Therefore, while perfection in politics will never be realized, and the belief that it can be is fraught with danger, it should be urged upon all to think out the possibilities of the future, and to have a political ideal at which to aim. Mine is a State in which all men shall be equal before the law, every one have a fair chance according to his virtues, his talents, and his industry, and none be advanced because of hereditary or legalized privilege. A State in which all men are free, and wherein there is a fair field and no favour, is that for which Liberals should strive. Even when it is secured we shall still have with us the idle and the vicious, for those specimens of humanity will never perish from out the land; but the workful and the sober-minded will have a better chance of success than they have to-day, and the State will be benefited thereby.
Extension of individual liberty, abolition of inherited or other privilege—those points really sum up the Liberal ideal. If it be said that it does not promise to fill the people’s stomachs, it must be replied that stomach-filling is not the special concern of political life. That is a matter for the people to accomplish; let us remove every legalized hindrance to their doing it by their own capacities, but when we have done that they must do the stomach-filling for themselves. The State may and does feed the unfortunate, but, if it is to feed the idle, it will have to make the idle work for their food. There is no necessity either in law or in morals to tax those who work for the advantage of those who do not; and the most perfect State will be that in which the lazy and worthless will be made to labour, and the toilers be protected from being by them despoiled.
What we ask is equality of opportunity, and we have much to do before that can be obtained. There are some who say that they do not believe in elevating the working classes, because it would leave the ground floor of the social edifice untenanted. But the tenants are tired of being on the ground, and wish to see how the upper story justifies its existence, and in that they are right. With equality of opportunity, many to whom we are now called upon by convention to bow will sink to their proper level, while the men who work by brain or hands will acquire their rightful position in the social state. But without the fullest political liberty, this will never be attained, and we must strive jointly for both.
The political ideal at which we should aim is embraced in the words of Lincoln—“that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth,” and to that may be added that equality of opportunity shall be conceded to each one of us. Let us gain this, and as perfect a State as imperfect human nature can design or deserve will be ours.
XL.—WHERE SHALL WE STOP?
When the late Lord Shaftesbury was in the House of Commons, and was engaged in the apparently endless task of attempting to reform the factory laws, he brought in a bill to regulate the labour of children in calico-print works. He had already done much, but he wished to do more, and on being asked by his opponents, “Where will you stop?” he replied, “Nowhere, so long as any portion of this gigantic evil remains to be remedied.”
In the same spirit may be answered the question sometimes asked as to where Liberals will be prepared to stay the reforming hand. A period cannot be put to progress any more than a limit to literature, or to science a stopping-place. True, we have got rid of the greater tyrannies: divine right of kings, personal rule, borough-mongering—all are dead. We have got rid of the greater inequalities: purchase in the army, nomination in the civil service, have gone the way of the separate form at school, the distinctive tuft at the University, for the sons of peers. We have got rid of the old Tory idea that the people have nothing to do with the laws except to obey them; we now possess household, we may soon possess adult, suffrage. But are we, therefore, to do no more? Because we travel faster than our fathers, do we frown upon all improvements in locomotion? Because we no longer suffer from the Plague, the Sweating Sickness, and the Black Death, do the doctors sit with folded arms? No; for the motto of the race is progress, and until every tyranny, every iniquity, and every inequality which trouble us in public life are vanquished, we cannot in our conscience cease from attack.
Remember always the saying of Turgot, the great French economist, “It is not error which opposes the progress of truth: it is indolence, obstinacy, the spirit of routine, everything that favours inaction.” Much that hinders our advance comes from forgetfulness of what Liberalism has done, and what, therefore, it is still capable of doing. A politician once remarked, “Suppose that for but a month after the passing of any great measure of reform, such as the repeal of the Corn Laws, the extension of the suffrage, or the establishment of a national system of education, only the Liberals could have gained the benefit and the Tories been left outside, wouldn’t the Tories have joined us in a hurry to help reap the advantage the Liberals had secured?” There is no doubt as to the answer; but even as the sun shines upon the unjust as well as upon the just, so the beneficent stream of Liberal legislation fertilizes the waste lands of Toryism equally with the possessions of those who have prepared its course.