WHAT A GOVERNMENT CAN AND OUGHT TO DO.

THE late Mr. Blouses stated, in the preface to the Population Returns of 1831— " The annual number of burials, as collected in pursuance of the Population Acts, authorizes a satisfactory inference of diminished mortality in England; the average number of burials not differing materially from the year 1780 to the year 1815; the first five years of that period, the last five years, and the whole period of thirty-six years, giving the same average result of 193,000 re- Eistved. burials, the spyuolafrixe pnahviabofianintcsreoased 3,300,000 ianrstbtoe hmayeeansutnirteo.

f England

its minimum in the decade preceding the Population Act of 1821; and since that time it seems to have risen again as fast as it descended after the year 1800." Mr. RICKMAN thus hints at the causes to which he inclines to attribute the decrease of mortality- " The causes of increase in the duration of human life up to the year 1821 remain to be investigated by those who are able to elucidate the subject: houses less crowded, better food, better clothing, and more cleanliness among the numerous classes of society, cannot have been without some effect; and to these may be added the increased extent of surface-drainage and of under- ground-drainage, both of which may have acted beneficially on the health of the agricultural population. The improved treatment of diseases was stated in some of the returns as a cause of increasing population, and especially the sub- stitution of vaccination for the smallpox : infectious fevers have almost dis- appeared even in the Metropolis; and internsittents, which heretofore, under the name of ague, infected the country very extensively, (especially the Fen districts,) are no longer spoken of."

All these, doubtless, cooperated ; but the question occurs, what caused these causes ? There are some events coincident in point of time with the commencement and termination of the period of decreasing mortality, that seem to suggest an answer.

The enterprise of the Duke of BRIDGE WATER, seconded by the skill of BRINDLE; constructed the Worsley and Manchester canal between 1758-60, and the Liverpool and Manchester between 1762-67. Before the opening of the first-mentioned, coals were sold in Manchester at 7d. per hundredweight ; immediately after it was opened, they fell to 3/d, and six score were given to the hundredweight. Before the opening of the latter, land-carriage from Liverpool to Manchester cost 40s. per ton and water-car- riage 12s.; after it was opened, goods were conveyed between those places on the Duke's canal at 6s. per toil. In 1769, the connexion between Bolero( and WATT for bringing into play the patent ob- tained by the latter for improvements on the steam-engine com- menced: in 1775, the partners obtained from Parliament a further extension of the patent, which shows that they were then barely beginning to reap the advantage of the improvements. ARKWRIGHT obtained the first patent for his spinning-machinery in 1769, and his second patent in 1775. In 1771, his first water-mill was erected ; but five years elapsed before he began to derive profit from the undertaking. This recapitulation shows that the period of decreasing mortality was immediately preceded by these simul-

taneous inventions, which, by facilitating communication and in- creasing the quantity at the same time that it diminished the cost of production on the one hand, rendered all the necessaries and even luxuries of life cheaper, and on the other, by extending the market, provided employment for a much larger number, and gave

those who otherwise might not have had it the power of purchasing.

increased ncreased power of production in manufactures stimulated the productive powers of agriculture, increasing the quantity of food as well as of other necessaries. The increased wealth of the com- munity, and increased diffusion of that wealth among all classes, occasioned the increased taste for convenience, and the increased activity and skill in seeking to procure it, which were at the bottom of the improvements to which the increased duration of human life is correctly attributed.

The circumstances under which the tide of decreasing mortality turned are no less marked. Mr. RICKMAN'S statement is merely to the effect that the minimum of mortality among the inhabitants of England was reached in the decade preceding the Population Act of 1821. His abstract of the returns of registered burials enables us to ascertain with a little more precision the time at which mor- tality began again to increase. Mr. Ilietatex has given the total of registered burials for each of the years 1813-1817, the average of burials annually registered from 1818 to 1824, and the total of re- gistered burials for each of the years 1825-1830. From this table we learn, that for the five years 1813-17, the average of burials

annually registered was 195,973-8; that for the seven years 1818-24, it was 213,920; and that for the six years 1825-30, it was 243,186. As nearly as we can learn from these data, the minimum of morta-

lity was passed previous to the year 1818. Mr. RICHMAN'S ex- pression, "risen as fast as it descended after the year 1800," would.

lead us to infer that the rate at which mortality decreased from 1800 to 1817 was more rapid than that at which it decreased from 1780 to 1800. Now it is notorious, on the one hand, that from 1800 to 1815 the incessant wars which unsettled the Continent gave Great Britain the monopoly of the European market, in spite of Berlin and Milan decrees ; and that the establishment of a settled and enduring peace in 1815 left Continental industry free to compete with us, and the enactment of the Corn-law most un- necessarily imposed an additional restriction upon our trade to that which the rivalry of Europe was naturally producing. The pro- ductive power of Great Britain has gone on to increase probably at a greater ratio since 1815 than before ; but the market for the sale of its productions has not gone on to increase at the same rate.

