XXXI.—SHOULD THE STATE SOLVE SOCIAL PROBLEMS?
Though we have been discussing at this length our foreign and colonial relations, we must never forget that there is a “condition of England question” which claims the closest attention. The politics of the future will be largely coloured by considerations arising from our social developments; and it is important to decide whether the State ought to attempt to solve social problems, and how far it ought to interfere in the relations between man and man.
There is just now so much talk about Socialism that it is desirable to examine the principles which underlie State-interference with private affairs. Those who like to divide men into strictly defined parties are accustomed to describe their fellows as Socialists and Individualists; and, although there is no Socialist who would prevent all liberty of personal action, and no Individualist who would protest against every form of State-interference, the distinction is fair enough if it be understood that the Socialist believes that the State should do as much as possible, and the Individualist that it should do as little as possible, for those who dwell within its limits.
The view of the former is concisely stated in the programme of the Social Democratic Federation, in which are urged the immediate compulsory construction of healthy artisans’ and agricultural labourers’ dwellings, free compulsory education for all classes, with at least one wholesome meal a day in each school, an eight hours’ working day, cumulative taxation upon all incomes above a fixed minimum, State appropriation of railways with or without compensation, the establishment of national banks absorbing all others, rapid extinction of the National Debt, nationalization of the land, and organization of agricultural and industrial armies under State control on co-operative principles. These are merely claimed to be palliative measures, which should be followed by others more drastic; but they suffice to show the present-day Socialistic idea.
Against this extreme Socialist view must be set the extreme Individualist, which has been expressed by Mr. Spencer, who says—“There is reason to believe that the ultimate political condition must be one in which personal freedom is the greatest possible, and governmental power the least possible; that, namely, in which the freedom of each has no limit but the like freedom of all; while the sole governmental duty is the maintenance of this limit.” And the main idea of this statement had been anticipated in the remark, a couple of thousand years ago, by one of the greatest of Greek philosophers—“The truth is that the State in which the rulers are most reluctant to govern is the best and most quietly governed, and the State in which they are most willing is the worst.”
The real question, of course, is not between any such extreme views, for Mr. Spencer would not deny that the State sometimes must interfere, and Mr. George would be the last to plead against the use of all individual effort. But though the limits of State-interference are what we have to determine, it is necessary first to consider whether the State should interfere at all.
An obvious answer is that the State interferes already in many a social problem, and that no one seriously proposes to do away with that interference. But even those who would thus reply may not be aware of the extent to which the State makes its influence felt in social affairs. The administration of justice and the protection of the commonwealth are necessarily, in all civilized communities, the affair of the State. But beyond these limits, the ruling authority, whether exercised through imperial or local officials, wanders at many a point.
The Poor-law is a striking instance of this fact, for it is a piece of legislation the Socialistic tendency of which none can gainsay, the State practically asserting that no one need starve, and providing food and shelter, under certain conditions, for all who are unable, or even unwilling, to work. The system of national education is another instance of Socialistic legislation; it makes me pay towards the education of my neighbour’s child, not for any immediate benefit to myself, but for my ultimate benefit as a citizen of an improved State. And the ruling authority goes further even than compelling me to feed the poor and educate the young, for it interferes, presumably for my good, with my liberty in many a detail.
From birth to death the State, even under present conditions, steps in at point after point to direct one’s path. Within forty days of being born I am compelled by the State to be registered; within three months I am equally constrained to be vaccinated; from five years old to thirteen, with certain limitations, I have to be sent to school; and, should my parents be so sensible as to apprentice me to a trade, a fee has to be paid to the State for the indentures. When I marry it is at a State-licensed institution; when I die it is by a State-appointed officer that my decease is certified. And in the interval, the State prevents me from obtaining intoxicating liquor except from certain individuals and within specified hours; it compels me, if I am a house-owner, to effect my sanitary arrangements in a given way; and if I am a house-holder, to keep my pavement free from snow. From the highest details to the lowest, then, the State even now interferes; whether I fail to have my child vaccinated or my chimney swept, it steps in; and those who argue that Individualism is a theory so true that State-interference should be abolished, have a number of fruits of that State-interference to get rid of before they can claim the victory.
But probably even those who imagine that they are extreme Individualists would not wish to remove from the Statute Book such specimens of State-interference as are now upon it. If they did, the clearance would indeed be great. For imagine what the effect would be if, in addition to the other measures indicated, we got rid of all the enactments affecting labour, and again allowed the employment of climbing boys as chimney-sweeps, of women and small children in mines, of men and women in white-lead works without precaution of any kind, of sailors in the merchant service without the protection of lime-juice against scurvy and of survey against sinking; picture what the population of our manufacturing districts would by this time have become without the protection afforded by the Factory Acts; remember what an improvement has been made in the way of guarding dangerous machinery, owing to the penalties inflicted upon careless owners by the Employers’ Liability Act; and then answer whether State-interference is necessarily a bad thing.
Within the limits which experience has shown to be desirable, it is a good thing; and it is no answer to this assumption that it has sometimes failed to secure the object aimed at. As long as nothing in this world is perfect, we cannot expect the action of the State to be; the only test in every case is an average test. If such State-interference as we see has on the whole done well, the balance must be struck in its favour; and in human affairs a favourable balance is all we have a right to anticipate.
The Individualistic ideal may be a good one, but it is the Individualistic real we have to examine. And what would become of the poor, the weak, and the helpless if the State stood aside from all interference with the affairs of men? That the rich and the powerful would grind them to powder in their struggles for more riches and greater power. The days of universal brotherhood have never existed—and, what is more, never will exist—and that State which protects the weak against the strong and the poor against the rich is the best worth striving for.
An ideal condition of society would be that in which every able-bodied person would have to work for a living with body, brains, or both; but birth and bullion play so large a part under present circumstances that, while we may sigh for the ideal, we must recognize the real. And this applies to all thinkers on our social affairs—to the extreme Socialist as to the extreme Individualist. The mystery of life cannot be solved by logic, and the pain, the poverty, and the crime which that mystery involves dissipated by law.
It must constantly also be borne in mind that mankind is not governed by material considerations alone, but is largely swayed by sentiment; and any system which ignores this and treats men simply as calculating machines is bound to fail. Thus it is that, while men accept the latest doctrines of social science, they do not act upon them. They sympathize with Mr. Spencer’s account of an ideal State in which the governmental power is the least possible, but they pay the education rate, support compulsory vaccination, and express not the slightest wish to see public-houses open all night. It is in this as in other theoretical affairs—our minds agree, but our hearts arbitrate. A parent may accept most thoroughly the doctrine of the survival of the fittest, but he will strive his utmost to preserve life to a crippled or lunatic child. And a trader may indicate assent when he hears that the employed ought to be paid only the amount which would secure similar services in the labour market; but, if he is even commonly honest in his dealings with his fellows, he will not discharge an old servant because he can obtain another for something less.
But no sooner do some men secure a fact than it begets a theory, and truth thus becomes the father of many lies. It is well enough that every one should strive to be independent of external help, but it is not within the bounds of the possible that every one can be perfectly so; and that being the case, the State, as the protector of all, is bound to interfere. What has to be decided is the limit of such interference; and although upon that point no precise line can be drawn, for as conditions vary so must the limit change, discussion may serve to show that all the truth lies in neither of the contending theories, but in a judicious use of both.