been any thing but satisfactory. When the abolitionists. of England advocated it, they little thought that such a measure instead of preventing would only "aggravate the horrors, without sensibly mitigating the extent of the traffic;" that it would generate fast-sailing slavers with decks one foot six inches apart, suffocation from close packing, miserable diseases, and a mortality of thirty-five per cent. They dreamed not that when hard pressed a slaver might throw a whole cargo of 500 negroes into the sea; nor that on a blockaded coast the disappointed chiefs would, as at Gallinas, put to death 200 men and women, and stick their heads on poles, along shore, in sight of the squadron.* In short, they never anticipated having to plead as they now do for the abandonment of

coercion.

Again, how great and how self-evident to the artisan mind, were the promised advantages of that trades-union project, whereby master manufacturers were to be dispensed with! If a body of workmen formed themselves. into a joint-stock manufacturing company, with elective directors, secretary, treasurer, superintendents, foremen, &c., for managing the concern, and an organization adapted to ensure an equitable division of profits amongst the members, it was clear that the enormous sums previously pocketed by the employers, would be shared amongst the employed, to the great increase of their prosperity. Yet all past attempts to act out this very plausible theory have, somehow or other, ended in miserable failures.

Another illustration is afforded by the fate which befell that kindred plan recommended by Mr. Babbage in his "Economy of Manufactures," as likely to be to the benefit of the workmen and to the interest of the master; that,

*See Anti-Slavery's Society's Report for 1847; and Evidence before Parliamentary Committee, 1848.

FAILURE OF RELIEF-MEASURES.

21

namely, in which factory hands were to "unite together, and have an agent to purchase by wholesale those articles which are most in demand; as tea, sugar, bacon, &c., and to retail them at prices which will just repay the whole sale cost, together with the expenses of the agent who conducts their sale." After fourteen years' trial a concern, established in pursuance of this idea, was "abandoned with the joint consent of all parties;" Mr. Babbage confessing that the opinion he had expressed "on the advantage of such societies was very much modified," and illus trating by a series of curves "the quick rise and gradual decline" of the experimental association.

The Spitalfields weavers afford us another case in point. No doubt the temptation which led them to obtain the Act of 1773, fixing a minimum of wages, was a strong one; and the anticipations of greater comfort to be secured by its enforcement must have seemed reasonable enough to all. Unfortunately, however, the weavers did not consider the consequences of being interdicted from working at reduced rates; and little expected that before 1793, some 4,000 looms would be brought to a stand in consequence of the trade going elsewhere.

To mitigate distress appearing needful for the produc tion of the "greatest happiness," the English people have sanctioned upwards of one hundred acts in Parliament having this end in view, each of them arising out of the failure or incompleteness of previous legislation. Men are nevertheless still discontented with the Poor Laws, and we are seemingly as far as ever from their satisfac tory settlement.

But why cite individual cases? Does not the experi ence of all nations testify to the futility of these empirical attempts at the acquisition of happiness? What is the statute-book but a record of such unhappy guesses? or history but a narrative of their unsuccessful issues? And

what forwarder are we now? Is not our government as busy still as though the work of law-making commenced but yesterday? Has it made any apparent progress towards a final settlement of social arrangements? Does it not rather each year entangle itself still further in the web of legislation, confounding the already heterogeneous mass of enactments into still greater confusion? Nearly every parliamentary proceeding is a tacit confession of incompetency. There is scarcely a bill introduced but is entitled "An Act to amend an Act." The "Whereas" of almost every preamble heralds an account of the miscar riage of previous legislation. Alteration, explanation, and repeal, form the staple employment of every session. All our great agitations are for the abolition of institutions purporting to be for the public good. Witness those for the removal of the Test and Corporation Acts, for Catholic Emancipation, for the repeal of the Corn Laws; to which may now be added, that for the separation of Church and State. The history of one scheme is the history of all. First comes enactment, then probation, then failure; next an amendment and another failure; and, after many alternate tinkerings and abortive trials, arrives at length repeal, followed by the substitution of some fresh plan, doomed to run the same course, and share a like fate.

The expediency-philosophy, however, ignores this world full of facts. Though men have so constantly been balked in their attempts to secure, by legislation, any desired constituent of that complex whole, "greatest happiness," it nevertheless continues to place confidence in the unaided judgment of the statesman. It asks no guide; it possesses no eclectic principle; it seeks no clue whereby the tangled web of social existence may be unravelled and its laws discovered. But, holding up to view the great desideratum, it assumes that after an inspection of the aggregate phenomena of national life, governments ar

SUPERFICIAL CONCEPTION OF THE PROBLEM.

23

qualified to concoct such measures as shall be "expedient." It considers the philosophy of humanity so easy, the constitution of the social organism so simple, the causes of a people's conduct so obvious, that a general examination can give to "collective wisdom" the insight requisite for law-making. It thinks that man's intellect is competent, first to observe accurately the facts exhibited by associ ated human nature; to form just estimates of general and individual character, of the effects of religions, customs, superstitions, prejudices, of the mental tendencies of the age, of the probabilities of future events, &c., &c.; and then, grasping at once the multiplied phenomena of this ever-agitated, ever-changing sea of life, to derive from them that knowledge of their governing principles which shall enable him to say whether such and such measures will conduce to "the greatest happiness of the greatest number."

If without any previous investigation of the properties of terrestrial matter, Newton had proceeded at once to study the dynamics of the universe, and after years spent with the telescope in ascertaining the distances, sizes, times of revolution, inclinations of axes, forms of orbits, perturbations, &c., of the celestial bodies, had set himself to tabulate this accumulated mass of observations, and to educe from them the fundamental laws of planetary and stellar equilibrium, he might have cogitated to all eternity without arriving at a result.

But absurd as such a method of research would have been, it would have been far less absurd than is the attempt to find out the principles of public polity, by a direct examination of that wonderfully intricate combination-society. It need excite no surprise when legislation, based upon the theories thus elaborated, fails. Rather would its success afford matter for extreme astonishment. Considering that men as yet so imperfectly under

stand man-the instrument by which, and the material on which, laws are to act-and that a complete knowl edge of the unit-man, is but a first step to the compre hension of the mass-society, it seems obvious enough that to educe from the infinitely-ramified complications of universal humanity, a true philosophy of national life, and to found thereon a code of rules for the obtainment of "greatest happiness," is a task far beyond the ability of any finite mind.

§ 4. Yet another fatal objection to the expediencyphilosophy, is to be found in the fact, that it implies the eternity of government. It is a mistake to assume that government must necessarily last forever. The institu tion marks a certain stage of civilization-is natural to a particular phase of human development. It is not essential but incidental. As amongst the Bushmen we find a state antecedent to government; so may there be one in which it shall have become extinct. Already has it lost something of its importance. The time was when the history of a people was but the history of its government. It is otherwise now. The once universal despotism was but a manifestation of the extreme necessity of restraint. Feudalism, serfdom, slavery-all tyrannical institutions, are merely the most vigorous kinds of rule, springing out of, and necessary to, a bad state of man. The progress from these is in all cases the same-less government. Constitutional forms mean this. Political freedom means this. Democracy means this. In societies, associations, jointstock companies, we have new agencies occupying fields filled in less advanced times and countries by the State. With us the legislature is dwarfed by newer and greater powers-is no longer master but slave. "Pressure from without" has come to be acknowledged as ultimate ruler. The triumph of the Anti-Corn-law League is simply the