FRANCIS NEWMAN'S LECTDRES ON POLITICAL ECONOMY..

THESE lectures were originally delivered at the Ladies' College in. Bedford Square. Their delivery, the preface tells us, " was a mid- den thought; determined on and begun ,in a fortnight's tiine."- This fact, theauthor intimates, should be received as the apology for any.imperfeetness of form, and for a direct and dictatorial man- ner ; but the opinions and thoughts themselves are the result of long, consideration, and are unaffected by the circumstances limier which they were put forth.

The lectures may be considered under two aspects,—as an ezpo- sition of received knowledge ; and as a promulgation of opinions, which if not absolutely, new, will be considered heretical in

optical econoniy, as well as by many persons who are not econo- mists. In the expositional Fut thent and selection of the subjects, with the manner in- which ey are impressed by statements or illustration, are the chief things. The second feature —the promulgation of such doctrines, for example, as that _property in soil only exists by ocenpation, and that the landlord has no right either to unused land when anybody re9nires it, or to-any additional,value which the growth of population or the tenant's improvement imparts—is matter of discussion, more than of literary

oritioiam. -

The plan, or method of presenting the' succession of branches, is rather sufficient than felicitous or striking; the illustrations are often forcible and impressive. An introductory lecture explains the essential differences between the savage and civilized states of society, in which last alone wealth is produced, and touches upon various topics which are afterwards handled at large. The origin and growth of private property -- the nature of capital, pro- fits, wages, and interest—are explained ; gold and silver money, and primitive banking, briefly touched upon. Distribution, its utility and necessary profits—the effects of competition, and the laws of price—the nature of fixed and °imitating capital—popula- tion and the distribution of employments—complete what may be called the received section, with the exception of currency or "money and its representatives." On the topics just enumerated Mr. Newman does not ranch differ from the generality of econo- mists, or he will at least have many to support him. In his chapters on the history and nature of landed property and rent, on..the laws of rent and tithes, on various tenures of land, on pub- lic revenue, and on the National Debt, he runs counter to the general opinion. On two or three subjects in which he avowedly passed from political economy to politics,—as in the chapters en- titled RemeEes for our Pauperism, but which in reality go to a reconstruction of our social system, he may encounter less opposi- tion, because his projects are as yet unlikely to interfere with any- body's interests. When it is said that Mr. Newman does not differ from other economists, this remark must be understood as applying to the general conclusion of his doctrines. In details differences may be found, and he is always a thinker for himself. He receives nothing on trust, but,, whether right, or wrong, makes the opinion his own by investigation. He introduces morals into political economy; he brings to the consideration of economical doctrines human feelings and an estimate of actual life, as well as mere of " common sense" than is always found in political economists. His illustrations, too, are fresh and striking—impressing fordbly, if they do not illustrate newly. 'The following passage on the nature of savage and civilized life, the family and the world, may be taken as an example. * Lectures on Political Economy. By Francis William Newman, formerly Pao* of Balliol College, Oxford. Published by Chapman. " The savage state derives all its peculiarities from the isolation of man. In it each man does everything for himself He procures his own food, makes his own weapms and his own canoe, builds his own hut, and, if he be an agriculturist, tills his own ground. His clothes, etents, and their fur- niture, are made by him or by the females of his fenny. Great resource is &splayed in all this, and at intervals an extraordinary perseverance in in- dustry. Yet the labour thus bestowed is comparatively unfruitful, so that the savage is poor and exposed to the severest sufferings in occasional famine or violence of the seasons. Nor is this the worst ; but, as no man can be ex- empted from the same routine of labour, little cultivation of mind is possi- ble ; the materials and the art of writing are unknown, so that there is no transmission and bequeathing of thought, and no accumulating of knowledge. Man, Ile the animals, then attains his own email measure of individual per- fection, and dies, leaving his child to run the same monotonous race. There is little or no perceptible progress in successive generations, while the state of individual self-sufficiency continues. " Men begin to cease to be savages, and take the first step towards civili- zation, when they devote themselves, to different special occupations, so as to be in a social sense necessary to one another. The members of a savage tribe do indeed need mutual aid for defence against enemies, just as do gregarious animals against wild beasts ; and the only political duties and virtues of the savage turn on warlike necessities. Were it not for theae, each family might live apart in the wilderness, as in fact they sometimes do. But when division of labour arises, no family can live alone, and the village life be- comes essential. The moral and intellectual effects of this are not incon- siderable, but my immediate business. is with the economical ones. You must all be aware how much more profitable labour becomes when it is duly organized. If ten Englishmen were wrecked on an empty land, they would presently adopt some distribution of duties: some would fish, and some would hunt, some would prepare shelter, and one would cook ; but, for each to attempt everything, they would see to be ruinous to all. A small num- ber of persons thus thrown together, all being known to all, each being an object of personal interest to the rest, may live together as a single family. Any one who was idle would be observed, rebuked, stigmatized, and, if ne- cessary, excluded from the general advantages. ho buying or selling would be needed, all might live on common property ; and during the pressure of severe danger, while every life was valuable, perhaps no jealousies or private interests would disturb the general harmony. "But the continuance of such a state is simply impossible, nor can it be shown ever to have existed historically except for a little while in certain religious unions. Even there it is broken up by marriage. Wife and chil- dren are not only dearer to each man than are his associates and equals; they are more peculiarly his to care for. Hence the man who is more in- dastrious, more skilful or stronger than others, desires to devote his super- nrunerary efforts rather to the especial comforts of these so dear to him, than of the whole community.. This, in fact, is his duty as well as his tendency. And when numbers multiply, so that he cannot familiarly know more than a small part of them, the distinction is of necessity made (which indeed ex- ists from the first) between the FAMILY and the WORLD. Within the family, there is no buying nor selling, but all that is needed by any member is freely. received : so much the more, in order to b6 able to exercise such love within, liberality must be restricted without 'Within the family, mine and thine is not said, but all is ours. Bat beyond the family each has rights against the other; what is mine is not thine, and rwhat is thine is not mine. Towards the family, then, love is the only rule ; but towards the world justice takes precedence of love. Within the family, there is inequality, rule and obedience ; in the world, men meet equals and rivals. Private property is indeed often given away in nascent communities to those beyond the family with wonderful generosity, especially food ; for hospitality is a chief virtue among such : still it is felt as a gift; and from the day that the raisers of food become a special class in the society, it becomes ordinarily ne- cessary to purchase the food by offering in exchange for it some useful com- modity. This we call barter, which is the commencement of economic co- operation."

