of agricultural skill, or in the 
 alleged extravagance of our tenant-farmers, or in the 
 alleged sloth of their labourers, or even in the series 
 of unfavourable harvests with which all have had 
 to contend. The fact is that the conditions of a 
 farmer's tenancy are generally too strict, and the 
 burdens upon him too heavy ; which fact is due, as 
 
Land Reform. 135 
 
 a rule, not to the oppressive or ungenerous spirit 
 of his landlord, but to injurious restrictions laid upon 
 the proprietor of the land by the law through his 
 own ancestors. 
 
 Landowners have now pretty well made up their 
 minds to a repeal of many of the inconvenient pro- 
 visions under which both they themselves and their 
 tenants are suffering. The best of them are pre- 
 pared for a great change in the system, and it may 
 be taken for granted that those who obstinately or 
 selfishly deny the necessity for a change will acquiesce 
 with more or less equanimity when the time is ripe for 
 legislation. And that which the best landlords now 
 see to be requisite is the same thing which has been 
 advocated by the ablest thinkers for long years past 
 — namely, the facilitation of the transfer of land in 
 large or in small quantities. 
 
 The facts connected with the distribution of land 
 in the United Kingdom are so startling that they have 
 often been used to point a moral ; and this has 
 especially been the case since the publication of the 
 new Domesday Book by the authority of Parliament. 
 This book presented us with a mass of statistics which 
 are extremely serviceable as far as they go, and in so 
 far as they can be relied upon. The late Mr. Joseph 
 Kay, in his volume on the subject of ' Free Trade in 
 Land,' has partly summarised the results of the survey 
 
136 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 made at the instance of Lord Derby, and prepared 
 in 1874-75, whilst at the same time giving warning 
 of the danger of accepting them as anything like an 
 adequate embodiment of the evils to be redressed. 
 The principal figures, however, are well worthy of 
 being repeated and borne in mind, since they put 
 the matter in its strongest light. 
 
 Now the area of England and Wales, excluding 
 the metropolitan district, is about thirty-seven and 
 a quarter million of acres, or an average in round 
 numbers of two acres per head of the population. 
 Of this amount, more than one tenth (3,917,641 acres) 
 is owned by one hundred persons. Consider how 
 many individuals are without their average of two 
 acres in order to make up these enormous estates for 
 our one hundred greatest landowners ! About one 
 sixth of the soil is owned by 280 persons ; one fifth 
 by 523 ; one fourth by 710. Eight hundred and 
 seventy-four persons own 9,267,031 acres. As Mr. 
 Kay pointedly observes, 'Just think how small a num- 
 ber 874 persons are in a church or a town-hall, and 
 then try to realise what the figures 9,267,031 signify.' 
 
 In the large county of Northumberland, twenty- 
 six persons own one half of the soil, exclusive of woods, 
 commons, and ' waste lands.' 
 
 In Scotland the total area is something under 
 nineteen millions of acres. One owner alone possesses 
 
Land Reform. 137 
 
 the fourteenth part of the whole. Twelve owners pos- 
 sess nearly one quarter of Scotland. Seventy owners 
 possess one half of the country; whilst nine tenths of 
 the entire surface of the land, with all that lies under 
 it (small royalties excepted), is tied up in the hands 
 of some seventeen hundred individuals. 
 
 In Ireland there are 20,159,678 acres ; and nearly 
 one half of these belong to seven hundred and fifty 
 men. 
 
 Taking the United Kingdom as a whole, twelve 
 men own 4,440,467 acres, or not far short of one 
 twentieth of the whole soil from which the food, the 
 health, the wealth of over thirty millions of people 
 are virtually derived. This is one great and central 
 fact revealed by the figures which Lord Derby desired 
 to have published, chiefly with the object of disproving 
 the allegation that small estates had been absorbed into 
 the larger ones. 
 
 The fact is, the House of Lords owns more than 
 a third of the whole country ; whilst two thirds — 
 upwards of six acres out of every ten — really belong 
 to great peers and commoners, whose estates are 
 continually devouring the smaller estates adjoining 
 them. As Mr. Kay observes, ' There is no doubt 
 that England once possessed a large class of independ- 
 ent, well-to-do, self-supporting yeoman proprietors. 
 Old writers treat it as one of the boasts of Old 
 
138 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 England, that she had so many small freehold 
 yeomen. Where are they now ? By our system of 
 land laws we have been cutting away the base of our 
 social pyramid, whilst nearly all other civilised countries 
 have been pursuing an exactly opposite policy.' 
 
 How shall we put ourselves right again ? We must, 
 as one of the first steps, prepare for the restoration of 
 our peasants or yeoman proprietorship ; and some 
 of our wisest and most prudent men are agreed 
 that this is to be done only by extending the 
 principles of free trade to the sale and purchase 
 of land. 
 
Free Trade in Land. 139 
 
 CHAPTER IX. 
 
 FREE TRADE IN LAND. 
 
 Much has recently been written on the character of 
 the English land system, on the condition of our 
 land laws, and on the evils which arise from the 
 present state of things. The works of Mr. Kay and 
 Mr. Cliffe Leslie, to mention no others, have treated 
 the facts of the case in a sufficiently clear and exhaus- 
 tive manner. The treatise of Mr. Kay, as simple as 
 it is accurate and definite, is alone adequate for all 
 purposes of information and suggestion. We do not 
 hesitate to say that if Mr. Kay's letters on 'Free 
 Trade in Land' were brought within the reach of 
 every man in England, and were allowed to sink 
 into the minds of the masses, the work of reform 
 in our land laws would be accomplished. The 
 task of those who come after seems to be to 
 enforce the deductions from known facts, and to 
 insist upon the measures necessary to remove ac- 
 knowledged evils. The intricacies of our cumbrous 
 system, which is a legacy of feudal and semi-feudal 
 
140 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 times, have been exposed with adequate simplicity 
 and force ; and it remains for us now to make up 
 the lost ground which most other nations have passed 
 over in advance of us. 
 
 Granted that the needed reform is to be arrived at 
 by free traffic in land — by removing the barriers to 
 the distribution of the soil in small properties and 
 small fixed tenures, without actual compulsion in any 
 case — ^what we have to consider is this : What changes 
 in the law are necessary to break down the wall with 
 which the spirit of feudalism has surrounded the 
 monster properties in land ? 
 
 The central mischief of the present English land 
 laws, or of the condition of things permitted to exist 
 for lack of an amending law, seems to be, that the 
 owner of an estate is able to tie it up for half a cen- 
 tury or more, in such a way that it cannot be sold 
 or divided or appHed to the satisfaction of the next 
 owner's liabilities, whilst he is also able, in leasing his 
 land for as long a period as 999 years, to fetter it 
 with such covenants as will interfere with its proper 
 cultivation practically for ever. The first of these 
 modes of fettering the soil, by deed or by will, under 
 what is known as the law of entail, coupled with the 
 law of primogeniture, which transfers an undivided 
 landed estate to the single next heir, generally the 
 eldest son, of an owner dying without a will, may be 
 
Free Trade in Land. 141 
 
 regarded as the pith and substance of the system 
 whereof complaint is made. If a relaxation of 
 these two laws, rightly described as ' modified feudal 
 land laws,' could be brought about, there is every 
 reason to believe that the whole reform would be 
 virtually accomplished, and that the mass of evils 
 indicated in connection with our land system would 
 disappear. 
 
 For all that is needed to establish a fair distri- 
 bution of any commodity, is that the commodity 
 should be exposed for sale, and subject to the com- 
 petition of those who desire to possess it. The laws 
 which regulate freedom of trade, or which make 
 free trade effectual, are like a strong and well-ad- 
 justed machinery, which takes the raw material sub- 
 mitted to it and works it from beginning to end 
 until the completed product emerges in the required 
 form. The machinery once set up, only the raw 
 material and the guiding hands are necessary. And 
 so it would be with the distribution of the soil in 
 England, if it were once liberated from constraint, 
 and brought within the operation of free commercial 
 principles, and the laws of supply and demand. Once 
 provide that land shall perpetually come into the mar- 
 ket, whenever a landowner is compelled by debt or 
 poverty to realise his estate, either as a whole or 
 piecemeal, or whenever he desired to exchange his land 
 
142 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 for some other species of commodity, or whenever land 
 might need to be converted into cash, for the distri- 
 bution of the property of an intestate, or for any other 
 reason, and the first necessary step would have been 
 taken towards the subdivision and popularisation of 
 the soil. A poor man would then be able to go into 
 the market with his savings, or with a modest sum 
 borrowed from his friends, and there purchase a 
 plot of ground, sufficient for cultivation by himself 
 and his family — the bulk of the purchase money being 
 provided on mortgage on the property, payable by the 
 purchaser by instalments. Under the Irish Church 
 Act a large number of Irishmen have in this way been 
 enabled to become landowners, and farmers of their 
 own acres, with a result which is eminently satis- 
 factory. 
 
 The abohtion of the laws of entail and primogeniture 
 would tend at once to induce this result. Of course 
 any such measure would have to be accompanied, or 
 would soon be followed, by minor directing measures, 
 necessitated by the altered condition of affairs. For 
 a product of a different shape, different machinery would 
 be required ; and especially as — one of the most im- 
 portant considerations in the case — there would be 
 a gradual decrease of demand for elaborate deeds, 
 wills, and settlements of land. The almost incredible 
 cumbersome documents in which the titles of large 
 
Free Trade in Land. 143 
 
 estates are now involved — sometimes so effectually 
 that it becomes next to impossible to discover what 
 the precise title of an estate is — constitute now 
 the greatest practical impediment to the sale and 
 purchase of small plots of land. A deed of convey- 
 ance is rarely so simple that it can be produced 
 from the legal laboratory for less than a hundred 
 pounds ; and as a rule the cost of such a document 
 would amount to a high percentage on the cost of 
 the purchase. One of the best results of the modi- 
 fication of the power of setdement, as applied to 
 land, would be the immense simplification of the 
 titles to estates. With simpler titles would come a 
 simpler method of sale and purchase ; though we do 
 not think that the conveyancing lawyers would find that 
 their occupation would be gone. The work saved by 
 making titles simpler would be counterbalanced by the 
 vast increase of occupation following the multiplica- 
 tion of bargains in the land market. 
 
 Strong objections are sometimes raised, especially 
 by or on behalf of the large landholders, against any 
 interference with the laws of entail and primogeniture. 
 It is urged that any such action on the part of the 
 legislature would amount to an interference with in- 
 dividual rights, with freedom of disposition and contract, 
 with the liberty of the subject as well as the time- 
 honoured privileges of a class. Moreover, it would 
 
144 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 be the beginning of a process by which the property 
 of the landowners would be menaced, and by which 
 the poorest would be encouraged to look with expectant 
 greed upon the possessions of the wealthy. 
 
 There is just enough reason in the first part of this 
 complaint to make it well to show how the whole 
 of it may be met, and why the owners of land should 
 dismiss their fears of injustice, or of confiscation, or 
 even of serious loss, in the approaching and inevitable 
 remodelling of the system. In the first place, the fact 
 that a semi-feudal division of the soil has endured so 
 long in England, after many reforms and revolutions, 
 and after similar conditions of things have been brought 
 to an end in France, Germany, and other countries, 
 should be a pledge that our own aristocracy will re- 
 ceive justice at the hands of their fellow- Englishmen; 
 and that their privileges will be scrupulously weighed 
 in any rearrangement for the welfare of the na- 
 tion at large. Our aristocracy, or, to keep closely 
 to the present argument, our landed nobiHty and 
 gentry, are by no means level throughout in worth and 
 desert at the hands of their country ; but they have 
 on the whole such claims to the respect of the people 
 that there does not exist an inclination to treat 
 them harshly, much less unjustly. Future modifi- 
 cations of our Constitution and institutions may be 
 judged by those which have been already effected. We 
 
Free Trade in Land. 145 
 
 may feel assured that they will be conceived calmly, 
 and carried into operation with a full regard to justice 
 and common sense. 
 
 What, then, is it which the large landowners think 
 they have to dread as the result of the present demand 
 for a reform of the land laws ? The most that can 
 be anticipated in this generation is the entire aboli- 
 tion of the customs of entail and primogeniture, 
 with the concomitant facilitation of the transfer 
 of land, whereby the number of small landowners 
 would be indefinitely increased, and the more or 
 less ornamental privileges of the large landed pro- 
 prietors would be relatively diminished. Is it really 
 hopeless to expect that our landowners as a class 
 might be contented to accept this solution of the pro- 
 blem, and to make this concession, or compromise, in 
 the interests of their fellow-countrymen ? The question 
 answers itself. There could be no doubt of their ac- 
 quiescence if the few score or hundreds of men from 
 whom the concession must come were once persuaded 
 that it was indispensable for the general weaL 
 
 Now there are various suggested solutions for ex- 
 isting difficulties, short of absolute aboKtion of the 
 right to entail landed property. Some appear to be 
 more practicable or more promising than others; 
 but it appears probable, after weighing the whole 
 question, that the first legislation touching the law of 
 
146 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 entail will be in the shape of limitation rather than 
 of abolition of the law now in force. Land is tied up 
 for various causes, and in various modes ; and it is the 
 province of present discussion to show how it may be 
 most prudent, most practicable, most just, to draw a 
 line between admissible and non-admissible entails. 
 This is a discussion in which the landowners them- 
 selves may be urged to take a part ; for if they allow, 
 as the more candid and intelligent of them have done, 
 that there is nothing revolutionary in the remodel- 
 ling of the land laws — that, on the contrary, a reform 
 of some sort is necessary — they cannot do better 
 than co-operate in framing a just and equitable scheme 
 for adoption by the legislature. 
 
 Mr. Kay illustrates the law of entail by relating 
 the case of a young, unfettered landowner, who married 
 as soon as he came of age, and at the same time 
 executed deeds which settled his estate upon the 
 children who might be bom of his marriage, in such a 
 manner that the life-interest alone remained to him, 
 whilst the actual property was assigned, upon his 
 death, to his eldest son. As soon as his son came of 
 age another deed was made, by agreementbetween father 
 and son, whereby the latter in his turn signed away the 
 absolute property to his own prospective children, re- 
 taining only a life-interest in conjunction with, and in 
 succession to, his father. 
 
Free Trade in Land. 147 
 
 That, in rough outline, is the process of entail, 
 which can be put an end to, in any particular family, 
 only on the coming of age of an eldest son, when 
 father and son together can cut off the entail by 
 rescinding the settlement made by the father whilst 
 his son was unborn or an infant. Mr. Kay furnishes 
 a striking example, in the case referred to, of the evils 
 which may often and do arise from this blind system 
 of self-constraint — comparable in many respects to 
 the act of taking life-vows in religion, which are 
 often sealed in youthful inexperience, or under the 
 pressure of custom, to be repented of in old age. 
 
 The estate in question was composed of large 
 
 farms and very valuable woods. Lord A was an 
 
 extravagant and reckless man, who hunted, kept open 
 house, gambled and bet heavily, raised money on his 
 life-interest, and finally fled from the country. 'The 
 remainder of his life-interest, which was worth only 
 th^ annual thinning of the woods, was sold to a Jew, 
 
 who knew he would lose all as soon as Lord A 
 
 died. That state of things lasted about 40 years. 
 The farmers had no leases, and no security for any 
 expenditure. They were unwilling to expend on the 
 restoration or substantial maintenance of the farm 
 buildings. The Jew would not spend, for he did not 
 
 know, and could not know, when Lord A might 
 
 die. The gentleman who took the house could not 
 L 2 
 
148 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 expend upon it, because he could not tell when he 
 might be turned out. The Jew, in order to make as 
 much out of the estate as he could, raised the rents 
 as much as he could, and cut out of the park and 
 woods far more timber than any unembarrassed owner 
 would have done, and so the estate was damaged 
 more and more year by year ; the tenantry were pre- 
 vented from dealing fairly by the land or fairly by 
 themselves ; there was no one to support the schools or 
 the church, or to look after the large village of labourers 
 upon the property. All social progress and all social 
 prosperity upon the estate were put an end to. The 
 farm buildings fell into decay ; the land was not 
 properly drained or cultivated ; the plantations were 
 injured ; the house became dilapidated ; and all this 
 was caused by the deeds which the law had allowed 
 the lord and his heir to execute.' 
 
 This is not an isolated case. The same pheno- 
 mena have been observed on scores and hundreds of 
 estates, where the ruin, the poverty, or the neglect 
 of the landlord has produced mischief to all depend- 
 ing upon him, whilst he himself is unable, even if he 
 were willing, to remedy the disorder, or to dispose of 
 the property to others. 
 