This proportional narrowing of the market is the only change that has taken place : and the coincidence of an increased rate of mor- tality shows that the consequence has been a diminution in the proportion which the necessaries and conveniences of life bear to the population.

A close inspection of the details of social life corroborates this inference from generalized facts. Mr. RICKMAN'S assertion, that

"infectious fevers have almost disappeared," is no longer true: the typhus is as permanent an inhabitant of large towns as the plague once was. Inquiries into the condition of the poorer classes

show that in every part of the kingdom numbers subsist habitually upon an inadequate supply of food, and every year a greater num- ber of individuals is obliged to crowd for shelter into small and over-crammed habitations. This is the chronic state of society in Great Britain—not a transient period of suffering, like the dearths of

1795 and 1800, or the bankruptcies of 1825-6. It is a state of privation which may for a time coexist with a very considerable amount of prosperity and enjoyment. The number of individuals living at this moment in positive or comparative affluence in Great Britain is probably greater than it ever was at any former period ; but the number of those who are in a state of positive indigence and suffering has increased, since 1818, at a much more rapid rate. The number of the distressed bears a greater ratio at this moment to the number of those in easy circumstances than it has done, in all probability, since the impetus given to the productiveness of

British industry previous to 1780. About the time that GEORGE the Third mounted the throne, every alternate year almost seems to have been a year of famine : BRIDGEWATER, BRINDLE; Aux- WEIGHT, WATT and BOULTON, bestowed upon the nation the power of raising itself above that state of indigence ; but their inventions

seem to have spent their power, for they are working on with in- creasing energy, and yet the country is relapsing into a condition analogous to that from which they raised it. The country's power of disposing of its productions must be extended as well as its pro- ductive powers.

A statistical fact, stated by M. QUETELET in one of his works, bears upon this view. It is acknowledged that the general condi-

tion of the labouring population in Belgium and Prussia is superior in point of comfort to that of the same class in Great Britain— that there is by no means the same amount of positive distress.

According to M. QUETELET, however, there is in Great Britain 1 head of cattle to every 2 inhabitants and 2 sheep to every inhabi- tant; while in Belgium there is ( nly 1 head of cattle to every 3 inhabitants and 1 sheep to every 3 inhabitants, and in Prussia 1 head of cattle to every 3 inhabitants and 1 sheep to every 6 inha- bitants. The proportional consumption of animal food by the com- fortable classes in Great Britain must be, therefore, considerably greater than in Prussia and Belgium, at the same time the number of sufferers and extent of suffering is greater here than in those countries. The greater facility of production in this country has enabled a greater number of Individuals to acquire considerable fortunes ; but the deficiency of markets prevents their accumulated capital from being invested in reproduction to a sufficient extent to

