Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/christiancommonwOOmorgrich [TJ1TI7EESITY] THE CHRISTIAI COMMOmEALTH. " AND IF IT BEEM EVIL UNTO YOU TO SEllVE TRE LORD, CHOOSE TOU THIS DAT WHOM YE WILL SERVE ; TVHETHER THE GODS WHICH YOUR FATHERS SERVED THAT WERE ON THE OTHER BIDE OF THE FLOOD, OR THE GODS OF THE ASIORITES, IN WHOSE LAND YE T " ' TIFr 'i W' '^^ -^ND MY HOUSK WE WILL SERVE ! TO WHICH IS ADDED, Alt INQUIRY RESPECTING PRIVATE PROPERTY, A?fB THE AUTHORITY AND PERPETUITY OF THE APOSTOLIC INSTITUTION OF A COMMUNITY OF GOODS. From a Periodical of 1827. LONDON: LONGMAN, BROWN, GREEN, AND LONGMANS. I MDCCCXLIX. iLonUoti : ^tintcD 6j? ^ttUt. ©uff. and Co. Otrane Qtonti, SFlnt ^txtti. THE IHGHT nO>'OrRA.BLE LORD ASHLEY, THE COySTAKT A>'D PERSEVERING FRIEND OF THE PEOPLE, -iND THE UNWEARIED PROTECTOR OF THEIR CHILDREN, THIS ADVOCACY OF MEABUKE8 IN FURTHERxVNCE OF HIS GREAT AND NOBLE OBJECTS, AND OP PRACTICAL CHRISTIANITY, IS, "WITH HIS lordship's PERMISSION, RESPECTFULLY DEDICATED, BY Ills MOST OBEDIENT SERVANT, TIIE AUTHOR. COTS Q;T3 Jz; -d « § «3 O g"&2 -< £ SJ5 O ts "^ ~ .. c •« "^ O ^ r--* ;^ « « C S t^ f- rg« 7-r-\ 5i — • H := ^ o c" rt 0) c a> O f^ t/D gj ^ o) eS 0) ^ Stills 5 o 3 e3 ^ ^5 S!''^:!^! ale c! OJ 00 ^ S^ O D.£ ^ ^ C I p..^ ^ ^ o a i s ° ^^ ^ ai .2 OQ :S "-• <^ o S5 UTS O g ^>2 c 2 ^ C O-CXl •-IT3 -^ S g °° , S.S<1 2 >• 2 ,», « a **- 5 _ 3 u „, bB*^ 3 iS-S •" 3 pq -»-» 2 .. - bi5 ^ a O 3 *^ OP THE [UNIVBESITY) THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. Qu'en revanche il eclate quelque part un grand develop- pement d'inteUigence, et qu'aucun progres social n'y paraisse attache, on s'etonne, on s'inquiete. II semble qu'on voie un bel arbre qui ne porte pas de fruits, un soleil qui n^echauffe pas, qui ne feconde -psiS.—Guizot. Tempore crevit amor, qui nunc est summus habendi ; Vix ultra, quo jam progrediatur, habet. That in the richest, most powerful, and extensive empire in the world — the most advanced in the pursuits of literature and philosophy, and in the culture of the arts and sciences — pre-eminently distinguished for the piety and benevolence of its ministers of religion, and for the zeal and number of its holy band of missionaries — spreading Bibles and Tracts innumerable in all countries, and pro- claiming the glad tidings of the Gospel even in the remotest comers of the globe, — that in such a country, and in the nineteenth century, an attempt should be made to describe the principles and ^ THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. practices of a Christian Commoiiwealtli, iniglit seem to demand no ordinary apology. That apology will be found in the extreme poverty, severe sufferings, demoralisation, and ap- palling misery extensively prevailing, and too well authenticated in the voluminous Eeports of Parlia- ment. To some deeply-seated and widely-extended errors alone can such an extraordinary anomaly be traced. To combat error, when it could be dissipated simply by the promulgation of its opposite truth, is often a needless, protracted, and painful war- fare ; but there may be occasions when no alter- native is left — when, for instance, endeavours are made, not to announce recently-discovered truths, but to awaken attention to those which are admitted ^^ to be so true that they lie dormant in the understanding along with the most despised and exploded errors :" — ^when such truths are repeated by rote in our youthful lessons — formally uttered in our Church Service and in the perfomi- ance of sacred rites, unheeded in the prayers preceding the deliberations of the Senate, and when offered up on the most solemn occasions — their reiteration, under ordinary circumstances, would be considered so common-place and puerile as to excite a smile of surprise, or pass unnoticed. When, however, endeavours are made to THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 8 expose the fallacy of incongruous systems, formed in utter disregard of these important but neglected truths ; the authors and votaries of such systems, jealous of their own reputation and judgment, may be eager to defend them, and the public attention be at length aroused to inquiries of vital interest to the general welfare. Of all the prejudices that obstruct the percep- tion of moral truth and the laws of justice, by far the most influential and most widely extended are those which originate in the modern school of political economy — perplexing our codes of morals, occasioning false views of religion, and para- lysing the efforts of statesmen at a period when there is the greatest need of energy and wisdom in the councils of a nation saturated with wealth, yet contending with all the evils of poverty. While errors, fatal to all real improvement, are promulgated as incontrovertible truths from the Professors' Chairs of Oxford and Cambridge, and of all the Universities, and advocated by a numerous Club, of which the most active men of the two great political parties are members ; who shall presume to question the validity of their dicta ? and accordingly Christianity has only to mourn over the fate of little children, when the Legislature gravely decides, that unless — immured in unhealthy manufactories — their wearisome toil 4 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. should extend to less than twelve hours in the day, the greatness and the glory of the country must depart.* From such a decision the common sense of mankind revolts, and it is time that the preten- sions of a system, for which its authors and expounders claim the dignity of science, should be brought to the test of a stricter scrutiny. • Notwithstanding it ranks among its supporters distinguished living authorities, names for their refutation — if truth needed extraneous aid — could be referred to, among the illustrious dead, of those who have contended for higher principles, whose character for ej'udition and genius have passed the ordeal of ages, and for whom, probably, neither among the ancients nor the moderns, could any compeers be found. Adam Smith is the acknowledged founder of * " My noble friend^s proposition would be ruinous to the interests of the working* classes, and fatal to our commercial prosperity." " The ruin of the country may be the speedy result of a wrong" decision." — Sir James Graham, March 15 and 18, 1844, on Lord Ashley's motion for limiting the hours of working" in manufactories to ten hours for children. Lord Brougham, in his speech on the same question, March 25, 1844, remarked : " He could now clearly state, and predict to their lordships what the question in future would be, namely, whether ten hours' work was to be paid for by twelve hours' wages ? If such a principle were adopted, away at once would go the profits of the manufacturers." THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. O the modern school, and the following eulogium is pronounced by the most voluminous and able, as well as the most eloquent writer on political economy of the present day, and one whose authority on the subject is more frequently quoted than that of any other author : — " At length, in 1776, our illustrious countryman, Adam Smith, published the ^Wealth of Nations,' a work which has done for political economy what the Essay of Locke did for the philosophy of the mind. In this work the science was, for the first time, treated in its fullest extent; and the fundamental principles, on which the production of wealth depend, placed beyond the reach of cavil and dispute. In opposition to the French economists, Dr. Smith has shown that labour is the only source of wealth, and that the wish to aug- ment our fortune, and to rise in the world — a wish that comes to us fi^om the womb, and never leaves us till we go into the grave — is the cause of wealth being saved and accumulated. He has shown that labour is pro- ductive of wealth when employed in manufactures and commerce, as well as when it is employed in the culti- vation of the land. He has traced the various means by which labour may be rendered most effective ; and has given a most admirable analysis and exposition of the prodigious addition made to its power by its divi- sion among difierent individuals, and by the employ- ment of accumulated wealth or capital in industrious undertakings. He has shown that wealth does not consist in the abundance of gold and silver, but in the abundance of the various necessaries, conveniences, and enjoyments of human hfe. He has shown that it B 2 6 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. is in every case sound policy to leave individuals to pursue their own interests in their own way 5 that, in prosecuting branches of industry advantageous to them selves, necessarily they prosecute such as are, at the same time, advantageous to the puhHc." — McCullocKs Principles of Political Economy, p. 52. The truths enunciated in the foregoing passage were familiarly known to reflecting men long before the days of Adam Smith ; the errors may be obviously traced to that confined view of human nature, excluding its susceptibility of great im- provement from early and consistent training : even without that superior training which could now be adopted, there are not wanting numerous instances of tribes and nations diligent in their pursuits, where the desire of accumulation or of individual distinction was unknovni. That labour was the source of wealth, as well when applied to manufactures as to land, and that division of labour facilitated and increased pro- duction, were surely no new discoveries. By divorcing political economy from higher objects, an undue and exclusive importance has been given to the principle of the division of labour, virtually sanctioning its unrelenting application to the creation of wealth, regardless of the sufieringa of the producers, and actually diminishing the amount of wealth produced. The following was extracted from a periodical a few years back. THE CHBISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 7 and the facts may still be the same, if we except the limitation of the hours : — " In Warrington there is a pin manufactory, in which there are fifteen frames for heading". At each frame four persons, chiefly childi^en, are employed, in a sitting" posture ; the right hand is used in placing the pin under the hammer, and the left in taking it away, while the foot works the treddle which lifts the weight, about fourteen pounds. In this occupation the poor creatures are kept from six in the morning till half-past eight or nine at night ; and they are not allowed to speak to each other, or to withdraw their eyes from their work. Some of these young slaves are under eight, and others under seven years of age." Although the pin manufacturer can cast off the poor cripple, the sickly child, and the work- man worn out or overtaken by premature old age, and employ, in succession, the very ilite of the muscle and sinew of human nature, for which, paying miserable wages, he is enabled to sell his pins cheaper, yet his gain is a loss to the com- munity: the public is compelled to support the rejected, who, having ceased to be producers, are doubly a loss in estimating the national wealth. Of the great and unqualified advantages to be derived from a division of labour under judicious and benevolent guidance, no one can doubt ; but without due regulation its evils are not confined to the bodily sufferings of the people, but extend O THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. to the intellectual faculties of the educated classes ; the reasoning powers become contracted by an undivided attention to one subject only, and unable to grasp more comprehensive questions. The exclusive attention which the oculist, the dentist, and the aurist, give to their respective objects, leads to more accurate information than could be obtained formerly when several pro- fessions were followed by the same individual — when the duties of the cupper and the dentist were blended with those of the village hair- dresser ; when ecclesiastics headed armies, or sat upon the wool-sack; but with the division and sub-division of mental pursuits, we have failed in our systems of education to strengthen and enlarge the mind, by laying a broad and solid foundation in the rudiments of general knowledge ere pro- fessional studies commenced.