SPECTATOR'S LIBRARY.
SOCIAL ECONOMY,
Etudes sur l'Angleterre. Par Leon Faucher. Deux tomes Paris. Blositspity,
The Dispatches and Letters of Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson. With Notes by Sir Nicholas Harris Nicolas, G.C.M.G. The fifth volume—January 1802 to April
1804. Cotburn.
TMEOLOOY,
The Fitness of Holy Scripture for Unfolding the Spiritual Life of Men: being the Hnlsean Lectures tbr the year 1845. By Richard Chenevix Trench, MA., Vicarof Itchin Stoke, Hants, and F.xsmining Chaplain to the Lord Bishop of Oxford. FJorion, Parker, London: Ilfaemillans, Cambridge. The Fall of the Nan Sonng ; a Tale of the Mogul Conquest of China, By A. L.
Lymburner. In three volumes. Saunders and (Meg.
FAUCHER'S ENGLAND.
Two volumes upon the domestic condition of England, chiefly in reference to our manufacturing districts, have recently appeared from the pen of one of the most accomplished writers of the French press. Many years the leading editor of perhaps the most honest paper in France, Le Courrier Francais, M. Faucher has long been accounted one of the highest authorities on matters of social economy, prison treatment, finance, and commercial legislation. Public affairs having offered of late little to occupy or interest a mind so active as M. Faucher's, he has ceased to conduct the Courrier, and has devoted a season of comparative leisure to the observation and investigation of our social condition : for which, it may be remarked, he possesses some- what unusual advantages ; knowing the language well, and enjoying the friendship of many esteemed public men among us, he obtained facili- ties of access to our manufacturing hives, such as are commonly denied to foreign visiters. The work is in itself deeply interesting, as a thorough exposition of the life carried on in the seats of industry, of 'which M. Faucher has penetrated the most hidden recesses. Without meaning to overcharge the disadvantageous side of our stupendous machinery for producing wealth, he portrays in a vivid and forcible manner the vast immolation of the qualities which adorn the human character, amidst the terrible competition for bread which is daily going forward in the thickly- peopled towns. The desire of preserving life, at any sacrifice, is exhibited at Liverpool, Manchester, Salford, Glasgow, and other places, with allthose deplorable concomitants which attend the struggle. What Mr. Charles Dickens has done for a few individual characters, M. Faucher has done for whole classes ; he has depicted the horrors of contrast between rich and poor on a large scale, as Mr. Dickens has done on a narrow one. And the picture is disheartening enough. Our limits will not allow of entering into the question of how far the evil is susceptible of a cure; but one thing is certain, namely, the inadequacy of the remedy suggested by M. Faucher. Like almost all French reasoaers on pauperism, he contends that the way to annihilate poverty is to bestow land on the poor ; not, he admits, in perpetuity, but in small parcels on hire. Now, M. de Tocqueville, a philosopher of an exalted order, discoursing on the subject of occupancy of land in reference to the general wellbeing of a commonwealth, has said—" Small proprietors, or large farmers, are-the classes of occupants most conducive to the public interest : small farms are of all tenures the most pernicious." But whilst, on the one hand, nothing can be less rational than to aim at absorbing poverty by means of giving in any shape, lending land on hire, again, if consented to by the owner contrary to his inclination, would interfere with the funda- mental maxims of our social structure in regard to the inviolability of property. Against the compulsory cession of land for spade-culture, indeed, many other objections may be taken ; the difficulty of recovering it, not among the least important. As for giving waste lands to the poor, although it is quite just that they should have an equal portion with the rich of newly-enclosed lands, where such are taken into occu- pation by act of Parliament, yet, for the purpose of alleviating the poverty of the manufacturing classes, it is hardly worth talking about ; since all land lying contiguous to large towns is already in occupation, and no ground but what is contiguous could avail the artisan. But we must protest, in &nine, against the doctrine which would prescribe, as a cure for poverty, the expedient of sharing the pos- sessions of the rich with the poor. Pushed to its legitimate extent, the experiment could end in nothing but a hopeless fusion of lots during a given period ; after which, anarchy, insecurity, spoliation, and inversion of the laws of social order, would divide and desolate the community. The melancholy truth must be told, that, for the sake of maintaining the regulated march of civilization—of assuring to the possessors of capital the fruits of their capital employed in production, and thereby providing for the increase of the produce, on which hangs all our hope of exist- ence—we must make up our minds to witness a large under-current of present misery and vice; for no remedies can have an immediate or even a rapid effect. The liberty enjoyed by every English subject to sell his labour, at whatever price he may choose to accept, causes, no doubt, a dreadful competition for employment. But to propose, by way of remedy for this, that, where the capitalist will not buy labour of the labourer, there the possessor of wealth is to step in with alms—whether in the shape of land or other property, it matters not—is to manifest a profound ignorance of the causes which influence the prosperity of nations. Every one cognizant of these is aware, that under a very extensive sys- tem of almsgiving, the increase of population would absorb capital faster than it could be reproduced ; and the final termination of such a process would be, first, to diffuse wealth in small portions over a large surface; and next, (in consequence of the slackened rate of increase in the accu- mulation of capital,) to reduce the portion enjoyed by each to the lowest quantity consistent with the preservation of life. The example of France, so often adduced by her writers in confirmation of the theory they preach, has no weight when fairly examined. The proportion of proprietors to su-
• perficial extent in France would not represent an equal proportion in Eng- land, regard being had to the immense numbers of our people ; and if it did, our rapid rate of increase would speedily force the owners of little parcels to sell up and become labourers again.
