A Short History of English Liberalism

by W. Lyon Blease

production for profit, work at a good wage must be guaranteed to every one who asks for it, and the fair distribution of wealth among the workers must be regarded as of more primary importance than the quantity which is produced. Socialists differ widely about methods and the rapidity with which the economic change is to be effected. Generally, the modern Socialist of the Fabian type prefers a gradual evolution to the cruder appropriations of early thinkers, he is prepared to exempt certain industries from his scheme, and the equal distribution of rewards has gone the way of the class war and community of goods. But all agree that, sooner or later, society, as politically organized in the form of the State, shall produce and distribute or control the production and distribution of wealth according to ethical principles. The Liberal is less universal in his proposals. He does not object to the municipalization, or even nationalization, of mechanical monopolies, of industries which in fact do not admit of competition. Such industries as the supply of water, gas and electricity, tramways and railways, are not in fact competitive, and efficiency is probably as well maintained by aggrieved payers of rates and taxes as by shareholders disappointed of their profits. But the Liberal is not disposed to admit that similar conditions would produce similar results in industries of a more speculative or hazardous character. Nor can he admit that private ownership of capital necessarily involves the exploitation of labour. In certain industries, notably the cotton industry of Lancashire, he sees examples of the successful combination of individual enterprise in management with minimum standards of life and wages fixed either by the Factory Acts or by powerful Trade Unions, and he is not satisfied that the enterprise would be as brilliant or the minimum standards as high if the capital engaged were owned by the State.

In particular, the Liberal distrusts the bureaucratic system of management which Socialism involves. The London School of Economics seems to him a very good servant. He has no doubt that it would be a bad master. Even with its disadvantages, the system which makes private gain at once the

incentive to efficiency and its only possible test may be much superior to that which leaves the determination of industrial policy to a sort of lay hierarchy. An active and persecuting aristocracy will at least keep its subjects alive. The dull and unimaginative methods of bureaucracy stifle even when they are inspired by benevolence. Officialism is generally fatal to new ideas, and apart from the reduction of wealth which would probably follow the abolition of private profit, the officialization of mind which would be diffused throughout society is a sufficiently deadly argument against Socialism. It might even destroy individual life as completely as did some of the religions of the East. This argument against Socialism is to some extent an argument against Social Reform. Social Reform requires the appointment of many officials. But the functions of such as have already been appointed are confined to inspection, to advice, and to the collection of money or information. We have had no experience of officials engaged in the manufacture of goods for export, or in the conduct of the shipping trade. Such experience as we have had of municipal enterprise has only satisfied us of the capacity of officials who are controlled and criticized by unofficial ratepayers, who have a personal and pecuniary interest in the efficiency of the official. No Liberal Government has yet proposed to extend official management to those many fields where success depends upon the judicious calculation of risks. Until that proposal is made there will always be a gulf between Liberals and Socialists, and a distinction between the policy which limits the destructiveness of competition for private gain and that which abolishes such competition altogether.

A second objection which is urged against Social Reform is its cost; and the charges on the public, required by Old Age Pensions, Insurance, and Labour Exchanges, have afforded a good opportunity for contrasting the greatly increased expenditure of Liberal Government with the demand of Liberal Opposition for "Peace, Retrenchment, and Reform." As the terms are now understood, Retrenchment and Reform cannot go together. The new Liberalism has been compelled to recognize that

economy and parsimony are not synonymous expressions, and that the mere refusal to spend money may in the end prove more costly than a judicious outlay in the present. What is too generally ignored by the critics of this new policy is that, in one way or another, all the service which is now being rendered by the State has already been rendered by society. Since the reign of Elizabeth we have admitted our duty to provide for the destitute, and the burden which has not fallen upon the poor rates has been borne by private charity, by public hospitals, and by the police. In public or private poor relief, in the curing of disease, and in the punishment of crime we have long been accustomed to pay for the consequences of poverty. The new Social Reforms merely transfer these various duties to the national Exchequer. It is impossible to compare figures of expenditure. But it is most probable that ultimately the total weight of poverty will be considerably less than under the old system. Prevention is better than cure. Relief used to be delayed until some permanent degradation of body or character had taken place. It is now applied while there is still a chance of restoring the unfortunate to their old efficiency. The Old Age Pension directly relieves the rates by keeping the pensioner out of the workhouse, or gives his family the opportunity of a fuller life by releasing the money hitherto required for his support. The Insurance Act should eventually abolish all that very large proportion of pauperism which is produced by casual sickness, prevent the deterioration which so often follows the temporary loss of work, and maintain the average level of industrial efficiency at a higher level than before. The Minimum Wage Acts impose a direct charge upon industry. It is possible that some trades may be extinguished because they cannot bear the charge. If that should be the event, it can only be because the trades in question are at present parasitic: they do not support themselves, but suck nourishment from society by way of outdoor relief, charity, petty larceny, or prostitution. The cost to the community will here be made definite instead of remaining unknown. But in most of the underpaid trades the Acts will have the same effect as a powerful