* * Wliile these modern minor divisions have increased, there is fortunately an ancient grand division rapidly fading* away, for the distinction id much less marked between the few who were supposed to be born to think only, and the many who were born to labour only ; and it is no long-er doubted that the poor little shivering" child, half starved and in rags, standing* at the corner of a court soliciting* alms, may possess faculties equal to those of the learned professor, whose fallacious theories tend to perpetuate its destitution and misery. " Tis nature's law That none, the meanest of created things. Of forms created the most vile and brute. THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 9 The following remarks on universal Science are applicable to the method of study, and accord with the process of nature ; the child opens its eyes upon all within its horizon, is jSrst interested in individual objects, but fatigued with close attention to details, until peculiar branches of science, for which it has most aptitude, excite a more earnest curiosity, and then analytical inves- tigation is prosecuted with delight : — ^^ But as the divisions of the sciences are not like different lines that meet in one angle, but rather like the brandies of trees that join in one trunk, it is first necessary that we institute a universal science as a parent to the rest, and making a part of the common road to the sciences before the ways separate. And this knowledge we call philosophia prima, it has no other for its opposite, and differs from other sciences rather in the hmits whereby it is confined than in the subject, as treating only the summits of things." — Lord Bacoti, The duUest or most noxious, should exist Divorced from good — a spirit and pulse of good, A life and soul, to every mode of being Inseparably linked. — Then be assured That least of all can aught that ever owned The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime Which man is born to — sink, howe'er depressed. So low as to be scorned without a sin ; Without offence to God cast out of view ; Like the dry remnant of a garden-flower Whose seeds are shed, or as an implement Worn out and worthless." — Wordsworth. 10 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. Those engaged in sedentary employments would not be less skilful in their respective avocations by being daily employed a few hours in the open air in agriculture or any other active pursuit. Nor would the mind of the student be less acute and penetrating in his favourite or professional subject, by that occasional attention to other branches of science, which would enable him to perceive their mutual relations and depen- dencies, and the light they shed upon each other. To those isolated and exclusive ^dews may in some measure be attributed the separation of reformers into three parties — the spiritual, intel- lectual, and physical ; for when not only manual but mental employment has been reduced to those minute sub-divisions, each is studying a small part, to him the all-important, in the complicated structure of society; unmindful of other parts equally essential to perfect organization, and minds, originally the most powerful, become incapacitated for general views, or for a wider range of thought. While plans of reform, by means of churches and schools, have been carried into effect by the respective advocates of religious knowledge and secular instruction, both parties have been too regardless of the physical condition of the people ; this has been left to the tender mercies of political economy, and accordingly, THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 11 along with the most extraordinary efforts to extend religious and general knowledge for the last twenty years, there has been a moral deteriora- tion and a great increase of crime. When man shall be recognised as a compound being, consisting of body as well as soul — when the old maxim of ^^ mens sana in cor pore sano " is fully acted upon, — the necessity of a due consider- tion of all that is essential to religious culture and training, will be better understood. We cannot serve God, in discharging our duties to others, in any other way than by preparing the soil for the seed of his Word : this the Saviour, who could do more, never neglected; while we, who can scarcely do anything besides, hold it in light estimation. When Providence has rewarded scientific researches by the discovery of means to mitigate the severity, and abridge the hours, of human toil, not only is the labour of the artisan, when employment is to be obtained, more unremitting and worse requited, but children of a tender age must be incarcerated from morning to night, to the great injury of their health and morals : and, as if this outrage of nature in the dawn of existence, when the fields should invite them to joyous and beneficial exercise, were not sufficient, it has become necessary that the arm of the law should be outstretched, to rescue the 12 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. innocent victims from still greater rapacity, and the grinding tyranny of competition.* Mr. Travis Twiss, the present professor of political economy at Oxford, appears to move in the same circle as his predecessors, — the two lectures on machinery, delivered during the Lent term, 1844, and since published, so far from suggesting a more humane and enlightened direc- tion of scientific power, are devoted to the contro- versial question of its comparative advantages and disadvantages under the present system of competition. Now the very fact of the value of this power being questionable at all, is a sufficient proof of its misdirection. — Mr. Twiss observes : — " It cannot be doubted, from the various facts which the Factory Commission and other Parliamentary * Nothing' can be more unjust than the practice of party writers, in charging upon the manufacturers themselves the evils inherent in the present mode by which the wants of society are supplied. While competition is the principle adopted, the manufacturer is compelled to employ the cheapest labour ; for if he attempted to pay more than others he would he undersold, and must then either suspend his works or be ruined : besides, among the manufacturers are to be found some of the most enlightened and generous friends of the working* classes, anxiously promoting their comforts and the education of their children. This con- demnation of individuals is as inconsistent as it would be to visit upon military commanders the miseries inflicted by war ; to accuse them of inhumanity, because, in the honour- able discharge of their duties, they lead on men to battle. w:^M ■:€ THE CHRISTIAN C0MM0NWEALTU^< /j ^^^ "^ . Reports have made g-enerallj accessible, that dency of the employment of machinery is not to diminish wag-es, hut on the contrary to augment them, by enabling the operative to produce a greater quantity of work in the same time, and by reducing* the cost of the commodities which he himself consumes." If the inquiry of the Factory Commission was confined to the rate of wages in the factories, their conclusions have no reference to the efifect produced by machinery on the general value of labour in the market. A patentee, and those whom he employs, may be benefited by a monopoly which throws thousands out of employment, and the large capitalist, with improved machinery, is enabled to give good wages, notwithstanding he sells his commodity at a rate so low as to destroy the smaller manufacturer, and deprive immense numbers of their usual occupation ; hence, those only can benefit by a reduction in price who have regular employment. It has been estimated that the additional use of machinery within the last fifty years has been equal to an augmentation in the labour market of several hundred millions of men. Every re- duction in the price of a commodity is pre- ceded by a reduction in the aggregate value of labour, or in the cost of production, which is so much loss to the working men in general, who 14 THE CHEISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. are inadequately compensated by the cheapness of the article. Mr. Porter, in the ^' Progress of the Nation/' calculates that, during twenty-four years of peace, eight hundred millions had been added to the wealth of the country, and yet, during that period, wages, notwithstanding occasional fluctuations, had con- tinued to decline. In contending for the advantages of machinery, without adverting to its concomitant evils, as employed in the service of commerce only, Mr. Travis refers to a passage in the Factory Report, announcing an important discovery by Mr. Senior : — "The general impression on us all as to the effects of factory labour has been unexpectedly favourable. The factory work-people in the country districts are the plumpest, best clothed, and healthiest looking^ persons of the labouring class that I have ever seen. The girls, especially, are far more good-looking (and good looks are fair evidence of health and spirits) than the daughters of agricultural labourers." Mr. Senior is here writing in discharge of a special duty as one of the Commissioners, but the introduction of this passage into a lecture delivered before those who may be the future Legislators of the Empire, is not calculated to awaken sympathy for the sufferings of factory THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 15 children, doomed to perpetual imprisonment and wearisome labour. No one can attentively peruse the writings of the Political Economists, without a strong im- pression of their benevolent intentions, but it is the unfortunate tendency of their speculations to confirm the worst errors of society. How much more conducive to the best interests of mankind, if sentiments like the following were fostered and encouraged in the rising generation : — " Telle est d'ailleurs la noble nature de rhumanite, qu'elle ne saurait voir un grand developpement de force materiel! e sans aspirer h la force morale qui doit s'j joindre et la dominer ; quelque chose de subalterne demeure empreint dans le bien-^tre social, tant qu'il n'a pas porte d'autres fruits que le bien-^tre meme, tant qu'il n'a pas eleve Tesprit de Thomme au niveau de sa condition." — GuizoU We have yet to advert to another principle, for the discovery of which Dr. Adam Smith was eulo- gised, and which is not the least favoured by the economists of the present day — the celebrated ^^ Laissez faire' system. In all the great thoroughfares of the metro- polis, in the principal streets, as well as in some of the most obscure, are two or three costly eBtablishments vying in the splendour of their decorations with the temples raised to the worship 16 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. of God ; these magnificent buildings, well warmed and brilliantly lighted up, are singularly attrac- tive to the shivering, half-naked, and starving multitudes, issuing from cold, dark, and wretched apartments in courts and alleys — for to those edifices they crowd, in the hope of finding a short oblivion of their cares in a delusive excitement which only adds to their despair and misery* It is somewhat difficult to understand how the distillers, who ^^ pursue their o^^ti interests in their own way," are '' prosecuting branches of industry advantageous to the public." The same observations will apply to the keepers of gaming- houses and brothels, to the vendors of licentious publications, to all the panders to the vices and follies of mankind. It is said that at Hamburgh the manufacture of cigars is carried on so ex- tensively as to occupy more than 10,000 persons, chiefly women and children. The total number * We are told that, in the Island of Tahiti, the inhabitants became so convinced, from the exhortations of the mission- aries, of the beneficial effects of temperance, that, when the Parliament met, and before the members proceeded to busi- ness, they sent a message to the Queen to know upon what principles they were to act. She returned a copy of the New Testament, saying* : — " Let the principles contained in that book be the foundation of all your proceedings ;" and immediately they enacted a law to prohibit trading with any vessel which brought ardent spirits for sale I THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 17 of cigars manufactured annually is 150,000,000, the value of which is 6,000,000 of marks current, about £350,000 sterling. If the opinion of some of the medical profession is correct, all this labour, as well as the large traffic in opium, so far from being ^' advantageous to the public," is a positive injury. Sir James Graham, in his speech on the Factory Question, March 15th, 1844, bears testimony to the evils of non-interference : — '^ I have been informed that 35,000 children are employed in calico printing; that they are worked without limitation of time ; they begin to labour at six years of age, and they work fifteen hours a-day ; even night labour is not prohibited. So far there- fore from the tendency of legislation being such as has been stated by my noble friend, it has been directly