As an instance where the lecturer differs from mere economists, when they would agree with him in his main exposition, his esti- mate of the uses of privileged guilds may be quoted.

"In the middle ages of Europe, the chartered towns had an organization depending on guilds or commercial companies, which taught their art to ap- prentices only under special conditions. We have full reason to believe, that skill was on the whole as much advanced by this system as by the se- verer one of caste.

"Every trade-union or company, while it is moderately well conducted, and holds the rich as well as the poor, serves many important purposes. A prominent evil, in that stage which we have obtained, is, the isolation of families from all-powerful support, when unforeseen and undeserved distress comes on. A union of different trade; as in a Greek or Roman clan, is far better than of one trade ; because it often happens that one trade alone is peculiarly. exposed to commercial suffering : then the others are able to help it A union consisting of only the poor members of one trade has little eco- nomical use ; as of working. weavers without the capitalists who employ them. But an English.guild in old days. took in the rich merchants as well as poor shopkeepers, and not only kept up good feeling between richer and poorer, but rescued the poorest from the danger of perishing unseen and un- known. Still, it could not exist without large internal power over its own members. The rest of the community ill bore the conditions on which alone it allowed apprenticeship ; thus the demand for more freedom undermined these communities, and reduced them to comparative insignificance. " The freedom which we have attained' has great economic advantages, but so many moral disadvantages as might make one hesitate in choosing it, if any alternative were open to us. What is it that often makes the popu- lation of an old country village pleasant to us ? It is because every man has a character to lose. All have been known to all from youth. There may be a few persons bad beyond cure; yet even towards them long know- ledge produces a kindly feeling, which keeps them from the worst extremes. At any rate, no one can fall into evil courses, nor into distress, without its being known and observed; and common men are more virtuous when strong public opinion watches them. Such is the state of a community which grows entirely from within and rather slowly. But a modern town is largely peopled by immigrant; unknown to one another and to the old inhabitants. Just as a country loses patriotism and organic union, when new settlers come in from different quarters so rapidly as to outnumber the natives, so to sus- tain the true corporate spirit of a modern rapidly-formed town is hardly possible. Men come to it, not to live there, not because they were born there, not because they love the place,—but to get money there-: hence they have seldom the same attachment to the people, whom in fact they do not know. Such considerations belong not to political economy but to politics ; yet they are not the less important : and if economists discard them as not farming part of their science, they ought to remember far more than they do, that their science does not include the whole of politics, and is not the sole guide of the statesman."