 The strength of a chain is the strength of its 
 weakest link. The value, the justice, the policy of 
 the law of entail, as it now exists, may be known 
 
Free Trade in Land. 149 
 
 from this single illustration of what may, and often 
 does, happen as the result of its operation. How is 
 it possible to justify a law which enables a man so 
 to use his property as not only to injure himself and 
 all who may be dependent upon him, but also prac- 
 tically to defeat the claims of any creditors he might 
 have ? The demand for a modification of such a law 
 would seem to arise as much in the interest of land- 
 owners themselves as of the community. It' is better 
 to be independent, to pay one's way in the world, to 
 bring up one's children in a spirit of independence 
 and self-reliance, than to hand down an incumbered 
 and impoverished estate to descendants who will prob- 
 ably never know the true pleasure which springs 
 from the possession of unfettered and disposable 
 property. 
 
 Moreover, the burdens and charges which fall upon 
 an entailed estate after the actual incumbent of the 
 property has limited himself to the enjoyment of the 
 life-interest are not the only ones, and as a rule are 
 not the most grievous ones, by which it is incumbered. 
 It is in the power of a landowner, when settling his pro- 
 perty in the land upon his heir, to make any number 
 of coincident settlements, provisions, charges of any 
 kind. As Mr. Kay remarks, ' Vast numbers of these 
 estates are, owing to these deeds and wills, burdened 
 with charges for wives and widows, charges for sons 
 
x50 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 and daughters, marriage portions, mortgages, covenants 
 to other owners, building leases, mining leases, farming 
 leases (each containing scores of provisions), rent- 
 charges to various persons, payments of insurance 
 policies, payments of annuities, equitable mortgages, 
 equitable claims, &c., &c.' The actual incumbent of 
 an estate thus settled and charged may not have the 
 faintest idea what his own legal position is. He may 
 be told by his lawyer or his agent that, under the 
 circumstances, he has only so much in the way of 
 income to receive ; but beyond this, the state of his 
 title is ' an insoluble mystery.' 
 
 What business man, or what man of moderate 
 means, would long endiu-e to live in such a state of 
 mystification with regard to his position, dependent 
 upon the truthfulness or the capacity or the ingenuity 
 of a lawyer and a steward ? 
 
 It is evident that one of the principal motives 
 which induce landowners to submit to the many in- 
 conveniences of the system of entail is their desire to 
 maintain the dignity and influence of their families, 
 and to prevent any spendthrift or indifferent indivi- 
 dual from ruining and obliterating the ' house,' which 
 may be more or less honourably known in history. The 
 same motive leads to the impassioned defence of the 
 law of primogeniture, whereby a landed estate passes, 
 in the absence of a will, or where there are deeds 
 
Free Trade in Land. 151 
 
 and settlements governing the descent of the estates, to 
 the eldest son. There may be charges and annuities 
 for other children or for collateral claimants, but the 
 title to the undivided estate is regularly vested in the 
 next male heir. Only in the absence of heirs male 
 does the estate devolve upon the female heirs ; but in 
 that case they are regarded as one heir, and the land 
 passes to them undivided and indivisible. The great 
 object is to keep the land together, and to let the soil 
 accumulate like a snowball (whereof the snow never 
 melts). It need hardly be mentioned that these re- 
 strictions apply to land alone, and not to money or to 
 any other kind of movable and personal property. 
 
 Entail and primogeniture are devices for the main- 
 tenance of large hereditary houses and territorial 
 influence. The contention of the most moderate 
 reformers is that these laws are more hurtful than 
 beneficial to the State — that the will-making power 
 would always remain, leaving a man at liberty to 
 bequeath his property as he saw fit — that each suc- 
 cessive owner of an estate would be able to hand it 
 down to his heirs intact, so long as he left it free 
 from the claims of his creditors — that entail and 
 primogeniture are valuable only for spendthrifts and 
 gamblers, who ought not to be protected at the ex- 
 pense of the community — and that the abolition or 
 extensive modification of these two laws would remove 
 
152 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 scandal and complaint, and introduce a better state of 
 things for the nation at large. Is not the contention 
 a reasonable one ? And is there any ground for un- 
 easiness in the prospect of a law under which the 
 right of property in land would still be absolutely 
 recognised, the power of testamentary bequest ab- 
 solutely maintained, and the legitimate interests and 
 influences of well-administered wealth increased rather 
 than diminished ? 
 
 Amongst the evils of the laws of entail and 
 primogeniture Mr. Kay enumerates the holding 
 back of land from the market which would 
 otherwise be sold and distributed; the decrease 
 of parental control; the encouragement of care- 
 lessness in regard to the useful education of chil- 
 dren ; the artificial maintenance of unworthy men 
 in positions of dignity and influence ; the pre- 
 vention of the proper management of estates whose 
 owners are embarrassed; the discouragement of 
 agricultural development ; the vagueness and expense 
 of legal documents necessary for the conveyance of 
 land ; the inevitable obscurity of the titles of land ; 
 the expense of any actual purchase of land, which 
 renders it difficult for poor men to invest their 
 savings in it ; the occasional necessity for a land- 
 owner to become an absentee, in which case (as 
 so grievously illustrated in Ireland) the estate has 
 
Free Trade in Land. 153 
 
 to be managed or mismanaged by an agent who has 
 no real interest in it ; together with such concomitant 
 evils as are aggravated, if not directly produced, by 
 the same system, like the evils of the game laws, of 
 the law of distress, and so forth. This is a long string 
 of accusations against the obnoxious laws. The justice 
 of many of them may be more felt by the owners 
 of large estates than it can be by any one else ; 
 but, in regard to some of the most prominent and 
 important, no appeal need be made from the general 
 experience and convictions of the country. 
 
 Vast as are the advantages which appear likely to 
 accrue from the abolition of the laws of entail and 
 primogeniture (so far as the devolution of the entire 
 landed estate to the eldest son, excluding all others, is 
 concerned), the remedy would be only a partial one. 
 It would probably need to be supplemented by a law 
 restricting the power of granting leases for more than 
 a certain fixed period, whatever period might be 
 determined upon. It is, indeed, suggested on the one 
 hand that no lease should stand beyond the lifetime of 
 the lessee, and, on the other hand, that the conditions 
 of a reasonable lease can be transferred, without 
 injustice, along with the title of the estate on which 
 it was granted. There are obvious objections to both 
 these propositions ; for the first plan would operate 
 inconveniently, not to say unfairly, to all concerned. 
 
154 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 whilst the latter would interfere with the subdivision 
 of the estate in case of necessity. There is much 
 more to be said in favour of limiting the term of a 
 lease to something like twenty, or even fifty, years. 
 What is necessary is that the man who takes land 
 upon lease should have time, by himself or his 
 heirs, to reap a full benefit from his capital and 
 enterprise ; but the extension of the lease to some- 
 thing between 99 and 999 years is subject to the 
 double disadvantage of locking up the land from sale, 
 and of creating a species of double proprietorship 
 (often, as in the case of unleased game or mining 
 rights, a double occupancy) which must be prejudicial 
 to good cultivation. 
 
 Nor would these modifications of the law be 
 thoroughly effectual unless a retrospective effect were 
 given to our new legislation, so as to bring within the 
 scope of improvement the many thousands of acres 
 which have already suffered so grievously from neglect, 
 and which, thanks to previous entails, are charged 
 with heavy and increasing burdens. To meet this 
 difficulty there might seem to be need of an Incum- 
 bered Estates Act, whereby special powers would be 
 taken to deal with land which would otherwise be 
 kept for generations neglected and unproductive. 
 
 Such, in brief, appears to be the outline of a reform 
 which might settle the land question for years to come, 
 
Free Trade in Land. 155 
 
 and prove acceptable to owners of land, as well as 
 to the general public. The owners as a class need 
 be neither alarmed nor troubled by such a proposal, 
 since for a large proportion of them it could have 
 little effect beyond increasing the necessity of making 
 a will at the earliest moment. No doubt there are 
 details which would require consideration before the 
 new order of things could be settled. That is the 
 work of the draughtsmen, and, after them, of Parlia- 
 ment. Meanwhile the publicist may be contented to 
 dwell upon broad principles, and urge the fulfilment 
 of duties on which so much of our national welfare 
 seems to depend. 
 
156 Popular Sovereignty, 
 
 CHAPTER X. 
 
 THE DIVISION OF PROFITS IN AGRICULTURE. 
 
 We have lately heard a good deal about the ' three 
 incomes ' which have to be derived from the cultiva- 
 tion of the soil — those of the owner, of the farmer, 
 and of the labourer. The distinction is a convenient 
 one, though it is more conventional than real. A 
 farm of considerable size is expected to yield scores 
 of incomes, graduated in amount according to the 
 capital, capability, skill, and labour of the various 
 recipients. The problem of the day, so far as agri- 
 culture is concerned, is to regulate these incomes 
 on the fairest basis, and especially to increase the in- 
 comes of those who have been shown to be inade- 
 quately remunerated — that is to say, the tenant-farmer 
 and the labourers whom he employs on his farm. 
 
 We think it will be found, by experience as 
 well as by theoretical "examination, that the profits of 
 farmers and labourers may be considerably increased 
 without diminishing the profits of the owners. The 
 crisis which has overtaken the tenant-farmers has 
 
Division of Profits in Agriculture. 157 
 
 opened the eyes of the country to the real causes of 
 agricultural depression; and men are beginning to 
 acknowledge that the distress of the employers and 
 labourers is due to identical circumstances. But it 
 is impossible to preserve our equanimity, to take an 
 optimist view of the situation, to believe that the trouble 
 is only temporary and that things will presently fall 
 back of themselves into their old grooves, when we 
 hear of landlords remitting the whole of their rents, 
 farmers withdrawing their capital from agriculture, 
 or succumbing to their misfortunes, or failing in 
 the competition with foreigners in our own markets, 
 or emigrating in shoals to Canada or elsewhere — 
 of land actually falling out of cultivation, though 
 barely three quarters of the soil of England and 
 Wales have been reclaimed from idleness * ; and of 
 the importation of the food of the people steadily 
 increasing in amount,t though the productions of the 
 country might be doubled by a higher culture. In 
 the face of these facts, we cannot be satisfied with 
 any partial or casual explanation of the evil, but 
 must seek for the cause and the remedy at the foun- 
 dation of our agricultural system. 
 
 One of the many explanations offered to account 
 
 * In 1871 it was 26,000,000 out of 37,000,000 acres. 
 
 t The value of imported food in 1878 was reckoned at 
 100,000,000/., and that of our home produce at about 
 300,000,000/. 
 
158 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 for the phenomenon is that the farms are rented at 
 too high a rate ; and it has been predicted that land- 
 owners will have to be satisfied with a smaller income. 
 It seems to us that this is a hasty conclusion, not 
 warranted by facts. If rents are to be permanently 
 reduced, it must be in obedience to the laws of that 
 free trade in land which will follow from the greater 
 facilities of sales, from the abolition of entail and pri- 
 mogeniture, and from the other reforms to which we 
 are justified in looking forward. But as these reforms 
 will increase the competition for land in an open 
 market, whether by sale or by lease, it appears in- 
 evitable that the value of land to its owners 
 will be raised rather than diminished. We do not 
 think that the relief of the farmers and labourers will 
 be effected at the expense of the landowners. We 
 believe that the reform of the laws, the increased 
 security of tenure on lease, and the general improve- 
 ment of the system of cultivation, will not only 
 largely benefit the tillers of the soil, but will tend 
 very much to the pecuniary advantage of the owners. 
 There are various incentives to reform in agricul- 
 tural matters at the present crisis. Thus there is, and 
 for a long time has been, a demand for the amend- 
 ment of the land laws, because they are theoretically 
 bad. Their injustice and injurious effects have 
 long been felt ; but the condemnation which they 
 
Division of Profits in Agriculture. 159 
 
 have encountered has not been strong enough to 
 rouse the spirit of reform to the necessary activity. 
 But this theoretical condemnation has now been re- 
 inforced by two very powerful arguments, based upon 
 very real and pressing facts. A reconstruction of the 
 land system is both desirable and necessary, for 
 these two reasons in particular : first, because the food 
 supplies of the country are failing, and the national 
 wealth is being sacrificed by the neglect of agricul- 
 tural interests; and, secondly, because the farming 
 classes, from the capitalists down to the labourers, 
 are suffering extremely from a depression which is 
 not entirely due to a series of bad harvests. There- 
 fore, from the point of view of the nation in general, 
 and the agricultural classes in particular, reform is 
 indispensable ; whilst from the special point of view 
 of the landowners, it is certainly desirable — none 
 the less so because they may be unwilling to recognise 
 the means — that the permanent value of their pro- 
 perty should be increased. 
 
 As for the reform of the laws affecting the devolu- 
 tion and transfer of land, we have glanced at the 
 outlines of this great question in the two preceding 
 chapters. What is the conclusion which should be 
 formed by progressive statesmen in regard to the re- 
 construction of the national system of land tenure 
 and cultivation? 
 
i6o ' Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 No one, we believe, who thinks carefully and 
 candidly about the state of agriculture in England can 
 fail to perceive the special and most effective argument 
 in favour of a change in the existing mode of farm- 
 tenure. It is this : the circumstances in which the 
 business of a tenant-farmer is carried on have been 
 simply revolutionised within the past half-century. 
 The 'kittle o' steam,' so contemptuously regarded 
 by Mr. Tennyson's 'Northern Farmer,' has co- 
 operated with other and minor inventions to convert 
 the homely farm of our grandfathers into something 
 very much in the nature of a steam food-factory. 
 Incessant competition, the increased demand fot" 
 food which results from a rapidly increasing popula- 
 tion, the stimulus given to agriculture as a trade by 
 more frequent cattle-shows, root-shows, dairy-shows, 
 and the like, the development of locomotive facilities, 
 the proved efficacy of new chemical and natural 
 manures, with other aids and incentives too numerous 
 to be named, have put an entirely different face on 
 the occupation of an English farmer. It requires 
 much more capital, more skill, enterprise, and perse- 
 verance, to farm with a reasonable hope of success 
 than was the case at the beginning of the century. 
 The agriculturist must invest his money in a more 
 expensive stock and machinery, and in more elaborate 
 preparation and fertilisation of the soil. In short, 
 
Division of Profits in Agriculture. i6i 
 
 farming is no longer a mere industrial pursuit ; it has 
 become a matter of scientific enterprise and costly 
 investment. Such being the case, it follows that the 
 tenant-farmer of the present day is justly entitled to 
 ask for a greater security of tenure, a guarantee that 
 what he puts into the land shall yield him a fiill 
 return, and a pledge that the mere caprice of his 
 landlord, or the fact that his lease is drawing to a 
 close, shall not paralyse his enterprise and industry, 
 or tempt him to relax his efforts. 
 
 This is a most reasonable demand, and the nation 
 has a deep concern in seeing that its food-pro- 
 ducers are fairly treated in this respect. There is 
 no need to dwell upon the justice of the claim for 
 security of tenure, with compensation for unexhausted 
 improvements in the case of eviction. It is sufficient 
 to say, what is indisputably the case, that no man of 
 spirit will endure to be at the mercy of his land- 
 lord, however fair and upright ; and that no man of 
 sense will lock up his capital in another man's soil 
 without a moral certainty of being able to recover 
 it The experience of the past few years must have 
 convinced the owners of land that this is the spirit in 
 which agricultural holdings have come to be regarded,, 
 and thus the necessity for an amendment of the laws 
 affecting such holdings is presented to us in the 
 plain est form. 
 
 M 
 
1 62 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 That the present generation of landowners — or at 
 all events the best and wisest of the class — do see 
 matters in this light is evident from the course of 
 recent events. But no more significant illustration of 
 this really conclusive fact could be desired than is 
 to be found in the language of the Duke of Rich- 
 mond and Lord Beaconsfield, in reference to the 
 Agricultural Holdings Act of 1876. Their words 
 have often been quoted ; and they obviate the 
 necessity of any testimony on the same side from 
 professed advocates of the tenant-farmers' claims. 
 The Duke of Richmond, after mentioning some of 
 the drawbacks of modern agriculture in England, 
 said, ' I doubt whether any one would say that this is 
 a condition of things which ought to be allowed to 
 remain any longer. I think public opinion has been 
 sufficiently roused, and that Parliament is now compe- 
 tent to deal with it. After twenty-five years of agita- 
 tion this matter has been sufficiently digested, and the 
 feeling is now in favour of legislation. Under these 
 circumstances the Government have thought that a 
 measure should be brought in to secure to the ten- 
 ant the capital he has invested in the soil. ... I 
 am not vain enough to think that this bill will satisfy 
 every one ; but I think it ought to satisfy every moder- 
 ate and reasonable man, for while on the one hand 
 it gives to the tenant that protection to which he is 
 
Division of Profits in Agriculture. 163 
 
 entitled, on the other hand it does not invade those 
 rights of the landlord which in this country have al- 
 ways been held sacred.' And the Prime Minister, 
 not to be outdone, spoke of the bill as ' protecting the 
 tenant's investment in the soil by placing him in a 
 juster position,' and ' inducing him to apply capital 
 to the soil — an application which it is in the interest 
 of all classes to encourage.' 
 
