PHILANTHROPIC ECONOMY, OR THE PHILOSOPHY OF HAPPINESS.
MRS. LOUDON is an elegant novelist, who has, somewhat 'slyly, en- deavoured to impress her views of political economy on the stu- dents of the circulating library. We can fancy the" dilemma" of thoroughbred novel-readers, who, allured by the titles of "First Love,"" Fortune-Hunting," or "Dilemmas of Pride," took up the works and found themselves attracted by the tale but puzzled by its science. Whether the author felt the incongruity of attempting to blend mere amusement with grave instruction, or whether, strong in her cause and her powers of enforcing it, she determined to present us with divine philosophy in a pure state, we need not inquire: it is enough to 4' take the good the gods provide us "—to know that we have now the Loudonian theory unmixed with baser rnatter.
The first conception of the Philosophy of Happiness is better than its execution. The author seems to have been too much de- lighted with her discoveries to allow the necessary time for their settlement : hence they have the appearance of being sent forth during the period of fermentation, with several crudities that were better away, and without some of that fineness and complete amal- gamation which age alone can give. The soil, too, that produced the fruit, would have been better for more careful cultivation. To drop metaphor, the lady's mind, though accomplished, has not yet been sufficiently disciplined and enriched by an attentive study of arguments and observation of facts, nor toned by long and familiar acquaintance with the highest classical models. Philanthropic Economy, really, though not nominally, consists of two divisions. The first section, and it is a brief one, expounds the system ; the second applies it. According to Mrs. LounoN, the happiness of all is the end of creation, and moral order the means of attaining it. In her opinion, all nature obeys the law of God, except "free-will abused ;" and, so far as we know, man is the only. creature possessing free-will (though divines and school- men, by the by, doubt about him). Hence, the ill-working of creation is attributable to man. When "reason shall conform to the purpose of God" in individual practice, in the conduct of the social system, and in the organization of political arrange- ments, the harmony of creation will be complete.
It is obvious that many great and important rules result from this theory of Benevolent Utility, extending to political, economical, and jurisprudential science. Not the least important of these, as Mrs. LOUDON truly observes, is that the public will should enforce equal justice to all. From an investigation of the origin of wealth —or more strictly speaking, from an exposition of ADAM SMITH'S discovery that labour is the origin of wealth—she maintains the opinion of Mr. SCROPE, that the labourer has a higher right to the means of living than the landlord to rent—or the capitalist to profits. Putting these two principles together, this deduction follows—that for the legislating few to oppress the non-legislating many, by monopolies, by protections, or by mischievous fiscal sys- tems, is contrary to the will of God, as revealed in the laws of crea- tion. Hence it follows, that corn-laws, colonial protective duties, and indirect taxation, are not only errors in science, but crimes against nature.
Having arrived at these general conclusions, our fair philan- thropist proceeds to turn them to a useful purpose; applying them to test what is, and, after discovering its rottenness, telling what ought to be. She would, like us, abolish the Corn-laws, and the other monopolies; she advocates small allotments. In her millennium, our present system of taxation shall be swept away, and its place supplied by a Property-tax, under which no impost should be levied on incomes in trade, but the trader's whole capital being valued, its annual produce should be estimated at the same amount as if it were invested in the funds : were this tax not sufficiently productive at first, it might be eked out by a poll- tax. She would also abolish the laws of entail and primogeni- ture; which last she seems, like many other persons, to confound with a law of equal distribution. Poor-laws for Ireland, Church and Municipal Reform, the State appropriation of Irish Church property, an extension of the Suffrage, and vote by ballot, are agreeable to the Eternal Fitness of Things and Natural Revela- tion; to both of which, hereditary legislation and long Parlia- ments are opposed. The great expositor herself suggests, that to avoid the inconvenience of elections, Members should sit during the pleasure of their constituencies.
To discuss all these matters at due length, would require, not a whole newspaper, but a whole volume as large as Philanthropic Economy itself. Instead of attempting this impossibility, we will take a specimen, exemplifying the author's manner.
• PARAELE OF THE CORN-LAWS.
Let as suppose a couple possessed of a small garden, and having a family of children. Suppose thoseehildren able to earn wages at various trades, yet corn- pleteiy under the control of their parents; suppose these parents to forbid their .children.the use of any other food than the produce of the said small garden, And to make them pay.outaf their wages for that produce, twice or three times the price such rosod could be procured for in the common market, and that in consequence jf this cruel restriction. the children welts obliged to work nearly night and ,%ay, and that still all the wages they could earn would not buy above luau etlov.gh of such dear food, and that, therefore, they were double worked and but hari fed, while their parents, by obliging them to buy the vegetables of the sa!d, garden, at the said exorbitant prices, got possession of all their 'wraps, and wan those wages, without doing any work themselves, they were enabled to purchase the most wanton superfluities, in luxuries of food, ant fineries of cloth- ing, and ostentation of equipage, for their own special use, which they never shared with their children, except they perchance gave to one who fit sick from hardships and want of food, some remnant of a meal—calling the action charity,, and laying claim to the character of benevolence for its perfor mince ; or, per. hap, permitted another to spend the precious hour, doe to rest or recreation, in the creation of solute SlIpelfillOUS toy, and then bought it of them with a part of the money they had wronged them of in the price of their food, declaring they did not want the toy, and only bought it for charity ! What should wc think if such parents? Yet, are not those who have possession of the authority, aml of the land, and whowould keep up corn-laws and other rest, ictions on the importation of food, that they may be able to exact higher rents than could else- be paid, and live in a more splendid style than tiny could else afford, just such parents to the industrious classes as have been here described ; except, indeed, that there are a thousand collateral and complicated hardships attendant upon the actual national wrong, which the supposed family wrong 110CS not reach.
As regards the composition of the work, we may say that Mrs. LOUDON'S style is clear and well-sounding, though not often characterized by peculiar force or vigour. Her primary theory, it may be observed, is rather assumed than proved; but if it were ever so clearly established, a true believer might yet maintain the policy of much that she repudiates. This want of intimate connexion between the great leading principles of the philosophy and their practical applieation, has given rise to a fault in composition as well as a defect in proof. The mind is hurried too rapidly from the laws of Nature to the Corn-laws; the outlines of politics, jurisprudence, and political economy, seem natural resting-places between the eternal fitness of things and the unfitness of squirearehal legislation ; instead of which, we are thrown " sheer o'er the crystal battlements" of heaven, and alight at once amongst all the toils and turmoils and vapours of earth and party politics.
After all, Mrs. Lounosr must be an uncommon woman; and it is a sign of the times to see her talent take such a direction.
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