occasion an adequate distribution among the industrious poor. A large proportion of the labouring. classes must be fed by charity if they are to be sufficiently fed. An increasing proportion of the population is in the tantalizing position of finding itself in greater want than the correaponding class in any well-governed state of Europe, and seeing greater wealth and luxury as it were within its reach. This is a condition of society pregnant with danger. It is desirable that attention should be directed more to this view of the national question, and fixed less exclusively upon temporary or class sufferings. The more rapid increase of the suffering than of the comfortable class of society—the necessary and permanent cha- racter of this more rapid increase under existing circumstances—is a fact which would continue to exist and threaten the country even though every forge or loom were in full employment. There is something in the recent history of this country which has given men a habit of viewing such questions in a false light. Both the Conservative and the Movement party have contracted a habit of arguing as if a government could only be expected to exert itself for the redress of such evils as its own misconduct had occasioned. The consequence is, that the latter party think they do nothing unless they make out glaring and exaggerated cases of suffering, and that the former are but too apt to assume, if they can prove exaggeration, that there can be no necessity for doing any thing. The influence of a government on the national welfare must be positive, or that government neglects its duty. It may be true, or it may not, that manufacturers have been overtrading—that they are not work- ing their factories at an actual loss ; still, if the ratio of indigent and suffering persons to the whole community is continuing to increase year after year, it is the province of government to in-. quire whether there is any remedy, and if there is, to apply it. The controversy does not lie between manufacturer and agricul- turist, but between the nation and the government, which, if it exists not for the public benefit, might better not exist at all. The lessons of political economy regarding the interference of governments in economical questions seem to have been misappre- hended by many economists. The action of government is the action of the whole community. Some things there are which are better done when each individual is left to rely upon his own judg- ment and activity ; others are best accomplished by the combined exertion of the whole community. The function of political eco- nomy is to discover what are the occasions on which the concen- trated action of the whole community is most advisable—not to neutralize government in every thing. Inquiry has shown pretty conclusively, that the production and distribution of national wealth are best promoted by leaving individual enterprise perfectly free. But it does not follow because government ought to retrace its steps here and remove all the restrictions it has imposed upon commerce, that it ought to sit still with folded arms and make no effort to promote the economical wellbeing of society. The liberation of trade is an indispensable requisite to the placing of Great Britain in a sound economical condition ; but remov- ing the restrictions upon trade will not operate immediately, and may not operate permanently. There is, however, a natural principle at work, which may be made to contribute both to hasten the time when the full benefit of a perfectly free trade would be experienced and to render its continuance more certain. The causes likely to prevent immediate benefit being derived from the establisment of free trade as far as this country can establish it, are, the adhesion of other countries to a restrictive policy, and the time requisite for the expansion of markets to which a free access may be bad. The cause why a limited dura- tion of the benefit to be derived from free trade may be dreaded is, the excess of that ratio at which the production of the staple com- modities of this country can be augmented over the ratio at which the number of its customers can be increased. The natural ten- dency of a portion of every community to emigrate, is the natural principle which is calculated both to accelerate the approach and prolong the continuance of the benefits of free trade. What is re- quired is, not to make men emigrate, but to enable them to emi- grate to the best purpose. There are many desirous of emigrating who want the power ; and, owing to the scrambling mode of the emigration even of those who can, the country derives compara- tively little benefit from it. A systematic arrangement, by which the Government of this country should render the unappropriated lands of all its Colonies available as a means of directing the na- tural and spontaneous stream of emigration, in such a manner that it would operate to create new markets and extend existing ones in proportion as the growing productive powers of the Mother- country needed them, would not require the expatriation of one in- voluntary emigrant. Free trade is one necessary condition of the permanent econo- mical prosperity of this nation ; and the regular and equable diffu- sion of its increasing numbers over a larger surface than these islands afford is another. With regard to the former, the best service that Government can render manufacturing and mercantile enterprise, is not to meddle with them ; with regard to the latter, its limited duty is to leave every man free to go or stay as he pleases, but, by a judicious system of management of those terri- tories which it has acquired in other climes, and which it holds as trustee for the whole nation, to provide every voluntary emigrant with the means of selecting the future home which promises to accord most with his tastes and interests.

It was said many years ago by an eloquent writer, that there is a large amount of half-enlightened philanthropy in society, which is wasted, solely for the want of proper knowledge how to apply it. The Minister who should strike in and give a practical and useful direction to this blind and blundering feeling would do an ines- timable service to his country. Even to fail in the attempt, pro- vided he proposed such measures as could stand the dispassionate examination of after ages when party-spirit and prejudice had eva- porated, would be thonourable. But no half-measures—no mere "concessions," as they are called, to the popular craving—would be available. They must be trenchant and comprehensive as the evil they are required to remove. Nibbling at the Tariff, or even at the Corn-law, solely with the view of enabling panegyrists to say that he is no bigoted adherent to commercial restrictions, might as well be left alone. Either a real change is necessary, or things may be allowed to remain as they are. The first step must be to view the suffering in its whole amount ; the next, to ascertain the full extent of the requisite changes, and what he has in his power to accomplish ; and the third, having made up his mind, to set to work resolved to carry them through utterly regardless of prejudiced or interested remonstrances from any quarter. Minis- ters, there can now be no longer any doubt, are preparing to do " something ": will they set to work in this spirit ?