 Thaf was Conservative theory; as it must be 
 the theory of every candid and courageous man. 
 Conservative practice, however, was illustrated by 
 making the Act an optional one, which might be 
 neglected by all who cared to neglect it. As 3 con- 
 sequence it has been practically inoperative ; but we 
 ought at least to be grateful for these clear admissions 
 of the justice of the tenant-farmer's claims from the 
 lips of two such eminent leaders of the Conservative 
 party. It is to be regretted that this question of 
 tenant-right, or the still wider one of land law re- 
 form, should be capable of being regarded as a 
 question of party politics. But it is inevitable that 
 it should be so. It would be idle tq ignore the fact 
 that the territorial party is in the bulk identified with 
 the Conservative party, and that it is from them in 
 the main that the opposition to progress arises. They 
 . dread the effect of disturbing the present distribution 
 of land, and the present relations between landlord 
 
164 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 and tenant, and they consequently put on the atti- 
 tude of self-defence — though much in the same fashion 
 as a timid man who parries a blow never intended for 
 him. For, as we have just shown, the reforms now 
 claimed by the country at large will have a direct 
 tendency to improve the estates of the landowners, 
 as well as to increase the general welfare of the nation. 
 
 But if the more unreasonable of the territorialists, 
 Conservative and Whig alike, deceive themselves into 
 thinking that their property and just privileges are 
 attacked, and that they are in peril from a socialistic 
 revolution — and this is actually proclaimed and 
 believed by many persons — it becomes all the more 
 necessary that the great issues involved should be 
 ultimately decided by an appeal to the people. Here, 
 inore than in any other respect, it is the people as 
 a whole that is affected ; and it is to the authority of 
 the people that we must look for the deciding word. 
 Moreover, as in every other case of reform, the inter- 
 vention of the popular voice, legitimately evoked and 
 expressed, will be found to be on the side of quiet and 
 peaceable progress, the very reverse of revolutionary, 
 benevolent in its intention and operation, and benefi- 
 cent to each component part of the body politic. 
 
 It is when we consider the land question as a 
 question of food for the community, rather than of 
 small holdings for agriculturists, that we realise how 
 
Division of Profits in Agriculiure. 165 
 
 essentially it is a matter of popular concern, and how 
 logically it takes its place in the political programme 
 of the Liberal party. No one can deny that the 
 question of the food supply of Englishmen is a 
 part of the question of land reform. A glance at 
 the statistics which show the enormously increased 
 value of imported food into this country during 
 the past twenty years is sufficient to make good 
 this affirmation. The following figures are the bare 
 totals extracted from the Board of Trade returns for 
 the United Kingdom, completed to the end of 1877 ; 
 and we do not know that any set of figures could 
 possibly be more significant or more conclusive: — 
 
 
 Food Imports. 
 
 
 
 Population. 
 
 Gross Value. 
 
 1858 
 
 28,389,770 
 
 ;^25,898,47i 
 
 1862 
 
 29,255,015 
 
 50,293,118 
 
 1867 
 
 30,334,999 
 
 58,006,062 
 
 1872 
 
 31,835.757 
 
 74,227,939 
 
 1877 
 
 33,444,419 
 
 99,692,890 
 
 So that, at the present moment, we import consid- 
 erably more than one hundred million pounds' worth of 
 food — four times as much in value as we imported 
 twenty years ago — although the population of the 
 United Kingdom has increased in the meantime by 
 little more than one fifth. Increased consumption 
 and increased cost may account for a great deal ; but 
 
1 66 
 
 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 it is an incontrovertible fact, that the producing powers 
 of the land have relatively decreased in a very remark- 
 able degree.* 
 
 Another equally striking way of putting the facts 
 of the case is to compare the estimated value per head 
 of the food imported in the same five years. The 
 figures are as follows : — 
 
 1858 
 1862 
 1867 
 1872 
 1877 
 
 Value per head. 
 d. 
 
 3 
 5 
 
 £. .. 
 
 18 
 
 1 14 
 
 1 18 
 
 2 6 
 2 19 
 
 Thus it appears that the EngHsh nation, and each in- 
 dividual Englishman in proportion as he is depend- 
 ent on the efficiency of the food supply, has an inde- 
 feasible right to deal with this question as one of 
 personal concern. It is a specially popular concern, 
 a question for decision at the bar of popular opinion. 
 No more conclusive reason could be assigned for 
 making the question of reform in our system of land 
 tenure one of the indispensable items in any scheme 
 of popular progress. 
 
 The deficiency of our food supply touches every 
 one of us, throughout every rank of the community ; 
 
 * See a pamphlet by Mr. James Howard, ' The Tenant 
 Farmer.' Macmillan, 1879. 
 
Division of Profits in Agriculture. 167 
 
 so that those who can trace a more/ direct and special 
 injury from the existing system of cultivation — like 
 the tenant-farmers and the labourers — groan under 
 a double infliction. Nothing can remedy these evils 
 of the agricultural classes, except the institution of a 
 tenant right, such as the country is now well prepared 
 to grant — such, in fact, as the Conservative Cabinet 
 appears to have contemplated in 1875, though it 
 reckoned without its host. A hard struggle may be 
 required before any radical reform can be obtained in 
 the laws of entail and primogeniture ; but the battle 
 of tenant right is already won. Few men now dare 
 to argue in public against security of tenure or com- 
 pensation for unexhausted improvements. All that 
 we have to do is to apply the lessons of experience, 
 and not only to increase the profits of agriculture 
 in England, but also to divide them more impartially 
 amongst the community. 
 
1 6 8 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FREE TRADE IN LABOUR. 
 
 The term at the head of this chapter, though it may 
 not be warranted by usage, is sufficiently justified by 
 analogy and fact to be serviceable as a substitute for 
 the more ordinary and less correct term of • free labour.' 
 Of course there is no reason why the principles of fi-ee 
 trade should not be applicable to every commodity 
 which can be made the object of sale and purchase j 
 and the commodity of labour is clearly in this cate- 
 gory. Hence, when we speak of free trade in labour, 
 our meaning is simply that the seller of the commodity, 
 that is, the labourer himself,'should have the power of 
 choosing his market, and of putting whatever price he 
 will upon his commodity, without compulsion on the 
 one hand or protection on the other. 
 
 If labour were a commodity in the same sense that 
 corn and minerals are commodities — that is, if it was 
 tangible, transferable, capable of being stored and 
 docketed — it would naturally have come under the 
 operation of the commercial laws which have now 
 
Free Trade in Labour. 169 
 
 guided our national trade for more than a quarter 
 of a century. But this is not the case. There are 
 certain grand distinctions between labour and trans- 
 ferable commodities. The work of a man's hands, 
 which he sells to his employer for a given price, is 
 transformable instead of transferable. When once 
 bought and delivered it disappears, and subsists after- 
 wards only by its results, in the shape of a manufac- 
 tured raw material, a cultivated piece of land, or a 
 raised crop. Its independent existence endures 
 no longer than the exercise of the bodily functions 
 necessary to the seller when performing his con- 
 tract. It could not figure in a tariff either before or 
 after the performance of such a contract, and could not 
 have an assignable price apart from a contract. Hence 
 the observance of the principles of free trade in 
 labour depends upon the mutual agreement of buyer 
 and seller, of the employer and his labourer; and 
 whilst it is possible for the Legislature to preside 
 over the agreements of these two, and to lay down 
 laws for their guidance, we can see why this should 
 not have been done at the time when protection in 
 the ordinary markets was first abolished. Thotigh 
 we have come to accept and make deductions from 
 the maxim that labour ought to be free, the problem 
 remains to be solved, how are we to reconcile the 
 liberty of contract on both sides with a due con- 
 
170 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 sideration for the rights or claims of the community 
 at large ? 
 
 Here, again, the difficulty arises from the destruc- 
 tive character of labour as a commodity. The rights 
 of labour, or of the man who takes his labour to 
 market, are interwoven with the personal rights and 
 privileges of the individual. A labourer contracts 
 to render such and such service for such and such 
 a price ; but he remains still a human being, an 
 unit of a human society. He has agreed to sell his 
 labour, but he could not agree to sell his thews and 
 his sinews, his intelligence and his moods. No 
 doubt he has morally undertaken to apply and devote 
 himself, mind as well as body, to the performance of 
 his task, so far as may be necessary to produce the 
 best kind of work, or to do his work in a perfectly 
 efficient manner. But if he breaks this moral 
 pledge, the only penalty would be in the shape of 
 a deduction from the price of labour on account of 
 imperfect results, or the termination of the contract 
 on account of shortcomings named beforehand, or 
 the repeal of a new contract when a labourer had 
 scamped his work. Whatever can be detected, or 
 stipulated, or measured by a material scale, may be 
 the subject-matter of a contract, but the good- will 
 and mood of the labourer cannot. Therefore it is 
 impossible to prescribe and limit these contracts 
 
Free Trade in Labour. 171 
 
 by law "is though the men who enter into them were 
 machines. Something independent of contract and law 
 must remain over for further consideration; and it 
 is in respect of this ' something ' that the difficulties 
 of establishing absolute fr.ee trade in labour will be 
 found to arise. Hard-and-fast rules cannot — at least 
 under existing conditions — be applied to the supply 
 and demand of labour. We may legislate and re- 
 strict, but we must still lay ourselves out to deal with 
 the moods of human beings by a sort of equitable 
 supervision. 
 
 Now, how is this supervision to be provided and 
 administered? What is to be its nature, and how are 
 we to contrive that its authority shall be recognised 
 by employers and employed alike ? By what means 
 shall it receive the sanction and force of law, and in 
 whom is to be vested the indispensable ultimate 
 appeal ? The answer to these questions, if a satisfac- 
 tory one can be found, will be the keystone of the 
 arch on which the reconciliation of capital and labour 
 is to rest. 
 
 To discover this solution, it seems to us only neces- 
 sary to refer to our universal first principle — the supre- 
 macy and sovereignty of the people in all matters 
 concerning the people. That is to say, the disputes 
 arising between employers and employed, in regard to 
 contracts for labour, should be referred to a tribunal, in 
 
172 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 the constitution of which both employers and employed 
 have exercised a voice. The consent of both sides 
 should be given beforehand to the appointment of 
 judges, or of an umpire, from whom there should be no 
 appeal on matters of fact ; so that, whilst on the one 
 hand the disputants should not be left to the brutal 
 competition of selfish interests, or the callous exercise 
 of abstention from labour and enterprise, on the other 
 hand the free exchange of labour for money should be 
 shielded against the capricious interventions of the 
 central administrative authority. In one word, arbi- 
 tration appears to be the true, and apparently the only, 
 remedy for the evil. 
 
 Arbitration between capital and labour, employers 
 and employed, is a comparatively new device, but it 
 has become familiar to every one. It has often 
 been tried and has often succeeded ; and perhaps 
 we should have to admit, if we recalled all the 
 instances which have come under our notice, that 
 it has still oftener failed. We are not speaking 
 of those adjustments of long disputes which have 
 been effected after many unsuccessful attempts, and 
 when both sides were more or less worn out by a 
 protracted and ruinous struggle. Such arrangements 
 as these would more properly be described as re- 
 conciliations, or as compromises accepted because 
 neither of the contending parties was prepared to 
 
Free Trade in Labour. 173 
 
 make further sacrifice to the spirit of obstinacy. 
 Genuine arbitration is that which comes into opera- 
 tion almost as soon as the cause of dispute is manifest, 
 and before the gage of defiance has been thrown 
 down. One of its advantages, which must tend 
 powerfully to establish it as the best of all methods of 
 arranging a difficulty, is, that it can be resorted to 
 without the loss of a day's labour, either to those 
 who give their work for a stipulated wage, or to 
 those who employ labour for the utilisation of their 
 capital. There can be no doubt that arbitration 
 of this sort has recently become more and more 
 common, and that it bids fair in the future to be more 
 and more successful. Hundreds, it may be thousands, 
 of labour disputes have been settled by a resort 
 to the decision of an umpire, without arresting the 
 wheels of the great machine, which all concerned 
 have come to reverence as the creator or multiplier 
 of wealth. 
 
 But excellent as is this device for arresting the 
 aggravation of a dispute by the timely appointment 
 of an arbitrator, its benefits have been limited by 
 the fact that the resort to aibitration is hitherto en- 
 tirely optional on both sides. It may be resorted to 
 in one factory or mine, and refused in another a few 
 miles away; or, it may be a recognised thing in one 
 trade or in one district of the country, and not in 
 
174 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 another. Moreover, the award, when it has been given 
 after due inquiry, and in response to a joint request, 
 is not practically binding on either party; for the dis- 
 satisfied employer or employed may decline to stand 
 to the implied agreement out of mere selfishness, or 
 may have a conscientious conviction that the award 
 has been made on unsound principles, or without full 
 consideration of important facts. The inclination to 
 appeal from tribunal to tribunal is natural enough in a 
 man who has an obstinate conviction in the justice of 
 his case; and thus it is inevitable that the decisions of 
 arbitrators should be occasionally neglected, so long 
 as there is nothing in the nature of a compulsion to 
 make them definitely authoritative. 
 
 There are two drawbacks in particular which have 
 hitherto interfered with the success of the principle of 
 arbitration. The chief is that to which we have 
 just referred — the rejection of an aw^ard, and the 
 obstinate persistence in a strike or a lock-out. Such 
 persistence, indeed, seldom avails those who have re- 
 course to it, since it must almost inevitably be opposed 
 to the tendency of public opinion — always keenly 
 ahve to the merits of a labour dispute. Of course, 
 this very public opinion is regarded on all hands 
 as a court of moral appeal, to which reference is 
 not unfrequently made, and which has often prac- 
 tically determined an industrial controversy. But 
 
Fyee Trade in Labour. 175 
 
 it is not easy to imagine a case in which either em- 
 ployers or employed would, under present conditions, 
 successfully appeal from an appointed arbitrator to 
 the general opinion of the country. We cannot recall 
 a case in which this has been done in recent years. 
 
 The other drawback consists in the unwillingness 
 sometimes displayed by one side or the other to enter 
 into arbitration. We think it will be admitted that 
 this unwillingness has been shown more frequently by 
 the employers of labour than by the employed — whilst 
 the refusal to accept an award, once given, has per- 
 haps come more frequently from the employed. And 
 it is natural that an individual capitalist, or a firm 
 of capitalists, for whom the issue of the dispute must 
 have a greater personal interest than it can have for 
 the labourers, should be less willing to place himself 
 or themselves at the mercy of an arbitrator, who can- 
 not be expected to understand all the complicated cir- 
 cumstances of a large business after a few weeks' 
 study. An artisan or a miner, when condemned by 
 an award to accept a lower rate of wages, has at 
 least the power of taking his commodity to a better 
 market, if such is to be found. But an employer, 
 if he submits to arbitration and gets the worst of it, 
 may find himself in an alternative between working 
 his mill or mine at a loss, or closing it altogether. 
 Moreover, there is a very intelligible dislike on the 
 
176 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 part of employers to bringing their books before an 
 arbitrator, and having them inspected in presence of 
 the representatives of the men. 
 
 The remedy for both these drawbacks — so far as 
 a remedy can be found — would seem to be this : 
 to elevate the nature of the arbitration, and the dignity 
 of the arbitrator, and to make the award, with or without 
 appeal, compulsory. In order to effect this, legislation 
 would be necessary. A Court of Arbitration would have 
 to be established, which would take its place amongst 
 other legal courts; unless the work could be entrusted 
 to one of these — as, for instance, to the County Court, 
 or, better still, to the general local courts which will 
 be established when popular self-government has 
 been organised in proper form. If either of these 
 latter alternatives were adopted, it would be indis- 
 pensable to have duly qualified assessors, capable of 
 dealing thoroughly and technically, from personal 
 knowlege and experience, with the special cases as they 
 arose ; and we are inclined to think that these asses- 
 sors, who might travel from court to court, would be 
 more effectual and more authoritative in conjunction 
 with the local County Court judge than if they were 
 empowered to constitute and hold a court by them- 
 selves. However this might be, they ought to exercise 
 judicial functions, and to have the power of examining 
 witnesses on oath, and of sending for persons and 
 
Free Trade in Labour. 177 
 
 books, and even of committal for contempt of their 
 authority. 
 