opposite. There has been a congestion of labour where there has been no legislation ; there is a depletion of labour where there has been interference.'' Thirty-five thousand children worked for fifteen hours in the day ! It is im- possible that such an abomination can be ^^ advan- tageous to the public." Competition is a kind of civil war, in which women and children are the first victims, and it is one of the chief causes of national antipathies. Among the losses occasioned by war, there is not one more to be lamented by c 2 18 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. nations than the sacrifice of their most courageous and enterprising men, those who would probably have been the most valuable members of society, and highly distinguished in any other profession in which they had embarked. It was an ordinance of Napoleon, which forbade the surrender of any fortress without having stood at least one assault, and the reason he assigns was as follows : — '^To inflict loss upon an enemy is the very essence of war, and as the bravest men and oflicers will always be foremost in an assault, the loss thus occasioned may be of the utmost importance." Colonel Napier, who, in his ^' History of the Penin- sular War," makes this statement, gives the following description of a melancholy spectacle at the siege of St. Sebastian: — '^The forlorn hope had already passed beyond the play of the mine, and now speeded along the strand amidst a shower of grape and shells ; the leader. Lieutenant Macguire, of the Fourth Eegiment, conspicuous from his long white plume, his fine figure, and his swiftness, bounded far ahead of his men in all the pride of youthful strength and courage, but at the foot of the great breach he fell dead, and the stormers went sweeping like a dark surge over his body." Such are the barbarous conflicts of Christian Europe ! The time cannot be very far distant when man of all ranks will be too enlightened to THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 19 revive the horrors of war, and incur the risk of leaving destitute widows and orphans, in com- pliance with false and irreligious notions of honour; happy would it be for mankind if the influential in all civilised countries were to antici- pate that period by commencing themselves a career of true glory — and, guided by the manifest conservative designs of Providence, instead of applying the principles of science in maldng their engines of destruction more effective and terrible, direct them to the construction of durable works of beneficence for the general good. " Science then Shall be a precious visitant ; and then, And only then, be worthy of her name." Political economists may contend that Adam Smith confined his remarks to commerce and manufactures ; but we reply, that the principle of competition, once publicly sanctioned in any sphere of exertion, must necessarily, in a greater or less degree, influence the whole character of individuals and of nations. The author of the '' Wealth of Nations," as if conscious of the incom- patibility of his economic principles with Christian morality, composed himself a theory of morals more comformable to his political theory, and he thus speaks of war, of which competition is the soul : — 20 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. " To compare the futile mortifications of a monastery to the ennobhng hardships and hazards of war 5 to suppose that one day, or one hour, employed in the former, should, in the eye of the g-reat Judge of the world, have more merit than a whole life spent honourably in the latter, is surely contrary to all our moral sentiments ; to all the principles by which nature has taught us to regulate our contempt or admiration." — A. SmitKs Theory of 3Ioral Sentiments : Sense of Duty. " Another lesson with my manhood came j I have unlearn 'd contempt : it is the sin That is engender 'd earliest in the soul, And doth beset it like a poison worm, Feeding on all its beauty." While the ministers of religion are inculcating the highest motives, the political economists are advocating, or virtually encouraging, the lowest. Hence arises confusion ; in the mind virtue and vice, good and bad, are mingled, and new terms must be invented to express the heterogeneous idea: accordingly, we hear of a ^^ laudable ambi- tion," a ^^ becoming pride," as substitutes for those pure and exalted motives which all the institutions of society should tend to foster and strengthen, if we are really to live under a '' Church and State." If a professor, after propounding a correct and beautiful theory of chemistry, were to proceed to manipulate in direct contravention of the principle he had laid down, great discredit would attach either to himself or his theory. Nor has it been TBE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALS^. 21 sufficiently considered to what extent tlie discre- pancy of sanctioning institutions, opposed to the spirit of religion, generates in the minds of youth either dissent or scepticism ; that it impedes the progress of Christianity in distant lands is evident ; the solitary missionary goes forth to proclaim the glad tidings of the Gospel, and the path is paved with fire and sword, by armed multitudes, for the messenger of peace. The condition of the people is considered sufficiently improved by an extension of manufac- tures, unaccompanied by any evils not susceptible of all the amelioration that can be desired ; hence the factory system, through which tens of thousands of the rising generation are inamured from morning till night in the unhealthy cotton- mill, and doomed, amidst noise and dust, to one unvarying harassing employment, is the acme of their schemes, and free-trade, as a means of ex- tending this system more widely, becomes an increasing object of solicitude. That free-trade would produce a collateral benefit, by amalga- mating the interests of different coimtries, and rendering it as difficult for their rulers to induce or force the people of one nation to slaughter the people of another, as now to excite hostility between neighbouring counties, is highly probable; but the immediate consequences would be to 22 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. consign to the heated, demoralising factory, additional thousands of young persons and little children from the agricultural districts. A purer philosophy has taught that '' the leading feature of a sound state, both of body and mind, is, to desire little and to be satisfied with even less," but the '^leading feature" of the material philosophy is to multiply factitious wants, and in the wild career of society vain and pernicious desires are perpetually encouraged, but never satisfied. Political Economy, to be taught as a science, should instruct in those rules which ought to govern the creation of wealth, or, if we may venture a definition, it is — The science which determines the best mode of production and distri- bution of that species of wealth most conducive to the physical, moral, intellectual, and spiritual improvement, and consequently to the greatest happiness of the whole population. Pursuing our inquiries with this standard for our guide, we should scarcely admit that twelve, or even ten, hours of tedious employment of children in an impure atmosphere was the ^^ best mode of pro- duction," or that many articles of fashion manu- factured were a '^species of wealth," conducive to any improvement whatever. If we are informed that the system taught in Great Britain is the same, in its leading principles, THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 23 as the Catechism of Political Economy, by the late Jean Baptiste Say, Professor in the Athenee Royal of Paris ; as the systems of Krause and Storch, political economists of Germany ; and, before its members were dispersed by the Russian Government, of Count Starbeck, of the University of Warsaw, — in fact, of all the professors in Europe; we have only to mark the immorality, selfishness, and increase of pauperism in every state, to be satisfied of the utter inutility or wretched consequences of such systems. Political Economy is unknown as a science throughout the civilised world : when rightly understood and reduced to practice, the present turmoil and con- fusion will give place to ord^r and rapid improve- ment. The possibility of forming a superior public opinion, through the spread of vital Christianity and improved institutions, is entirely overlooked: competition and rivalry must still impel to action, for the idea appears to run through all the reasoning of the economists, that capricious wants and frivolous pursuits are never to be superseded by the rational desires, the benevolence, and enterprise, of more enlightened generations. The rules of production and distri- bution that have long prevailed, belong to a particular period in the progress of the species ; and those which exist at present are characterised 24 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. by greater imbecility of mind, and by a more degrading barbarity, than the rules of public economy in the rudest stages of society.* Before Political Economy can be taught as a science, it must be in harmony with all. It has been somewhere remarked, that there is but one science, and that all the sciences, commonly so called, are only so many divisions and sub-divi- sions of one great whole, thus separated for the more convenient purpose of close and accurate investigation — no truth can therefore be opposed 'to any other truth — ^no theory regarding the colour of plants would be admitted as true, * if at variance with the ascertained laws of chemistry — the science of agriculture not only regards the diversity of soils, but the nature and properties of the plants or seeds for which the earth is to be prepared. No theory of pathology, of anatomy, of any subject connected with the human frame, would be admitted as correct, or denominated a science, that contradicted the established truths in physiology, or was not consistent with the various branches of study relating to the structure of man. So with regard to man in his external re- latioiTs, legislation, moral philosophy, political economy, must alike be governed by congenial * A-ddress to the London University, by the Author. THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 25 and liarmonious laws ; nor can his external rela- tions be considered apart from the internal economy of his frame^ or without regard to his health, his personal morality, his intellectual and religious improvement — in short, there cannot be a greater fallacy than to suppose that any system of political economy ranks with the sciences, unless it be conversant with the nature and the attributes of the Being for whom it is designed, unless it indicates what things ought to be pro- duced and how distributed by those whose animal nature should be subservient to higher faculties and aspirations. Mr. Senior, when Professor of Political Economy at the University of Oxford, appeared to be conscious of this, but got rid of the difficulty by boldly declaring : ^' It is not with happiness, but with wealth, that I am con- ' cerned as a politidal economist; and I am not only justified in omitting, but perhaps am bound to omit, all considerations which have no influence on wealth." Here is a complete surrender of the claims of his subject to the denomination of a science; and what is the consequence of this severance of all higher considerations from the creation of wealth? — not merely that they are kept subordinate, but are lost sight of altogether, and to whatever sufferings of physical destitution, of moral degradation, and of mental darkness, the 2b THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. producers are exposed, so long as the largest amount of wealth is created, it is not the business of the political economist to investigate. Those accidental and fluctuating causes, be they the caprices of fashion, or the ravages of war, hitherto influencing supply and demand, are regarded as the immutable laws of nature, and upon these ever-varying data erroneous theories have been built up and demolished in rapid succession. Unmindful of the sacred admonition to '^ train up a child in the way he should go," systems are upheld under which even instruction can with difficulty be imparted, while all moral training is wholly impracticable.