But I shall enter into particulars, so that you may comprehend it; and, at the same time, in this trifling digression from the thread of my narrative, I hope, young friends, to teach you a lesson of political wisdom that may benefit both you and your country when you are old enough to practise it.
I hold the doctrine, or, I should rather say, I have long been aware of the fact (for there is no “doctrine” about it), that the study which is usually styled Political Science, is the most important study that ever occupied the attention of men. It embraces and influences all other existences in the social world. Every art, science, or manufacture hinges upon this, and depends upon it for success or failure. Even morality itself is but a corollary of the political state, and crime a consequence of its bad organisation. The political status of a country is the main cause of its happiness or its misery. In no case has government reached anything approaching to justice; hence, there is no people who ever has, as a whole, enjoyed ordinary happiness. Poverty, misery, crime, degradation, are the lot of the majority in every land, except one, and in that one there is yet nothing near perfection in government, only a step in advance.
As I have said, then, the laws of a country—in other words, its political condition—influence almost everything: the ship we set sail in, the carriage we ride in, the implements of our labour, the utensils we employ in our dwellings, even the comfort of our dwellings themselves. Nay more, and of still greater importance, they influence ourselves—the shape of our bodies, and the disposition of our souls. The dash of a despot’s pen, or a foolish act passed in Parliament, which might appear to have no personal application to any one, may exert a secret and invisible influence, that, in one single generation, will make a whole people wicked in soul and ignoble in person.
I could prove what I state with the certainty of a geometric truth, but I have no time now. Enough if I give you an illustration. Hear it, then:—
Many years ago a law was passed in the British Parliament for the taxation of ships, for they, like everything else, must pay for their existence. There was a difficulty how to proportion this tax. It would scarcely be just to make the owner of a poor little schooner pay the enormous sum required from him who is the proprietor of a grand ship of two thousand tons. It would at once eat up the profits of the lesser craft, and swamp her altogether. How, then, was this difficulty to be got over? A reasonable solution appeared. Tax each vessel in proportion to her tonnage.
The scheme was adopted; but then another difficulty presented itself. How was this proportion to be obtained? It was by bulk that the ships were to be taxed; but tonnage is weight, not bulk. How, then, was this new difficulty to be got over? Simply by taking some standard size as the weight of a ton, and then ascertaining how many of these sizes the vessel would contain. In fact, after all, it came to measurement, not weight.
Next came the idea as to how the measurement was to be made, so that it would exhibit the relative proportions of ships; and that was very fittingly done by ascertaining in each the length of keel, the breadth of beam, and the depth of the hold. These three, when multiplied together, will give relative sizes of ships, if these skips be properly constructed.
A law was thus obtained sufficiently just for taxation purposes, and you would think (if you are a superficial thinker) that this law could in no way exert any bad influence, except on those who had the tax to pay.
Not so; that simple, unsuspicious-looking law has caused more evil to the human race, more waste of time and loss of life, more consumption of human means, than would buy up at the present moment all the slavery existing in the world!
How has it done this? You will ask the question with surprise, I have no doubt.