 These Courts of Arbitration would be a sort of 
 courts of first instance, administering statute law, as well 
 as pronouncing upon trade customs and regulations ; 
 and it seems to follow that an appeal would have to 
 be allowed to the higher legal courts. Without this 
 at would be difficult to adopt the principle of com- 
 pulsion; and without compulsion the arbitration would 
 be of little value. 
 
 Nor should the compulsion be limited to the 
 enforced acceptance of a decision in arbitration ; it 
 would be necessary to apply it also in bringing matters 
 of dispute before the arbitrator. The whole benefit 
 of the institution would be defeated if it were left 
 optional for either side to submit to inquiry or to 
 decline it ; and for that reason it would be indispen- 
 sable to enact that, whether in the case of a breach 
 of contract or in the case of a breach of law, or on 
 the occurrence of a dispute as to the wages of la- 
 bour, it should be competent for either side to sum- 
 mon the other before the court. The only novelty 
 in this would consist in the compulsory resort to arbi- 
 tration, which almost sounds like a contradiction of 
 terms. But there is no contradiction in point of fact. 
 If the word * arbitration ' necessarily implied a mutual 
 agreement to select an umpire and to accept his 
 
 N 
 
178 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 award, no doubt the idea of preliminary compulsion 
 would be excluded. But this is not the necessary 
 significatiori. 
 
 The distinction would doubtless be somewhat finely 
 drawn between arbitration with compulsion and arbitra- 
 tion without compulsion. But the purport and effect of 
 the new legislation, as we take it, would be that the 
 power of referring disputes to the decision of an umpire 
 would be given only to those who asked for it. It 
 would be requisite that one of the two parties should 
 make the application ; and, this having been done, if 
 the other party were unwilling to join issue, the fact 
 of the law overruling his (or their) objection could 
 not be held to vitiate the nature of an arbitration 
 The claims of the unwilling party would not be ne- 
 glected because of his unwillingness, and the compul- 
 sion exercised by the court would only be such as 
 conduced to the welfare of the community, including 
 that of the objector himself. 
 
 With a well- constituted court, however, it would 
 probably be found that objections would rarely arise, 
 or rarely be persisted in, especially if the privilege of 
 nominating the arbitrators was reserved to the dis- 
 putants. And this ought to be done, as it would 
 be the essence of any arbitration calculated to give 
 satisfaction to both sides. The system would be simple 
 enough so long as what we may call the technical 
 
Free Trade in Labour. 179 
 
 arbitrator sat as the assessor of the legal judge. Some- 
 thing like the same principle obtains in the adju- 
 dication of Admiralty cases, in which litigants have 
 the double satisfaction of pleading before a technical 
 and a legal authority combined. But the great thing 
 to be secured would be the practical appointment of 
 the arbitrator — a man of special knowledge and ex- 
 perience in the matters at issue — by common consent 
 of the contending parties. 
 
 The advantage of such a scheme to both employers 
 and employed would manifestly be very great ; and it 
 would not be less to the general community. Labour 
 disputes would at once be brought to the level of 
 ordinary commercial disagreements. Employers and 
 employed alike would be under the control of the law, 
 so far as it is possible to make the performance of a 
 contract of bodily service imperative ; and at all events 
 there would be the power to exact penalties for breach 
 of award, as well as for breach of actual written con- 
 tract. The exasperating character of such disputes, 
 as they are now carried on, to the scandal and injury 
 of the public, would disappear ; and, by the definite- 
 ness of the law, by the conciliatory effect of arbitra- 
 tion, and by the force of public opinion, we should 
 probably see the virtual end of the struggle between 
 capital and labour which has cost the country so dear 
 and brought so many disasters on all concerned. 
 
 N 3 
 
i8o Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 But, above all, the benefits derived from arbitra- 
 tion by working-men would amply reward us for every 
 effort mside to obtain them. Until some such reform 
 has been introduced there can be nothing really worthy 
 of the name of free trade in labour. The existing 
 trades-unions are at best a poor makeshift, and they 
 cannot give to their members that security, that 
 guarantee of justice, that assurance of regular and 
 fairly paid work which would follow almost as a ne- 
 cessity from the establishment of judicial courts of ar- 
 bitration. Working-men are apparently beginning to 
 see the boon such courts would confer upon them, 
 and we believe that they would rely upon them for 
 protection in preference to the hostile spirit now 
 frequently (and even unavoidably) manifested by 
 their trade societies. As we have said, it is not 
 from the working-men that the greatest objections to 
 Courts of Arbitration have come ; they have been on 
 the whole and as a class more inclined than their 
 employers to demand arbitration as a mode of settle- 
 ment. It is sufficiently short-sighted of capitalists 
 whose money is invested in large works depending on 
 the constant supply of cheap labour to withstand the 
 application of genuine free-trade principles ; but in 
 working-men the resistance would be absolutely 
 suicidal. 
 
Free Edueation.. 18 1 
 
 CHAPTER XI. 
 
 FREE EDUCATION. 
 
 There is a phrase in constant use amongst Liberals 
 according to which three of the principal demands 
 of the country in the immediate future are for ' free 
 trade, free labour, and free schools.' The cry is 
 a good one, and even necessary to the formation 
 of a strong programme of reform; but it is worth 
 while to observe that the phrase just quoted is not 
 precisely equivalent to 'free trade in commodities, 
 free trade in labour, and free trade in education.' 
 
 The majority of Englishmen are convinced that 
 free trade in commercial matters is indispensable to 
 the welfare of the community. The principle is by 
 this time too firmly established to be abandoned, or 
 even brought into question by the cavilling of reac- 
 tionary or ignorant speakers and writers. The doc- 
 trine of free trade in labour, as we have seen, is not 
 so widely accepted. The idea is a newer one, and 
 needs to be brought through the stage of contro- 
 versy; but we are gradually effecting this, with as 
 
1 82 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 much despatch as it is reasonable to expect. The 
 question of education is on another footing; and 
 free trade in education as a commodity — which is a 
 newer idea than either of the others — is scarcely at- 
 tainable under the existing state of things. Of course 
 in so far as education is a commodity capable of 
 being sold and bought, there must be such a thing 
 as free trade in education ; but this is not what the 
 friends of reform would care to contend for at present. 
 
 Free trade is valuable in proportion as the quality 
 of the commodity subjected to it is harmless and 
 profitable, and in proportion as the purchaser is able 
 to protect himself against adulteration, or against the 
 forcing upon him of a noxious article. In the case 
 of ordinary tangible commodities he can do this 
 fairly well, but in the matter of education — that is 
 to say, in the training of his children at school — he 
 cannot. He has to take his chance. But as it is the 
 paramount interest of the community that the educa- 
 tion of the young shall be efficient, unadulterated, and 
 the best that can be had, it follows that it is the 
 duty of the State to interfere with free traffic in 
 education, so far as those who sell the commodity 
 desire to treat it as a matter of traffic. 
 
 It is essentially one of those cases in which the 
 liberty of the individual is restrained for the benefit 
 of society. It is better to insure good teaching 
 
Free Education. 183 
 
 to elementary scholars than it would be to check 
 national education in the interest of private school- 
 masters. We depend on education to form the future 
 citizens of the State — that is, the future State itself j 
 and it would have been suicidal to uphold the ques- 
 tionable claims of every incompetent person who 
 chose to traffic in education, thereby making it im- 
 possible to adopt a national system, based on popular 
 representative control. 
 
 Within these limits, however, the term ' free edu- 
 cation ' is applicable in its widest sense, whenever it 
 is to be found in the creed of a genuine reformer. 
 That which we have demanded, which we have only 
 partially obtained, and which we shall before long 
 demand and obtain, is a national system of universal 
 application. We want the State to provide education 
 for its citizens, because it is its duty and privilege to 
 do so ; we want that education to be freely applicable 
 and freely accessible to every individual \ we want it 
 to be compulsory on the few who would neglect it, for 
 the benefit of the many who support and pay for it ; 
 and we want to see it purged of all invidious restric- 
 tions, drawbacks, prejudices, and competitions. 
 
 The present condition of affairs is unsatisfactory 
 in many ways. It is a compromise which pleases no 
 one — except those who always allow themselves to 
 be pleased by a compromise of any kind. There 
 
184 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 are, moreover, compromises within — or behind — 
 compromises. First of all we have a compromise 
 between the secular arm of the State on the one 
 part, and the State Church on the other. Then we 
 have a compromise between the voluntary denomi- 
 national schools and the schools established under the 
 national system. There is another compromise within 
 the national schools themselves — or rather, within the 
 boards elected to manage them. All these are com- 
 promises of principle, rather than of mere opinion, or 
 of method. No doubt it is natural enough that the 
 members of the several boards, representing widely 
 different sections of the public, should have found it 
 necessary to come to an understanding on such a 
 point as that of religious teaching in elementary 
 schools. But it is very unfortunate that our State 
 system of education should be hampered and checked 
 by so many other compromises, which detract im- 
 mensely from its value and capacity for good. 
 
 The chief obstacle, we believe, which prevents 
 us from developing the national system, by means of 
 the excellent representative government secured under 
 the Act of 1870, is to be found in the great rival 
 system — or unsystematic aggregation — of voluntary 
 schools, supported by the religious communities, and 
 setting themselves up, for the most part, in opposition 
 to the Board schools. The time or the opportunity 
 
Free Education. 185 
 
 has not yet come for absorbing the former category in 
 the latter; and of course there are many who consider 
 that such a time never will come. Certainly the 
 attempt to do anything of the kind would be hopeless 
 under existing conditions. It would be impossible to 
 convince the managers of such schools that to hand 
 them over to the supervision of the boards would be 
 the best method of insuring their continued efficiency, 
 and the simplest plan of rendering the national system 
 satisfactory to the nation, as well as to themselves 
 in particular. Paradoxical as it may seem, we are 
 convinced that the ministers of the various religious 
 bodies, and the parents who now insist upon having 
 scripture interposed between a lesson in arithmetic 
 and a lesson in natural science, would eventually 
 profit by handing over their schools. And at any 
 rate the nation would derive incalculable advantage 
 from the breaking down of the barrier which now 
 separates the work of the State from the work of 
 private and almost irresponsible individuals. 
 
 In no other country where a national system of 
 elementary education has been established is there 
 anything to compare with our voluntary denomina- 
 tional schools. Even in France, though the contrast 
 is sharp, if not sharper, the proportion of those 
 which defy and counteract the national schools is 
 not so overwhelming. We are ourselves suffering 
 
1 86 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 from the long delay which occurred before the State 
 made up its mind to undertake the public duty. 
 Not only have vast efforts been made by the deno- 
 minationalists since Forster's Act was passed, but 
 vast numbers of so-called voluntary schools existed 
 before 1870. At the present time, when the Educa- 
 tion Act has been more than nine years in operation, 
 there are very few School Board districts out of 
 Wales in which the scholars in the voluntary schools 
 are not more in number than the scholars under 
 the boards. On the other hand, there are yet many 
 places where the School Board is steadily and hotly 
 rejected, and where the scheme discussed and ac- 
 cepted by Parliament is simply a dead letter. 
 
 It is manifest how this want of general applic- 
 ability, this default of universahty in our national 
 system, acts and reacts for evil. The jealousies so 
 eagerly kept up between the two classes of schools, 
 and out of which some politicians have not scrupled 
 to make capital, render it much more difficult than it 
 would otherwise be to enforce compulsion on reckless 
 parents or fatherless children. The system of the 
 State is handicapped by the invidious duty of com- 
 pulsion, which does not extend to the voluntary 
 schools. A scrupulous fulfilment of the law results 
 in forcing into the Board schools a considerable 
 number of children who are not likely to earn 
 
Free Education. 187 
 
 the Government grant, and who are to that extent 
 regarded as a hindrance by ambitious and over- 
 zealous teachers, anxious above all things to increase 
 the list of their ' effectives,' not only for the honour 
 of their school, but also for the sake of the small 
 addition to their income. 
 
 The difficulties in the way of bringing to school 
 and educating the poorest class of derelicts and 
 ' wastrels' reveal what is perhaps the weakest point in 
 our national system, as it now exists ; and it is highly 
 important that something should be done to remedy 
 the evil. It is not too much to say that the efficacy 
 of Forster's Act is tested by its application to the 
 most neglected, the poorest and dirtiest children in 
 our great towns ; and if we find that many of these 
 children escape the reach of the compulsory clauses, 
 whilst the same clauses are often pressed with harsh- 
 ness against respectable and industrious children, 
 we may not unfairly conclude that the Education Act 
 is (at least to this extent) inoperative and a failure. 
 
 Now it is a fact that this complaint has often been 
 made, and observation tends to show that there is 
 much force in it. Those who most need the ap- 
 plication of the compulsory powers granted in 1870 
 frequently enjoy a perfect immunity ; they are not 
 always zealously hunted up, and they have been 
 suffered to keep out of the way, and been even 
 
1 88 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 repulsed from the national school, after being brought 
 within the sphere of School Board influence. This is 
 a scandal under the present system which cannot be 
 denied, and which calls aloud for redress. What 
 remedy, then, appears to be practicable in these cir- 
 cumstances ? Surely it is for the people itself — which 
 once more has the power of redress in its own hands 
 — to discover and apply the remedy. 
 
 The failure, however partial it may be, of com- 
 pulsion in the quarters where it is most desirable, 
 arises in the main from the invidious methods by 
 which it is, or needs to be, applied. Thus, there is 
 the invidious distinction between board schools and 
 voluntary schools, which gives an unfair advantage 
 to the latter ; for if it is to the benefit of the whole 
 community that compulsion shall be exercised in 
 regard to parents who neglect their children's edu- 
 cation, it is natural that the schools to which the 
 coerced children are sent should incur a certain 
 amount of odium on the part of those whom the 
 law is made to reach. And again, as just remarked, 
 there is a further invidious distinction in the board 
 schools themselves, arising, of course, not from the 
 same cause, but from the difference which is made — 
 sometimes needlessly, sometimes inevitably— between 
 the most respectable children and those who are con- 
 sidered less likely to bring credit upon the managers. 
 
Free Education. 189 
 
 Now, in order to grapple with these evils, which 
 are of wider scope and produce more injurious effects 
 than is commonly recognised, it appears to us that 
 further legislation is urgently called for. The public 
 mind may not yet be prepared for a new departure 
 on the subject, though we have no doubt that the 
 more thoughtful section of the public has long per- 
 ceived the necessity of which we speak. We may 
 at least hope that a stronger and healthier senti- 
 ment is taking shape and finding expression, on this 
 as on a number of other social and political issues, 
 and that a few more years will see this sentiment 
 translated into action. 
 
 The most drastic reform of all will be achieved 
 as soon as the country is able to accept the truth 
 that a universal system of education is indispensable 
 to complete efficiency in national education ; that the 
 system must be one in which the whole community 
 has an immediate and necessary interest; that the 
 aid of the State should be given to those schools 
 alone which are conducted on the national system ; 
 and that, consequently, the voluntary schools should 
 no longer be allowed to compete with the national 
 schools, either in earning the money of the tax- 
 payers, or in currying the favour of the public, or 
 in varying the standard of education. 
 
 As matters stand, it would be harsh, even if it 
 
igo Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 were practicable, to withdraw every kind of recog- 
 nition from the schools of the various denominations ; 
 and we could not ask any Government to withdraw 
 the State grants, without long notice and preparation, 
 from those who are now permitted to enjoy them. 
 We shall be able to do this sooner or later; but not 
 until a great amount of prejudice has been swept 
 a\yay, not until a more harmonious tone prevails, 
 not until a thorough religious equahty and impartiality 
 (as far as the State is concerned) have been secured 
 throughout the country. 
 
 How can we bring ourselves nearer to a consum- 
 mation so much to be desired, or how prepare the 
 public mind for the first steps of progress ? 
 