* * " It is instructive to observe, how we compel, as it , were, vice and misery with cne hand, and endeavour to suppress them on the other ; but the whole course of our manufacturing' system tends to these results : you eng"age children from their earliest and tenderest ag*e in these long, painful, and destructive occupations ; when they have ap- proached to manhood, they have outgrown their employ- ments, and they are turned upon the world without moral, without professional education ; the business they have learned avails them nothing ; to what can they turn their hands for a maintenance ? — the children, for instance, who have been taught to make pins, having reached fourteen or fifteen years of age, are unfit to make pins any longer ; to procure an honest livelihood then becomes to them almost impossible ; the governors of prisons will tell you, the re- lieving officers will tell you, that the vicious resort to plun- der and prostitution ; the rest sink down." — Lord Ashley, on the Employment of Children in Mines, THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 27 The true theory of society combines the sciences of Political Economy and of Moral Philosophy, and may be illustrated as follows : — We will suppose fifty families of children taken to a remote part of the world, or away from general society, by parents anxious to train them in the spirit and practice of Christianity ; some are afflicted with partial blindness, with deformity, or weakness — others are distinguished by superior talents ; trained in the love of God and man, one directs his attention to the study of optics, another to anatomy, in the hope of assist- ing their afilicted brothers ; they are more or less successful, but even their endeavours have given strength, by exercise, to the higher motives, and endeared them more to the afflicted — those born^ with any infirmity of temper would be watched with like solicitude — the brothers and sisters actuated by the same spirit, the strong assisting the weak in body and mind, all become more closely united in the bonds of Christian love — thus far the rudiments of Moral Philosophy. Now it is evident that mth this promptitude of mutual assistance, the blind restored to sight, the crooked made straight, the weak strengthened, and moral evil checked in the bud, those who before were consumers only would become more efficient, bodily and mentally, and there would be 28 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. a larger produce — those of the greatest ability, relieved more or less from the care and attention before required by the weak, would have more time for the pursuits of science, and for pro- moting the general good. Here the rudiments of Political Economy are in harmony with those of Moral Philosophy. The Political Economist* would dissent from the foregoing regulations as failing to generate motives to constant exertion ; he would maintain that the parents, in order to sustain a persevering activity, must offer to those of great talent other and more powerful inducements, they must give a larger share of the produce of the families to those who make the most rapid progress in the ac- quisition of knowledge or display the greatest ability. This would be virtually telling them they were not to love the Lord their God with all their heart. Such an appeal to their selfishness would * " You must not suppose that our political economists seek in the Bible for instruction I — They discover the cause of all our difficulties and evils, not in the constitution of society, but of human nature ; and there, also, they look for it, not where it is to be found, in its sinfulness and fallen state, but in its essence, and the primal law which was its primal benediction !" — "How they (the people) should be set to work — how the beginning" should be made— is what we must not expect to learn from any professor of political Qconomj, ''^—Southey, THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 20 excite in all, covetousness and ambition, in the successful, yanity and pride, in the unsuccessful, a spirit of rivalry, envy, and jealousy — the afflicted would be regarded with less sympathy, and the weak in body or in mind, and in moral feelings, be neglected — in consequence, these would not only cease to produce, but, from the disorders arising from want and neglected training, many of the able producers would be required to restrain the turbu- lent, and thus production would in every way be restricted ; for, as their numbers increased, there would be required judges and gaols, soldiers and bar- racks, police and station-houses, lunatic asylums, poor-law guardians and union houses, poor-law commissioners, assistant poor-law commissioners, factory inspectors, and numerous commissions. Let any man call to mind those acts of his life that were performed solely from a sense of duty, and with the least regard to his own happiness, and it will be found, that, just in proportion to their disinterestedness, were they accompanied with pleasurable emotions, and are always recurred to with the most grateful recollections. How unphilo- sophical, as well as irreligious, to appeal to per- nicious and sordid motives, which it should be the whole business of education to supplant with nobler aspirations, and which were discouraged even by those unaided by the light of Christianity. D 2 30 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. " Inveniuntur qui colant honesta in mercedem, et quibus gratuita virtus placeat non. At ilia habet nihil magnificum in se, si habeat quidquam venale." — Seneca, A modern Divine observes : — " God has so constituted the mind of man, that it must seek the happiness of others as its end, or it can- not be happy. Here is the true reason why all the world, seeking their own happiness, and not the hap- piness of others, fail of their end. It is always just so far before them. If they would leave off seeking their own happiness, and lay themselves out to do good, they would be happy." And should the colony adopt the suggestions of political economy, then would be sacrificed a principle, the want of which has abridged, if not destroyed, the real prosperity and happiness of all nations professing Christianity — the principle may be comprised in one word— -Consistency. It is that which enables the rude inhabitants of North America to train successfully their children in that course which they deem the path of duty ; which constituted the leading attribute in the celebrated system of the Spartan legislator, and produced the general character predetermined by Lycurgus ; and when it shall be duly appreciated by the civilised nations of Europe, is destined, in an unprecedented degree, to diffuse more widely the blessings of Christianity, and to enlarge the boundaries of science. THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 31 All travellers who have yisited the North American Indians have borne testimony to tlie astonishing acuteness of their faculties — distin- guishing the footsteps of diflferent animals and those of any hostile tribe with such surprising accuracy, as to determine the numbers that have passed in any given direction, and where not the slightest impression can be discerned by an European. Sounds are discriminated and objects perceived at distances almost incredible. In their warlike enterprises they sometimes lie concealed in profound silence for days and nights ; and so cautiously will they steal upon their enemies, that not the rustling of a leaf can be heard. But not only do they excel in those athletic exercises, in which, as children, they may be supposed to have taken peculiar delight — a faithful discharge of the higher moral duties is equally conspicuous. Respect for the aged, who, as well as the mothers, are the instructors of children, is always shown. Taught to endure torture with resignation, they raise the song of death in the midst of excruciating torments, and exhibit a self-devotion and a fortitude not surpassed in the proudest days of ancient Greece and Rome. Hunter, who when a child was taken captive by the Indians and dwelt among them for many years, describing a long and dangerous expedition 32 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. of a party of Indians across the American conti- nent to the Pacific Ocean, remarks: ^'At the breaking up of the winter, having supplied ourselves with such things as were necessary, and the situation afforded, all our party visited the spring from which we had procured our supplies of water, and there offered up our orisons to the Great Spirit for having preserved us in health and safety, and for having supplied all our wants. This is the constant practice of the Osages, Kanzas, and many other Indian nations on brealdng up their winter encampments, and is by no means an unimportant ceremony. On the contrary, the occasion calls forth all the devotional feelings of the soul ; and you there witness the silent but deeply impressive communion which the unsophisticated native of the forest holds with his Creator." Through what mysterious process are these qualities of dexterity, fortitude, self-sacrifice, and devotion acquired ? From Consistency in training. That which is taught by the elders and parents to the children is the subject of daily conversation ; that which is inculcated as a duty is daily exem- plified in practice; so well is the association of ideas understood, that even the games of the children have reference to their duties in after life : dwelling continually in that society in which they THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 33 will one day be called upon to sustain their part, the laws, customs, and manners are in accordance with the principles of education, and the general character is moulded by combined and harmonious influences ; their education commences with their birth, and ends only with death. Let us suppose, that, in lieu of this mode of education, the children were removed, the boys to one place and the girls to another, away from a general intercourse with society, and there con- fined to learn with irksomeness certain hierogly- phics, which, when painfully deciphered, would explain their duties ; these they would in time repeat by rote without any clear comprehension of the meaning, and consequently with little interest. Let us further suppose, that in the short intervals they returned to^ their parents, they found them not only negligent of these duties, but pursuing, unrestricted, conduct the very re- verse : here the teaching and the training would have two opposite tendencies; and when it is con- sidered what imitative beings children are, and how powerful is the influence of example, it is not difficult to determine which would preponderate. Notwithstanding our great superiority in in- telligence over the wild Indians of America, and although to the knowledge possessed by the Greeks we superadd the result of the accumulated 34 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. researches and experience of more than two thousand years, aided also by the supernal light of the Gospel, with its explicit declarations re- garding the training of children, that we should be surpassed, according to the measure of their knowledge, in this important duty, both by In- dians and Greeks, is a consideration that may well lead to the conclusion, that in practice we must have been labouring under some egregious error. For nearly a century. Emulation had been suspected as a faulty instrument in education ; but the late Mr. Wilberforce, in his work on ^^ Prac- tical Christianity," has an eloquent chapter on the '' Desire of Human Estimation and Applause " ; and, after tracing with a master-hand its perni- cious effects, observes : ^^ This is the principle which parents recognise with joy in their infant offspring, which is diligently instilled and nur- tured in advancing years, which, under the names of honourable ambition and of laudable emulation, it is the professed aim of schools and colleges to excite and cherish." How can it be expected that the disorders of society should diminish while a principle of education is retained, condemned alike by experience and religion ? " Interdum puniunt immania scelera^ cum alioquin scelerum irritamenta prsebeant siiis." THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 35 It is remarked by the commentators on the passage in the New Testament where the Saviour is represented as driving out the mercenary traders from the temple, that the disciples, witnessing his courage and holy indignation, so different from the usual gentleness of his character, were so much excited by surprise as to be forcibly re- minded of the cause ; — if there is one prevailing evil more hostile, by its all-pervading influence, to the spread of Christian benevolence than any other, it is that spirit of trade and selfishness engendered by competition. We are often reminded of the inventions and discoveries originating in competition, as if civilised society would fall back into barbarism, or sink into indolence, without the spirit of rivalry ; but we owe neither '^ Paradise Lost" nor the *' Prin- cipia " of Newton to the selfish stimulant — and Adam Smith himself observes : — ^^ A great part of the machines made use of in those manufactures in which labour is most subdivided, were originally the inventions of common workmen, who, being each of them employed in some very simple operation, naturally turned their thoughts towards finding out easier and readier methods of performing it. In the first steam-engines a boy was constantly employed to open and shut alternately the communication between the boiler and the cylinder, according as the piston either ascended or descended. 