Trade Union. So long as Parliament abstains from fixing wages, and confines itself to the erection of machinery for fixing them in accordance with the conditions of the trade, Minimum Wage Acts merely create by law what Trade Unionism creates by voluntary effort. The higher wages established under the Acts will do what higher wages established under Trade Unionism have done. They will mean increased efficiency, increased production of wealth, and increased purchasing power. In this case, as in those of the Workmen's Compensation Act and the Insurance Act, not only will a burden be transferred from one part of the community to another, but it will in time be reduced in weight. So the Act for feeding necessitous school-children, by preventing the reduction of physical, mental, and moral strength in the present, will prevent future expenditure in poor relief, hospitals, and police. The survey which includes nothing but the legislative reforms themselves is partial and deceptive. It is only when we realize that poverty is already being relieved in a tardy, disorganized, and unscientific way that we can see how the cost of the new reforms will be in fact a most wise economy of national resources, and that by spending on prevention instead of on restoration we will actually be saving money.

The philosophical argument against Social Reform which has most weight is neither the argument from bureaucracy nor the argument from expense. It is the argument which is more justly directed against Socialism, that by helping individuals the State deprives them, in whole or in part, of the disposition to help themselves, that they tend to rely more and more upon the social organization and less upon their own strength. Everything in the way of public assistance is thus regarded with suspicion. To feed school-children is to weaken parental responsibility. To raise wages by legislation is as demoralizing as to distribute doles. To offer a pension of five shillings a week in old age is to discourage thrift in youth. It is therefore better, in the end, that poverty should be allowed to run its course than that a misdirected benevolence should demoralize

the people. This argument, reproducing the logical individualism of the Utilitarians, has been greatly strengthened by Darwinism. No less impartial a man than Herbert Spencer has thus applied the theory of evolution to political affairs. "The well-being of existing humanity, and the unfolding of it into ... ultimate perfection, are both secured by the same beneficent, though severe discipline to which the animate creation at large is subject; a felicity-pursuing law which never swerves for the avoidance of partial and temporary suffering. The poverty of the incapable, the distresses that come upon the imprudent, the starvation of the idle, and those shoulderings aside of the weak by the strong, which leave so many in shallows and in miseries, are the decree of a large, far-seeing benevolence."[^[358]] The conception, which makes of foreign politics an immoral conflict between nations, is to make of domestic politics an equally immoral conflict between individuals, in which justice and humanity are to be set aside as inconsistent with the progress of the race. At first sight it would appear that the whole of that progress up to the time of Darwin had been along a wrong line. If there is one thing which most distinguishes modern from ancient society, and society of any kind from the disorganized existence of primitive man, it is the prevalence of the idea that we are, in some measure, responsible for the condition of our neighbours. The emotions and the reasoning faculties which have produced moral inhibitions on our own desires, laws for the protection of the weak against the strong, the machinery of private charity, and the public relief of the poor, all these have been evolved with the other characteristics of humanity as we know it. If the course of past development is any guide we may be certain that unless we take steps to alter our conditions, we shall certainly continue in the same course in the future. It would be at least surprising that the salvation of the race should now be found to lie in deliberate reaction, against the movement of countless ages towards the stage of undisciplined human egoism which followed that of the anthropoid apes. A doctrine so repugnant to what we

have been accustomed to regard as our better feelings requires little examination to discover its fallacies.

The evolutionary argument against Social Reform falls to the ground when it is once admitted that the individuals in contemplation are individuals organized in a society, and that it is only so long as they are so organized that development, as we understand it, can take place. If mankind were left to scramble for such good things as it could get without co-operation, the race would no doubt, in course of time, develop such characteristics as that competition would allow to survive. But if we erect higher standards, and require, even from selfish motives, the moral, intellectual, and physical benefits which only organization, culture, and the communication of ideas will produce, the comparison between human beings and the rest of the animate creation is useless for our purpose. Some limitation of the struggle for existence is obviously needed, if we are not to fall back to the level where only the brute qualities of strength, swiftness, and cunning are of value. Once we admit the need of a social organization, which involves a very considerable check on mechanical evolution by the survival of the fittest, the only controversy is about the extent and character of the limits on competition, and not about their existence. The beasts, birds, and fishes which are unfit for their environment, and have not those qualities which make for survival, perish by disease or are destroyed by their enemies. The man generally remains a drag on the community. What is the community to do with him? The lethal chamber being regarded as impossible, it must keep him in hospital, in prison, in the workhouse, or in a charitable institution, and if he is not thus maintained he will maintain himself by crime or beggary. Throughout his life he remains a parasite upon his fellows. It is always therefore the most economical course, if it be possible, to alter his environment, so that he may have the chance of supporting himself.