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entirely in her husband's power-in manu. Little by little, as centuries rolled on, eminent lawgivers succeeded each other, and gradual changes were made, so that, finally, just and humanitarian principles penetrated the entire Roman code, and the Darwinian law, which glorifies might, gave place to the Christian law, which extols justice.

This movement will most assuredly continue, in spite of all the abuse it may receive from Mr. Herbert Spencer, and from others who think as he does. It is a result of the advance of civilization from the commencement of Christianity, and even from the time of the prophets of Israel. It will manifest itself, not as it did in the middle ages, by works of mercy, but, under the control of economic science, by the intervention of the State in favour of the disinherited, and by measures such as Mr. Shaw Lefevre approves of, so that each and all should be placed in a position to be able to command reward in proportion to the amount of useful labour accomplished.

Darwinian laws, generally admitted in the domain of natural history and in the animal kingdom, will never be applied to human societies, until the sentiments of charity and justice, which Christianity engraves on our hearts, are completely eradicated.

EMILE DE LAVELEYE.

A REJOINDER TO M. DE LAVELEYE.

THE

HE Editor of the CONTEMPORARY REVIEW having kindly allowed me to see a proof of the foregoing article by M. de Laveleye, and having assented to my request that I might be allowed to append a few explanations and comments, in place of a more formal reply in a future number of the Review, I have, in the following pages, set down as much as seems needful to prevent the grave misunderstandings likely to be produced by M. de Laveleye's criticisms, if they are permitted to pass unnoticed.

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On the first page of his essay, M. de Laveleye, referring to the effort to establish "greater equality among men by "appropriating State, or communal, revenues" for that end, writes

"Mr. Spencer considers that this effort for the improvement of the condition of the working-classes, which is being everywhere made with greater or less energy, is a violation of natural laws, which will not fail to bring its own punishment on nations, thus misguided by a blind philanthropy " (p. 485). As this sentence stands, and especially as joined with all which follows, it is calculated to produce the impression that I am opposed to measures" for the improvement of the condition of the workingclasses." This is quite untrue, as numerous passages from my books would show. Two questions are involved-What are the measures? and-What is the agency for carrying them out? In the first place, there are various measures conducive to "improvement of the condition of the working-classes" which I have always contended, and still contend, devolve on public agencies, general and local-above all, an efficient administration of justice, by which they benefit both directly and indirectly-an administration such as not simply represses violence and fraud, but promptly brings down a penalty

on

every one who trespasses against his neighbour, even by a nuisance. While contending for the diminution of State-action of the positively-regulative kind, I have contended for the

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increase of State-action of the negatively-regulative kind-that kind which restrains the activities of citizens within the limits imposed by the existence of other citizens who have like claims to carry on their activities. I have shown that "maladministration of justice raises, very considerably, the cost of living for all; "* and is, therefore, felt especially by the working-classes, whose state is most closely dependent on the cost of living. As one of the evils of over-legislation, I have, from the beginning, urged that, while multitudinous other questions absorb public attention, the justice-question gets scarcely any attention; and social life is everywhere vitiated by the consequent inequities. While defending laissez-faire in its original and proper sense, I have pointed out that the policy of universal meddling has for its concomitant that vicious laissez-faire which leaves dishonesty to flourish at the expense of honesty. In the second place, there are numerous other measures conducive to "the improvement of the condition of the working-classes" which I desire quite as much as M. de Laveleye to see undertaken; and simply differ from him concerning the agency by which they shall be undertaken. Without wishing to restrain philanthropic action, but quite contrariwise, I have in various places argued that philanthropy will better achieve its ends by non-governmental means than by governmental means.§ M. de Laveleye is much more familiar than I am with the facts showing that, in societies at large, the organized arrangements which carry on production and distribution have been evolved not only without State-help, but very generally in spite of Statehindrance; and hence I am surprised that he apparently gives no credence to the doctrine that, by private persons acting either individually or in combination, there may be better achieved multitudinous ends which it is the fashion to invoke State-agency for.

Speaking of the domain of individual liberty, M. de Laveleye

says

"To be brief, I agree with Mr. Herbert Spencer that, contrary to Rousseau's doctrine, State power ought to be limited, and that a domain should be reserved to individual liberty which should be always respected; but the limits of this domain should be fixed, not by the people, but by reason and science, keeping in view what is best for the public welfare" (p. 488).

I am a good deal perplexed at finding the last clause of this sentence apparently addressed to me as though in opposition. "Social Statics" is a work mainly occupied with the endeavour to establish these limits by "reason and science." In the "Data of Ethics," I have sought, in a chapter entitled the "Sociological View," to show how

* "Study of Sociology," p. 415, postscript in library edition.

