Review of
The Principles of Political Economy
by John Stuart Mill
Walter Bagehot
[Part 2 of 2]
We have now examined the whole of what Mr. Mill calls the statics
of the subject; that is, we have inquired what in any given state of
capital and population adjusts the remuneration of labour; and we
have found that the two efficient causes were the supply and demand
for labour and the supply and demand for a particular species of
capital. We have now to treat of what in the continuation of the new
scientific metaphor is called the Dynamics of Political Economy: in
other words, we must consider the Laws according to which Capital is
augmented and Population increases. We shall incidentally treat of a
problem which Mr. Mill has omitted formally to consider: viz., what
in a progressive state of capital apportions how much of it shall be
of the remunerative and how much of the cooperative sort. It is
obvious that in our view this question is of great importance in
reference to the interests of the labouting classes; we believe also
that we shall show strong reasons for thinking that Mr. Mill's
omission to consider it has led him into somewhat serious error.
The growth of capital, which we select for first consideration,
varies, it is clear, directly with the productiveness of industry
and the disposition to save. The productiveness or efficiency
depends on a variety of causes, of which only the principal can here
be specified, and of which Mr. Mill has nowhere attempted a complete
enumeration. However, it may be stated with sufficient truth for all
really important purposes, that the efficiency of industry increases
with the knowledge of the productive arts, the general intelligence
of the people, and in agricultural communities with the natural
fertility and favourable situation of cultivable land. Fifty years
ago it might have been not unimportant to dwell on the importance of
the cultivation of the productive sciences and their corresponding
arts, but the prodigious and evident strides which the scientific
arts have recently made and the existence of such conspicuous
results as railroads, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs,
make it no longer necessary to dilate on what has become a matter of
familiar and popular knowledge. It will now also be generally
admitted that the intelligence of the workmen employed both in
agriculture and still more in manufactures is an important element
in the efficiency of industry. It is incumbent on us to remark that
Mr. Mill has collected considerable evidence to prove that all
workmen the English stand particularly in need of some general
education; other nations, the Italian it is said especially, seem to
possess a natural quickness of perception, by which they are able
readily to master, at any time of their lives, new single processes
of manufacture. English labourers on the other hand have no such
natural powers, but are, as a rule, indebted to a general education
for whatever power they possess of working at any branch of industry
save the particular one in which they have been brought up. The
great authority for this observation is the evidence taken before
the Poor Law Commission on the subject of the training of Pauper
Children. There was, if we remember right, in the same evidence, and
we are a little surprised that Mr. Mill omits to refer to it, a
rather remarkable body of testimony to the effect, that though
special branches and single processes of manufacture might be learnt
by persons almost entirely uneducated, yet that the power of making
general arrangements or superintending efficiently the work of
others was almost always dependent on school teaching or on an
equivalent selfeducation. These two elements in the productiveness
of industry are in an advancing state of society almost always on
the increase. It is very different with the third element, the
intrinsic fertility of the soil. It is obvious that, as a rule, the
most productive land will be the first taken into cultivation, those
who have the first choice will in a general way choose the best.
Moreover, the situation of land has an exactly similar effect: the
lands from desire of not falling themselves and not allowing their
children to fall below the condition which they themselves have been
used to occupy. As a consequence of this, it is contended, as we
think justly, that though a large improvement in the condition of
the people might be attended with an immediate acceleration in the
rate of increase, yet the next generation would grow up in habits
which they would be unwilling to forfeit by a general system of
improvident marriage. As a practical question, Mr. Mill thinks that
no prudential restraint is practised by the agricultural labourers,
and that, if the increase of population were in the hands of that
class only, the English people would increase as fast as the
American. So that there can be no ground for saying that an increase
of comfort would in our case, at least, diminish the providence of
the labouting class. On the means by which Mr. Mill would effect
this desirable change we shall speak hereafter, and at present shall
only add, that he would very largely increase the funds expended on
national education, so as to obtain, if possible, not only the
economic, but also the moral and intellectual requisites of a
provident population.
As to the general doctrine, that a great increase in the comforts
of the labouring classes is often a check to the increase of their
numbers, it fortunately happens that there is a case in point to
which Mr. Mill has an opportunity of appealing. An immense increase
in the comforts of the French peasantry was,it is well known, an
immediate consequence of their first Revolution. Over and above
this, the depopulation and extra demand for labour caused by the
wars of Napoleon were all circumstances tending to raise the rate of
wages, and therefore, according to the vulgar doctrine, to stimulate
population. Yet the fact has been, that the increased comfort and
the new distribution of landed property have produced a slackened
increase of population, and that the French population increases
very much more slowly than the average rate of European nations.
We have purposely used language which implies our assent to this
portion of Mr. Mill's doctrine. It is not, however, to be looked
upon as a principle which, like a physical law, will certainly
operate with an unvarying energy under all times and circumstances.
The multiplicity of motives that incline men to contract marriages
render the theory of population the most complex part of elementary
political economy; the conclusions of science upon it are as yet
very rough and general. Particular cases of natural habit and
unlooked-for conjunctures of events may well render futile the best
adjusted theory of human action. On this special subject political
economy is more vague than perhaps it need be; but all that it can
ever do, is to indicate general rules; and no one can ever be
exempted from the necessity of studying each case that occurs in
practice, with a due attention to disturbing agencies. On this
particular point we may say that it is considerably more likely than
not that a general increase of habitual comfort will slacken the
advance of population, but not that it will do so of necessity and
invariably.