36 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. One of these boys, who loved to play with his com- panions, observed, that, by tyin^ a string from the handle of the valve which opened the communication to another part of the machine, the valve would open and shut without his assistance, and leave him at liberty to divert himself with his play-fellows. One of the g-reatest improvements that has been made upon this machine, since it was first invented, was in this manner the discovery of a boy who wanted to save his own labour.' ' In the best-conducted schools, where moral culture is more particularly attended to, emulation is now exploded ; and if it were to be dispensed with in those of the Colony, it should also be rigidly excluded from all the rules and regulations. Children and adults must alike be governed by the same principles, or there would be no Con- sistency, and consequently no successful moral training. At the very commencement of Milton's Tract on Education, he asserts this great principle : ^' I am long since persuaded. Master Hartlib, that to say or do aught worth memory and imitation, no purpose or respect should sooner move us than simply the love of God and of mankind." When the youthful mind dwells with admira- tion upon the high and generous purpose, the firm resolve, and the virtuous enterprise, recorded in the annals of history, prompting to great and THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 37 noble exertion, while the pure and powerful motives of religion, under the fostering care of parental affection, are correcting the waywardness and encouraging the perseverance of youth, how worse than useless to offer the inferior induce- ment ! But if the artificial stimulant and the glittering prize are superfluous in the weakness of childhood, how much less necessary when the reason has been strengthened by exercise, and the judgment matured ; when the truth of the higher principle carries conviction to the understanding ; when its gratifying effects in practice have enlisted the best feelings on its side, and its habitual exercise has rendered it almost a second nature ! It would be some mitigation of the pernicious consequences of factitious allurements or compe- tition, if it failed only as an auxiliary, without cherishing the bad qualities of covetousness, envy, pride, and ambition, seducing from the path of duty and happiness, silencing the voice of con- science, and leading to a train of evils, which at length terminates in revenge, violence, and in that most dreadful of all the scourges of mankind, War. " War, Famine, Pest, Volcano, Storm, and Fire, Intestine Broils, Oppression, with her heart Wrapt up in triple brass, besiege mankind. God's image, disinherited of day. Here, plung'd in Mines, forgets a sun was made ; There, beings, deathless as their haughty lord, E 38 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. Are hammer'd to the galling Oar for life, And plough the winter ^s wave and reap despair. Some for hard masters, broken under ai'ms, In battle lopp'd away, with half their limbs Beg bitter bread through realms their valour sav'd. If so the tyrant or his minion doom,* Want and incurable Disease (fell jmir ♦) On hopeless multitudes remorseless seize At once, and make a refuge of the grave. How groaning Hospitals eject their dead I What numbers groan for sad admission there ! What numbers once, in Fortune's lap high fed, Solicit the cold hand of Charity — To shock us more, solicit it in vain!" * No tyrant, the most heartless and cruel, ever inflicted such an extent of suffering* and appalling* misery on the human race as the present unchristian system, which, like an overwhelming' incubus, weighs down in sorrow a despairing and broken-hearted people. A despot might be dethroned with some chance of an enlightened and humane successor; but what hope exists when rulers and theorists assure the working classes, surrounded by a profusion of wealth produced by their own industry, that their privations are inseparable from a commercial system, and the professors of religion pronounce their hard lot the dispensation of an over-ruling Providence, to be borne without a murmur ? We too exhort the industrious classes to "do their duty in that state of life in which it has pleased God to call them ;'^ and the most imperative of all their duties is that of pntitioning Parliament to abolish the premature and unhallowed employment of children of a tender age,, often of feeble constitutions, and to devise measures more conducive to the welfare and happiness of the people, and more in accordance with the spirit of Christ- ianity. The cheap postage was a great boon, and, like many other legislative acts, extorted by numerous petitions ; THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 39 Again, Consistency would be sacrificed should the rules prescribed and the practices sanctioned be at variance with the precepts and doctrines of Keligion. To the question — ^^ What is thy duty towards God?" the child replies, '' My duty towards God is to believe in Him, to fear Him, and to love Him with all my heart, with all my mind, with all my soul, and with all my strength." Here is expressed, in forcible language, the deep- est feelings of reverence and love — ^motives to exertion the most pure and exalted, calculated to raise the fallen nature of man, to emancipate him from his present degradation and misery, to curb his passions, to call into exercise his higher faculties, and to enlist them in the service of his Maker* In conformity with the grateful duties of but what are all their benefits put together, compared to measures that will diminish the severity of toil, remove distress, and dispense the bounties of Providence upon principles of equity and justice ? Here, then, is a peaceful but powerful and irresistible mode of achieving a benign and glorious reform, one which the ministers of religion will benevolently and zealously advance. Can there be an object more worthy the simultaneous efforts of a great empire ? Can there be a more sacred duty for Christians of every denomination than that' of raising a degraded people, and rescuing those innocent victims, young children, sacrificed to Mammon and to a barbarous policy, the disgrace of an enlightened age 1 40 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. religion, the following would be fully understood and undeviatingly adhered to as a sacred obli- gation : — THE CHILD BORN IN THIS COLONY MOST WEAK OR DEFICIENT, BODILY OR MENTALLY, SHALL BE- COME AN OBJECT OF THE GREATEST SOLICITUDE AND ATTENTION.* The same principle would be acted upon through all the gradations of weakness and of power, the more vigorous in body and mind assisting and advancing the weak and imbecile. Those of first-rate ability would soon be re- cognised, and their superiority tacitly acknow- ledged. Their conduct, regulated by the principle of love to God and man, would be responded to by the sympathies of the Colony, whose welfare was the chief object of all their exertions. Their own wishes would be anticipated, and more would be yielded spontaneously than they would be in- clined to accept, and more than they would have gained had they stipulated for any other rewards than those which the Deity has annexed to well- doing, and which cannot be exceeded in solid advantages and permanent pleasure ; those nearer to them in ability would also be more useful than others, but only so far as their moral feelings * " Hoc maxime officii est, ut quisque maxime opis indigeat, ita ei potissimum opitulari." — Cicero. THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 41 were commensurate with their intellectual powers or their superior skill. Descending in the scale, let us consider the condition of the more imbecile ; being treated with uniform kindness and judg- ment, they would be more docile and more su^ ceptible of improvement ; looldng up with grati- tude to their protectors, the duties assigned to them would be cheerfully . performed ; what little talent they possessed would be improved and turned to the best account, while the more highly-gifted would themselves make greater progress by the habit of imparting knowledge. As man, in the Divine Exemplar of Christianity, iSnds an unerring rule of life for his personal conduct, so has the great Apostle, in the descrip- tion of a true church, furnished an unerring standard for the societies of men : — " That there should be no schism in the body ; but that the members should have the same care one for another. And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it ; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it." However diJEcult it may be for men, either individually or collectively, to attain a high de- gree of excellence, it would be altogether im- possible without a corresponding elevation in end and aim. Hitherto we have travelled in a wrong direction, seeking and contending for wealth as E 2 42 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. the means of securing ephemeral objects ; we are therefore unprepared, without previous discipline, to enter upon a nobler enterprise. To attempt to amalgamate the different classes of society with their uncongenial feelings and habits, their conflicting interests and varied pursuits, would be altogether chimerical ; we must therefore adopt some modified arrangements for one class only — the unemployed of the work- ing class — and, avoiding those obstructions that have hitherto impeded the progress of moral improvement, endeavour to build up by degrees a more Christian community. ^ As none can be responsible for evils which have been the growth of ages, it may be ex- pected that all of every sect and party will, by their intelligence or their wealth, assist the clergy and the ministers of different religious denomina- tions, in providing a permanent relief for the destitute of their respective congregations, by promoting establishments similar to the Self- supporting Institution described in the following Prospectus, wliich was drawn up at Exeter-Hall by a Committee on which were some distinguished Clergymen, and is here presented without any alteration; but when the Committee has been enlarged and strengthened, by the accession of those accustomed to employ and direct large THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. 43 bodies of men, it is proposed to revise the Pro- spectus. One important alteration, among others, has been suggested, and very generally approved, viz. : — That after a permanent provision has been made for the Church and for the Schools, the surplus should thenceforward be devoted to the repayment of the capital, and the inmates thereby raised into joint proprietors, since, by the time that object was effected, they would have acquired sufficient information and experience, with moral and religious discipline, for the Institution to be Self-governed, as well as Self-supporting. It is of course competent to other Eeligious denominations to adopt the same economical arrangements, and it is hoped that none will be deterred from giving earnest attention to the general principle of Association for mutual aid, in consequence of any defect, real or supposed, in the Prospectus, but that in every district, meetings will be held by those who are struck with the numerous evils and unchristian tendency of com- petition, for the purpose of forming some modified plan more congenial with their own views of the exigencies of the times, more effectual as a remedy for the destitute and demoralised condition of the people, and better calculated to restore peace and order to their distracted country. 