But though we differ with M. Faucher in his views of what ought to be done to counteract the misery of our working classes, we are bound to speak respectfully of his general opinions as bearing upon the whole- some economy of a nation and the desirable elements of a sound body politic. A rational philanthropy pervades his work throughout ; whilst few writers have fallen under our notice who entertain stronger convic- tions of the importance of the domestic ties and affections as sources of virtuous citizenship in a community. Part of the degradation to which the helots of Manchester and Liverpool are condemned, consists in the annihilation of the sentiments of decency, modesty, and reserve among members of the same family, which form the basis of domestic comfort and self-respect. Over this M. Faucher mourns as sincerely as over the physical ills which attend the existence of the spinner and file-grinder ; and not without good reason. But we cannot go along with him in the assumption that these sad features in our domestic condition are curable per saltum ; still less by the methods M. Faucher indicates. There are some masterly disquisitions in the second volume on the present working of the political machinery of England, which would do credit to a native observer. In particular, the progress of the contest upon the factory question, limitation of hours, and age of admission, &c., is ably delineated, and accompanied with much curious incidental in- formation. On the other hand, our partial insurrections among the peasantry, the Rebecca riots, and. Sir William Courtenay alias Thom's temporary success, the " strikes " of various trades, the rick-burnings, and so forth, are viewed as more serious in their consequences than they- really deserve to be. The prospects of our political horizon are sketched with sufficient knowledge of the existing forces at work ; anti the over- whelming influence of the aristocratical element is duly appreciated. There is, perhaps, nothing more striking to a Frenchman, than the sort of religious colouring which pervades the. English mind in regard to the obligations they owe to superior position. The traces of our ancient forms and sentiments reveal themselves in spite of the altered habits which now obtain in all ranks, and nowhere more significantly than in the predilection of the lower classes in favour of "gentle blood." A- foreigner, observing this, naturally concludes that Democracy can have no genuine hold upon the English character, and treats the ravings of its advocates as merely means employed to attract to themselves notice and profit. The truth is, however, that England consists, in our day, of two peoples; and that what is predicable of the one is false of the other. The old English rural inhabitant, and the pent-up mill-worker are two beings; habituated to different modes of life, feeling, and associations, from birth to manhood. Hence the confusion attendant on generaliza- tions on the "people at large." The gentry are divisible after a similar manner, inasmuch as there are now two huge sections, each striving for the ascendancy, and invoking the aid of the lower portions of their section to accomplish it for themselves, and to enable them to wield the powers of the state according to their own views. This conflict, it may be observed, may be prolonged to an indefinite period, during which we may reasonably conclude that little or nothing will be attempted toward* abating the worst defects in our political apparatus. Occupied in party, or more-properly speaking in class squabbles, no attention will be paid by our Ministers to the master grievance—the barbarous state of the law, nor to the errors of our Colonial management. What ground is there for hoping that any state of things will come about which shall promise amendments of a substantial character ? Answer this who can. Mean- while, there is some advantage in having two parties contending for the mastery. It is better that we should have a 'powerful check upon the dominant body of landowners, so uncontrolled in past times ; though, if we are destined one day to fall under the sway of their new rivals, the mill-lords, it is just possible the English people may come to wish the landowners back in the saddle! But there is no necessity for our being ridden by either, in the nineteenth century.
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