In this chapter of Mr. Mill's book, and also in some other parts
of it, there seems to us to be a want of concise formulae summing up
and stamping on the memory the previous proof and explanation. We
cannot attempt here fully to supply this deficiency; but we will set
down a few brief sentences for the consideration of others. We do
not mean that none of the principles which we are about to mention
can be reduced to more elementary considerations: but we wish to see
drawn out a set of intermediate principles to obviate the tiresome
necessity of a continual resort to the first assumptions and axioms
of science. It should be remembered that the founders of both the
great schools of logic have combined to teach that in the skilful
use of those axiomata media consists the practical utility of
knowledge. It may then be perhaps said, -- 1st. That misery so
extreme as to cause disease and death is an obvious check to the
increase of population. 2ndly. That extreme degrees of misery short
of this stimulate population by producing recklessness; in technical
Malthusian language this is expressed by saying that the positive
and preventive check never act together in any force. 3rdly. That
the greatest economical preventive check on population is the desire
of not falling in consequence of marriage into a state of society
lower than that which when unmarried they have been accustomed to
occupy; and next in efficiency is the desire that their children
shall not occupy a position in life inferior to their own. 4thly.
That these desires at least among the industrial classes increase
with amount of comfort enjoyed. 5thly. That improvements in the
condition of a people sufficient to raise the habitual standard of
comfort act as a check, and, not like smaller improvements, as a
stimulus to the increase of population: and the converse principle
that an accession of misery and discomfort sufficient to depreciate
that standard will be an incentive and not a check to such an
increase. 6thly. That the desire of preserving their own condition
is a more and more efficacious preservative against over-population
in proportion as persons feel that their own condition is dependent
on themselves and not on others and so also the desire for their
children's welfare strengthens proportionably to the certainty of
the children's condition being dependent on the conduct of their own
parents and not on the actions of other people.
This last consideration of the absence of uncertainty is a point
on which Sismondi has powerfully enlarged in various of his
writings. It is a great reason with him for preferring the status of
a present proprietor to that of a hired labourer. The latter is at
the mercy of the speculations of capitalists and the vicissitudes of
commerce. Without knowing why, his trade may be depressed, for
years; neither his prosperity nor his adversity are of his own
creation. Very different is the position of a peasantry who have a
footing on the soil -- if each man can cultivate his own land
thoroughly, his position is secured: as he cannot be ruined by the
conduct of others, his comfort is not dependent on either capitalist
or landlord; he may suffer from the elements and from Providence,
but so far as man is concerned, he has within reach the "Saxon
Utopia," a fair day's wages for a fair day's work.
Very similar is the effect of the two systems on population. A
peasant proprietor feels that his children will certainly descend in
the scale of society if his fleehold be at his death divided among a
numerous family. He either therefore does not have so many children,
or he saves a fund out of which those who do not inherit the land
may be provided for. He knows how many persons his land will
maintain, and for how many he is likely to have other funds. It is
of no importance at all to him what others of his class may do; if
he is himself provident, the condition of his children is in the
main secure. This kind of causes keep the population of Norway, as
the returns show, very nearly stationary. Far different is the
position of a country like England, where the lower orders are mere
hired labourers, possessing, as a rule, no accumulated capital. All
this class knows is that they are dependent on the present position
of the labour-market, and that their children will be in like manner
dependent on its future condition. Each individual feels that the
number of his children is but a slight point in determining the
condition of each. He has no reason at all to think that if he has
only one child that one will necessarily or probably be better off
than if he have a dozen. This depends on the conduct of the whole
class to which he belongs, and he has no data, and at present no
mental ability, to determine what that conduct is likely to be.
A capitalist, it should be observed, is in a position exactly
similar to that of the peasant proprietor. If he can leave each of
his children the amount with which he started in life, he has every
reason to think that they will on an average be in a position not
inferior to his own. It is no matter to him that his neighbours are
not equally saving: if his children have capital they will not be
worse, but possibly better off, for their neighbours not being
possessed of it too. This certainly is a main element in producing
the providence in marriage, which perhaps even to an unfavourable
extent is characteristic of the middle classes in England.
From this it is clear that if the working classes could be raised
to a state in which saving was a preliminary to marriage there would
be an efficacious obstacle to their reckless and indefinite
increase. If dependence on mere wages could in any way be superseded
by the habit of saving for themselves and for their children, if the
working classes could be brought within the range of the motives
which now act on the rest of the community, we might confidently
anticipate a great immediate improvement in their physical
condition. It is consolatory to remember that this is one of the
points on which purely intellectual education is really most
serviceable. Instruction is to the mind what the telescope is to the
eye. To an uncultivated intellect what is distant will always be
invisible, but a well-trained mind is habitually able to look into
the future, and to deal with the absent as though it were present.
It is to be hoped, and perhaps expected, that the present exertions
for the spread of education will not fail in a few years to increase
materially the forethought of the labouring classes.
Yet by itself this intellectual improvement will not be
sufficient. Before people can save, they must have a surplus to save
out of. It will be necessary to raise the condition of the lower
orders considerably above their present condition before they will
become habitually a saving class. In the middle ranks a small amount
of self-restraint will make a considerable difference both in their
property and in their social position: but it would take much more
than can be expected of mankind generally to make much improvement
in the condition of the lower orders. Hesiod's proverb that the half
is more than the whole, amounts in Economics to saying, that the
smaller the income the harder it is to save any given proportion of
it.
Mr. Mill, however, we must pause to observe, is of opinion that
population will be checked in a somewhat different manner. He
expects that there will arise an unfavourable popular sentiment
against those who overstock the labour-market, and that operating as
a penalty, this feeling will diminish the number of such offenders.