 The only way, so far as we are aware (and the 
 problem has been worked out in countries which are 
 far ahead of us in national education), to remove 
 the unjust prejudices under which our School Board 
 system labours, is by destroying, as far as possible, 
 the invidious distinctions which have been shown to 
 operate so unfavourably ; and especially those which 
 tend to create a gulf between different children in 
 the same board schools. There is no cause so fertile 
 of odium as the differences necessarily existing in 
 the amount and mode of the payments made by 
 or on behalf of different children in our national 
 schools. The fees are small enough in any case ; 
 
Free Education. 191 
 
 but, small as they are, many poor parents have the 
 utmost difficulty in paying them. The number of 
 children whose parents are excused this petty strain 
 on their narrow incomes is larger than many persons 
 would imagine. The number of children whose 
 school fees are paid by the guardians of the poor 
 forms a considerable proportion of the whole ; and 
 it is not to be supposed that this virtual pauperisa- 
 tion takes place in absolute secresy, or without the 
 knowledge of the parents' neighbours and friends. 
 In the case of compulsion being exercised in order 
 to drive the children into school, the pauperisation 
 is forced, and therefore much more humiliating. 
 
 There is evidently one way in which this evil could 
 be counteracted ; and we do not know if any other is 
 conceivable. It is by making our national education 
 entirely free and gratuitous. In other words the invidi- 
 ousness of which complaint has been made would have 
 been practically removed (moTe particularly in the in- 
 stances where it is most acutely felt) by supporting the 
 whole national system of education out of the rates, or 
 out of rates and taxes in conjunction, and accepting no 
 fees whatever from the children, whether their parents 
 be well-to-do or the contrary. We should still have 
 payment by results out of the parliamentary grant, 
 and the deficiency would be supplied in each district 
 by a local rate. The increase in this rate would not 
 
192 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 be very considerable ; and, with regard to the 
 question of expenditure, of which we have latterly 
 heard so much, a reasonable attention to economy 
 will presently reduce the education rate below its 
 present figure, as the need for buildings and ap- 
 pointments decreases. The parents who are in 
 comparatively comfortable circumstances would thus 
 contribute, indirectly and slightly, to aid those who 
 could not pay in any case ; and the wealthier section 
 of the community, whose own children are educated 
 in schools of a higher grade— often outside the national 
 system — would contribute in aid of all the other sec- 
 tions. And this would be in accordance with a 
 principle which cannot be gainsaid. Education is 
 a State duty; and therefore the duty of maintaining an 
 efficient and universal system of compulsory education 
 devolves upon every one of us as a State burden. It 
 seems superfluous to say that this burden, like each of 
 those which the State imposes upon us, is attended by 
 economical as well as social and political advantages, 
 saving us in the long-run infinitely more than it costs. 
 It is in this sense, then, that the reformer includes 
 in his programme a demand for free education. He 
 perceives that to treat education as a national work, 
 to recognise it as a national concern, to make it a 
 matter of universal application and duty, to throw 
 open the doors of the national schools gratuitously 
 
Free Education. 193 
 
 and without distinction of person, is the only way of 
 rendering it popular, effectual, and void of offence. 
 And he perceives that this liberation and liberality 
 of national education would instantly give it its due 
 advantages over the voluntary enterprises which might 
 thereafter care to hold aloof from State control. The 
 whole evil seems to be faced and grappled with by this 
 genuinely national system of free schools. Ten years 
 ago few Liberals hesitated to ask for a compulsory, 
 universal, secular, gratuitous education. It is time 
 to consider whether they did not prematurely relax 
 their efforts, and hastily suffer the mind of the 
 public to neglect the all-important interests which 
 are at stake. 
 
194 Popttlar Sovereignty. 
 
 CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 THE BURDEN OF TAXATIObf. 
 
 The principle on which Englishmen are governed — 
 that of representative self-control — creates or under- 
 lies every contract entered into between the nation 
 and those to whom the authority of government is, 
 permanently or otherwise, intrusted. In some nations, 
 like the United States, and in a less degree France, 
 there is little personal authority more permanent in its 
 character than the periodically elected Administration, 
 with the various office-holders who come and go with 
 the Administration. In other nations there are per- 
 manent government staffs, which do not change their 
 personnel with the Administration, and which generally 
 hold aloof from questions of party politics. And in 
 the case of limited monarchies, like England, in ad- 
 dition to the government services, the iiTemovable 
 officials and judges, and the extensive system of local 
 self-rule, there is the royal family, with its numerous 
 officers and attendants, all of which go to swell the 
 privileges of what are sometimes called ' the govern- 
 
The Burden of Taxation. 195 
 
 ing classes.' In all these cases, whatever the degree of 
 liberty and popular enfranchisement they enjoy, there 
 is the same implied contract — on the one side to govern 
 well, on the other to submit t o good government. 
 
 From the moment when representative institu- 
 tions are accorded to, or exacted by, any nation, the 
 supremacy of popular rights and privileges is virtually 
 acknowledged, and the ultimate sovereignty of the 
 people is assured. For the effect and signific- 
 ance of popular representation is this, that the 
 enfranchised people is thenceforth practically the 
 arbiter of its own destinies, has the final word in its 
 own government, and the paramount right to insist on 
 the observance of the mandates which it has given 
 to its representatives. Hence the contract between 
 government and people resolves itself into an agree- 
 ment that the one party shall govern in harmony with 
 the expressed will of the people, and that the other 
 shall continue to provide the means of government 
 
 This resolution of the contract into an agree- 
 ment depending upon the payment and the applica- 
 tion of taxes will be found to have taken place 
 in every country where constitutional liberty is 
 acknowledged. It does not follow as a matter of 
 Course that the authority of the people is highest, 
 and its eifect most immediate and irresistible, in the 
 nations where the theory of the contract has been 
 
io6 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 most unreservedly admitted. England was the first 
 country to establish the doctrine that representation 
 should always keep pace with taxation, and that the 
 default of good government justified the withholding 
 of supplies by the popular representatives. But we 
 cannot now boast that the expressed will of the people 
 is more speedily and thoroughly obeyed in this country 
 than in any other. In the preceding chapters we 
 have touched upon several instances in which the 
 desire of the people for special reforms is baulked 
 from year to year, and even from generation to 
 generation ; and we have seen that it is possible in 
 England (as it would be impossible in the United 
 States, or in France under the present rkgime) for a 
 party Administration to commit the country to an 
 uncongenial if not irreparable new departure in its 
 general policy. The remedy exists in theory, but it is 
 not easy to apply, nor can we make it easily applic- 
 able until certain reforms have been introduced into 
 our governing institutions. What these reforms are 
 we have tried, though partially and imperfectly, to 
 suggest m the chapters which glanced at the par- 
 liamentary system established by our forefathers. 
 The reforms which give us shorter Parliaments, 
 wider franchises, purer elections, and efficient local 
 self-government, will tend to make the practice of Eng- 
 lish government square more closely with its theory. 
 
The Burden of Taxation. 197 
 
 Then, as now, the holding of the purse-strings by 
 our parliamentary representatives will be the lever, 
 within Parliament, by which we shall be able to make 
 our wishes prevail. And it would be an incalcul- 
 able advantage if the people would take to refresh- 
 ing their memories concerning the parliamentary and 
 popular struggles of their ancestors, and so learn over 
 again how powerful and invaluable an instrument they 
 have at their command in the simple and point-blank 
 refusal of taxes. 
 
 Hampden's refusal to pay ship-money in the reign 
 of Charles I. (which was only one case out of many) 
 was based upon grounds not wholly dissimilar to those 
 which might be alleged in the present day, by one 
 who was fanatically opposed to a national policy, which 
 he considered to be morally indefensible, and obstin- 
 ately determined to resist the Government as a matter 
 of principle. Of course the cases would not be parallel. 
 Ship-money was illegal in its mode of impost, which 
 the taxes of our own times are not. But legaUty in 
 regard to taxation was not absolutely established and 
 confirmed in the days of the Stuarts, and there is a 
 forcible comparison between the moral aspect of the 
 question of to-day and that of two hundred and fifty 
 years ago. Closer parallels may be found in other 
 generations — cases of conscience in which important 
 questions have been raised, and valuable results ob- 
 
198 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 tained, by sending the tax-collector empty away. We 
 do not say that the same results could be secured by 
 adopting this fanatical course now. Perhaps a nine- 
 leenth-century Hampden would be only a ridiculous 
 failure. But one is tempted to feel curious as to the 
 possible outcome of a popular demonstration of this 
 kind. 
 
 Much more could be effected, and more legitim- 
 ately, by a steadfast refusal of supplies in the House 
 of Commons. It is difficult to see any better way 
 of raising the question of popular sovereignty, or any 
 more effective way of establishing it, than a contest 
 over the national expenditure. If the provision of 
 money for the purposes of the State is, as we know 
 that it is, the peculiar duty and privilege of the general 
 community, and if the refusal of this money is the 
 legitimate instrument whereby pressure may be 
 brought to bear upon an Administration, it follows 
 that the people could select no better vantage- 
 ground whereon to wage a contest for the assertion 
 — or rather the reassertion — of its own authority. 
 Even reforms which are not specifically connected 
 with matters of finance or expenditure might be made 
 easier of attainment if the people, losing patience after 
 a protracted self-control, should vehemently insist 
 upon the immediate contraction of our bloated yet 
 growing national expenditure. 
 
The Burden of Taxation. 199 
 
 There is abundant cause for popular intervention 
 in the mismanagement of its own resources. The 
 expenditure of the country in a time of peace is 
 swollen and bloated beyond all that could have been 
 supposed possible some quarter of a century ago. Less 
 time than that has elapsed since an eminent states- 
 man declared that the business of the nation might 
 be carried on for fifty millions a year. Yet the total 
 of our annual disbursements — that is to say, of the 
 sum annually taken from the English people in 
 the shape of taxation, direct and indirect — exceeds 
 eighty millions sterling; and under the present arrange- 
 ment of affairs, the politicians of the schools now 
 in vogue will never bring it much below that figure. 
 We admit all that can be said as to the natural 
 rate of increase in the cost of governing, managing, 
 serving, and defending a great country like England, 
 which is constantly increasing in population and 
 constantly adding to its responsibilities at home and 
 abroad. But none of these considerations furnish an 
 excuse for the abnormal increase of our national ex- 
 penditure, which weighs year by year more grievously 
 upon the commonwealth. 
 
 It is plain that this expenditure would be com- 
 paratively slight, and might be provided for without 
 the imposition of any heavy burden upon the tax- 
 payers, if it were not for the enormous sums — more 
 
200 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 than two thirds of the whole amount — swallowed up 
 by past and present wars, and preparations for future 
 wars. It is in regard to these — and especially in 
 regard to the amounts expended on the military and 
 naval services — that retrenchment may and ought to 
 be effected. We can do little enough, at present, in 
 the way of reducing the interest on our national debt, 
 which yearly consumes twenty-six millions sterling. 
 Gradually, perhaps, and under the guidance of skilful 
 and courageous finance ministers,something can be done 
 to lessen the weight laid on our shoulders by former 
 generations; and at any rate we can abstain from 
 selfishly adding to the load which our children will 
 have to bear. But it is not here that our economists 
 will be able to achieve their most notable triumphs. 
 
 In regard to the thirty millions or so which are 
 now demanded for the army and navy, there are few 
 politicians worthy of honourable mention who deny 
 that a large saving might be made if our rulers, and 
 especially the highest officials in the War and Ad- 
 miralty Departments, would nerve themselves for a 
 strenuous effort. The obstacles placed in the path of 
 reformers by prejudiced men, trained in the precedents 
 and traditions of the services, and unable to break 
 loose from the fetters of their judgment, are many and 
 powerful. It is almost too much to hope that innova- 
 tions in the interest of economy should be made from 
 
The Burden of Taxation. 201 
 
 within, and we must probably wait for a strong popu- 
 lar demand, backed by a majority in Parliament, 
 before anything considerable can be accomplished. 
 But with such an initiation, pressed forward by the 
 momentum of public opinion, a very noteworthy 
 saving might be made in the two great spending 
 services of the country, even in attaining a superior 
 result in fighting power. 
 
 But still ftiore is it possible, if we will accept and 
 act on the maxim, that what England needs in her 
 soldiers and sailors is a defensive rather than an 
 offensive fighting power. We should save millions 
 every year if we would steadily and rationally take our 
 stand on the exceptionally safe position secured for 
 us, by nature in the first place, by our virtual inde- 
 pendence of European armaments, and by the great 
 moral advantage accruing from our commercial ap- 
 titudes, and our acknowledged superiority in latent 
 resources of power. No country in the world was 
 ever endowed with so much independence of posi- 
 tion, material and moral, as England is ; and if we 
 had the wisdom and will to avail ourselves of this 
 splendid endowment, we might at once spare ourselves 
 a large portion of our overgrown expenditure. 
 
 Of course the facts and arguments brought forward 
 on the other side we should be the last to ignore or 
 despise. It would be the height of folly to leave our- 
 
202 Popular Sovereignty. 
 
 selves unprepared for war, however improbable the 
 contingency of war may appear. It is also necessary 
 to bear in mind that England is in a sense vulnerable 
 all over the world — in Asia, in Africa, in America, 
 and at the Antipodes. But for every such argument 
 there is an adequate reply. Our colonies and de- 
 pendencies ought to be in a great measure self-reliant, 
 being valuable to us in proportion as they are able 
 to strike in their own defence. And no one will 
 deny that we ought always to cherish the fighting 
 power of the nation, to the extent of rendering the 
 greatest possible number of Englishmen capable of 
 bearing arms, and of fighting for their country in case 
 of need. The real question is, how we may purchase 
 this result in the most economical manner compat- 
 ible with thorough efficiency. And we submit that, 
 demonstrably, we might make ourselves unassail- 
 able, and possess all the moral force which proceeds 
 from the known possession of physical force, for 
 a sum very much smaller than that which we now 
 pay with such difficulty, not to say with such dire 
 distress. 
 
 It is to be feared that the nation must pass through 
 more calamitous experiences arising from the per- 
 nicious habit of war before a public opinion will be 
 formed strong enough to make the State revolt from 
 military extravagance as one of the greatest follies 
 
The Burden of Taxation. 203 
 
 and crimes. In the meantime the burden of taxation 
 might be made less grievous in another mode, to wit, 
 by raising the necessary income in a less obnoxious 
 and oppressive manner. It would be out of place to 
 touch more than the fringe of this vast subject in this 
 connection. But we may point out that the national 
 income is derived through several distinct channels. 
 The income and other assessed taxes, which are most 
 obnoxious of all, are levied directly upon individuals 
 or classes. The customs and excise duties are in the 
 nature of subtractions made by Government from the 
 profits of commerce — or additions made to the cost 
 of goods. The income from the Post Office and 
 Telegraphs, again, is almost purely a payment received 
 by the State for labour undertaken in the service of 
 the general public. There will probably be little 
 question that, all things considered, the last is by far 
 the most satisfactory and most remunerative kind of 
 income. It has no tendency to place a burden or 
 restriction upon industry, as the other methods have. 
 On the contrary, the service by which the State earns 
 this portion of the national income has proved to be 
 an incalculable advantage and source of profit to the 
 community. No private enterprise, for instance, could 
 have given us by this time a penny postage rate, or 
 have established the various departments of the post 
 and telegraph services on their present footing. 
 
204 Poptilar Sovereignty. 
 
 The conclusion seems to be forced upon us that 
 the State might and ought, by undertaking other im- 
 portant pubUc services, to benefit the community in 
 the double sense of improving those services and 
 earning money which would permit the remission 
 of taxes. We know of no valid objections which 
 have been raised against such a proposal ; and 
 it is in this direction that the greatest possibili- 
 ties of financial reform have been foreseen. As we 
 have said, it would be outside our present purpose 
 to examine the various specific suggestions which have 
 been made in a more or less practical form. Suffice 
 it to urge that within a few years, by taking in hand 
 certain special services of inter-communication, not 
 differing widely in principle from those which it 
 already undertakes, the State might deliver us from 
 the worst evils of direct taxation, and even from 
 some of the most objectionable imposts of customs 
 and excise. 
 
 One way or another, by diminishing expenditure 
 or by increasing the earning powers of the State, 
 our burden of taxation must be relieved. There 
 is a positive danger to the nation in the continu- 
 ance of the existing oppression, which is becom- 
 ing as intolerable as it ever was within the past 
 few centuries. We ought not to suffer such a strain 
 upon the patience of the masses for a day longer 
 
The Burden of Taxation. 205 
 
 than we can help ; for oppression of any kind 
 justifies resistance, and renders it certain and in- 
 evitable. And here, as always, the people has the 
 remedy in its own hands, though the remedy is of 
 too violent a character to contemplate with equan- 
 imity. No doubt the danger appeared more formid- 
 able when the taxation was more direct than it now is, 
 and when the imposts were made upon necessary 
 articles of food. But only the man who is politically 
 bUnd or misguided will fail to perceive the very real 
 character of the danger of to-day. 
 
