Part 37 (1/2)
In the thirty-two years between the battle of Waterloo and the Irish famine, the farmers and manufacturers were like two buckets of a well; when one was up, the other was down. But now, both at once are down. The causes are clearly separate.
Our manufacturers when allowed to accept payments from abroad In wheat and sugar and foods and all raw produce, Immensely increased their foreign sales; and during the Cotton Famine, capital was largely invested in building new cotton mills, as if we were to supply all the world.
But the European Continent more and more chooses to compete with us, and from more causes than one deprive our merchants of their customers.
Between us and our rivals more of the _same sort_ is produced than the existing markets can take: this is again Overproduction. Hence stagnation in our manufacturing districts. Meanwhile, in near thirty years of manufacturing prosperity after 1847, the increased riches of these towns enriched the farmers and enabled the landlords to raise rents in England, and in consequence, by dint of landlord power, rent rose in the whole United Kingdom. At the same time, Englishmen found too little encouragement to invest their savings on English soil, and preferred to invest many millions on foreign railways and on foreign loans; and the payment of their dividends is made largely by imported foreign food. Their investments at first were an advantage to our manufacturers, while they sent out railway plant and carriages and locomotives. Now foreigners compete with us even as to these, and the imported food competes with the farmers. Thus a double failure convulses us.
How much better, if instead of quarrelling for distant markets (and _it is said_ conquering Burmah in the hope of advantage to our merchants) we had _a native population of small cultivators_, prosperous enough to be valuable as well as steady customers to our manufacturing towns, and gradually (in the course of several generations) another population of country folk, subst.i.tuting domestic manufactures for those of factories with wage earners!
CHAPTER XXII
THE RIGHT AND DUTY OF EVERY STATE TO ENFORCE SOBRIETY ON ITS CITIZENS BY F. W. NEWMAN, M.R.A.S.
PUBLISHED IN 1882 IN PAMPHLET FORM
No human community can be so small as not to involve duties from each member to the rest; duties to which a sound human mind is requisite.
Neither an idiot nor a madman can be a normal citizen. The former ranks as in permanent childhood; the latter, being generally dangerous, must be cla.s.sed with criminals. A dehumanized brain impairs a citizen's rights because it unmans him,--disabling him from duty, even making him dangerous. In India, such a one now and then runs amuck, stabbing every one whom he meets: in England, he beats and tramples down those nearest to him,--those whom he is most bound to protect. A human community cannot be const.i.tuted out of men and brutes, nor ought civilized men to be forced to carry arms or armour for self-defence. For all these reasons, to be drunk is in itself an offence against the community, prior to any statute forbidding it, prior to any misdemeanour superinduced by it. In the State it is both a right and a duty to enforce (as far as its means reach) sobriety on every citizen, rich or poor, in private or in public; and with a view to this, to use such methods as will best prevent, discourage, or deter from intoxication.
When a national religion totally forbids the use of intoxicating drugs, vigilance in the State is less needful: public opinion, or even public show of disgust and violence, effectively stifles the evil. But if the national religion does not forbid the use, but solely enjoins moderation (a word which everyone interprets for himself), a far heavier task falls on the State, whose right and duty nevertheless in this matter several causes have concurred to obscure, not least in England and Scotland. Out of the teachings of Rome, our forefathers very ill learned the rights of the State or the distinction of Morals from Religion. Although even men not highly educated must have known that Moral truth is far older than any special system of Religious beliefs, yet in the popular idea morals have no other basis than religion. Hence, the demand for freedom of conscience against any oppressive State policy (besides the vices of Courts and Courtiers) led to a vehement jealousy of State power even in moral concerns. Many generous minds feared, that to concede to the State a right of enforcing morality, covertly allowed religious persecution. _Who_ first uttered the formula--”The only duty of the State is, to protect persons and property”--is unknown to the present writer; but certainly fifty, forty, even thirty years ago, this principle was widely accepted by radical politicians and active-minded dissenters. The late Dr. Arnold of Rugby regarded this denial of the State's moral character as a widespread, untractable and mischievous delusion.