We will not assert that this is impossible. Mr. Mills has pronounced
that all who deny it are profoundly ignorant of the true motives of
human action. When the teacher gets dogmatical, the learner becomes
nervous, and we feel therefore inclined to be cautious. We only wish
to observe, that there is as yet no sufficient basis of fact for us
to look upon it as a very well established doctrine. We doubt also
if the act of overstocking the labour-market be an act sufficiently
marked and definite to excite popular reprobation. Mr. Mill admits
that no such feelings anywhere exists now, not even where there is
the greater amount of this sort of restraint; but as in these
countries the labouring population are mainly peasant proprietors,
there is no occasion and indeed no opportunity for any such popular
sentiment. We can understand that where saving is an habitual
preliminary to marriage, those will be look.ed down upon and
disliked who neglect it. As to much more than this we are inclined
to be sceptical. We do not know enough to speak confidently as to
the factory population; but though we are not used to be over timid
in theorizing, we are not bold enough to expect anything at all like
this of English agricultural labourers. At all events it is safer
and more practical to assert that the existence of a strong saving
habit among the lower classes is both a necessary and a sufficient
condition of their economical welfare.
We have now discussed the subjects of the growth of Capital and
the increase of Population. In the course of the discussion we
omitted avowedly to consider two questions: What is the cause which
divides Capital into its two distinct divisions? secondly, What are
the causes regulating the rate of profit? We shall now discuss the
former, which as we stated is omitted by our author. The latter it
will be expedient still further to postpone.
We do not here enjoy the benefit of Mr. Mill's guidance, but the
problem does not appear to contain any peculiar difficulty. It is a
principle in the theory of value, that articles producible at equal
cost will be supplied in proportion to the demand for them: those
most in demand will be most in number; those least in demand will be
fewest in supply. For if the supply of any should fall short of this
proportion, their price will rise, and an extra profit will be
obtained by the producer, in consequence of which capital will be
attracted to the employment, and the supply will be augmented. This
principle applies to the case before us. The respective amounts in
which equally costly portions of the two kinds of capital are
supplied, will be determined by the demand for each. The demand for
remunerative capital depends on the rate of remuneration, (which
will be discussed presently,} multiplied by the number of labourers
employed at that rate. The demand for the co-operative sort of
capital depends on its efficiency in satisfying existing wants. If
new discoveries in machinery make that portion of capital able to
supply more readily any desirable articles, profit will be higher in
the improved department of industry, and an increased portion of the
annual savings of the country will be attracted towards it.
Improvements in machinery may therefore be detrimental to the
working classes, by drawing off some capital which would have been
devoted to their maintenance to aid the production of commodities
which they have no opportunity of consuming. All improvements which
increase the supply of wagespaying commodities are of course
beneficial to the labourer. It may also happen that as all machinery
requires labour to work it, the demand for the latter may be a
benefit compensating the labourer for the harm done in the way which
we have pointed out. Other advantages of machinery might also be
named, but each of them are consistent with saying that an increase
in the efficiency of machinery may affect the distribution of
capital between its divisions, in a manner detrimental to the
working classes.
The rate of remuneration has been mentioned above, as a cause
influential in deciding how much of a country's capital shall be
remunerative, and how much co-operative. It has been shown in our
remarks on Population, under how many limitations it is true there
is a certain amount of commodities which the lower classes will be
content to receive, and without which they will not continue to
increase. It has been shown that this minimum of remuneration is of
two sons, one physical, which is the minimum that will keep alive
the existing number of labourers; secondly, a moral minimum,
susceptible under proper circumstances both of increase and
diminution. Now it is clear that if the demand for labour be
unaltered, it is essential to the industry of the country that the
working classes shall have the physical minimum of wages; and also
that unless circumstances occur to depreciate the moral standard,
they will receive what the standard metes out to them. Although Mr.
Mill has not inquired into the causes which determine how much
capital shall take the form of wages-paying commodities, he has
repeatedly declared his belief that the labouring classes will in
general enjoy the comforts accompanying this latter variable minimum
of remuneration. He has also in some places gone further, and
attempted to show that they cannot permanently receive more. He has
indeed an entire chapter on popular remedies for low wages, which is
devoted to the elucidation of this opinion. The popular remedies to
which he refers, are those in which law or public opinion afford a
higher remuneration to labour than would be given by unrestricted
competition. Mr. Mill teaches that such laws or customs must be
wholly inoperative. He appears to think that there is a prima facie
absurdity in attempting to support more labourers than the "capital"
of the country will maintain, or to give the same number of
labourers a larger recompense for their exertions. Now if, as
certain economists are prone to assume, all capital were of one
sort, and if it could be used only for production, and were not
consumable by unproductive consumers, if in short, by some law of
nature, capital could only be used in supporting labourers, this
argument would certainly be a good one. Nature would in that case
have enacted that the remuneration shall be of such and such an
amount, and no human legislature could go further, or impair her
work.
But since remunerative capital can be consumed by unproductive
consumers, this argument will not hold. If wages were raised ten per
cent. by law, wages-paying commodities would rise in price, and the
more opulent consumers would probably restrict their consumption,
and labourers would command more of the existing supply. Moreover,
the rise of price would cause an increased production of
wages-paying commodities. Capital which was going to be employed in
manufacturing steam-engines or plate, or some such articles, would
be employed in agriculture, or in preparing the coarser kinds of
manufacture which are used by labourers. Capital would be shifted
from the manufacture of luxuries for the opulent, to the production
of necessaries for the indigent. How much the labouring classes
would gain would depend on the agricultural circumstances of the
time. If the new application of capital to the land only yielded
such a return as would keep the price at the level which it occupied
when the law came into operation, the labouring classes would
obviously gain still exactly what they gained in that year, and no
more. If, on the other hand, food could be supplied at the price it
occupied previous to the enactment of the new law, it is obvious
also that the labourers would gain by the full amount in which the
law raised their pecuniary resources; the price would be as before,
an their money-wages would be greater. In general, something
intermediate between these two cases would happen; the labourer
would gain more than in the first, and less than in the second. But
in either case such a law would be advantageous to labourers: and in
relation to all remunerative commodities except food, the most
favourable contingency is almost certain to happen.