The great point of difference between Mr. Newman and many other economists is, that he estimates man as a creature and not as a machine; he considers his feelings, passions, and weaknesses, as

well as his possible or abstract power of producing wealth. The following passage exhibits a judicious allowance for a peculiarity in man's nature which has been too frequently forgotten by rigia theorists—his want of versatility.

" As I explained in the preceding lecture, the better the lower wants are supplied, the better are those remunerated who cater to our higher appetites. To cheapen food is to add value to clothes and all higher things ; to cheapen clothes also is to increase still farther the value of what is less necessary, and so on. Hence, the workmen would all be benefited by the progress of indus- try.. The agriculturists would get comforts or luxuries that previously did not exist; the seller of luxuries would get plenty of agricultural produce ; and so on. " But in fact, this progress is sadly embarrassed by the failure of our pos- tulate. Man has not that versatility of which I speak. He is attached to his locality, as well as to his trade. He likes to superintend his children's education, and therefore to bring up his sons to his own trade. And it is hard to break down this sentiment, without impairing patriotism—without infusing a too purely commercial soul, which values everything by its mar- ket-price. Where to change one's trade is to change one's abode, to lose the friends of our childhood and youth, to be lost among strangers,—there large pecuniary sacrifices may well be recommended in preference, It demands a higher education, and great progress in rapid and cheap communication, to enable families to separate locally without separation of affeotion and inte- rests. Nor is this all. But when a trade has been learned by a long appren- ticeship—when it has been taught by mere routine—when neither the mind nor the eye nor the hand has received any universal culture, but all hare been trained to one thing only—it is so hopeless a thing (or seems so hope- less) to change one's trade, that men cannot be inductor to ilttenzpt it. Prac- tically, therefore, it may be a great calamity to a nation if its industnal me- chanism develops itself too rapidly for its individual flexibility ; for it may produce more of certain articles than it needs or than it has channels fortlii- tributing, and the workmen by sticking firmly to.their trade will then suffer want in the, midst of abundance."

The. most distinguishing feature of Mr. Newman's book, and in- deed of his system is the axiom that land. is the common property of the nation, and ;hat no private right of property in it can exist beyond its beneficial occupation.. This opinion at once strikes at the title of all waste or ornamental land. The common, the waste, (whether neglected as useless, or retained for ornament or sport,) and the pleasure domain, (as a park,), are wrongfully retained by their present so-called owners, and are rightfully open to settle- ment and cultivation by the first person who requires it, Tinder regulations to be fixed by the state. In Asia this opinion of the title of the state to the land is still upheld ; in Europe it lasted. with the feudal system, upon the downfall of which the occupiers eventually got possession of the lands absolutely, and got rid of the conditions under which they held them. " The landholders passed laws," says Mr. Newman, " to exempt themselves from feudal service, so as to hold their rents for nothing, and piesented the king with a tax on beer instead."

It follows both from the original title of the state and the na- ture of the feudal tenures, that rent is really public property James Mill's theory that ;11 rent should be paid to the state,is therefore that of Mr. Newman ; but with an important difference. Mill seemed to uphold Eieardo's theory more strictly than Ricardo himself might have done, and to consider all payments for the use of land except the land "last taken into cultivation" as rent. Mr. Newman orees with those who admit the law of a diminishing re turn to industry, but who deny the power of practically separating rent from profit, or a return for money actually invested in build- ings, draining and the like, or the progressive improvement effected by skill, that is judicious cultivation ; yet he would still tax land- rents, and that very heavily. As regards ground-rents,, or value imparted by the growth of population and arising from particular sites, Mr. Newman is consistent,. Economists have somewhat overlooked this peculiar kind of rent, as it has no direct connexion with the production of wealth,—though it is rent of the purest kind, entirely independent of the action of the landlord, and, unlike agricultural rents, capable of being accurately ascertained. In new houses, indeed, the " ground-rent " gives itself; and in old houses the actual worth of the erection, compared with the whole rental paid for the house, could be fixed as readily as men fix, the price of many other things which they are about to purchase not in theory but with cash. Mr. Newman therefore claims this rent for the public altogether. He would not tax it, but take it, and even regulate the erection of buildings, by the authority not indeed of a central government but of local corporations ; whose revival and extension he advocates. The following passage from an argument on rent indicates Mr. Newman's ideas on the matter.

