TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SOCIAL AND THE POLITICAL.
THE excitement about social questions at present will have one important and salutary effect—to mark out more clearly- than hitherto the attributes of government, so as to extend its legiti- mate action where it has been limited by popular bigotry, and to prevent the caprices that it has been tempted from time to time to indulge through popular indifference. "What right has the Government to interfere ?" "Why does
not the Government interfere ?" These two questions are equally common in England, and in most cases equally absurd. In a fit of good humour, there is no amount of power which the English are not willing to bestow on the Legislature. In an opposite mood, they trammel and torment it by silly carping and childish suspicions. The attitude of the English people in reference to their Government is an alternation between excessive jealousy and excessive indulgence ; and it generally happens that the in- dulgence and the jealousy are alike misplaced.
The English have had the longest practical political education
of any people in Europe. But they have had less of an educa- tion in political principles than any of the great European na- tions that have victoriously struggled for freedom. In England the achievement of a reform has often been the establishment of a principle, but rarely, if ever, the realization of a principle. When -any notable political crisis arises, the common sense, the earnest- ness, the pertinacity of the English, always tell them what is needful to be done. In such circumstances, other communities may display prompter invention and more brilliant heroism, but none such solid wisdom and persevering courage. But in their judgment of and their position toward that tranquil legislation, on the modest evolvements of which the welfare and happiness of every country depend more than on the success of its glorious revolutions, the English, from their ignorance of principles and their contempt for them in as far as they are the subjects of re- flection and not the results of a series of conflicts, commit the grossest blunders ; often treating as an unpardonable guilt any attempt of a Minister to rise to a higher than a commonplace statesmanship, and, on the other hand, tolerating with a stolid patience follies, and sometimes crimes, on the part of the rulers, which would sting a more excitable race to madness.
Social questions differ from political questions, in that they cannot be agitated or decided without a continual reference to principles. However superficially contemplated, they remount to the very origin of society. They traverse and trace the long his- tory of causes through which the artificial has banished the natural, and the conventional taken the place of the real. But political questions, except in so far as they are connected with social questions, can scarcely be said to involve any principle at all. Take the Game-laws and the Right of Property as ex- amples. The first is mainly a political, the second mainly a social question ; indeed, properly considered, it may be designated the great social question. Now,. who but a few political anti- quaries care to go back to the birth of the Game-laws? It is when their pressure as a political grievance becomes intolerable that they will be abolished, without one atom of speculation mingling in the contest. But the Right of Property and other kindred questions have a far deeper and more solemn interest. The crash of the most destructive political catastrophe seldom dashes down more than the battlements ; the great robust framework like the heart of a pyramid, remains unshaken : but a social question, in its naked sternness, strikes as a thunderbolt, to the very foundations. We cannot, therefore, suppose that the English people in beginning a social reformation, and in essaying to grapple with those grand epic problems which transport us to the very dawn of human things, will not expend on political action and arrangement a portion of that higher, more refined, and more speculative thought, which they devote to social questions. It is impossible for them to pierce or endeavour to pierce into the mysteries of social institutions with a certain degree of philosophical appretiation, and yet re- vert to their old merely practical habits in political matters ; and, applying to the political the same kind of enlarged thinking and elaborate analysis which they bestow on the social, one of the first things which they will be led to consider will be the relations between the two: this will lead to an accurate knowledge and a wise recognition of the purpose, the province, and the prerogative of government; which will thus be rendered bolder and more responsible—more habitually responsible, and bolder on great oc- casions; and People and Government, instead of standing apart ready at every moment to rush into a furious antagonism, will feel their objects, their very existence, to be one.
In no case should a government directly interfere with a social
question. But there are few questions purely social or purely po- litical. A social question may have political aspects ; and with these the government must deal. A political question may have social bearings ; but the government must settle the question on its political merits. The action of a government may be more social than political nevertheless ; for the majority of questions in which a government intervenes may have more of social than political elements. If it be asked, how we are to determine what is strictly social or strictly political, there is more of apparent than real difficulty in furnishing an answer. Communities existed before governments: to deny this, would
be equivalent to stating that it is only governments that hold communities together. Men yielded to the social instinct, and bowed to the gentle control of a social bond, which needed nothing but sympathy to give it tenacity, before law or lawgivers were thought of. Now all the questions the germ of which existed in this first and simple state of man are social questions : everything beyond, when the complication of interests or the ambition of individuals created a force to con- serve, to direct, and to punish, is political. Government, therefore, is nothing but a substitute for imperfect social institutions; and the more perfect social arrangements tend to become, of the less im- portance will a government be. This greatly diminishes the at- traction of the discussion as to the best form of government ; see- ing that it is not so much forms of government, excellent or the contrary, which aid or retard social progress' as social progress that fixes the value of forms of government. There is one thing hopeful for him who is looking anxiously and dubiously on the affairs of Europe—that, formidable as despotism may look in many countries, yet a new and potent social life is stirring in them all; and that those things by which nations are to be their own redeemers cannot be mutilated by cavalry hoofs or thrust back by bayonets.
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