We do not defend such a law; not only because it could not be
worked in any known system of industry, but also because it could
not be urged on the capitalist as a duty to give so much additional
wages. Something must be known of his position in life, his duties
to his family and those dependent upon him, before any such
principle could be affirmed. But it seems to us obvious that
capitalists ought not to beat down labourers to the lowest possible
amount. They have no more right to be greedy and avaricious than any
other class; and it is discreditable in economists to teach that
such conduct is not hurtful to the public and indefensible in
itself.
The effect of such a law on population is a distinct question.
Ricardo would of course assume that if it were for the benefit of
the lower orders it would stimulate their increase, and wages would
be reduced to their former standard. Even so, the wages-fund of the
country is increased, the rate of remuneration is the same, but the
persons paid are more. Mr. Mill reasons here after the manner of
Ricardo. Nor do we pretend to say that any such law or custom could
of itself and alone raise the rate of wages materially. But it may
be one of many concurrent agencies in so raising it, and its
existence may prevent its decline by counteracting other agencies
that may be depreciating the labourer's habitual standard of
comfort; and therefore might be rather a check on population than a
stimulus to it.
On the whole, therefore, as to the rate of remuneration, it may
be said, without wearying our readers by unnecessary details, first,
that when the demand for labour is unaltered, the physical minimum
must be maintained; secondly, that moral minimum will always be
maintained when the demand for labour is not much raised or much
diminished, or when the supply of wages-paying commodities does not
become much more easy or more difficult; thirdly, that the
benevolence of the higher classes answers all the purposes of an
extra demand for labour. These are the main principles regulating
the rate of remuneration. The proportion between wages-paying and
what may be called instrumental capital is settled, as has been seen
by the demand for each sort; the demand for the first varying
directly as the rate of remuneration muliplied by the number of
labourers employed: the demand for the second being determined by
the productive power of machinery in ministering to human wants.
Reviewing therefore what has been said, we find that we have
considered the demand and supply of remunerative capital, and under
the head of Population we have discussed the supply of labour. The
demand for labour, the only remaining factor of our original
formula, will not perhaps detain us long. It depends as a whole on
the power which each single act of immediate labour possesses to
satisfy human wants, multiplied by the number of such acts which are
desired. From this it is clear, that it is more beneficial to the
lower classes to be employed in quickly-recurring acts, than in acts
which when once done do not require any second or at all events any
but a deferred repetition. The pyramids of Egypt once built no one
cared about the builders: and it is to be feared they were put on
reduced rations of onions. This is the ground of a part of the truth
implied in Ricardo's doctrine that it was better for labourers that
capital should be laid out in services than in commodities.
Supposing that the labouter sold the commodities, this would 0nly be
true when the service required more frequent repetition than the
acts necessary to the production of the commodities. When the
capitalist sells the commodity, as is now most usual, it is not so
good, if we look only to the interest of the labourers, to buy the
article as to employ labour more directly; since the capitalist will
not always, or indeed often, employ the whole purchase-money for
their benefit.
We have therefore now pretty nearly solved the problem with which
we set out, namely, what under present circumstances regulates the
rate of wages? We found that this was determined temporarily by the
supply and demand for remunerative capital as compared with supply
of labour, and the demand for it. We have now inquired, so far as
our limits will allow, what are the causes permanently determining
the supply and demand both for remunerative capital and for labour.
One problem has been omitted, viz., the cause of determining the
rate of profit, and these will even now be treated of more
conveniently hereafter.
We are now therefore able to go on to discuss Mr. Mill's plans
for the benefit of the lower orders. The difficulty is, that the
rate of wages is so low; and the great problem for European and
especially for English statesmen in the nineteenth century is, how
shall that rate be raised, and how shall the lower orders be
improved. Whatever be the evil or the good of Democracy, in itself
it is evident, that the combination of democracy and low wages will
infallibly be bad. In all ages, the rulers of mankind have for the
most part agreed in having a predominating inclination for making
themselves comfortable. If power be given to a miserable democracy,
that democracy will above all things endeavour not to be miserable.
This it will attempt by whatever schemes are congenial to minds and
consciences, corrupted by ages of hereditary ignorance and
hereditary suffering. And woe to those who, under such a Government,
propound plans for the benefit of their rulers: Saevi proximis
ingruunt. The favourite theorist of yesterday is punished to-day
because the Millennium is not yet come. Such is the lesson which the
annals of Europe in the year 1848 teach to English statesmen. The
only effectual security against the rule of an ignorant, miserable
and vicious democracy, is to take care that the democracy shall be
educated, and comfortable and moral. Now is the time for scheming,
deliberating and acting. To tell a mob how their condition may be
improved is talking hydrostatics to the ocean. Science is of use now
because she may be heard and understood. If she be not heard before
the democracy come, when it is come her voice will be drowned in the
uproar.
So great and so urgent is in our judgment the importance of plans
for the improvement of the working classes: we regret, therefore,
that so much of our space has been taken up with the explanation of
the existing state of things in England, that we must be brief in
our account of Mr. Mill's schemes for the elevation of the labouring
classes. He has schemes for both England and Ireland; and we will
take the latter first.