 LONDON : PRINTED BY 
 
 SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE 
 
 AND PARLIAMENT STREET 
 
Dvn^^iacs: isso. 
 
 GENERAL LISTS OF NEW WORKS 
 
 PUBLISHED BY 
 
 Messes. LONGMANS, GEEEN & CO. 
 
 PATERNOSTER ROW, LONDON. 
 
 HISTORY, POLITICS, HISTORICAL MEMOIRS Stc. 
 
 Armitage's OMldhood of the Buglisli Nation. Fop. 8vo. 2s. id. 
 Arnold's Lectures on Modem History. 8to. 7«. 6d. 
 Bagehot's Literary Studies, edited by Hutton. 2 vols. 8to. 28s. 
 Buckle's History ot Civilisation. 3 vols, crown 8vo. 24s. 
 0116806/8 Indian Polity. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 — Waterloo Lectures. Svo. 10s. 6cl. 
 Digby's Famine Campaign in India. 2 vols. Svo. 32s. 
 Durand's First Afghan War. Svo. Frontispiece, 16s. 
 Epochs oJ Ancient History : — 
 
 Beesly's Gracchi, Marius, and Sulla, 28. Gd. 
 
 Capes's Age of the Antonines, 2s. Gd. 
 
 — Early Roman Empire, 2s. 6d. 
 Cox's Athenian Empire, 2s. Gd. 
 
 — Greeks and Persians, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Curteis's Rise of the Macedonian Empire, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Ihne's Rome to its Capture by the Gauls, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Merivale's Roman Triumvirates, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Sankey's Spartan and Theban Supremacies, 2s. Gd. 
 Epochs of English History, complete in One Yolume. Fcp. 8vo.*5s. 
 
 Creighton'a Shilling History of England (Introductory Volume). 
 Fop. Svo. Is. 
 
 Browning's Modem England, 1820-1876, 9d. 
 
 Cordery's Struggle against Absolute Monarchy, 1603-1688, 9d. 
 
 Creighton'8 (Mrs.) England a Continental Power, 1066-1216, Sd. 
 
 Creighton's (Rev. M.) Tudors and the Reformation, 1486-1603, 9d. 
 
 Rowley's Rise of the People, 1216-1485, 9d. 
 
 Rowley's Settlement of the Constitution, 1688-1778, 9d. 
 
 Tanoook'8 England during the American & European Wars, 
 1778-1S20, M. 
 
 York-PoweU's Early England to the ConqneBt, Is. 
 Epochs of Modem History : — 
 
 Church's Beginning of the Middle Ages, it. Gd. 
 
 Cox's Crusades, 2s. 6.*!. 
 
 Creighton's Age of Elizabeth, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Gairdner's Houses of Lancaster and York, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Gardiner's Puritan Revolution, 2s. Gd. 
 — Thirty Years' War, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Hale's 'FaU of the Stuarts, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Johnson's Normans in Europe, 2s. Gd. • 
 
 London, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
General Lists of New Works. 
 
 Epochs of ilodcrn Hletory— a nUnued. 
 
 Lndlow's War of American Indep^dence, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Morris's Age of Queen Anne, 2s. m. 
 
 Seebohm'B Protestant Revolution, 2s. 6(f. 
 
 Stubbs'B Early Plantagenets, 2s, 6d. 
 
 Warburton's Edward III., 2s. Bd. 
 Froude's English in Ireland in the 18th Century. 3 vols. 8to. 48*. 
 
 — History of England. 12 vols. 8vo. £8. ISs. 12 vols, crown 8vo. 72s. 
 
 — Julius Ceesar, a Sketch. 8vo. IGs. 
 
 — Two Lecturra on South Africa. 8to. 5s, 
 
 Gairdner*s Richard III. and Perkin "Warbeck. Crown 8vo. 10s. Gd, 
 
 Gardiner's England under Buckinghain and Charles I., 1624-1628. 2 vols. 8vo. 24*. 
 
 — Personal G-ovemmeut of Charles I., 1628-1637. 2 vols. 8vo. 24*. 
 Greville's Journal of the Reigns of George IV. & WilHam rV. 3 vols. 8to. 36*. 
 Hayward's Selected Essays. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 12*. 
 
 Ihne's History of Rome. 3 vols. 8vo. 45s. 
 
 Lecky's History of England. Vols. I. & U. 1700-1760. 8vo. 36*. 
 
 — — — European Morals. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 18*. 
 
 — Spirit of Rationalism in Europe. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 16*. 
 Lewes's History of Philosophy. 2 vols, 8vo. 32*. 
 Longman's Lectures on the Hfetory of England. 8vo. 15*. 
 
 — Life and Times of Edward m. 2 vols. 8vo. 28*. 
 Macaulay's Complete Works. 8 vols. 8vo. £5. 5s. 
 
 — History of England : — 
 
 Student's Edition. 2 vols. or. 8vo.l2*. I Cabinet Edition. 8 vols, post 8vo. 48*. 
 People's Edition. 4 vols. cr. 8vo. 16*. | Library Edition. 5 vols. 8vo. £4. 
 Macaulay's Critical and Historical Essays. Cheap Edition. Crown 8vo. 3*. Sd. 
 Student's Edition. 1 vol. cr. 8vo. 6*. I Cabinet Edition. 4 vols, post 8vo. 24*. 
 People's Edition. 2 vols. cr. 8vo. 8*. | Library Edition. 3 vols. 8vo. 36*. 
 May's Constitutional History of England, 1760-1870. 3 vols, crown 8vo. 18*. 
 
 Democracy in Europe. 2 vols. 8vo. 32*. 
 
 Merivale's Fall of the Roman Republic. 12mo. 7*. Gd. 
 General History of Rome, B.C. 753— a.d. 476. Crown 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 
 — History of the Romans xmder the Empire. 8 vols, post 8vo. 48*. 
 Mlnto (Lord) in India from 1807 to 1814. Post 8vo. I2s, 
 Phillips's Civil War in Wales and the Marches, 1642-1649. 8vo. 16*. 
 Eawlinson's Seventh Great Oriental Monarchy — The Sassanians. 8vo. 28*. 
 
 — Sixth Oriental Monarchy— Parthia. 8vo. 16*. 
 
 Enssia Before and After the War, translated by B. F. Taylor, 8to. 14*. 
 
 Russia and England from 1876 to 1880. By 0, K. 8vo. 14*. 
 
 Seebohm's Oxford Reformers — Colet, Brasmiw, & More. 8vo. 14*. 
 
 Sewell's Popular History of Prance to the Death of Louis XIV. Crown Svo. 7*. Gd. 
 
 Short's History of the Church of England. Crown 8vo. 7*. Gd. 
 
 Smith's Carthage and the Carthaginians. Croivn Svo. 10*. Gd. 
 
 Taylor's Manual of the History of India. Crown 8vo. 7*. Gd. 
 
 Todd's Parliamentary Government in England. 2 vols. 8vo. 37*. 
 
 Trench's Realities of Irish Life. Crown 8vo. 2*. Gd. 
 
 Walpole's History of England. Vols. I. & II., 1815-1832. 8vo. 36*. 
 
 Webb's Civil War in Herefordshire. 2 vols. Svo. Illiistrations, 42*. 
 
 London, LONGMAITS & CO. 
 
General Lists of New Works. 
 
 BIOGRAPHICAL WORKS. 
 
 Burke's Vicissitudes of Pamilies. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 21a. 
 Gleig's Life of tlie Duke of Wellington. Crown 8vo. 6j. 
 Jerrold's Life of Napoleon III. Vols. I. to m. 8vo. price 18s. each, 
 Jones's Life of Admiral Frobi^er. Crown 8to. 6*. 
 Lecfcy's Leaders of Public Opinion in Ireland. Crown 8vo. 7*. Bi. 
 Life (The) and Letters of Lord Macaulay. By his Nephew, G-, Otto Trevelyan, 
 M.F. Cabinet Edition, 2 vols, post 8to. 12«. Library EdiUon, 2 vols. 8to. 365. 
 Marshman's Memoirs of Havelock. Crown 8vo. Zs. 6d. 
 Memoirs of Anna Jameson^ by Cerardine Macpherson. 8to. 12s, Gd, 
 Memorials of Charlotte Williams-Wynn. Crown 8vo, 10s. Gd. 
 Mendelssohn's Letters. Translated by Lady "Wallace. 2 vols. cr. 8vo. 5s, each. 
 Mill 's (John Stuart) Autobiography. 8to. 7s. 6d. 
 Newman's Apologia pro Vit^ Sua. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 Nohl's Life of Mozart. Translated by Lady Wallace. 2 vols, crown 8vo, 21i. 
 Pattison's Life of Casaubon. 8vo. ISs, 
 
 Spedding's Letters and Life of Francis Bacon. 7 vols. 8vo. £4. 4«. 
 Stephen's Essays in Ecclesiastical Biography. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 Stigand's life, Works &c. of Heinrich Heine. 2 vols. 8to. 28*. 
 
 MENTAL AND POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY. 
 
 Amos's View of the Science of Jurisprudence. 8vo. 18*. 
 
 — Fifty Years of the English Constitution, 1830-1880. Crown 8vo. 10*. 6d, 
 
 — Primer of the English Constitution, Crown 8vo, 6«. 
 Bacon's Essays, with Annotations by Whately. 8to. 10*. 6d. 
 
 — Works, edited by Spedding. 7 vols. 8vo. 73*. Bd. 
 Bagehot's Economic Studies, edited hy Hutton. 8vo. 10*. Qd, 
 Bain's Logic, Deductive and Inductive. Crown 8vo. IOj. Gd. 
 
 Paet I. Deduction, 4*. j Pakt EC. Induction, Gs. Gd. 
 BoUand & Lang's Aristotle's Politics. Crown 8vo. 7a. Gd. 
 Brassey*s Foreign Work and English Wages. 8vo. 10*. Gd. 
 Comte's System of Positive Polity, or Treatise upon Sociology, translated :— 
 
 Vol, I. General View of Positivism and its Introductory Principles. 8vo. 21*. 
 
 Vol. n. Social Statics, or the Abstract Laws of Human Order. 14*. 
 
 Vol, m. Social Dynamics, or General Laws of Human Progress. 21*. 
 
 Vol. IV. Theory of the Future of Man ; with Early Essays. 2^ . 
 Congreve's Politics of Aristotle ; Greek Text, English Notes. 8vo. IS*. 
 Grant's Ethics of Aristotle, Greek Text, English Notes. 2 vols. 8vo. 32*. 
 Hillebrand's Lectures on German Thought. 8vo. 
 Hodgson's Philosophy of Eeflection. 2 vols, 8vo, 21*. 
 Kalisch's Path and Goal, 8vo. 12*. Gd, 
 Lewis on Authority in Matters of Opioion. 8vo. 14*. 
 Leslie's Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy. 8vo. 10*. Gd. 
 Macaulay's Speech^ corrected by Himself. Crown 8vo. 3*. Gd. 
 Macleod's Economical Philosophy. Vol. I. 8vo. 15*. Vol. n. Part 1. 12*. 
 MiU on Representative Government. Crown 8vo. 2*. 
 — — Liberty. Post 8vo. 7*. Gd. Crown 8vo. 1*. 4d. 
 Will's Analyste of the Phenomena of the Human Mind. 2 vols. 8vo, 28*, 
 
 — Dissertations and Discussions, 4 vols. 8vo. 46*. Gd. 
 
 London, LONGMANS & GO. 
 
General Lists of New Works. 
 
 Mill's Basays on TJnsettled Questions of Political Economy. 8to. 63. Gd. 
 
 — Examination of Hamilton's Philosophy. 8to. 168, 
 
 — Logic, Eatiocinative and Inductive. 2 vols. 8vo. 25«. 
 
 — Phenomena of the Human Mind. 2 vols. 8vo. 28j. 
 
 — Principles of Political Economy. 2 vols. 8vo. 30a. 1 70I. cr. 8vo. 5*. 
 
 — Subjection of Women. Crown. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 — Utilitarianism. 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Morell's Philosophical Pragmenta. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Miiller*s (Max) Chips from a G^erman "Workshop, 4 vols. 8vo. 58s. 
 
 — Hibbert Lectures on Origin and Growth of Eeligion. 8vo. IO5. 6d, 
 MuUinger's Schools of Chai-les the Great. 8vo. 7s. 6d. 
 
 Sandars's Institutes of Justinian, with English Notes. 8vo. 18s. 
 Swinboume's Picture Logic. Post 8vo. 5s. 
 
 Thomson's Outline of Necessary Laws of Thought. Crown 8vo. Gs. 
 Tocqueville's Democracy in America, translated by Beeve. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 16*. 
 Twiss's Law of Nations, 8vo. in Time of Peace, 125. in Time of War, 21s. 
 Whately's Elements of Logic. 8to. 10s. 6d. Crown 8vo. 4«. Sd. 
 
 — — — Rhetoric. 8vo. IQs. Bd. Crown 8vo. 4*. 6d. 
 
 — English Synonymes. Pep. 8vo. 3«. 
 
 Williams's Nicomachean Ethics of Aristotle translated. Crown &vo. 7s, Sd, 
 Zeller's Socrates and the Socratic Schools. Crown 8vo. 10*. Bd. 
 
 — Stoics, Epicureans, and Sceptics. Crown 8vo. 15*. 
 
 — Plato and the Older Academy. Crown 8vo. 18*. 
 
 MISCELLANEOUS AND CRITICAL WORKS. 
 
 Arnold's (Dr. Thomas) Miscellaneous Works. 8vo. 7s. Bd, 
 
 — (T.) Manual of English Literature. Crown 8vo. 7*. Gd. 
 
 — English Authors, Poetry and Prose Specimens. 
 Bain's Emotions and the Will. 8vo. 15*. 
 
 — Mental and Moral Science. Crown 8vo. 10*. Gd. 
 
 — Senses and the Intellect. 8vo. 15*. 
 
 Becker's Charicles and Oallus, by Metcalfe, Post 8vo, 7*. Gd. each. 
 
 Blackley's Glerman and English Dictionary. Post 8vo. 7*. Gd. 
 
 Buckle's Miscellaneous and Posthumous Woribs. 3 vols. 8vo. 52*. Gd. 
 
 BulUnger's Lexicon and Concordance to the New Testament. Medium 8vo. 30*. 
 
 Cetshwayo's Dutchman. By C. Vijn. Translated by Bishop Colenso. Cr. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 Oonington's Miscellaneous Writings. 2 vols. 8vo. 28*. 
 
 Contanseau's Practical French & English Dictionary. Post 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 
 — Pocket French and English Dictionary. Square ISmo. 3*. Gd. 
 
 Farrar's Language and Languages. Crown 8vo. 6*. 
 Fronde's Short Studies on Great Subjects. 3 vols, crown 8vo. 18*. 
 Qerman Home Life, reprinted from Fraser's Magazine. Crown 870. 6*. 
 Hume's Essays, edited by Green & Grose. 2 vols. 8to. 28*. 
 
 — Treatuae on Human Nature, edited by Green & Grose. 2 toIs. 870. 28*. 
 Latham's Handbook of the English Language. Crown 8vo. 6*. 
 
 — English Dictionary. 1 vol. medixmi 8vo. 24*. 4 vols. 4to. £7. 
 Liddell & Scott's Greek-English Lexicon. Grown 4to. 86*. 
 
 — -_ — Abridged Greek-English Lexicon. Square 12mo. 7*. Gd. 
 Longman's Pocket German and English Dictionary. 18mo. 6*. 
 
 London, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
General Lists of New Works. 
 
 Macaulay^s Miscellaueous Writings. 2 vols. 8yo. 21 j. 1 vol, crown 8vo. is, 6d, 
 
 — Writtngs and Speeclies. Crown 8to. Gs. 
 MUller*s (Max) Lectures on the Science of Language. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 16*. 
 Noir£ on Max MUller's Philosophy of Language. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 Rich'tf Dictionary of Boman and Greek Antiquities, Crown 8vo. 7*. 6d. 
 Bogers's Eclipse of Faith. Pop. 8vo. Bs, 
 
 — Defence of the Eclipse of Faith Fcp. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 Eoget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases. Crown 8vo. Ws. 6d, 
 Savile's Apparitions, a Narrative of Facts. Crown 8to. 5s. 
 Selections from the Writings of Lord Macaulay. Crown 8vo. 6*. 
 The Essays and Contributions of A. K. H. B. Crown 8vo, 
 
 Autumn Holidays of a Country Parson. 3j. 6i. 
 