44 THE CHRISTIAN COMMONWEALTH. PROSPECTUS. SELF-SUPPORimG INSTITUTION FOR THREE HUNDRED FAMILIES. Since the attention of the Legislature was more particularly called to the condition of the people by the Bishop of London in Parliament, in the year 1839, the various accounts and reports of their distresses, especially in the manufacturing districts, have continued to be at least equally afflicting. The frequent recurrence, and sometimes long continuance, of privation and suffering, and that too in periods of abundance, and when scientific power has contributed to increase rapidly and in superfluity the comforts and conveniences of life, is an evil for which a remedy should be sought, and which demands the persevering inquiry and exertion of Christians until that remedy be found and applied. As one mode of improving the condition of the people, it is proposed to form, in the centre of an adequate extent of land (not less than one thousand a^ Fratribus qui longe al) Ora- torio laborantJ^ 128 AN INQUIRY the apostles :" and, greatly as they departed from the design of their institution, the monastic orders may nevertheless furnish valuable proofs of the success with which the affairs of communities may be managed,* and how literature, science, and the arts may thrive without any stimulus of private emolument. Let it also be remembered, that while in the middle ages the care of the poor, and of education, and the duties of hospitality, devolved principally upon them, they were eminently suc- cessful in agriculture, drainage, and embankment, architecture, and various works of public utility. f Disgust at the corruption of the monks might well create, in the minds of the first favourers of the Eeformation, an aversion to Coenobitism, or conventual life, which scarcely retained any traces of its first design; although, having continued in the church from the institute of the apostles in a constant succession, its perversions were no better reason for rejecting it as a Christian ordinance, than those of the Mass for rejecting the Lord's Supper. The religious revolution in this country, indeed, was mainly assisted by the division of the * The great accumulation of their wealth is to be attri- buted to the advantageous plan of a community, more than to any other cause. f " In the monastic institutions, in my opinion, was found a great power for the mechanism of politic benevo- lence." — Burke's Beflections on the Bevolution in France, "4';- RESPECTING PRIVATE PROPERTY, spoils of the church among its partisans, which seems to have given rise to a system of public robbery and embezzlement of endowments that, has continued to the present time. And under this head may also be ranked the conversion of the common lands into private property, by inclosure bills, to which may be justly applied the words of holy writ : ^' Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, and that write griev- ousness which they have prescribed ; to turn aside the needy from judgment, and to take away the right from the poor of my people. — Hear this, ye that swallow up the needy, even to make the poor of the land to fail. Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there is no place ; that they may be placed alone in the midst of the earth ! What mean ye that beat my people to pieces, and grind the faces of the poor?"* * ^' The country gentleman from his neighbour's hand Forceth th' inheritance, joynes land to land, And (most insatiate) seekes under his rent To bring the world's most spacious continent; The fawning citizen (whose love's bought dearest) Deceives his brother when the sun shines clearest, Gets, borrowes, breakes, lets in, and stops out light. And lives a knave to leave his son a knight." Browne's Pastorals, See also Goldsmith's "Deserted Village," and the passage in Sir Thomas Morels " Utopia," lib. i.,' from which the fol- 130 AN INQUIRY Some, however, of the more disinterested forerunners of the Reformation, seem to have held lowing* description is taken ; " Ergo lit unus helluo inexplebilis ac dira pestis patrise, continuatis agris, aliquot millia jugerum uno circundet septo, ejiciuntur coloni quidam, suis etiam, aut circumscripti fraude^ aut vi oppressi exuuntur, aut fatigati injuriis, adiguntur ad venditionem. Itaque quoquo pacto emigrant miseri, viri, mulieres, mariti, uxores, orbi, viduee, parentes cum parvis liberis, et numerosa magis quam divite familia, ut multis opus habet manibus res rustica : emigrant inquam e notis atque assuetis laribus, nee inveniunt quo se recipiant, supellectilem omnem baud magno vendibilem, etiam si manere possit emptorem, quam extrudi necesse est, minimo venundant ; id quum brevi errando insumpserint, quid restat aliud denique quam uti furentur, et -pendesLiit juste scilicet, aut vagentur atque mendicent: quamquam tum quoque velut errones conjiciuntur in car- cerem,^' &c. This tragedy has recently been revived in the counties of Sutherland and Dumfries, where " Lord Stafford, finding it more advantageous to grow sheep than men on his wife's estates in the Highlands, served notices to quit in the first instance; and the Highlanders not quitting, his agents actually caused some of the villages to be burnt over their heads. This being done, and lives being lost (and among the rest that of a woman labouring in childbirth),the noble Marquis succeeded ; and those places which swarmed with a hardy population, are now some of the best sheep walks in the Highlands of Scotland." — When, on the trial for libel of the editor of a Northern newspaper, for commenting on this transaction, some passages in the "Deserted Village" were referred to, Chief Justice Best is reported to have character- ised the cited passages as foolish trash. Certainly the Poet's sentiments are not calculated to please the despoilers of the people ; and, in order to second their views or conceal their enormities, the introductory chapter of a once popular RESPECTINa PRIVATE PROPERTY. 131 the opinion that private property was inconsistent with Christianity,* especially the venerable Wic- child's book, Goody Two Shoes (said also to be Goldsmith's, and remarkable for containing* the first hint of the Lancas- terian mode of teaching), has been suppressed in the later editions, and its place supplied by nauseous cant. The above cited passages may remind us of the stories of Ahab and Naboth, or of Justice Kenric and poor Franks. — The ruined village of Ivinghoe, in Buckinghamshire, at present affords a recent instance of devastation from a similar cause : — '' Amidst thy bowers the tyrant's hand is seen, And desolation saddens all thy green : One only master grasps the whole domain." Deserted Village, *' usque proximos Revellis agri teiTninos, et ultra Limites clientium Sails avarus. Pellitur pateraos In sinu ferens Decs Et uxor, et vir, sordidosque natos." — Hor. Carm., ii. 18. * Among these is the author of " Piers Plouhman," who says {Passus vii.) : — " Forthi cristene men scholde been in commun riche, no covetise to hym selve." See also '^ The Praier and Complaynte of the Ploweman unto Christe," written not long after the year 1300. Harl. Misc., vi. 92 :— " Who that beth in charite, possesseth thy goodes in comune and nat in propre, at his negboures nede. " Gif a man be a pore man, men holden hym a man without grace; and gif a man desyreth porenesse, men holden hym a fole. And gif a man be a rich man, men clepen hym a gracyous man ; and thilke that ben bysie in getinge of rychesse, ben y-holde wise men and redye. But, Lorde, these rych men sayen, that it ys both lefuU and 132 AN INQUIRY liiFe and Ball, but some of their adherents fell into the error (not to be wondered at in that age) of attempting to establish their opinions by force.* Whether there may have been any others among the Reformed that have not lost sight of the medefull to hem to g-adre rychesse to-g-eder ; for they ne gadreth it not for her selfe, but for other men that ben nedy. " Lord ! these rych men seggen that they done moch for thy love. For many pore laborers ben y-founde by hem, that schulden fare febelich, ne were not they and her redinesse ; for soth, me thinketh, that pore laborers geveth to these rych men more then they g-even hem agenwarde. For the pore man mote gone to hys laboure in colde and in hete, and in wete and drye, and spende hys flesh and hys bloude in the rych mennes workes apon God's ground, to fynde the rych man in ese, and in lykynge, and in good fare of mete and of drinke, and of clothinge. Here ys a gret gifte of the pore man ; for he geveth his own body. But what geveth the rych man hym ageynwarde ? Certes, febele mete, and febele drinke, and febele clothinge. What- ever they seggen, soch be her workes; and here ys litell love. And who soever loketh wel a boute, all the worlde fareth thus as we seggen : and all men stodyeth on every syde, how they maye wexe rjch ; and everych man almest ys a schamed to ben holden a pore man. '' A, Lorde ! gif a pore man axe gode for thy love, men geveth hym a litle of the worst. For these rych men ordeynen breed and ale, for Goddes men, of the worst that they have. Lorde I syth all they good that men have Cometh of the, how dare any geve the of the worste, and kepe to hym selfe the best ?" * This highly culpable disposition is also imputed to the Spenceans, whose object appears to be the re-establishment of the feudal tenures upon a modified system. RESPECTING PRIVATE PROPERTY. 133 apostolic institute, I have scarcely been able to inquire.* The constitutions,! indeed, of the Mora- * Bock mentions, among* the early Unitarians, Gregorius Pauli, and Daniel Z wicker, as advocates for a Community of Goods. There is an interesting", though rathe.* tart, correspondence on the subject between Zwicker and Huarus, in which it does not appear to have occurred to the former, when his antagonist urged the want of permanence of the institute of the Jerusalem Church, that it had been con- tinued to his own time in the monasteries. t The picture of a Loan Farm, occupied by a Vee-boor (a Cape of Good Hope land-holder or country gentleman), and the same portion of land supporting a Movarian com- munity of Hottentots at Gnadenthal, affords an interesting and striking contrast. It is taken from Mr. Latrobe's account of Gnadenthal : — " Little do I wonder at the rajiture with which this place is spoken of by travellers, who, after traversing a dreary uncultivated countr}^, find themselves transported into a situation, by nature the most barren and wild, but now rendered fruitful and inviting by the perse- vering diligence and energy of a few plain, pious, sensible, and judicious men, who came hither, not seeking their own profit, but that of the most despised of nations ; and while they directed their hearers' hearts to the dwellings of bliss and glory above, taught them those things which have made even their earthly dwelling a kind of paradise, and changed filth and misery into comfort and peace. **' Nearly 1,300 Hottentots now inhabit this village, which •was once a perfect wilderness, or, which amounts pretty much to the same thing, a loan farm, held by a single Dutch boor. It consists of 256 cottages and huts, containing 1,276 inhabitants. Every cottage has a garden, from the state of which the disposition of the owner is pretty well known. The loan farms are tracts of about 5,000 acres granted in perpetual leasehold, on payment of £5 per M 134 AN INQUIRY vians, the Shakers, and the Society of Harmony in America^ are more or less founded on this prin- ciple, and Bellers recommended it in 1696: but though all the ancient Churches paid homage to the Christian proscription of private property, it is to be feared that in the Ee- formed Churches a worldly, money-getting spirit is very much the characteristic of those who consider themselves as the godly; — *^ in tlie silent growth of ten per cent, In dirt and darkness thousands stink content." Pope's Satires. annnm, or a farthing an acre, and are occupied by the Yee- boors. " The whole establishment of a Vee-boor presents a scene of filth and discomfort. His house has neither tree, shrub, nor a blade of grass near it. The interior is as slovenly as its exterior accompaniments." (A most forbidding descrip- tion follows.) "Yet this man is probably the owner of 6,000 head of cattle and 5,000 sheep.— He lords it over the kraal of Hottentots with the power of a feudal chief. — He neither ploughs nor plants vineyards ; his habits are slovenly, and he neglects the decencies of life. — If he carries enough butter, soap, ostrich feathers, and skins to purchase in return a little coffee, brandy, and gunpowder, the purpose of his journey and his life is answered." — Quarterly Review, vol. xxii. p. 227. The late attempts of emigrants to settle in the deserts of America and the Cape appear to fail miserably, from having been made on the system of individual property. A Com- munity is the only plan for speedily converting the wilder- ness into an abode of social happiness. RESPECTING PRIVATE PROPERTY. 