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+ See "Social Statics: The Duty of the State."" Also "Essays," vol. ii. pp. 94-8; vol. iii. p. 167.

"Study of Sociology," pp. 351-3, cheap edition.

§ "Social Statics: Poor Laws.""

certain limits to individual liberty are deducible from the laws of life as carried on under social conditions. And in "The Man versus The State," which M. de Laveleye is more particularly dealing with, one part of the last chapter is devoted to showing, deductively, the derivation of what are called "natural rights" from the vital needs, which each man has to satisfy by activities pursued in presence of other men who have to satisfy like needs; while another part of the chapter is devoted to showing, inductively, how recognition of natural rights began, in the earliest social groups, to be initiated by those retaliations which trespasses called forth-retaliations ever tending to produce respect for the proper limits of action. If M. de Laveleye does not consider this to be an establishment of limits "by reason and science," what are the kinds of science" by which he expects to establish them?

On another page M. de Laveleye says

"

reason and

"I am of opinion that the State should make use of its legitimate powers of action for the establishment of greater equality among men, in proportion to their personal merits" (p. 489).

Merely observing that the expression "its legitimate powers of action" seems to imply a begging of the question, since the chief point in dispute is What are "its legitimate powers of action; " I go on to express my surprise at such a sentence coming from a distinguished political economist: M. de Laveleye refers to the "old-fashioned political economy," implying that he is one of those younger economists who dissent from its doctrine; but I was quite unprepared to find that his dissent went so far as tacitly to deny that in the average of cases a proportioning of rewards to personal merits naturally takes place under the free play of supply and demand. Still less, after all the exposures made of the miseries inflicted on men throughout the past by the blundering attempts of the State to adjust prices and wages, did I expect to see in a political economist such a revived confidence in the State as would commission it to adjust men's rewards "in proportion to their personal merit." I hear that there are some who contend that payment should be proportionate to the disagreeableness of the work done: the implication, I suppose, being that the knacker and the nightman should receive two or three guineas a day, while a physician's fee should be half-a-crown. But, with such a proportioning, I suspect that, as there would be no returns adequate to repay the cost and time and labour of preparation for the practise of medicine, physicians would quickly disappear; as would, indeed, all those required for the higher social functions. I do not suppose that M. de Laveleye contemplates a proportioning just of this kind. But if in face of all experience, past and present, he trusts officialism to judge of "personal merits," he is sanguine to a degree which surprises me.

One of the questions which M. de Laveleye asks is—

"If the intervention of public power for the improvement of the condition of the working-classes be a contradiction of history, and a return to ancient militant society, how is it that the country in which the new industrial organization is the most developed that is to say, England is also the country where State intervention is the most rapidly increasing, and where opinion is at the same time pressing for these powers of interference to be. still further extended?" (p. 491).

Several questions are here raised besides the chief one. I have already pointed out that my objection is not to "intervention of public power for the improvement of the condition of the working-classes," but to interventions of certain kinds. The abolition of laws forbidding trade-combinations, and of laws forbidding the travelling of artisans, were surely measures which improved " the condition of the working-classes; " and these were measures which I should have been eager to join in obtaining. Similarly, at the present time I am desirous of seeing provided the easiest and most efficient remedies for sailors fraudulently betrayed into unseaworthy ships; and I heartily sympathize with those who denounce the continual encroachments of landowners-enclosures of commons and the turf-covered borders of lanes, &c. These, and kindred injustices to the working-classes, stretching far back, I am no less desirous to see remedied than is M. de Laveleye; provided always that due care is taken that other injustices are not committed in remedying them. Evidently, then, this expression of M. de Laveleye raises a false issue. Again, he says that I call this public intervention on behalf of the working-classes "a return to ancient militant society." This is quite a mistake. In ancient militant society the condition of the working-classes was very little cared for, and, indeed, scarcely thought of. My assertion was that the coercive system employed was like the coercive system employed in a militant society: the ends to which the systems are directed being quite different. But turning to the chief point in his question, I meet it by counter-questions-Why is it that the "new industrial organization" is best developed in England? and-Under what conditions was it developed? I need hardly point out to M. de Laveleye that the period during which industrial organization in England developed more rapidly and extensively than elsewhere, was a period during which the form of government was less coercive than elsewhere, and the individual less interfered with than elsewhere. And if now, led by the admirers of Continental bureaucracies, eager philanthropists are more rapidly extending State-administrations here than they are being extended abroad, it is obviously because there is great scope for the further extension of them here, while abroad there is little scope for the further extension of them.

In justification of coercive methods for "improving the condition of the working-classes," M. de Laveleye says

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