The economical condition of Ireland is probably far worse than
that of any other country possessing equal natural advantages. The
rate of wages scarcely comes up to the minimum that will support
life, and falls far short of that needful to maintain the human body
in full working strength. The land tenure appears to be about the
worst possible. It has nearly all the disadvantages both of la
grande and la petite culture, without any of their corresponding
advantages. This tenure is known as the cottier system, which Mr.
Mill has here defined as the system in which the peasant rents by
competition only, and not at all by fixed custom. It is not
difficult to see, that in a country with a rapidly increasing
population, and but a little non-agricultural employment, a great
preponderance of such a land tenure ensures the utter misery of the
labouring classes. Land is, in such a country, the first necessary
of life, and the landlords have a monopoly of it. The peasants will
promise to pay any rent in order to obtain possession of the soil.
This nominal rent they will be unable to pay, and the landlord will
take whatever more is produced than is necessary to give the tenant
a bare subsistence. As population increases, the competition
strengthens: the rents increase in amount, the tenant is more and
more oppressed with debt, and he has to work harder and harder in
order to obtain the most meagre sustenance. Necessaries are being
bartered for luxuries, and those who need the former are at the
mercy of those who possess them. It is obvious that what has been
described as the prevalent practice of Irish landlords is morally
unjustifiable. We do not charge all the Irish landlords with
abetting such a system. The better part of them do not take into
account the biddings of the peasants in settling the rent, but act
on their own notion of what he is able and ought to pay: yet though
the evidence taken before Lord Devon's commission shows that such
more respectable landlords are not absolutely few, it seems also
certain that they form an inconsiderable fraction of the whole
rent-owning class. The ownership of land however gives no moral
title to inflict suffering on its occupants. The landlord under this
system takes habitually a cruel advantage of the necessities of the
poor: and that such can be the constant course of events in a
Christian country, shows how little the Jewish Prophets are heeded
by those who profess at least to acknowledge their authority.
The question then arises, how are these cottiers to be got rid
of? No man defends them; but it is difficult to devise plans for
introducing a better system. Mr. Mill's answer is that a large
number of them may be provided for by making them peasant
proprietors. There are in round numbers a million and a half(2*) of
waste lands in Ireland, which there is every reason to think would
repay tillage. This land is now lying useless, and it does seem a
very obvious course to bring it into cultivation. To any such scheme
as Mr. Mill's there is however a strong dislike in very many English
minds. It seems to us that the evils of Ireland have created a
prejudice against this their appropriate remedy. An inveterate idea
prevails that the existence of small holdings is the cause of Irish
misery, and that the scheme of peasant proprietorship is a mode of
perpetuating the existing system of land tenure. We feel sure that
this is a fair statement of much influential opinion. But yet both
these two propositions are ridiculously untrue. It is not the
smallness of the holdings that is the cause of the evils of Ireland;
for in Ulster, where the condition of Irish society is far better
than elsewhere, the division of land is more minute than in any
other portion of the country. Again, the system which now prevails
is one of rack rents, where all surplus beyond the bare subsistence
of the tenant goes of necessity to the landlord: the system proposed
as a remedy is, that in some cases no rent at all should be paid;
and in the case of more fertile soil, that a fixed sum should be
reserved, a system which would obviously give the tenant a secure
enjoyment of whatever surplus produce his industry might extract
from the soil. Is there any connection therefore between the
existing system and that proposed as a remedy for it? In the one the
main feature is unlimited exaction; in the other the main feature is
the fixity of the quit rent which is to be paid. This point of
fixity is one which Mr. Mill has in all its bearings admirably
elucidated, and as it seems to us with very great originality.
The only other remedy proposed for Ireland is the wholesale
eviction system. Some persons who wish to adapt Ireland in all
respects to the model of England have wished to introduce large
tillage farms, and to make day labourers of the lower classes. We
have before given some reason, and Mr. Mill has collected almost
demonstrative evidence, that on grounds principally derived from the
theory of population a nation of peasant proprietors is much
preferable to one of hired agricultural labourers. But putting this
aside, there is strong reason peculiar to the individual case for
preferring to introduce into Ireland the system of peasant
proprietors. The Poor Law Commissioners for Ireland state "that
agricultural wages vary from sixpence to one shilling a-day: that
the average of the country in general is about 8 d., and that the
earnings of labourers come, on an average, to from 2s., to 2s. 6d
a-week or thereabouts." Now the number of the cottier
population is exceedingly large, and it is evident that the addition
of anything like it to the number of hired labourers would bring
down the rate of wages enormously. It is obvious that, bad as the
cottier system may be, this remedy for it is worse than the disease.
Wages are now 2s. 6d a-week; what will they be after a great
reduction?
It is said that capital will come from England to employ the
additional labourers. But Mr. Mill justly replies that capital will
not come from England until the social state of the lower classes is
improved, and therefore if we adopt the scheme of large farms we are
forced on the dilemma that capital will not come till the people are
improved, and that the people will not be improved before the
capital comes. Also there is no likelihood that a sufficient amount
of capital would come. The Poor Law Commissioners state that there
are in Ireland five agricultural labourers to the extent of soil
which employs two in Great Britain. It is obvious that if the
agriculture of Ireland is assimilated to that of England, this
immense surplus of labourers would be thrown out of employment.
Moreover the system of peasant proprietors has been tried in
Ireland and has worked well. There exists in Ulster a kind of
incipient copyhold, from which a tenant at will cannot be turned out
so long as he pays a fixed customary rent. From this it is an
obvious consequence that the consent of the occupying tenant must be
purchased before a new one can have possession of the soil. It is
this institution of tenant-right which has made the people of Ulster
so superior to those in other parts of Ireland. They have this
system because being English and Scotch they were a better race of
people in the beginning; but peculiarities of race act not by magic,
but by creating social habits and institutions: the cause of a
well-organized industry when it is not improved from without must
always be an appropriate disposition of the industrious classes, yet
it is not the less true that the happiness of the labourers results
immediately from the beneficial organization. Hence it appears that
the institution which it is proposed to extend has been already
tried and has succeeded admirably.