After long torpor the prohibition of Lotteries showed that Parliament was waking to its moral duties. Little by little, the ma.s.s of the middle- cla.s.ses and the gentry imbibed n.o.bler views of human life, and have discovered, that of all the powers which make a nation immoral the State is the most influential. One day of licensed debauch undoes the work of the Clergy on fifty-two Sundays. No wonder that in the past the State collectively has been our worst corrupter: but to open this whole question s.p.a.ce does not here allow. A long struggle has gone on, to implore public men not to connive at drunkenness--a national pest which for more than a century was greeted with merriment though politically avowed to be criminal. None dare now to laugh at it, except the depraved men who laugh at bribery, and use drunkenness as a trump-card at elections, and, if in office, rejoice on the vast revenue sucked by the Exchequer out of the vice and misery of the people. Earnest religionists of every creed have happily rallied to a common conviction, that the State has grievously failed of its duty and must now turn over a new leaf. Our worst opponents are men who cannot be reckoned in any religious body, men who find nothing so sacred as Liberty to buy and sell and indulge appet.i.te; generally eccentric ”Liberals,” who are in many respects too good not to esteem, and too intellectual to despise.
One of these some years ago opened attack on me in a private letter, which summed up the arguments decisive with this cla.s.s of ”advanced Liberals”; in whose hatred of _Over Legislation_ I heartily share. He taunted me for thinking that the State ought to concern itself about the drinks of citizens more than about their dress; saying that I could not hold the State to have a control of public morals without, in logical consistency, admitting the right of Parliament to forbid dancing and card-playing; or to command my attendance at any Church wors.h.i.+p, or to fine and imprison me for heresy. The double confusion here involved is wonderful from an educated man, and lowers his reputation for good sense. Religion is a topic on which eminent persons and foremost nations widely differ: concerning Moral Duty there is more agreement in mankind than perhaps on anything that is beyond the five senses. To argue that in claiming of the State an enforcement of duties cardinal to citizens.h.i.+p, we admit its right to dictate in religion, is a pestilent anachronism; it confounds Morals with Religion just as did the ancient world, Pagan and Hebrew. Again, the test of soundness in Morals is found in the agreement of the human race.
There is no nation, no elementary tribe of men, so ignorant or so besotted, as not to condemn drunkenness as immoral and utterly evil. In justifying penalties against a vice condemned by all mankind, we justify (forsooth!) the punis.h.i.+ng of amus.e.m.e.nts thought harmless by a great majority everywhere. Such an a.s.sertion is not the less silly, even in the mouth of a disciple of John Stuart Mill. Of course we all know that Law cannot be made against every misuse of time, or of energy, or of money.
There is certainly no danger whatever that a modern Parliament, elected from very different circles and representing widely different elements, will ever adopt as its measure of sound morals the special opinions of any historical sect, however virtuous and wise.
Neither of an individual nor of a community does _the highest interest_ consist in Liberty, but in soundness of morals; without which Liberty only means licence to be vicious; licence to ruin oneself, and diffuse misery to others. To a man not proof against the omnipresent drinkshop, high wages are a curse; days called holy and short hours of work do but more quickly engulf him in ruin. But he pulls others too down in his fall. That nearly every Vice tends to waste, and preeminently intoxication by liquors or drugs, certain Economists are strangely slow to learn. Moreover, nearly every widespread vice makes wealth and life less enjoyable to the whole community. Confining remark to the vice of drunkards, it suffices to point in brief to the enormous extension which it gives to Violent Crime, to Orphanhood, to Pauperism, to Prost.i.tution, to disease in Children, and to Insanity. Hence comes an enormous expense for Police and Criminal Courts, for Jails and Jail-officers, for Magistrates and Judges, for Insane Asylums, and Poor Rates. Hence also endless suffering to the victims of crime and to the families of criminals, and a grave lessening of happiness to innocent persons by the ribaldry of drunkards planted at their side, with fear lest their children be corrupted; fear also of personal outrage.
Our daily comfort largely depends on homely virtue in our neighbours. In every great organization of industry the drunkenness of workmen is a first-rate mischief to others, crippling enterprise by increased expense and risk. From sailors fond of grog and tobacco, proceed fire in s.h.i.+ps out at sea; and on foreign coasts, broils that disgrace England and Christendom, and lay a train which sometimes explodes in war. The drunkenness of a captain has before now stranded a n.o.ble s.h.i.+p. On a railroad, access of the engine driver to drink is a prime danger; and shall we say that there is no danger in Parliament legislating when half asleep with wine, and hereby open to the intrigue of any scheming clique, who may wish to fasten suddenly on the nation fraudulent or wicked law?
Wisely does the American Congress forbid to its members wine in its own dining-room, because those who have to make sacred law are bound to deliberate and vote with clear heads. Evil law is of all tyrannies the most hateful, and makes a State contemptible to its own citizens--thus preparing Revolution.