To Miss Nixon, on Henry George’s Progress and Poverty:—
‘April 1884.
‘I am sorry to have given you pain, but I do hope you will read the writings of those who understand political economy better than we do. I think if you had read about the evils which preceded the abolition of the old Poor Law, you would have seen why I cannot approve Mr. George’s plans, and not thought that I desire less than you do that these miseries of the people should be lessened. It is so important for us teachers to try to get right views about history; to pray by our acts that we may have “a right judgment in all things.”
‘It is more pathetic than anything to see people led by false hopes to follow wandering fires to their destruction; and such, I am sure, are some of the new lights. The history of the Crusades and the French Revolution ought not to have been written in vain for us. There are three articles that I think you ought to read,—the Duke of Argyle’s, Mr. Herbert Spencer’s, and Mr. Brodrick’s, in the last Nineteenth Century and Contemporary.
‘Reforms I earnestly desire on laws of succession, land transfer, etc. etc., but I am sure that no external bettering of conditions can do good without this is the outcome of right principles, and that people can be raised only by raising the moral standard of all. Perhaps we may have time to talk some day.
To Mr. Coates after a lecture he had given at Cheltenham:—
‘July 1888.
‘Dear Mr. Coates,— ... What I especially regretted was that the lecture raised a number of questions to which it furnished no answers, but seemed to me to suggest erroneous ones; words were used which were not defined.
‘(1) Persecution; (2) Official dignity; (3) Rights of the individual in relation to the community.
‘(1) Now as regards persecution, you said people could not, if they were in earnest, help persecuting. That was equivalent to the assertion that persecution was right; but you did not say what you understood by persecution. Everything depends on that to girls accustomed to associate persecution with bodily torture. I think what you said would suggest wrong ideas. I can’t agree with your general proposition, but of course I may be wrong.