SPURIOUS POLITICAL ECONOMY.* Is the study of political economy declining
in England ? Most people will be astonished at the question, looking at our recent progress in the application of the science. How can it be asked, in a country where the doctrines of free trade have been stamped as with fire upon the minds of our politicians, where the House of Commons comprehends as if by instinct the secret of financial strength, where the Prime Minister reasons on economic facts and applies economic principles in a way that no statesman has ever approached, and where half a score at least of leading men make the ventilation of economic fallacies in Parliament an exceed- ingly hazardous process — whether the science which is thus appreciated and expounded is declining or not ? But we think it will not bo difficult to show that there is another side to the question. The late agitation about the depression of trade brought to the surface a mass of crude opinion which is checked and frowned down in the popular assembly by a kind of authority, but which indicates a greater want of instruction among the constituencies and their leaders than we like to witness. But this is not the worst sign of the condition of the study. Almost
* Land Systems an I Industrial Economy of Ireland, England, and Continental Countries. By T. E. Cliffs Leslie, LLB. London: Longman. 1870.
by the necessity of her circumstances, England must be free-trading, since it would hardly be possible to suggest any important industry except wheat-growing that would even in appearance gain by pro- tection ; and the traditions of our Parliamentary Government may be trusted to keep our finance in good order for many years to come. The deficiency we refer to is mainly in the exposition of the theory of the science. We look round, and perceive hardly a single new writer displaying conspicuous ability in handling economic ques- tions. We have neither new discoveries in the science itself, nor the confirmation and development of old principles by the facts of the new industrial conditions which the events of late years—emigration and mechanical inventions—have created. Our new academic writers, as we may class them, are mainly occupied in elaborating Mr. Mill's blunder as to the absolute blessedness of peasant proprietorship, or wearing threadbare the endless puzzle of rent, or writing manuals which are weak rechauffes of Mill ; or perhaps making a long discussion on the position of the labourer hinge on the supposed discovery that there is some inherent and perennial difficulty in the way of his making bargains, which are utterly without example in the experience of other sellers. With the exception of Professor Cairns and Mr. Jevons, there is hardly a new academic writer who could be named as having done anything to advance the science by fresh popular exposition or a deeper investigation of any of its branches.
We are induced to make these remarks by the book which has now come before us. Mr. Leslie is just the kind of author to whom we should look for the advance of the science. He has attained a fair position as a writer ; he occupies a high place as a professor ; if sound economic theory is to be taught, it must be by men like him. But to say the least, we are amazed not merely by the positive errors into which he falls, but by the difficulty under which he seems to labour of catching the problems before him, and the perversity with which he works at a pet theory and sets down hastily whatever comes uppermost that seems to make for it or to bear against the opposite hypothesis. The main theme of the present book is peasant proprietorship, and the whole treatment of it, as well as of other topics, is in our view essentially vicious and unworthy of the literature of the study. We trust we shall not be misunderstood. No one can sympathize more heartily than we do with the practical drift of the book. We have borne our part in striking down the silly English pre- judice against peasant proprietors and the petite culture. We go thoroughly with the author in denouncing the abuses of entails, and primogeniture, and the legal technicalities by which land is kept out of the market and the natural growth of English industry contorted. We can conceive as perfectly defensible a special interference by the State with the soil of England to secure its more even enjoyment by all classes, because it is clear that where the monopoly of the soil is so valuable as it is in England, great injury may result to the State from the unrestricted application of the principle of private property. Our quarrel with the author is, that while aiming at some sound practical results, he makes reckless statements, confuses theory, does not allow enough for other causes besides those which he assails, and exaggerates most egregiously the economic dangers of England.