 Changed Aspects of Unchanged Truths. 3s. &d. 
 
 Common-place Philosopher in Town and Country. 3s. Sd. 
 
 Counsel and Comfort spoken from a City Pulpit. 3/. Gd. 
 
 Critical Essays of a Country Parson. 3s. Gd. 
 
 Grayer Thoughts of a Country Parson. Three Series, 3*. Gd. each. 
 
 Landscapes, Churches, and Moralities. 3s. Gd. 
 
 Leisure Hours in Town. 3s. Gd. Lessons of Middle Age. 3s. Gd. 
 
 Present-day Thoughts. 3s. Gd. 
 
 Recreations of a Country Parson. Three Series, 3s. Gd. each. 
 
 Seaside Musings on Sundays and Weefe-Days. 3s. Gd. 
 
 Sunday Afternoons in the Parish Chiu'ch of a UniTersity City. 3j. Gd. 
 White & Biddle's Large Latin-English Dictionary. 4to. 21«. 
 White's College Latin-English Dictionary. Eoyal 8vo. 12*. 
 
 — Junior Student's Lat.-Eng. and Eng.-La*. Dictionary. Square 12mo. 12». 
 
 Q^„„4.,,_ J The English-Latin Dictionary, 6». Gd. 
 separately | rpjj^ j^atin-English Dictionary, 7s. Gd. 
 
 White's Middle-Class Latin-English Dictionary. Fop. 8vo. 3s. 
 
 Wit and Wisdom of the Rev. Sydney Smith 16mo. Si. Gd. 
 
 Tonge's Abridged English-Greek Lexicon. Squaie 12mo. 8*. Gd. 
 
 — Large English-Greek Lexicon. 4to. 21*. 
 
 ASTRONOMY, METEOROLOGY, POPULAR GEOGRAPHY &c. 
 
 Dove's Law of Storms, translated by Scott. 8vo. 10s. Gd. 
 
 Herschd's Outlines of Astronomy. Square crown 8vo. 12j. 
 
 Eeith Johnston's Dictionary of Geography, or General Gazetteer. 8vo. 42». 
 
 Nelson's Work on the Moon. Medium 8vo. 31*. Gd. 
 
 Proctor's Essays on Astronomy. 8vo. 12*. Prootor's Moon. Crown Svo. 10*. Gd. 
 
 — Larger Star Atlas. Folio, 15*. or Maps only, 12*. Gd. 
 
 — New Star Atlas. Crown Svo. 6*. Orbs Around lis. Crown Svo. 7*. Gd. 
 
 — Other Worlds than Ours. Crown Svo. 10*. 6d. 
 
 — Saturn and its System. Svo. 14*. Prootor's Sun. Crown Svo. 14*. 
 
 — Transits of Venus, Past and Coming. Crown Svo. 8*. Gd. 
 
 — Treatise on the Cycloid and Oydoidal Curves. Crown Svo. 10*. Gd. 
 
 — Universe of StarB. Svo. 10*. Gd. 
 Schellen's Speotram Analysis. Svo. 28*. 
 Smith's Air and Bain. Svo. 24*. 
 
 The Public Schools AHa* of Ancient (geography. Imperial Svo. 7*. 6d. 
 
 — — — Atlas of Modern Geography. Imperial Svo. 5*. 
 
 London, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
General Lists of New Works. 
 
 NATURAL HISTORY & POPULAR SCIENCE. 
 
 Amott'a Elements of Physics or Natural Philosopliy. Crown 8to. 12«. 6d. 
 
 Braude's Dictionary of Science, Literature, and Art. 3 toIb. medium 8vo. 63*. 
 
 Buokton's Town and Window Gardening. Crown 8to. 2s. 
 
 Cox's Mechanism of Man. 2 vols, crown Bvo. 23s. 
 
 Becaisne and Le Maout's General System of Botany. Imperial 8vo. 31*. 6d. 
 
 Dixon's RuraJ Bird Life. Crown 8vo. Illustrations, 7s. 6(1. 
 
 Ganot's Elementary Treatise on Physics, by Atldnson. Large crown 8to. 16j. 
 
 — Natural Philosophy, by AtUnson. Crown 8to. 7». 6rf. 
 Gore's Art of Scientiiic Discovery. Crown 8vo. 15s. 
 Grove's Correlation of Physical Forces. 8vo. 16s. 
 Hartwig's Aerial World. 8vo. 10s. Cd. Polar World. 8vo. 10s. Sd. 
 
 — Sea and its Living Wonders. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 — Subterranean World. 8vo. 10s. 6d. Tropical World. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 Haughton's Principles of Animal Mechanics. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 Beer's Primseval World of Switzerland. 2 vols. 8to. 16s. 
 Eeltnholtz's Lectures on Scientific Subjects. 8to. 12s. Bd. 
 Hehuholtz on the Sensations of Tone, by Bllis. Bvo. 36s. 
 nullah's Lectures on the History of Modem Music. 8vo. 8s. Gd. 
 
 — Transition Period of Musical History. 8vo. 10s. 6d, 
 Keller's Lake Dwellings of Switzerland, by Lee. 2 vols, royal 8vo. 42s. 
 Kirby and Spence's Introduction to Entomology. Crown 8vo. 55. 
 Lloyd's Treatise on Magnetism. 8vo. 10s. 6d. 
 
 — — on the Wave-Theory of Light. 8yo. 10s. 6<J. 
 Loudon's Encyclopsedia of Plants. 8vo. 42s. 
 
 Lubbock on the Origin of Civilisation & Primitive Condition of Man. 8vo. 18s. 
 Macalister's Zoology and Morphology of Vertebrate Animals. 8vo. 10s. Gd. 
 Nicols' Puzzle of Life. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 Owen's Comparative Anatomy and Physiology of the Vertebrate Animals. 3 vols. 
 
 8vo. 73s. Gd. 
 Proctor's Light Science for Leisure Hours. 2 vols, crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. each. 
 Eivers's Orchard House. Sixteenth Edition. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 
 — Rose Amateur's Guide. Ecp. 8vo. is. Gd. 
 Stanley's Familiar History of British Birds. Fcp. 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 Text-Books of Science, Mechanical and Physical. 
 
 Abney's Photography, 3s. Gd. 
 
 Anderson's (Sir John) Strength of Materials, 3s. 6* 
 
 Armstrong's Organic Chemistry, 3s. Gd. 
 
 Barry's Railway Appliances, 3s. 6*. 
 
 Bloxam's Metals, 3s. Gd. 
 
 Goodeve's Elements of Mechanism, 3s. Gd. 
 — Principles of Mechanics, Ss. Gd. 
 
 Gore's Electro-Metallurgy, Gs. 
 
 Griffin's Algebra and Trigonometry, 8s. Gd. 
 
 Jenkjn's Electricity and Magnetism, 8s. Gd, 
 
 Maxwell's Theory of Heat, 3s. 6<f. 
 
 Merrifield's Technical Arithmetic and Mensuration, Ss. Gd. 
 
 Miller's Inorganic Chemistry, 3s. Gd. 
 
 Preece & Sivewright's Telegraphy, 8s. Gd. 
 
 Rutley's Study of Rocks, 4s. 6d. 
 
 Shelley's Workshop Appliances, 3s. Gd. 
 
 London, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
General Lists of New Works. 
 
 Text-Books of Scien.c&— continued, 
 
 Thomfi's Structural and Physiological Botany, ej. 
 
 Thorpe's Quantitatwe Chemical Analysis, 4s. Qd. 
 
 Thorpe & Muir's Qualitative Analysis, 3*. 6d. 
 
 Tilden's Chemical Philosophy, 3s. Gd. 
 
 TJnwin's Machine Design, 3*. 6d. 
 
 Watson's Plane and Solid Geometry, 3*. Gd. 
 TyndaU on Sound. Crown 8vo. lOs. 6d. 
 
 — Contributions to Molecular Physics. 8vo. 16*. 
 
 — Fragments of Science. 2 vols, post 8vo. 16*. 
 
 — Heat a Mode of Motion. Crown 8vo. 
 
 — Notes on Electrical Phenomena. Crown 8vo. 1*. sewed, Is, Gd. cloth. 
 
 — Notes of Lectures on light. Crown 8vo. 1*. sewed. Is. Gd. cloth. 
 
 — Lectures on Light delivered in America. Crown 8vo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 — Lessons in Electricity. Crown 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 Von Cotta on Rocks, by Lawrence. Post Syo. 14*. 
 "Woodward's Geology of England and Wales. Crown 8vo. 14j. 
 Wood's Bible Animals. With 112 Vignettes. 8vo. 14*. 
 
 — Homes Without Hands. 8to. 14«. Insects Abroad. Svo. 14s. 
 
 — Insects at Home. With 700 Illustrations. 8vo. 14*. 
 
 — Out of Doors. Crown Svo. 7*. 6d. Strange Dwellings. Crown Svo. 7*. Gd. 
 
 CHEMISTRY 8c PHYSIOLOGY. 
 
 Auerbach's Anthracen, translated by W. Crookes, F.R.S. Svo. 12*. 
 
 Buckton's Health in the House, Lectures on Elementary Physiology. Cr. Svo. 2*. 
 
 Crookes*s Handbook of Dyang and Calico Printing. Svo. 425. 
 
 — Select Methods in Chemical Analysis. Crown Svo. 12*. Gd. 
 Kingzett'a Animal Chemistry. Svo. 18*. 
 
 — History, Products and Proc^s^ pf the AlkaU Trade. Svo. 12*. 
 Miller*B Elementa of Chemistry, Theoretical and Practical. 3 vols. Svo. Part I. 
 
 Chemical Physics, 16*. Part II. Inorganic Chemistry, 24*. Part III. Organic 
 
 Chemistry, New Edition in the press. 
 Thudichum's Annals of Chemical Medicine. Vol. I. Svo. 14*. 
 Tilden*s Practical Chemistry. Pep. Svo. 1*. Gd. 
 Wattfi's Dictionary of Chemfetry. 7 vols, medium Svo. £10. 16*. Gd. 
 — Third Supplementary Volume, in Two Parts. Pabt I. 36*. 
 
 THE FINE ARTS & ILLUSTRATED EDITIONS. 
 
 Bewick's Select Pables of .^sop and others. Crown 8vo. 7*. Gd, demy Svo. 18*. 
 Doyle's Fairyland ; Pictures from the Elf- World. Folio, 15*. 
 Dresser's Arts and Art Industries of Japan. lln preparation. 
 
 Ingelow's Poems. Illustiated Edition. Fop. 4to. Woodcuts, 21*. 
 Jameson's Sacred and Legendary Art. 6 vols, square crown Svo. 
 Legends of the Madonna. 1 vol. 21*. 
 
 — — — Monastic Orders. 1 vol. 21*. 
 
 — — — Saints and Martyrs. 2 vols. 31*. Gd. 
 
 — — — Saviour. Completed by Lady Eastlake. 2 vols. 42*. 
 Longman's Three Cathedrals Dedicated to St. Paul. Square crown Svo. 21 *. 
 Macffolay's Lays of Ancient Eome. With 90 Illustrations. Fcp. 4to. 21*. 
 Macfaireu*s Lecture on Harmony. Svo. 12*. 
 
 Miniature Edition of Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. Imp. 16mo. 10*. Gd. 
 Moore's Irish Melodic. With 161 Plates by D. Maclise, R.A. Super-r(^al Svo. 21*. 
 
 London, LONGMANS & 00. 
 
General Lists of New Works. 
 
 Uoore's Lalla Bookb, illustrated by Tennicl. Sciuare crown 8to. lOj. Sd, 
 
 Northcote and Brownlow'B Boma Sotterranea. 3 vols. 8to. 5Ss, 
 
 Perry on Greek and Roman Sculptvire. 8to. [/n preparation. 
 
 THE USEFUL ARTS, MANUFACTURES &C. 
 
 Bourne's Catechism of the Steam Engine. Pep. 8vo. e». 
 
 — Examples of Steam, Air, and Qas Engines. 4to. 70i. 
 
 — Handbook of the Steam Engine. Fcp. 8to. 9s. 
 
 — Becent Improvements in the Steam Engine. Pep. 8vo. 6s. 
 
 — Treatiseon the Steam Engine. 4to. 42s. - 
 Oresy's Encyclopaedia of Civil Engineering. 8vo, 42s. 
 OuUey's Handbook of Practical Telegraphy. 8vo. 16s. 
 
 Eastlake's Household Taste in Furniture, &c. Square erowu 8vo. 14s. 
 Pairbaim's Useful Information for Engineers, 3 vols, crown 8vo. 31s. Gd. 
 
 — Applications of Cast and "Wrought Iron. 8vo. 16s. 
 
 — MiUs and MUlwork. 1 vol. 8vo. 25s. 
 Gwilt's Encyclopaedia of Architecture. 8vo. S2s. Gd. 
 
 Hobson's Amateur Mechanics Practical Handbook. Crown 8vo. 2s. Sd. 
 Hoskold's Engineer's Valuing Assistant, 8vo. 31s. Bd. 
 Kerl's Metallurgy, adapted by Orookes and BBhrig. 3 vols. 8vo. £4, 19s. 
 Loudon's Bncyolopsedia of Agriculture, 8vo. 21s. 
 
 — — — Gardening. 8vo. 21s. 
 Mitchell's Manual of Practical Assaying. 8vo. 31s, 6<2, 
 Northoott's Lathes and Turning. 8vo, 18s. 
 
 Payen's Industrial Chemistry, translated from Stohmann and Bugler's German 
 
 Edition, by Dr. J. D.Barry. Edited by B. H. Paul, Ph.D. 8vo. 42s. 
 Piesse's Art of Perfumery. Fourth Edition. Square crown 8vo. 21s. 
 Stoney's Theory of Strains in Girders. Koyal 8vo. 36s, 
 Thomas on Coal, Mine-Gases and Ventilation, Crown 8vo. 10s. M. 
 Ure's Dictionary of Arts, Manufactures, & Mines. 4 vols, medium 8vo, £7. 7s, 
 Ville on Artificial Manures. By Crookes. 8vo, 21s. 
 
 RELIGIOUS & MORAL WORKS. 
 
 Abbey & Overton's English Church in the Eighteenth Century. 2 vols. 8vo. 36s, 
 
 Arnold's (Bev, Dr. Thomas) Sermons. 6 vols, crown 8vo. 6s. each. 
 
 Bishop Jeremy Taylor's Entire Works. With Life by Bishop Heber, Edited by 
 
 the Bev. C. P. Eden. 10 vols. 8vo. £6, 6s. 
 Boultbee's Commentary on the 39 Articles, Crown 8vo. 6s, 
 
 — History of the Church of England, Pre-Retormation Period. 8vo, 15s, 
 Browne's (Bishop) Exposition of the 39 Articles. 8vo, 16». 
 
 Colenso's Lectures on the Pentateuch and the Moabite Stone, 8vo. 12s, 
 Oolenso on the Pentateuch and Book of Joshua, Crown 8vo, 6s. 
 — — Pabt VII, completion of the larger Work, Svo, 24s. 
 Oonder's Handbook of the Bible, Post 8vo, 7s, ed. 
 Conybeare & Howson'sLife and Letters of St. Paul : — 
 
 Library Edition, with all the Original Illustrations, Maps, Landscapes on 
 Steel, Woodcuts, &c, 2 vols. 4to, 42j, 
 
 Intermediate Edition, with a Selection of Maps, Plates, and Woodcuts, 
 2 vols, square crown 8vo. 21s. 
 
 Student's Edition, revised and condensed, with 46 Illustrations and Maps. 
 1 vol. crown Svo, ds. 
 
 London, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
General Lists of New Works. 
 
 Drew's Hulsean Lectures on tlie Human life of Christ. 8vo. 8s. 
 
 Dnumnond's Jewish Messiah. 8to. 15s. 
 
 Ellicott's (Bishop) Commentary on St. Paul's Epistles. 8vo. Galatians, Ss. 6d. 
 
 Bphesians, 8*. Bd. Pastoral Epistlra, 10s. 6d. Philippians, Colossians, and 
 
 Philemon, 10s. Sd. Thessalonians, 7s. Bd. 
 Ellicott's Lectures on the Life of our Lord. 8vo. 125. 
 EwaJd's History of Israel, translated by Carpenter. 6 vols. 8vo. 63*. 
 