As to the effect of peasant proprietorship on Irish population,
there is every reason to believe that the class of people whom we
are now concerned with practise no prudential restraint whatever,
and there can therefore be no reason for saying that any new system
will be productive of increased improvidence. It has also been shown
that Mr. Mill has ground for saying that, against over-population,
peasant proprietorship is the best preservative yet known. But,
besides these two weighty considerations, there is reason to prefer
this system to that of hired labourers, because Government may lay
down rules to preserve the integrity of properties, and these rules
may act as a check on population over and above the natural effects
of peasant proprietorship. These rules should be enforced because "brute
custom" is of great force in matters of population, and habits
of improvidence cannot be suddenly eradicated. But on the opposite
plan of replacing the cottiers by hired labourers, no check at all
would be put to the increase of population; the labourers would be
abandoned entirely to their own control, and as they most likely
would not become a saving class, they would in all likelihood soon
be no better off than at present, although we grant the false
assumption that their condition would for a brief period be
improved. On this account therefore we should hold that, whether or
not the nominal proprietorship should be reserved for the
government, it would be certainly advisable to keep a watch over the
subdivision of properties exactly as is now done by the more
intelligent and respectable of Irish landlords.
These arguments are, it is obvious, quite independent of any
opinion on the intrinsic merits of the small system of cultivation.
All that it is necessary to show for our present purpose is, that
there is no such enormous evil in the small system of cultivation as
to overbalance that good which we hope would accrue from the
institution of peasant proprietorship. Mr. Mill's judgment seems,
however, to us so admirable on this point, that we will sum it up
and present it entire to our readers; a study of it will serve to
remove from the minds of many economists those opinions which, where
they are not mere prejudices, are conclusions drawn from a very
limited and exceptional experience. Mr. Mill's conclusions are, that
the small system is a social nuisance when the rent is unfixed, and
can be raised in consequence of the improvement of the property, and
that it does more harm than good when the properties are too small
to employ the whole time of the proprietor and those dependent on
him; when the property is too small to give the owner a full
security against any probable accidents of crop: and also that this
system wastes much time when the properties do not lie in one place,
but are divided into smaller holdings, between which the tenant has
often to go to and fro. Also that in the case of crops not requiring
very minute attention, the same labourer will extract from the same
land a greater return under the large system of cultivation, but
that the small system will yield a larger gross produce than the
large to the same number of hands employed, because of the greater
industry and forethought which are developed in the minds of the
peasant proprietors by the certain hope of enjoying the fruits of
their own labour.
It is a consequence of this last proposition that the surplus
produce available for supporting a non-agricultural population will
be greater under a system of peasant proprietor than under any
system of large farms on which the hired labourers are equally well
fed. It is out of this surplus that all the most valuable portions
of the community -- all those whose trade it is to instruct, govern
and educate the community -- are for the most part subsisted. When
therefore the agricultural population have a fair share of comfort,
this surplus is the real test of the advantages or disadvantages
accruing from any agricultural system; but in any other case it is
no test at all. There is no advantage but much evil in giving the
labourers (as is done in Somersetshire(3*) and Wiltshire) less food
than will keep men in full working condition, in order that a large
surplus may be left to support nonagricultural classes. Large masses
of men are always degraded morally by extreme physical suffering. In
matter of fact, a large portion of this surplus is expended on the
producers of luxuries and on those non-productive classes who do
nothing either for the wealth or the improvement of the community,
and it is preposterous to benefit these at the expense of a more
useful class. But even if the whole surplus were expended on the
educators of the community it would be no adequate compensation for
the moral degradation of a large portion of those who are to be
educated. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox which treadeth out the
corn" is the true rule of Economics, and it is disgraceful that
thinkers enough are found to hold and imply, if not in terms to
state, a different doctrine.
On the whole, therefore, there is no ground for universally
preferring the large system of cultivation, which, indeed, appears
to be more beneficial only where it is necessary to enforce the
utmost economy of labour. There is therefore no objection arising
from the theory of agriculture against introducing the small system
into Ireland. We have advanced strong positive reasons almost wholly
derived from Mr. Mill's work, for recommending their immediate
introduction: we have only to add on this point, that if the waste
lands should prove insufficient to provide for the whole of the
cottier population, Mr. Mill would turn their present holdings,
under proper restrictions as to size, into farms, at a fair
quit-rent, tendering of course to the proprietors of the soil the
fair market-value of the land; a measure which assumes no more
powers over the soil than an ordinary railway bill, and which is
certainly justifiable if experience should prove it to be necessary.