135 Among the causes that have prevented the general adoption of the primitive suggestion of a Community of Goods, may be reckoned the want of any practicable plan to carry it into effect, and of a sufficient extension and preponderance of the genuine spirit of Christianity to make it lasting. This, however, need not excite our surprise, as it appears to have been the plan of Providence that Christianity should produce its effects gradually, and in co-operation with the efforts of human reason and the improvement of knowledge; leaving room for the exertions of mankind to carry into effect its Divine suggestions. And for any successful attempt to rid society of the evils of the system of private property, we must look, not as some have done to a return to a state of nature, but to a progressive refinement and civilisation. The necessary arrangements can only take rise from increased knowledge of human nature and of the art of governing. The system of private property belongs rather to the savage* than the civilised state; oris, at least, but the first step towards civilisation. To appropriate * *^ JVec commune bonum poterant spectare, neque ullis Moribus inter se scibant nee legibus uti. Quod cuique obtulerat praedse fortuna, ferebat, Sponte sua, sibi quisque valere et vivere doctus." Lucret., lib. v. 136 AN INQUIRY to himself all that he can, is the instinct of the savage : to prevent the contentions to which this propensity would give rise was the origin of laws ; so that it may perhaps be more truly said that law is the creature of property, than that property is the creature of law. No doubt the institution of Private Property has been a great stimulus to improvements in the progress of man from a barbarous to a civilised state ; but it by no means follows, that when a certain degree of civilisation has been attained, he may not gradually lay aside this system — the existing stock of knowledge now enabling him to adopt a more perfect one. I see no reason to admit the opinion of those who think that if Christianity were universal, and had its due influence on the minds of all men, it would wholly supersede the necessity of civil government, and produce such a state of things that there would be no need either for laws or magistrates. As long as men, as social beings, are dependent on each other, and capable of deriving good or ill from mutual intercourse and assistance ; so long it would seem necessary that some system should exist by which this intercourse may be regulated, and by its improvement made to produce the greatest sum of happiness within their reach. For, supposing that all the members of a society were influenced by the most kind and RESPECTINa PRIVATE PROPERTr. 137 Christian spirit, yet would they, for want of wisdom and experience,* and a skilful system of polity, not only fail of effecting all that might be done for the common weal, but perhaps fall into such mistakes and inconveniences as would pro- duce a state of things destructive of those very principles and dispositions which it has been imagined might render civil government alto- gether unnecessary. Besides which, it seems probable, that even for this complete dominion of Christian motives, we may have to be indebted to progressive improvements in education and govern- ment, conjointly with the intrinsic power an excellence of Christianity. Those who assert the impracticability of any plans of this kind, forget how much institutions respecting property have varied, and that society has actually existed under various modifications of them. The accumulation of landed property was guarded against imder the Jewish Theocracy f by * The system of Christianity would imply the exist- ence of wisdom and experience, especially at an advanced period of the world.— [Ed. 1849.] t " In the most striking* feature in the whole system of civil regulations, the plan adopted by the Hebrew lawgiver stands in direct opposition to the polity of the Egyptians. The founders of the latter had made it their chief endeavour to depress the mass of the community, in order to pamper the luxury and pride of the distinguished orders. Hence M 2 138 AN INQUIRY the Divine institution of the Jubilee every 50th year, when all the lands which had been sold or alienated were re-divided among the people. Levit. XXV. 23 : ^^ The land shall not be sold for ever, for the land* is Mine," &c. And in the Sabbatical year the produce of the land was to be common to all, and debts were to be remitted. fSee Bel- sham's Sermon on the Jubilee, J Those who are disposed to consider the Mosaic as typical of the Christian dispensation, may easily discover, in the Sabbatical and Jubilee years, a type of the aboli- tion of private property under the Gospel. In some parts even of this country the laws are much less conductive to the accumulation of landed property than in others ; and many changes, the complicated system of subordinate ranks which con- signed the lower castes, with their posterity, to a state of perpetual servility and abject degradation. " The system established by Moses was, on the contrary, one of perfect equality ; not the casual result of circum- stances, but the object which the founder purposely con? trived a great part of his civil institutions to uphold. Hence the regulations for maintaining equal possessions, as far as this was possible, by apportioning to each family a certain extent of land, and precluding by express laws the per- manent alienation of estates." — Aiialysis of Egyptian Mythology, ly /. C, Prichard, 31.1)., 1819, page 408. * " ^quatellus Pauperi recluditur, Regumque pueris." — Hor. Carm., 11. 18. BESPECTINa PRIVATE PROPERTY. 139 though mostly for the worse, have been made with respect to the tenure and descent of property : we hear much of the danger of innovations on private property, but little is said against the scandalous conversion of public into private property.* A great part, perhaps all, of our lands were formerly shack lands, of which the occupant had the use only whilst his crop was on, the land then revert- ing to the community for pasturage. Even now * " Sone after this, the king-es Maiestie by the aduice of the Lorde Protector, and the rest of his counsayle, that is to saye, about the beginnin<^ of June, set forth a proclamation against Enclosures, for that a great number of poore men had complayned of g-entlemen and other, that they had taken from them. Common of Pasture and Common Fieldes, and had enclosed them into parkes and pasture, and other such hke for their owne commoditie and pleasure, to the utter undoyng" of the poore men. This proclamation tending to the helpe and reliefe of the poore, commaunded that such as had so enclosed the commons, should upon a peine by a day assigned lay them out againe : But I thinke there were but few that obayed the proclamation, which thing the poore men perceyuing, and seyng none amendement follow upon the proclamation, rashly without order tooke upon themselues to redresse, and so gathering themselues together made them Capitaines and brake downe those inclosurs, and cast downe ditches, and in the ende plaide the very part of rebelles and tray tors." — Grafton^ s Chronicle, ^rdofEd. VI. Such has been the origin of the sacred rights of the landed interest ! In later times each appropriation has been consecrated by an inclosure bill. 140 AN INQUIRY the meer-bauks that separate the lands belong to the community, and the occupier of two adjoining fields has no right to plough up the meer-bauk between them. ^^ All the lands in a district called the Theel-land, lying in the bailiwic of Norden and Bertum," says a writer in the Edinhiirgh Review, '' are held by a very extraordinary tenure — we speak in the present tense, for the customs of the Theel-land were subsisting in 1805, and we do not suppose that they have since become obsolete. The Agrarian law, elsewhere a phantom either lovely or terrific, according to the imagination of the spectator, is here fully realised. The land is considered as being divided into portions or Theels, each containing a stated quantity: the owners are called Theel-men, or Theel-boors ; but no Theel-boor can hold more than one Theel in severalty. The undivided or common land, comprising the Theels not held by individuals, belongs to all the inhabitants of the Theel-land, and is cultivated or farmed out on their joint account. The Theel-boor cannot sell his hereditary Theel, or alienate it in any way, even to his nearest relations. On his death it descends to his youngest son. If there are no sons, it de- scends to the youngest daughter, under the restric- tions after mentioned ; and in default of issue, it reverts to the commonalty. But elder sons are RESPECTING PRIVATE PROPERTY. 141 not left destitute : when they are old enough to keep house, a Theel is assig*ned to each of them (be they ever so many) out of the common lands, to be held to them and their issue, according to the customary tenure. If a woman who has inherited a Theel becomes the wife of a Theel-boor, who is already in possession of a Theel, then her land reverts to the commonalty."* In the degree of civilisation hitherto attained, law has interfered only to prevent the perpetration of violence and the grosser kinds of fraudf in the acquisition of property, and to regulate in various ways its possession and conveyance. To equalise as much as possible the gifts of Providence amongst all, however consonant to reason, benevo- lence, and Christianity, has been scarcely at aU its object. The progress of improvement, and a sense of mutual advantage have, however, induced societies of men to unite for purposes which have * Ediriburgh JReview, JN^o. Ixiii., for July, 1819, p. 10, on the Laws of Friesland. For a most interesting* account of this district, and of the happiness and prosperity prevail- ing" in it in consequence of this system, see also " Travels in the North of Germany," by Mr. Hodg-kins. See also Tacitus " De Moribus Germanorum,'^ cap. xxxvi. t Chiefly, however, frauds which aifect the rich. Those which are committed by them upon the poorer classes do not even incur reproach. 142 AN INQUIRY this tendency : sucli are insurances, benefit socie- ties, and all those institutions whose object it is to obviate the inequalities of fortune, and to lessen the weight of calamity by sharing it among a numerous association. The progress of know- ledge and true civilisation will tend to unite men in contriving the general security and welfare by mutual co-operation, and in discovering such laws and regulations as will enable all the members of any society to partake as much as possible of its wealth. We are all ready to allow that the superfluities of the rich, ^^ for which men swinckand sweat inces- santly," give them no increase of enjoyment, while they in their waste consume the comforts of the majority; and yet we are blindly attached to a system necessarily productive of a state of things, which the Jewish revelation has censured, which poets and philosophers have always deplored, and which Christianity has fully condemned. If the prayer be a proper one, — '^ Give me neither poverty nor riches,* lest I be full and deny thee. * " Aurea mediocritas." — Hor. Carm., ii. 10. " Molestissimus et occupatissimus, et si profundius inspicias, vere miserimus est divitum status : contra autem dura quidem sed tutissiraa et expeditissima est paupertas. Mediocritas optima, et inter rarissima Dei dona hanc nobis contigisse gratulor."— P^^r^rcA^ Epist., lib. iii. 14. KESPECTING PEIYATE PROPERTY. 143 and say, Who is the Lord ? or lest I be poor and steal,* and take the name of my God in vain," — then is that constitution of things the best which does not expose men to these hurtful extremes, to the evils occasioned by the lubricity of fortune, and to the pernicious influence of avarice and selfish ambition, of which the poet has given us too true a picture : — " Some thought to raise themselves to high degree By Riches and unrighteous reward ; Some by close should'ring ; some by flatteree ; Otliers through friends; others for base regard ; And all by wrong waies for themselves prepard ; Those that were up themselves kept others low ; Those that were low themselves held others hard, Ne suffred them to ryse or gi-eater grow ; But every one did strive his fellow downe to throw." Faerie Queene, b. ii. c. 7. "Asa cage is full of birds, so are their houses full of deceit : Therefore are they become great and waxen rich : They are waxen fat, they shine." — Jerem. v. 27. It may be unnecessary for me to add, that I * " Experience justifies me in asserting* that wag-es are the barometer by which we may ascertain with considerable accuracy the state of crime in a county. Wherever wages have been high, I have found the amount of crime com- paratively small ; wherever they have been low, I have observed with pain that the labourer has resorted to the laiv of nature, and supported himself by plunder." — Sir W. D. Best's Charge to Somersetshire Grand Jury, August, 1827. 