Part 12 (1/2)
But what can be done for them? Who can clothe--who teach--who restrain their mult.i.tudes? What end can there be for them at last, but to consume one another?
I hope for another end, though not, indeed, from any of the three remedies for over-population commonly suggested by economists.
These three are, in brief--Colonization; Bringing in of waste lands; or Discouragement of Marriage.
The first and second of these expedients merely evade or delay the question. It will, indeed, be long before the world has been all colonized, and its deserts all brought under cultivation. But the radical question is not how much habitable land is in the world, but how many human beings ought to be maintained on a given s.p.a.ce of habitable land.
Observe, I say, _ought_ to be, not how many _can_ be. Ricardo, with his usual inaccuracy, defines what he calls the ”natural rate of wages” as ”that which will maintain the labourer.” Maintain him! yes; but how?--the question was instantly thus asked of me by a working girl, to whom I read the pa.s.sage. I will amplify her question for her.
”Maintain him, how?” As, first, to what length of life? Out of a given number of fed persons how many are to be old--how many young; that is to say, will you arrange their maintenance so as to kill them early--say at thirty or thirty-five on the average, including deaths of weakly or ill-fed children?--or so as to enable them to live out a natural life? You will feed a greater number, in the first case,[64]
by rapidity of succession; probably a happier number in the second: which does Mr. Ricardo mean to be their natural state, and to which state belongs the natural rate of wages?
[64] The quant.i.ty of life is the same in both cases; but it is differently allotted.
Again: A piece of land which will only support ten idle, ignorant, and improvident persons, will support thirty or forty intelligent and industrious ones. Which of these is their natural state, and to which of them belongs the natural rate of wages?
Again: If a piece of land support forty persons in industrious ignorance; and if, tired of this ignorance, they set apart ten of their number to study the properties of cones, and the sizes of stars; the labour of these ten, being withdrawn from the ground, must either tend to the increase of food in some transitional manner, or the persons set apart for sidereal and conic purposes must starve, or some one else starve instead of them. What is, therefore, the natural rate of wages of the scientific persons, and how does this rate relate to, or measure, their reverted or transitional productiveness?
Again: If the ground maintains, at first, forty labourers in a peaceable and pious state of mind, but they become in a few years so quarrelsome and impious that they have to set apart five, to meditate upon and settle their disputes; ten, armed to the teeth with costly instruments, to enforce the decisions; and five to remind everybody in an eloquent manner of the existence of a G.o.d;--what will be the result upon the general power of production, and what is the ”natural rate of wages” of the meditative, muscular, and oracular labourers?
Leaving these questions to be discussed, or waived, at their pleasure, by Mr. Ricardo's followers, I proceed to state the main facts bearing on that probable future of the labouring cla.s.ses which has been partially glanced at by Mr. Mill. That chapter and the preceding one differ from the common writing of political economists in admitting some value in the aspect of nature, and expressing regret at the probability of the destruction of natural scenery. But we may spare our anxieties, on this head. Men can neither drink steam, nor eat stone. The maximum of population on a given s.p.a.ce of land implies also the relative maximum of edible vegetable, whether for men or cattle; it implies a maximum of pure air; and of pure water. Therefore: a maximum of wood, to trans.m.u.te the air, and of sloping ground, protected by herbage from the extreme heat of the sun, to feed the streams. All England may, if it so chooses, become one manufacturing town; and Englishmen, sacrificing themselves to the good of general humanity, may live diminished lives in the midst of noise, of darkness, and of deadly exhalation. But the world cannot become a factory, nor a mine. No amount of ingenuity will ever make iron digestible by the million, nor subst.i.tute hydrogen for wine. Neither the avarice nor the rage of men will ever feed them, and however the apple of Sodom and the grape of Gomorrah may spread their table for a time with dainties of ashes, and nectar of asps,--so long as men live by bread, the far away valleys must laugh as they are covered with the gold of G.o.d, and the shouts of His happy mult.i.tudes ring round the winepress and the well.
Nor need our more sentimental economists fear the too wide spread of the formalities of a mechanical agriculture. The presence of a wise population implies the search for felicity as well as for food; nor can any population reach its maximum but through that wisdom which ”rejoices” in the habitable parts of the earth. The desert has its appointed place and work; the eternal engine, whose beam is the earth's axle, whose beat is its year, and whose breath is its ocean, will still divide imperiously to their desert kingdoms, bound with unfurrowable rock, and swept by unarrested sand, their powers of frost and fire: but the zones and lands between, habitable, will be loveliest in habitation. The desire of the heart is also the light of the eyes. No scene is continually and untiringly loved, but one rich by joyful human labour; smooth in field; fair in garden; full in orchard; trim, sweet, and frequent in homestead; ringing with voices of vivid existence. No air is sweet that is silent; it is only sweet when full of low currents of under sound--triplets of birds, and murmur and chirp of insects, and deep-toned words of men, and wayward trebles of childhood. As the art of life is learned, it will be found at last that all lovely things are also necessary:--the wild flower by the wayside, as well as the tended corn; and the wild birds and creatures of the forest, as well as the tended cattle; because man doth not live by bread only, but also by the desert manna; by every wondrous word and unknowable work of G.o.d. Happy, in that he knew them not, nor did his fathers know; and that round about him reaches yet into the infinite, the amazement of his existence.