Such is Mr. Mill's remedy for Ireland. For England he has two
remedies: one, which we will mention first, is designed to modify
the intense and angry feeling of competition between labourers and
capitalists that is observable at present. This is the scheme which
was first recommended for general adoption by Mr. Babbage, and
which, according to Mr. Mill, has been tried with excellent results
both in America and in France, and also in this country for a long
time past, in the Northern Whale Fisheries and the Cornish Mines. It
essentially consists in making the workman the partner of the
capitalist: in other words, it is proposed to pay them not a fixed
salary, but a proportion of the profits. We need not here dwell much
on the merits of this scheme, because it was not long since
discussed in this Review by one more competent to the task. Its
merit chiefly consists in giving the labourers an interest in the
success of their work. From this it would ensue that industry would
be stimulated and the gross produce be augmented both of manufacture
and agriculture. A good feeling between labourers and capitalist
would also facilitate all productive operations: and on this account
there is every reason to believe that the adoption of this plan
would raise to some extent the remuneration of labour, because the
fund out of which labourers are paid would be greater than under the
present system. But it is not in the least likely that this
alteration in the mode of paying wages would in itself be adequate
to meet the present difficulty. It may be doubted whether a plan
could not be devised as a development of this scheme for combining
the advantages both of the large and the small systems of
cultivation, and also for making the condition of children as
exclusively dependent on the actions of their parents, as is the
case with the children of peasant proprietors. But whether this be
so or not, it is clear the present rate of wages is too low to be
sufficiently raised by any improvement in the mechanism of
distributing. The additional amount produced would be quite
insufficient to effect so great a change as is necessary.
Mr. Mill has therefore provided another scheme more capable of
producing great and immediate effect. This remedy is a large scheme
of Emigration. He recommends the transplantation of a number of
labourers large enough to change the standard of comfort in which
the remainder would live, and in which the next generation would be
habitually reared. This plan is not to be confounded with that
recommended by the Times newspaper, and extensively countenanced by
many influential persons. This latter scheme apparently contemplates
an annual emigration as a permanent outlet for the overflow of the
population. This latter will not remedy the present state of the
lower classes, though it might keep one which was already good from
any deterioration. Mr. Mill's scheme, on the other hand, is designed
for the elevation of the lower orders as a whole. It will be evident
that we are in consistency bound to maintain that no objections from
the theory of population could be raised to this scheme, because we
have laid down that large alterations in the standard of comfort
generally raise what has been called the moral minimum of wages.
The only other important difficulty likely to be started is the
expense, and this Mr. Mill has a theory to encounter. He remarks
that it is of no consequence that taxation entrench on the capital
of a country, if the capital appropriated by Government were about
to expatriate itself on account of a prevailing low rate of profit.
If Government borrow the money, the process is that the coming of a
new trustworthy borrower into the market raises the rate of interest
and keeps capital at home. If the amount is raised by taxation, the
effect is, that a certain portion of capital which was on its way to
the loan-market, and from thence to foreign countries, is
intercepted by the Government, and transferred to purposes of a
national instead of an individual utility. In the case of England
this argument certainly applies. It is a fact of experience, that
when the interest of money(4*) is two per cent., capital habitually
emigrates, or, what is here the same thing, is wasted on foolish
speculations, which never yield any adequate return. It would
clearly be no national loss if this capital were appropriated by the
Government for national purposes: the best mode, perhaps, being to
take it direct from capital on a terminable annuity of thirty years'
duration. So that Mr. Mill has clearly answered those Economists and
Manchester manufacturers who exclaim against entrenching on the
National Capital for any purposes, however philanthropic. He has
shown, by an argument which is so obvious when seen, as to disguise
the merit of seeing it, that there exists an ample fund out of which
all the higher interests of state can be satisfied, without
diminishing the permanent opulence of the country. Nor is there any
service so much needed from a political philosopher at the present
time.
This argument, though weighty as it stands, cannot be fully
appreciated, except by taking into account one or two general
circumstances affecting the rate of profit, the consideration of
which we accordingly postponed until the present time. The first of
these propositions is, that an unlimited amount of capital cannot be
employed in an old country without a diminution of the rate of
profit. It has been shown that an increase of co-operative capital
is of necessity accompanied by some increase of remunerative,
because machinery cannot be worked without manual labour, and the
extra demand for labour will require more funds to compensate for
its exertion. But a large portion of remunerative capital consists
of food, which as we have seen requires the application of capital
to land under circumstances which in any fixed condition of the
productive arts reduce the rate of return in proportion as the
capital expended is from time to time augmented. The price of corn
therefore rises, and it may be assumed that either the physical
minimum of wages exists and must be maintained, or that the moral
minimum exists and will be maintained. In either of these cases, the
moneywages of labour must rise or the real remuneration of labour
will fall off. Moreover, it is clear that if money-wages rise, and
the price of commodities do not rise also, profits must fall. The
capitalist has more to pay for getting his work done, and he has
also less for himself in consequence. That prices cannot rise is
clear, because the cause here assigned acts, with an exception, here
unimportant, equally on all employments. If money were produced in
the country, the wages of the miners would rise, as well as the
wages of other labourers, or the same cause which is supposed to
operate to raise the value of commodities, as compared with money,
is equally operative to raise the value of money as compared with
commodities. It is obvious that no circumstance can change the
relative value of the two commodities which affects equally the
supply of both, and does not at all affect the demand for either.
Therefore with an increase of capital, it is proved that there
must be an increase of food; that an increase of food is most
frequently accompanied by an increased cost of handwork,(5*) and
that an increased outlay on manual labour will be accompanied by a
diminution of profit.
This assumes, that the industrial arts undergo no improvement
sufficient to compensate for the inferior return from poorer soils,
and to prevent the price of food from rising. Mr. Mill is of
opinion, that in general the progress of industrial improvement is a
less powerful force than the necessity of resorting to inferior
land. The price of food from century to century is the obvious
criterion of this fact, if only money be of an unaltered cost.
Taking into account any deranging circumstances affecting the rate
of wages, it is also clear that the history of the rate of interest
will be an adequate indication of the force respectively exerted by
each of these two antagonistic agencies. The history of the rate of
interest in England has yet to be written, and therefore we cannot
find any complete test, by which to discover the relative progress
of these two forces. Few subjects so interesting to a philosopher,
yet remain so thoroughly uninvestigated.