144 AN INQUIRY consider both Wallace and Malthus* as admittino* the advantages of a Community of Goods, were it not for the danger of such an increase of mankind und^r.the happy state which it would produce, that the world would not hold them, and that they must starve or eat one another; to prevent which catastrophe (according to the latter) the Creator has no better resource than to keep down their numbers by perpetuating vice and misery among them ; or, as the late Attorney-General of Chester expressed it, ^* There could be no doubt that poverty was the doom of Heaven for the great majority of mankind.'' To such an objection I think no regard need be paid. It was my intention to have considered the manifold ills which are alleged to have their source in the system of private property, and to take notice of the plans which have been proposed, or put in practice, for superseding it: I must, however, content myself with referring to the publications of that zealous and unwearied philan- thropist, Mr. Robert Owen, of Lanark ; wherein, in addition to those plans of his own which it were * This essay was written before Mr. Godwin's clear and satisfactory refutations of the theory of Mr. Malthus had appeared ; but its entire incompatibihty with the Divine goodness was enoug-h to convince us that it would prove false. BESPECTINa PRIVATE PROPERTY. 145 much to be wished should undergo a careful trials he details those which have been proposed or carried into execution by several individuals and societies.* I shall also appeal to the exquisite and admirable work, of one of the greatest men that has adorlied this or any other country, I mean Sir Thomas More, which has been disgracefully neglected and mis- understood by his countrymen, who have repre- sented him as not having been in earnest in what he wrote, and have even converted the word Utojnan into a term of contempt and reproach, as implying something absurd and impracticable. With a few passages from his ^'Utopia," in which there can be no doubt he expresses his real sentiments, I shall, therefore, conclude {his essay : — " To speak plainly my real sentiments, I must freely own, that as long as there is any private property, and while money is the standard of all other things, I cannot think that a nation can be governed either justly or happily — not justly, because the best things will fall to the share of the worst men • nor happily, because all things will be divided amongst a few (and even these * See " A New View of Society, by Robert Owen, Esq., of New Lanark." See also Muratori's " Account of the Government of the Jesuits in Paraguay ;" " Remarks on the Practicability of Mr. Owen's Plan to improve the Condition of the Lower Classes ;" and " Mr. Owen's proposed Villages for the Poor shown to be highly favourable to Christianity." N 146 AN INQUIRY are not in all respects happy), tlie rest being left to be absolutely miserable. Therefore, when I reflect on the wise and g-ood constitution of the Utopians, among whom all things are so well governed and with so few laws 'y where virtue hath its due reward, and yet there is such an equality that every man lives in plenty; when I compare with them so many other nations, that are still making new laws, and yet can never bring their constitution to a right regulation; where, notwith- standing, every one has his property, yet all the laws that they can invent have not the power either to obtain or preserve it, or even to enable men certainly to dis- tinguish what is their own from what is another's ; of which the many lawsuits that every day break out and are eternally depending, give too plain a demonstration : » when, I say, I balance all these things in my thoughts, I grow more favourable to Plato, and do not wonder that he resolved not to make any laws for such as would not submit to a community of all things. For so wise a man could not but foresee that the setting all upon a level was the only way to make a nation happy, which cannot be obtained so long as private property exists. For when every man draws to himself all that he can compass, by one title or another, it must needs follow, that how plentiful soever a nation may be, yet a few dividing the wealth of it among themselves, the rest must fall into indigence ; so that there will be two sorts of people among them, who deserve that their fortunes should be interchanged — the former useless, but wicked and ravenous; and the latter, who by their constant industry serve the public more than themselves, sincere and modest men : from w^hence I am persuaded, that, till property is taken away, there can be no equit- RESPECTING PRIVATE PROPERTY. 147 able or just distribution of things, nor can the world be happily governed; for as long as that is maintained, the greatest and the far best part of mankind will be still oppressed with a load of cares and anxieties. I confess, without taking it quite away, those pressures that lie on a great part of mankind may be made lighter, but they can never be quite removed : for if laws were made to determine at how great an extent in soil, and at how much money every man must stop, &c., these laws might have such effect as good diet and care might have on a sick man whose recovery is desperate — they might allay and mitigate the disease, but it could never be quite healed, nor the body politic be brought again to a good habit, as long as property remains; and it will fall out, as in a complicsttion of diseases, that by applying a remedy to one sore you will provoke another ; and that which removes the one ill symptom produces others ; while the strengthening one part of the body weakens the rest." — Ifore's Utopia, p. 49, in "Phoenix Library." And, again, at the conclusion of his delightful work : — " Thus have I described to you, as particularly as I could, the constitution of that commonwealth, which I do not only think the best in the world, but indeed the only commonwealth that truly deserves that name. In all other places it is visible that, while people talk of a commonwealth, every man only seeks his own wealth ; but there, where no man has any property, aU men zealously pursue the good of the public. And, indeed, it is no wonder to see men act so differently; for, in other commonwealths, every man knows that, unless he 148 AN INQUIRY provides for himself^ how flourisliing soever the com- monwealth may be, he must, die of hung-er, so that he sees the necessity of preferring* his own concerns to the pubhc ; but in Utopia^ where every man has a right to everything-, they all know that if care is taken to keep the public stores full, no private man can want i thing- y for among them there is no unequal distr tion, so that no man is poor, none in necessity, luul though no man has anything^, yet they are all rich; for what can make a man so rich as to lead a serene and cheerful life, free from anxieties, neither appre- hending want himself, nor vexed with the endless complaints of his wife ? He is not afraid of the misery of his children, nor is he contriving how to raise a por- tion for his daughters, but is secure in this, that both he and wife, his children and grandchildren, to as many generations as he can fancy, will all live both plentifully and happily; since, among them, there is no less care taken of those who were once engaged in labour, but grow, afterwards, unable to follow it, than there is elsewhere of those that continue still employed. I would gladly hear any man compare the justice that is among them with that of all other nations; among whom may I perish if I see anything that looks either like justice or equity. For what justice is there in this, that a nobleman, a goldsmith, a banker, or any other man, that either does nothing at all, or at best is em- ployed in things that are of no use to the public, should live in great luxury and splendour upon what is so iU acquired; and a mean man, a carter, a smith, or a ploughman, that works harder even than the beasts themselves, and is employed in labours so necessary that no commonwealth could hold out a year without RESPECTING PRIVATE PROPERTY. 149 theni; can only earn so poor a livelihood, and must lead so miserable a life, that the condition of the beasts is much better than theirs? For as the beasts do not work so constantly, so they feed almost as well and with more pleasure, and have no anxiety about what is to come ; whilst these men are depressed by a barren and fruitless employment, and tormented with the apprehensions of want in their old ag'e ; since that which they g'et by their daily labour does but maintain them at present, and is consumed as fast as it comes in, there is no overplus left to lay up for old ag-e. " Is not that g-overnment both unjust and ungrateful that is so prodig'al of its favours to those that are called g'entlemen or goldsmiths, or such others that are idle, or hve either by flattery, or by contriving the arts of vain pleasure ; and, on the other hand, takes no care of those of a meaner sort, such as ploug-hmen, colliers, and smiths, without whom it could not subsist? But after the public has reaped all the advantage of their service, and they come to be oppressed with ag'e, sick- ness, and want, all their labours and the good they have done is forgotten, and all the recompense given them is, that they are left to die in great misery. " Therefore, I must say, that, as I hope for mercy, I can have no other notion of all the other governments that I see or know, than that they are a conspiracy of the rich, who, on pretence of managing the public, only pursue their private ends, and devise all the ways and arts they can find outj first, that they may, without danger, preserve all that they have so ill acquired, and then, that they may engage the poor to toil and labour for them at as low rates as possible, and oppress them as much as they please ; and if they can 150 AN INQUIRY but prevail to get these contrivances established by the show of public authority, which is considered as the representative of the whole people, then they are accounted laws: yet these wicked* men, after they have, by a most insatiable covetousness, divided that among- themselves with which all the rest might have been well suppHed, are far from that happiness that is enjoyed among- the Utopians : for the use as well as the desire of money being- exting-uished, much anxiety and g-reat occasion of mischief is cut off with it ; and who does not see that the frauds, thefts, robberies, quarrels, tumults, contentions, seditions, murders, treacheries, and witchcrafts, which are^ indeed, rather punished than restrained by the severities of the law, would all fall off, if money were not any more valued by the world ? Men's fears, solicitudes, cares, labours, and watching-s, would all perish in the same moment with the value of money ; even poverty itself, for the relief of which money seems most necessary, would fall. " I do not doubt but rich men are sensible of this, and that they well know how much a g-reater happiness it is to want nothing necessary than to abound in many superfluities ; and to be rescued out of so much misery, than to abound with so much wealth : and I cannot * These reproaches should have been spared. The evils complained of are the consequences of a defective system ; and all anger against those whose conduct is influenced by it is misplaced. Till a better plan can be carried into effect, no one should be blamed for doing the best he can for him- self in the general scramble that exists, as it is only by amassing riches that he can protect himself from the calamities of poverty. RESPECTING^ PRIVATE PROPERTY. 151 think but the sense of every man's interest, added to the authority of Christ's commands — who, as he was infinitely wise, knew what was best, and was not less good in discovering* it to us — would have drawn all the world over to the laws of the Utopians, if pride, that plag-ue of human nature, that source of so much misery, did not hinder it; for this vice does not measure happiness so much by its own conveniences as by the miseries of others, and would not be satisfied with being thought a goddess, if none were left that were miserable, over whom she might insult. Pride thinks its own happiness shines the brighter, by comparing it with the misfortunes of other persons ; that by display- ing its own wealth they may feel their poverty the more sensibly." — Move's Utopia, p. 165, in " Phoenix Library." ifmw. PETTBR, DUFF, AND CO. 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