Note, finally, that all effectual advancement towards this true felicity of the human race must be by individual, not public effort.
Certain general measures may aid, certain revised laws guide, such advancement; but the measure and law which have first to be determined are those of each man's home. We continually hear it recommended by sagacious people to complaining neighbours (usually less well placed in the world than themselves), that they should ”remain content in the station in which Providence has placed them.” There are perhaps some circ.u.mstances of life in which Providence has no intention that people _should_ be content. Nevertheless, the maxim is on the whole a good one; but it is peculiarly for home use. That your neighbour should, or should not, remain content with _his_ position, is not your business; but it is very much your business to remain content with your own.
What is chiefly needed in England at the present day is to show the quant.i.ty of pleasure that may be obtained by a consistent, well-administered competence, modest, confessed, and laborious. We need examples of people who, leaving Heaven to decide whether they are to rise in the world, decide for themselves that they will be happy in it, and have resolved to seek--not greater wealth, but simpler pleasure; not higher fortune, but deeper felicity; making the first of possessions, self-possession; and honouring themselves in the harmless pride and calm pursuits of peace.
Of which lowly peace it is written that ”justice and peace have kissed each other;” and that the fruit of justice is ”sown in peace of them that make peace”; not ”peace-makers” in the common understanding--reconcilers of quarrels; (though that function also follows on the greater one;) but peace-Creators; Givers of Calm. Which you cannot give, unless you first gain; nor is this gain one which will follow a.s.suredly on any course of business, commonly so called.
No form of gain is less probable, business being (as is shown in the language of all nations--[Greek: polein] from [Greek: pelo], [Greek: prasis] from [Greek: perao], venire, vendre, and venal, from venio, etc.) essentially restless--and probably contentious;--having a raven-like mind to the motion to and fro, as to the carrion food; whereas the olive-feeding and bearing birds look for rest for their feet: thus it is said of Wisdom that she ”hath builded her house, and hewn out her seven pillars;” and even when, though apt to wait long at the doorposts, she has to leave her house and go abroad, her paths are peace also.
For us, at all events, her work must begin at the entry of the doors: all true economy is ”Law of the house.” Strive to make that law strict, simple, generous: waste nothing, and grudge nothing. Care in nowise to make more of money, but care to make much of it; remembering always the great, palpable, inevitable fact--the rule and root of all economy--that what one person has, another cannot have; and that every atom of substance, of whatever kind, used or consumed, is so much human life spent; which, if it issue in the saving present life, or gaining more, is well spent, but if not, is either so much life prevented, or so much slain. In all buying, consider, first, what condition of existence you cause in the producers of what you buy; secondly, whether the sum you have paid is just to the producer, and in due proportion lodged in his hands;[65] thirdly, to how much clear use, for food, knowledge, or joy, this that you have bought can be put; and fourthly, to whom and in what way it can be most speedily and serviceably distributed: in all dealings whatsoever insisting on entire openness and stern fulfilment; and in all doings, on perfection and loveliness of accomplishment; especially on fineness and purity of all marketable commodity: watching at the same time for all ways of gaining, or teaching, powers of simple pleasure; and of showing ”hoson en asphodelph geg honeiar”--the sum of enjoyment depending not on the quant.i.ty of things tasted, but on the vivacity and patience of taste.
[65] The proper offices of middlemen, namely, overseers (or authoritative workmen), conveyancers (merchants, sailors, retail dealers, etc.), and order-takers (persons employed to receive directions from the consumer), must, of course, be examined before I can enter farther into the question of just payment of the first producer. But I have not spoken of them in these introductory papers, because the evils attendant on the abuse of such intermediate functions result not from any alleged principle of modern political economy, but from private carelessness or iniquity.
And if, on due and honest thought over these things, it seems that the kind of existence to which men are now summoned by every plea of pity and claim of right, may, for some time at least, not be a luxurious one:--consider whether, even, supposing it guiltless, luxury would be desired by any of us, if we saw clearly at our sides the suffering which accompanies it in the world. Luxury is indeed possible in the future--innocent and exquisite: luxury for all, and by the help of all; but luxury at present can only be enjoyed by the ignorant; the cruelest man living could not sit at his feast, unless he sat blindfold. Raise the veil boldly; face the light; and if, as yet, the light of the eye can only be through tears, and the light of the body through sackcloth, go thou forth weeping, bearing precious seed, until the time come, and the kingdom, when Christ's gift of bread, and bequest of peace shall be Unto this last as unto thee; and when, for earth's severed mult.i.tudes of the wicked and the weary, there shall be holier reconciliation than that of the narrow home, and calm economy, where the Wicked cease--not from trouble, but from troubling--and the Weary are at rest.
ESSAYS ON POLITICAL ECONOMY:
CONTRIBUTED TO ”FRASER'S MAGAZINE” IN 1862 AND 1863, BEING A SEQUEL TO PAPERS WHICH APPEARED IN THE ”CORNHILL MAGAZINE,” UNDER THE t.i.tLE OF ”UNTO THIS LAST.”
I.
MAINTENANCE OF LIFE; WEALTH, MONEY, AND RICHES.
As domestic economy regulates the acts and habits of a household, political economy regulates those of a society or State, with reference to its maintenance.