The book is divisible into three parts. We have first a collec- tion of essays on Ireland, in which the leading points, besides strictures on the obvious evil of tenancy-at-will, are a refutation of Lord Dufferin's statement that the increase of wages in Ireland is due to emigration, and an assertion of the grave loss to Ireland by the technical difficulties of alienating land, so that towns and manufactures have been checked by the mere want of sites. There is next a collection of essays on England, in which an endeavour is made to show that the peasantry and yeomen of England have been deprived of proprietorship in farms and holdings mainly by force and fraud of the landlords ; that towns have grown unnatu- rally by the separation of the peasantry from land ; and that the industrial system of England is peculiarly unstable in conse- quence. Finally, several essays are devoted to Continental countries, partly to an account of peasant farming in certain parts of Belgium and France, in which the one text is the industry of the peasants and their superiority to the English agricultural labourer ; and partly to an account of the Ruhr basin, the development of whose mines and manufactures in the midst of better industrial conditions as respects the occupation of land, and with a population of great capacity, assisted by greater governing foresight, is held to threaten formidable competition with England. Such is the substance of the book, and it will not be difficult to show where perversity and exaggeration have been indulged in. With regard to the Irish
part, for instance, the mistake is not in denying that emigration has done as much as Lord Dufferin contends ; but in ignoring altogether the extent to which it has been a natural process, and has contributed to keep up, if not to raise, the rate of wages. Mr. Leslie seems to think that he proves his point as to the slight influence of emigration on wages, by showing that the nominal weekly wage has increased little. What he has to show is that without the emigration which succeeded the famine the situation of the country would not have become intolerable, through the accumulation of agriculturists on a soil unable to feed them, and bidding against each other for the scantiest pittance. It is a patent fact that by means of emigration the pressure of competition has been reduced till there is a complaint of the scarcity of labourers, by which those who remain obtain some benefit. A happier industrial system might also reduce the com- petition by multiplying the employment for labour, but as an immediate remedy emigration has acted on Ireland as it has acted on the rude labour of Europe, erecting an outside high standard of comfort, which has helped to elevate both those who go and those who stay. With regard to the effect of the land laws in checking towns and manufactures by depriving them even of sites, there are no doubt well-authenticated instances of such pernicious results ; but we miss in the volume any attempt to measure the evil influence. The tendency of such laws is obviously bad, and the argument is good enough for their removal ; but we expect in a theoretic teacher some estimate of the fact itself, as compared with other elements in Ireland which are also antagon- istic to industry. We suspect that these laws have played a very small part indeed compared with other influences in the economic misfortunes of Ireland, and it is at any rate a particular defect in a writer to seize upon one or two points only, as if they were the whole matter.
Coming to the English part, we need hardly ask whether it is not a gross exaggeration to represent the growth of English towns as due to the forceful and fraudulent exclusion of the country population from the property which they had in the soil, and whether it is not most unpractical to use this historical argument as a reason for now giving the labouring population a closer connection with the land. In the historical question, it is plain that the conduct of landlords cannot have been the most powerful influence. The mere fact that the population of England is probably six or seven times what it was in the golden age of yeomen and peasant pro- prietors, shows that the towns have arisen in a very natural way. Manufactures provide for a population which could not otherwise have existed in anything approaching the same comfort on the soil of England. 1Ve may believe, too, along with the firmest faith in the selfishness of noblemen and squires, that their attacks on the property of yeomen and peasants were notably assisted by the spread of other industries. The rights of commonage naturally become less and less valuable in proportion to other interests in an advancing community ; they are not protected by the strength of the masses, as in a population where they are valuable to the majority. The landlords of England, again, were tempted to extend their privileges of private property in the soil, but it was not till the growth of the industrial system diminished the feudal rights, and made private property worth coveting. Would not the causes which made this private property valuable have also sufficed to make England substantially what it is, although the tendency of land to become a luxury has been aggravated by our vicious laws ? As a practical reason for taking steps to give the labouring population a closer connection with the land, the argu- ment is even more worthless. The necessity and expediency of such a measure would be the same, however the present system arose.
But the whole assumption of the essays, that the English indus- trial system is peculiarly unstable, in consequence of the severance of the labouring population from the land, is itself exceedingly questionable. We believe that it is an entire mistake, that it is quite arguable that there is no industrial system better and more solidly established than the English, but whether that is so or not, the author's treatment of the subject is as faulty as it can pos- sibly be. Beyond passing statements, wholly unproved, that the English population, both in town and country, is degenerat- ing, assertions of the exceptional misery of the English agricultural labourers and of the want of motives to thrift among all English workmen, and a quotation from Adam Smith as to the instability of wealth founded on com- merce, there is nothing whatever in these pages to support the assumption. This is worse than trifling with the subject. There is hardly a question more grave or difficult in the whole range of the science than that of the stability of different systems, or of the material prosperity of nations, and it should not be handled in this random manner. The alleged tendency of the people to degenerate would itself require a treatise, and the facts at least—
especially the point whether the alleged physical degeneration in towns is remediable or not, and whether it is not in process of being remedied by the increase of wealth in all classes and advances in sanitary knowledge and method—should have been
carefully collated in an essay of this kind. There is positive blundering, again, in the easy way with which all agricultural
labourers in England are spoken of as in the same condition, whereas the differences in the class are manifold, and it is no more than a section, though far too considerable a section, which
can be spoken of as inferior to some of the most fortunate classes of peasant proprietors and farmers. As to the want of motives for thrift among English working-men, we should think it very clear that the difficulties in the way of a particular kind of investment, though they may encourage unthrift, are far from being the sole or principal cause of the recklessness of English workmen. Other workmen save without investing in lands or houses.