"Still more clearly does it seem to be true, that building-rents are often a

burden on the community, especially in the outskirts of towns o [bir prevent- ing the building of houses as soon as would otherwise be the case . In the centre, indeed, of a trading town, near the Exchange and the 3ost-office, land is necessarily so limited and so coveted as a means of gain, that a high house-rent could perhaps always be obtained ; and if the ground-owner is not allowed to take it, the builder will get it. In this instance the ground- rent is an effect, not a cause of high price. We cannot murmur against the existence of such ground-rent, however high, but only at the scandal of its having been wantonly granted away to private persons, instead of re- serving it by law as a town property. But on the outskirts of towns the land is far more extensive, and need not be dear. Yet, even if there be plenty for all, still when large strips belong to single landlords, their monopoly enables them to force _prices up, especially as the principal houses on their ground are built for enjoyment not for trade. For instance, in London, if instead of a single nobleman possessing is large area of land, say from Rus- sell Square northward, builders had been free to erect rows of houses (in certain approved directions) without liability to ground-rent and without for- feiting the houses themselves (as they do now) when the ground-lease tes- t:Innate; the builders would not have been able, fifty and a hundred years ago, to strain up the prices to the heights they actually have reached, and so appropriate to themselves what the landlord has now taken. For if they had attempted this, the abundance of building-land would have tempted and enabled other builders to undersell them. Thus prices in past generations would have ranged lower, and when, through the increase of population, the demand increased, other things remaining the same, the population would have spread, just as now, on to more and more remote areas ; with the sole difference that house-rent would be lower, first, by the amount of ground- rent, secondly, by the fact that the builder would no longer part with the house to a stranger after one hundred or sixty-three years."

Some years since Mr. Newman's ideas would have been generally scouted, as involving confiscation of property in fact, and absurd falsehood in theory. The progress of events has brought the world nearer to their calm discussion. The Encumbered Estates Act has dealt a blow in the direction of Mr. Newman's principles, for it has rudely overturned the right of entail in land. The tenant-right agitation in Ireland, and the " compensation" opinion rising among agricultural tenants-at-will in England, are based upon the principle of Mr. Newman, that it is unjust for a land- lord to reap where he has not sown—to take the benefit of a tenant's improvements, or of the additional value created by the progress of society. Opinion, confined at present among sound thinkers to a few, seems• tending towards the conclusion that when land is wanted to enable people to live, there can be no pri- vate right of property in soils absolutely waste—that the state can deal with them. As regards the application of his theories to the past, history affords no grounds for supposing that we should have been any better either economically- or socially had the theory been acted on at the outset. If tithes and private ownership in buildi -land inflict a burden on the public by discouraging cultiva-

tion bending, a heavy tax imposed on rent by the state would have a similar effect ; and as for the management of the property, (for the scheme implies management,) neither governments nor corporations have so managed such lands as they have had as to warrant the assumption that society would have been any better off had the Asiatic or feudal principle been vigorously carried out. Nor does a race- of great landowners or of a rich leisure class in times past appear to have had other than a beneficial effect upon the arts whether line or useful, upon literature, manners, opinions, taste, or et-en upon morals, if we do not consider the sistract, but the actual as exhibited in the practice of mankind. It is very questionable whether such a democracy as Mr. Newman's theories involve would be beneficial in Europe,•untfl intellectual and moral education is much further advaneed ; or whether his system could be beneficially worked out, with such instruments in central or corporate government as we should vet be obliged to make use of. His remarks on the sources of raburdensome taxation, in the unoccupied lands of America and our Colonies, are true, and in theory judicious. Whether a heavy land-tam of the nature of rent, and which must of necessity be unequal, as land now under cultivation must be exempt, could be imposed or levied among the " free and enlightened," when the citizens of New York resist even to bloodshed the payment of a trifling quit-rent which they have bargained to pay, may be doubted ; as well as whether our colonists might not hold the same notions, when they become." free and en- lightened" themselves.

We think the author's idea on property in land is the most re- markable feature of the book, because it is more completely ex- pounded, and seems to have a more practical bearing, as being ad- dressed to a ripening subject. There are other opinions broached, either as heretical or as new. Mr. Newman repeats, but with less fullness of development, the conclusions he has already put forth on the perpetuity of the National Debt ; and he unfolds several plans for the improvement of the people by a more extensive and amore real system of corporate local government.