The Claims of Labour: An essay on the duties of the employers to the employed

by Sir Arthur Helps

The individual freedom which we possess is a great reason for individual exertion. How large that freedom is, it needs but a slight acquaintance with the past to estimate. Through what ages have we not toiled to the conviction that people should not be burnt for their opinions. The lightest word about dignities, the slightest claim to freedom of thought or speech upon those matters which, perhaps, angelic natures would hardly venture to pronounce upon, even the wayward play of morbid imagination, were not unlikely in former times to lead to signal punishments. A man might almost in his sleep commit treason, or heresy, or witchcraft. The most cautious, official-spoken man amongst us, if carried back on a sudden to the days of Henry the Eighth, would, at the end of the first week, be pursued by a general hue and cry from the authorities, civil and ecclesiastical, for his high and heinous words

against King, Church, and State. While now, Alfred Tennyson justly describes our country as

“The land, where girt with friends or foes,
A man may say the thing he will.”

There is danger of our losing this freedom if we neglect the duties which it imposes. But I have resolved to avoid dwelling upon dangers, and would rather appeal to other motives. The triumph for a nation so individually free as ours, would be to show that the possible benefits of despotism belonged to it—that there should be paternal government without injurious control—that those things should ultimately be attained by the exertions of many which a despot can devise and execute at once, but which his successor may, with like facility, efface. Whereas what is gained for many by many, is not easily got back. It must be vast embankments indeed which could compel that sea to give up its conquests.

We have now gone through the principal means by which social remedies may be effected: there comes the consideration within what limits these means should be applied. The subject of interference is a most difficult one. We are greatly mistaken, however, if we suppose that the difficulty is confined to Government interference. Who does not know of extreme mischief arising from over-guidance in social relations as well as in state affairs? The inherent difficulty with respect to any interference, is a matter which we have to get over in innumerable transactions throughout our lives. The way in which, as before said, it appears to me it should be met, is principally by enlightenment as to the purposes of interference. Look at the causes which are so often found to render interference mischievous. The governing power is anxious to exalt itself; instead of giving life and energy, wishes only to absorb them. Or it is bent upon having some outward thing done, careless of the principles on which it is done, or

of the mode and spirit of doing it. Hence, in public affairs, things may be carried which have only a show of goodness, but in reality are full of danger; and in private life, there arise formality, hypocrisy, and all kinds of surface actions. Or, again, the governing power is fond of much and minute interference, instead of, as Burke advises, employing means “few, unfrequent, and strong.” There may also be another error, when from over-tenderness, or want of knowledge, the authority in question suffers those under its influence to lean on it, when they are strong enough to walk by themselves. All these errors are general ones, which require to be guarded against in the education of a child, as well as in the government of a state. All of them, too, have their root in an insufficient appreciation of the value of free effort. But when this is once attained, the interfering party will see that his efforts should mainly be enabling ones: that he may come as an ally to those engaged in a contest too great for their ability; but that

he is not to weaken prowess by unneeded meddling. It may be said that this is vague. I am content to be vague upon a point where, I believe, the greatest thinkers will be very cautious of laying down precise rules. Look at what Burke says with regard to state interference—that it should confine itself to what is “truly and properly publick, to the publick peace, to the publick safety, to the publick order, to the publick prosperity.” How large a scope do those words “publick prosperity” afford. Besides, the transactions, in which we want to ascertain just limits for our interference, are so numerous, and so various, that they are not to be met but by an inconceivable multiplicity of rules. Such rules may embody much experience, but they seldom exhaust the subject which they treat of; and there is the danger of our suffering them to enslave, instead of merely to guide, our judgments. And then, on some critical occasion, when the exception, and not the rule, is in accordance with the principle on which the rule has been formed, we

may commit the greatest folly in keeping to what we fancy the landmarks of sagacity and experience. Instead, therefore, of laying down any abstract rules, I will only observe that a primâ facie reluctance to all interference is most reasonable, and perhaps as necessary in the social world, as friction is in the physical world, in order to prevent every unguided impulse from having its full mechanical effect: that, nevertheless, interference must often be resorted to: and that the best security for acting wisely in any particular case, is not to suffer ourselves to be narrowly circumscribed by rules, but at the same time to be very cautious of attempting any mere present good, of getting notions of our own rapidly carried into action, at the expense of that freedom and moral effort which are the surest foundations of all progress.

We were considering, above, the claim which our individual freedom makes on our individual exertion for the good of others. But this freedom must in some degree be

limited in order to produce its best results; and amongst them, to secure the greatest amount of such individual exertion. We know the restraint that must exist upon all, if all are to enjoy equal freedom. The freedom of one is not to be a terror to another. Law is based upon this obvious principle. But there are other circumstances also, in which individuals will find support and comfort in the general freedom being circumscribed by some interference on the part of the state or other bodies. Such a case occurs when the great majority of some class of private individuals would willingly submit to wise regulations for the general good, but cannot do so without great sacrifice, because of the selfish recusancy of some few amongst them. Here is a juncture at which the State might interfere to enable individuals to carry out their benevolent intentions. But one of the main reasons for some degree of interference from the State or other authorized bodies, in matters connected with our present subject, is that, otherwise, the responsibilities of individuals