The obvious bearing of this theory on the Emigration of capital
is, that since the rate of profit is being gradually lowered in an
old country, sometimes it will come to a point at which persons will
rather seek a higher rate abroad. There is always a certain minimum
rate for anything below which persons will not think it worth while
to accumulate. That minimum varies indeed with the habits of a
people, yet in any one generation there is a point beyond which it
will not go; and there is obviously a minimum beyond which it will
not go at all. In an old country like England this minimum rate will
not bear much reduction, and therefore we must contentedly look for
the emigration of capital, and, what is worse to the world, though
nationally the same, its destruction by foolish speculations, of
which commercial crises are the inevitable results.
Hence it is clear that there will be in this country, for many
years, a fund from which the higher purposes of Government may be
achieved without entrenching on the support of the labouring people
or the real opulence of the nation. In reference to the Emigration
scheme, it may be said, that the effect of Government interference
simply is to determine, that capital, which was going to leave the
country, shall go to that particular foreign country, to which the
labourer has been removed. It was before fixed that capital should
emigrate: the direction of that migration is settled by the
operations of Government. On such grounds as these, therefore, Mr.
Mill contends that his scheme if adopted is in the highest degree
beneficial. It is greatly preferable to any that we have ever seen
proposed for remedying the economical wants of the lower classes:
and its adoption is in our judgment the very best measure open to
the selection of an English Government. To us it seems the best
attainable means of attaining a necessary condition of all future
social improvement.
We have now arrived at the end of our long labour. We have
discussed the circumstances now affecting the condition of the
labouring classes, and also the schemes proposed for their
advantage. Of Mr. Mill's speculations on this subject we have shown
ourselves no lukewarm admirers. And on this account we are at
liberty to say that his chapter on the future condition of the
labouring classes very much disappointed us. The lower orders are
there treated as if they were beings of pure intellect. We do not
for a moment deny that it is of great consequence to give the
working classes intellectual cultivation, and to develop in their
minds a relish for intellectual pleasures, yet we also think that
the peculiar qualities of Mr. Mill's mind have led him to assign to
such considerations a space out of proportion to their importance.
The most important matters for the labouring classes, as for all
others, are restraining discipline over their passions and an
effectual culture of their consciences. In recent times these wants
are more pressing than ever. Great towns are depots of temptation,
and, unless care be taken, corrupters of all deep moral feeling. The
passions also act with more violence than elsewhere in the intervals
of a monotonous occupation, and owing to the increasing division of
labour the industrial tasks of mankind are every day becoming more
and more monotonous. To these considerations Mr. Mill has not
alluded, nor has he enlarged on the dangers of that union between
democracy and low wages which in our view make his plans for the
elevation of the populace of such urgent and practical interest. If
Mr. Mill had been a mere political economist, no blame would have
attached to him. But he considers, beside the abstract and isolated
consequences of the more desire for wealth, the application also of
these consequences, with all necessary corrections, to the real
world of human action. He was therefore bound to have noticed the
deeper considerations we have named, and to have neglected to notice
them is an omission not less unpleasing because decidedly congenial
to a purely intellectual and secular thinker.
And now as we are in the act of concluding our remarks on this
admirable work, it is full time to mention what is perhaps its most
peculiar merit. It has been well remarked that a writer on detached
points in a science need only show his reader where he has
succeeded: the author of a systematic treatise must also show them
where he has failed. The latter must follow the course of his
subject, though it lead him to problems which he fails to solve --
the former by selecting his favourite points may easily conceal from
his readers that he has ever been vanquished at all. The most
appropriate praise to this work is, that it evades no difficulty,
and of the problems which occur solves rightly a proportion, on its
peculiar subject, beyond all precedent large. No doubt a severe
judge will decide that this book is far from perfect. He will we
think find there some indistinctness of expression and some
diffusehess of explanation, an occasional dogmatism where there is
ground for doubt, an excessive averseness to subtle speculation, and
a defective appreciation of some moral and religious considerations.
But after all abatements have been made, the severest judge will
unhestitatingly pronounce that though there have been in England
many acute speculators who have by their economical writings gained
much credit in their day and generation, three men only have by such
means attained permanent rank among the great thinkers of their
country, and that these three are Adam Smith, Ricardo, and John
Mill.
NOTES:
- This was the original
Malthusian doctrine, though its author much modified it in the
later editions of the Essay on Population. Ricardo,
however, who thought himself a Malthusian, asserts it in terms (Works,
p. 248, Ed. M'Culloch), and everywhere tacitly or avowedly reasons
on the assumption of it.
- The exact numbers are: --
* Cultivable. Fit for pasture.
....Leinster 186,000 345,000
....Ulster 419,000 629,000
....Cormaught 430,000 726,000
....Munster 390,000 - 630,000
....Total 1,425,000 - 2,330,000
This is not the calculation of a theorist; but the estimate of
Mr. Griffith, the land-valuer for the Irish land-tax; who is not
in any way pledged to the waste land scheme. The figures are given
in the report of Lord Devon's commission.
- Mr. Thornton, the best
authority on the subject, states that recruiting-sergeants find a
marked difference of muscular strength between the south-west of
England and the better-fed counties of the north and east. (Over-population,
p. 24.)
- See Fullerton on the Currency,
p. 161.
- What we call in the text the
art of work or handwork, is usually called the cost of labour; but
this phrase expresses naturally the rate of a labourer's wages per
diem. The only use of a special phrase is to mark that the
labourer is concerned with what he gets as pay for a given
exertion during a given time, i.e., his wages: and that the
capitalist is concerned with the result of that exertion, i.e.,
the work done. The common phrase seems to us to fail signally in
working out this distinction.
Return
to Part One