We have left ourselves little room to speak of the foreign part, and may simply remark on the want of thoroughness in the treat- ment. We get partial glimpses of some peasant proprietors and hear much of their industry, but there is no proper discussion of the system —nothing to contrast with such a picture of the English industrial masses as we get in the " Habits and Customs of the Working- Classes," or in the reports of our own "Children's Employment Com- missions," which would help as to judge of the Continental system, and the possibility and expediency of applying it to England. In the account of the Ruhr basin, again, what we are struck with is the want of proportion between the facts stated and the prospect of formidable competition held out to England. Mr. Leslie is one of those writers who have only to hear of a successful manufactur- ing establishment abroad, to rush at once to the conclusion that England is undone. Now, the hard fact upon which all the specu- lation is built is that the progress of Westphalia in mining and manufactures, as indicated by the production of coal, has been as great in twenty years as it is in England in three. Mr. Leslie does not say anything of what English progress is, but when we make the comparision ourselves, we find the fact to be what we have stated. Twenty years ago, Westphalia produced two million tons of coal annually, and now produces eleven million tons ; and our production increases three million tons a year. But the truth is, the author, though a professor of political economy, has fallen into the error of the ignorant manufacturer, who is likely to speak with chronic apprehension of the progress of rivals. The economist, on the contrary, knows that the prosperity of one nation or com- munity is the prosperity of all, and that we shall only gain by the increased productive power of others. There will be competition in certain branches, but new outlets for industry will be found, and the wealth of the world will be increased.
We have touched on but a fraction of the errors and per- versities, but will only add one or two more to our list. It is a frequently repeated error that the proper test of any economic system is the condition of the lowest mass of the population. Mr. Leslie says expressly that " the proper test of any rural system is the peasantry," and he discusses, as we have seen, the land question of England and the Continental system of peasant proprietorships, with almost exclusive reference to the agricultural labourer or the lowest mass of the town population. But this is manifestly wrong. The proper test of any economic system is the condi- tion of the whole community, and of any industry the condi- tion of the whole population engaged in it. In a rural system, the conditions of the landlords, bailiffs, tenant farmers, and foremen is quite as much a part of the question as the con- dition of the labourers. Philosophically considered, the superior condition of these classes is a set-off to the lower condition of the labourers below them. If the labourer remains only equally well off, a system in which there are some members of the community better off is plainly better than one where all are on the same low level. In the same way, looking at the mass of a manufacturing community, we must not only regard the lower class, but the em- ployers, and capitalists, and agents, and superior clerks, and foremen, and the highly-paid artisans who are an integral part of the manufacturing population. To judge such a community by its residuum, and compare that residuum with the mass of a dif- ferently constituted community, is false and unphilosophical in the highest degree. Yet a great deal of the lamentation over the supposed falling-off in the condition of the English masses is based on this misconception. We find, again, a statement like this —that an overwhelming number of the population of England have no property—as if the majority even of the poorest of our people were without clothes, or furniture, or money in the
savings' bank, or as if the majority of our people were " paupers." We fear there is a sufficient number of lack-ails to form a dangerous element in the community, but between the statement of that fact and the proposition that an overwhelming number, unlike the majority of Continental populations, have no property, there is a very wide interval. The assertion certainly ought not to be made by a professor of political economy without the amplest of proofs in its support. But it would be wearisome to enlarge the chapter of exaggerations and misstatements and unsupported assertions. We should not have dwelt on them so long, but for the quasi- authority of the writer, and to justify our observations on the decay of economic science.
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