 — Antiquities of Israel, translated by Solly. 8to. 12*. Gd. 
 Hopkins's Christ the Consoler. Fcp. 8vo. 2*. Bd, 
 
 Jukea's Types of Genesis. Crown 8vo. 7s. Bd. 
 
 — Second Death and the Restitution of all Things. Crown Svo. 35. Bd. 
 KaJisch's Bible Studies. Part I. the Prophecies of Balaam. 8to. IQs. Bd. 
 
 — — — Pakt n, the Book of Jonah. Svo. 10*. Bd. 
 
 — Historical and Critical Commentary on the Old Testament; with a 
 New Translation. Vol. I. Genesis, 8vo. I85. or adapted for the General 
 Reader, 12s. Vol. II. Exodus, 15s. or adapted for the General Reader, 12s. 
 Vol. in. Leviticus, Part I. 15s. or adapted for the General Reader, 8*. 
 Vol. IV, Leviticus, Part II, 155. or adapted for the General Reader, 8*. 
 
 Keith's Evidence of the Truth of the Christian Religion derived from the Ful£l- 
 
 meut of Prophepy. Square Svo. 12*. Bd. Post Svo. Bs. 
 Kuenen on the Propheia and Prophecy in Israel. Svo. 21s. 
 Lyra Germanica : Hymns translated by Miss Winkworth. Ecp. Svo. 5s. 
 Manning's Temporal Mission of the Holy Ghost. Svo. 9s. Bd. 
 Martineau's Endeavours after the Christian Life, Crown Svo. 7s, Bd. 
 
 — Hymns of Praise and Prayer, Crown Svo. 4*, Bd, 32mo. la. Bd, 
 
 — Sermons, Hours of Thought on Sacred Things. 2 vols, 7s, Bd. each. 
 Merivale's (Dean) Lectures on Early Church History. Crown Svo. 5s. 
 
 Mill's Three Essays on Religion, Svo. 10;. Bd. 
 
 Monsell's Spiritual Songs for Sundays and Holidays. Fcp. Svo. 5s. ISmo. 2s. 
 
 MilUer's (Max) Lectures on the Science of ReUgion. Crown 8vq. 10s. Bd. 
 
 Newman's Apologia pro Vitsl Sua. Crown Svo. 6*, 
 
 O'Conor's New Testament Commentaries. Crown Svo. Epistle to the Romans, 
 
 Zs. Bd. Epistle to the Helsrews, 4a. Bd. St. John's Gospd, 10*. Bd. 
 One Hundred Holy Songs, &c. Square fcp. Svo. 2*. Bd. 
 Passing Thoughts on Religion. By Miss Sewell. Fcp, Svo. 3*. Bd. 
 SeweU's (Miss) Preparation for the Holy Communion. 32mo. Bs. 
 Supernatural Religion. Complete Edition, 3 vols. Svo. 36*. 
 Thoughts for the Age. By Miss Sewell. Fcp. Svo, 3*. Bd. 
 Vaughan's Trident, Crescent, and Cross ; the Religious History of India. SY0.9s.Bd. 
 Whately's Lessons on the Christian Evidences. ISmo. Bd. 
 White's Four Gospels in Greek, with Greek-English Lexicon. 32mo. 5j. 
 
 TRAVELS, VOYAGES &c. 
 
 Baker's Rifle and Hound in Ceylon. Crown Svo. 7s. Bd. 
 
 — Eight Years in CTeylon. Crown Svo, 7*. Bd, 
 
 Ball's Alpine Guide. 3 vols, post Svo. with Maps and Ulustrations :— I. Western 
 
 Alps, 6*. Bd. n. Central Alps, 7s. Bd. in. Eastern Alps, 10*. Bd. 
 Ball on Alpine Travelling, and on the Gkology of the Alps, 1*. 
 Bent's Freak of Freedom, or the Republic of San Marino. Crown Svo. 7s. Bd, 
 Brassey^s Sunshine and Storm in the East. Svo. 21*. 
 
 — Voyage in the Yacht ' Sunbeam.* Crown fevo. 7*. Bd. 
 
 LondoD, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
10 
 
 General Lists of New Works. 
 
 Bdwaards'B (A. B.) Thousand Miles up the Nile. Imperial 8vo. 42*. 
 
 Hassall'B San Remo and the Western Bivlera. Crown 8to. lO*. Gd. 
 
 Indian Alps (The) . By a Lady Koneer. Imperial 8to. 42*. 
 
 Lefroy's Discovery and Early Settlement of the Bermuda Islands. 2 vols. 
 
 royal 8to. 60*. 
 Miller and Skertchley's Fenland Past and Present. Royal 8vo. 31*. M. Large 
 
 Paper, 50«. 
 Miller's Wintering in the Riviera. Post 8vo. Illustrations, 12s. 6d. 
 Packe's Q-uide to the Pyrenees, for Mountaineers. Crown 8vo. 7a. 6(f. 
 The Alpine Club Map of Switzerland. In Four Sheets. 4.2s. 
 Wood's Discoveri^ at Ephesus. Imperial 8vo. 63s. 
 
 WORKS OF FICTION. 
 
 Cabinet Edition of Stori^ and Tales by Miss Sewell :- 
 
 Amy Herbert, 2s. G 
 Cleve Hall, 2s. Gd. 
 The Earl's Daughter, 2*. Gd. 
 Experience of Life, 2s. Gd. 
 Gertrude, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Ivors, 2s. Gd. 
 
 Katharine Ashton, 2s. Gd. 
 Laneton Parsonage, 3s. Gd. 
 Margaret Percival, 3*. Gd, 
 tTrsula, 3s. Gd. 
 
 Novels and Tales by the Right Hon. the Earl of Beaconsfield, K.Gr. 
 Edition, complete in Ten Volumes, crown 8vo. price £3. 
 
 Cabinet 
 
 Lothair, Gs. 
 Coningsby, 6s. 
 Sybil, Gs. ■ 
 Tancred, Gs, 
 Venetia, 6*. 
 
 Henrietta Temple, 6*. 
 Contarini Fleming, Gs. 
 Alroy, Ision, &c. Gs, 
 The Young Duke, &c. Gs. 
 Vivian Grey, 6*. 
 
 Klein's Pastor's Narrative. Translated by Marshall. Crown 8vo, Map, Gs. 
 
 The Modem Novelist's Library. Each Work in crown 8vo. 
 complete in itself, price 2«. boards, or2«. Gd. doth : — 
 
 A Single Volnme, 
 
 By the Earl of Beaconsfield, K.G. 
 
 Lothair. 
 
 Conin^by. 
 
 Sybil. 
 
 Tancred. 
 
 Venetia, 
 
 Hemietta Temple. 
 
 Contarini Fleming, 
 
 Alroy, Ixion, &c. 
 
 The Young Duke, &o. 
 
 Vivian Grey. 
 By Anthony TroUope. 
 
 Barchrater Towers. 
 
 The Warden. 
 By the Author of * the Rose Garden.' 
 
 Unawares. 
 
 By Major Whyte-MdviUe. 
 
 Digby Grand. 
 
 General Bounce. 
 
 Kate Coventry. 
 
 The Gladiators. 
 
 Good for Nothing. 
 
 Holmby House. 
 
 The Interpreter. 
 
 The Queen's Maries. 
 By the Author of ' the AteUer du Lys.' 
 
 Mademoiselle Mori. 
 
 The Atelier du Lys. 
 By Various Writers. 
 
 Atherstone Priory. 
 
 The Burgomaster's Family. 
 
 Elsa and her Vulture. 
 
 The Six Sisters of the Valleys. 
 Lord Beaconsfield's Novels and Tales. 10 vols, cloth extra, gilt edges, 30s. 
 
 Whispers from Fairy Land. By the Right Hon. B. H. Knatchbull-Hugessen 
 
 M.P. With Nine lUustrations. Crown 8vo. 3s. Gd. 
 Higgledy-Piggledy ; or, Stories for Everybody and Everybody's Children. By 
 
 the Right Hon. E. H. Knatohbull-Hugessen, M.P. With Nine Illustrations 
 
 from Designs by R. Doyle. Crown 8vo. 3s. 6d. 
 
 London. LONGMANS & CO, 
 
General Lists of New Works. 11 
 
 POETRY Sc THE DRAMA. 
 
 Bailey's Festus, a Poem. Crown 8to. 12s. Gd. 
 
 Bowdler's Family Shakspeare. Medium 8to. 14*. 6 vols. fop. 8vo. 2l«. 
 
 Cayley's Hiad of Homer, Homometrically translated. 8vo. I2s. 6d. 
 
 Conington's ^neid of Virgil, translated into Englisli Verse. Crown 8vo. 9s, 
 
 Cooper's Tales from Euripides. Fcp. 8to. 35, Gd, 
 
 Edwards's Poetry-Book of Elder Poets. 16mo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 — Poetry-Book of Modem Poets. 16mo. 2s. 6d. 
 Ingelow*s Poems. New Edition. 2 "vols. fcp. 8vo. 12s, 
 
 Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome, witli Ivry and the Armada, 16mo, Zs, Gd. 
 
 Ormsby's Poem of the Cid. Translated. Post 8vo. 5s, 
 
 Petrarch's Sonnets and Stanzas,tran3lated by C. B. Cayley, B.A. Crown Syo.lOs.Gd. 
 
 Southey's Poetical Works. Medium 8vo. 14*. 
 
 Tonge's Horatii Opera, Library Edition. 8to. 21s. 
 
 RURAL SPORTS, HORSE Sc CATTLE MANAGEMENT 8cc. 
 
 Blaine's Encydopsedia of Rural Sports. 8vo. 21s. 
 
 Boteon on the Ox, his Diseases and their Treatment. Crown 8to. 7s. Gd. 
 
 Francis's Book on Angling, or Treatise on Fishing. Post 8vo. 15*. 
 
 Malet's Annals of the Road, and Nimrod's Essays on the Road. Medium 8vo. 21*. 
 
 Miles's Horse's Foot, and How to Keep it Sound. Imperial 8vo. 12*. Gd, 
 
 — Plain Treatise on Horse-Shoeing. Post 8to. 2s. Gd. 
 
 — Stables and Stable-Fittings. Imperial Svo. 16*. 
 
 — Remarks on Horses' Teeth. Post 8to. Is. Gd, 
 Nevile's Horses and Riding. Crown 8vo. Gs. 
 Eeynardson's Down the Road, Medium 8to. 21s. 
 Ronalds's Fly-Fisher's Entomology. Svo. 14*. 
 
 Stonehenge's Dog in Health and Disease. Square crown Svo. 7s. Gd. 
 
 — Greyhound. Square crown Svo. 15*. 
 
 Touatt's "Work on the Dog. 8to. 6*. 
 
 — _ _ — Horse. Svo. 12*. Gd. 
 
 Wilcocks's Sea-Fisherman, Post Svo. 12*. Gd, 
 
 WORKS OF UTILITY & GENERAL INFORMATION. 
 
 Acton's Modern Cookery for Private Families. Fcp. Svo. 6s. 
 
 Black's Practical Treatise on Brewing. Svo. 10*. Gd. 
 
 Buckton'a Food and Home Cookery. Crown Svo. 2*. 
 
 Bull on the Maternal Management of Children. Fcp. Svo. 2s. Gd. 
 
 Bull's Hints to Mothers on the Management of their Health during the Period of 
 
 Pregnancy and in the Lying-in Room. Fcp. Svo. 2s. Gd. 
 Campbell- Walker's Correct Card, or How to Play^at^ Whist. Fcp. 8vo. 2*. Gd. 
 Crump's English Manual of Banking, Svo. 16*. 
 Cunningham's Conditions of Social Weil-Being. Svo. 10*. Gd. 
 Johnson's (W. & J. H.) Patentee's Manual. Fourth Edition.JJBvo. 10*. Gd. 
 Longman's Chras Openings. Fcp. Svo. 2s. Gd. 
 Macleod's Economics for Beginners. Small crown Svo. 2*. Gd, 
 
 London, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
12 General Lists of New Works. 
 
 Macleod's Theory and Practice of Bankmg. 2 vols. 8vo. 26s. 
 
 — Elements of Banking. Fourtli Edition. Cro^wn 8vo. 5s. 
 M'CiiUocli's Dictionary of Commerce and Commercial Navigation. 8vo. 63*. 
 Maunder's Biographical Treasury. Fcp. 8to. 6s. 
 
 — Historical Treaaxur. Fc^. 8vo. 6*. 
 
 — Scientific and Literary Treasury. Fop. 8vo, 6». 
 
 — Treasury of Bible Knowledge, edited by Ayre. Fcp. 8to. 6*. 
 
 — Treasury of Botany, edited 1^ Lindley & Moore. Two Parts, 12j. 
 
 — Treasury of Geography. Fop. 8vo. 6». 
 
 — Treasury of Knowledge and Library of Reference. Fop. 8to. Gj. 
 
 — Treasury of Natural History. Fcp. 8vo. Ss. 
 Pereira's Materia Medica, by Bentley and Redwood. 8vo. 25«. 
 
 Pewtner's Comprehensive Specifier ; Building-Artificers' Work. Crown 8vo. 6s. 
 Pierce's Three Hundred Chess Problems and Studies. Fcp. 8vo. 7». 6d. 
 Pole's Theory of the Modem Scientific Game of Whist. Fop. 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 Scott's Farm Valuer. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 — Rents and Purchases. Crown 8vo. 65. 
 Smith's Handbook for Midwives. Crown 8vo. 5s. 
 
 The Cabinet Lawyer, a Popular Digest of the Laws of England. Fcp. 8to. 9s. 
 West on the Diseases of Infancy and Childhood. 8vo. 18«. 
 WilHoh's Popular Tables for ascertaining the Value of Property. Post 8vo. 10». 
 Wilson on Banking Reform . 8vo. 7s. 6d, 
 
 — on the Resources of Modern Countries 2 vols. 8vo. 24*. 
 
 MUSICAL WORKS BY JOHN HULLAH, LL.D. 
 
 Chromatic Scale, with the Inflected Syllables, on Large Sheet, 1*. erf. 
 
 Card of Chromatic Scale. Id. 
 
 Exercises for the Cultivation of the Voice. For Soprano or Ttenor, 2s. 6d. 
 
 Grammar of Musical Harmony. Royal 8vo. 2 Parts, each 1*. 6rf. 
 
 Exercises to Grammar of Musical Harmony. Ij. 
 
 Grammar of Counterpoint. Part I. super-royal 8vo. 2*. 6d. 
 
 HuUah's Manual of Singing. Parts I. & n. 2s. 6d. ; or together, St. 
 
 Exercises and Figures contained in Parts I. and n. of the Manual Books 
 
 I. & n, each Sd. 
 Large Sheets, containing the Figures in Part I. of the Manual. Nos 1 to 8 in 
 
 a Parcel. 6*. ' 
 
 Large Sheets, containing the Exercises in Part I. of the Manual Noa 9 to 40 
 in Four Parcels of Eight Nos. each, per Parcel. 6s. ' ' 
 
 Large Sheets, the Figures in Part II. Noa. 41 to 63 in a Parcel, 9s. 
 HymES for the Young, set to Music. Royal 8vo. Sd, 
 Infant School Songs. 6d. 
 
 Notation, the Musical Alphabet. Crown 8to. 6d. 
 Old English Songs for Schools, Harmonised. 6d. 
 Rudiments of Musical Grammar. Royal 8Vo. 8s. 
 School Songs for 2 and 8 Voices. 2 Books, 8vo. eaoh 6d. 
 Time and Tuue in the Elementai'y School. Grown 8vo. 2s. 6d. 
 Exercises and Figures in the same. Crown 8vo. Is. or 2 Parts, Sd eaoh. 
 
 London, LONGMANS & CO. 
 
 Spottiswood^ i: Co. Printers, Nea-street Square, London. 
 
■**fit^*rrrT^ i r *rf" '* 'r tr-'*' f ^l ^i l £ ltr' t frt***. 
 
 \ \ 
 
 SfS«*S*#^> 
 
 \i.^^ fi t^' VJti 
 
 .£^ nif.i^A.^mfJii 3auii^u.,dff£&s. 
 
 V ^-\:xx^i;I^^3Z^J^z^^^z^c^ 
 
 ■v-,^ _. Vt < V 
 
 ^!p|r::iICTf^.i;'^.t'^yC'i|K.i|'n:^fe^ 
 
 
 n-awntvn* nwnvnnmvy j^ V)n(V„;. .„ .7* *,i^:n,,^J^!li.ft