BOOKS.
LIBERALISM.* IT would be impossible to have the essential principles of any political creed more clearly stated than they are in this little book. Professor Leonard Hobhouse is a philosopher and a master of precise statement; though he employs here close processes of reasoning in a small space there is not a paragraph or a sentence that is too elliptical to be easily understood. From this point of view the book is an exceptional achieve- ment. But we hope and believe that the book, through those very virtues, will do as much to make people draw back from the creed propounded as it will do to attract and convert. Mr. Hobhouse is an advanced Liberal—a Socialist-Liberal- yet we can see no reason to doubt that the march of Liberal legislation will be along the lines he approves. Here and there in his book h c hints that many of his fellow Liberals have n ot thou ght out their position ; for instance, in relation to the Referendum, which he defends. We are sure that the criticism is more than justified. The great change from the character of Gladstonian Liberalism is patent enough, yet countless Liberals accept the new articles of faith without seriously asking themselves whether they are breaking with the past or only, as Mr. Hob- house himself believes, insisting on the implications of old- fashioned Liberalism—drawing out and emphasizing what was always inherent and inevitable. Only a few years ago economy was the watchword of all good Liberals. To-day a Liberal Government is the most extravagant that has ever held office, and there are no foreseen limits to the further ex- travagance promised. If this mighty change was inherent in the Liberalism of the last generation it is a wonder that no one predicted it. We cannot help mistrusting the retrospec- tive interpretations of Socialistic Liberalism. Mr. Hobbonse approves of a definite expenditure of money by the State to correct the difference between such wages as the average worker can command and the wages which Mr. Hobhouse thinks be ought to have in order to live decently. Mr. Hobhouse assumes that there are large classes of workers who, help themselves as they may by thrift, must always fall below the standard of comfort desiderated by Liberalism. He defends doles from the State by disguising them, as it seems to us, in form and intent; but doles they will remain, and they will have the lethal influence of all other doles in history. If grinding poverty could be removed by the expedients Mr. Hobhouse recommends we imagine that every man in the kingdom with any conscience, compassion, or education would embrace them instantly and think them very cheap at the price. But unfortunately the truth, as we see it, is that the Socialistic Liberal expedients would without exception check the creation of capital, and as capital means wages the distress of the workers would be increased. Let labour wring whatever concessions it can from capital, for we know that struggle between them is compensated by internal checks and balances which keep capital alive ; but when the State intervenes as dens ex machina natural economic law is suspended and untold mischief may be done before the enormity of the disease is recognized. We wish nothing better for Mr. Hobhouse's book than that it may show Liberals exactly what path they are following. The route is as fully as possible described by one of their most able and most earnest thinkers. We believe that if many Liberals—electors who give but a vaguely founded support to their leaders—under- stand what it is proposed to do in their name there would be a secession from the ranks compared with which the Home Rule split would have to be considered an unimportant crisis. Mr. Hobhouse passes in rapid review the more important polities of civilization which preceded the authoritarian government of modern times in Western Europe. In England Liberalism appeared originally as a criticism, and for centuries its nega- tive aspect was foremost. But later the work of reconstruc- tion went on side by side with that of demolition. Among the elements of Liberalism Mr. Hobhouse includes civil liberty, fiscal liberty, personal liberty, social liberty, economic liberty, domestic liberty, local, racial, and national liberty,
• Liberalism. By L. T. Hobhouse, M.A. London : Williams and liorgate. [IL net.]
international liberty; and political liberty and popular sovereignty. We can note only a point or two in passing. Under the head of economic liberty Mr. Hobhouse says : " Closely connected with freedom of contract is freedom of association." We agree, of course ; but it is an utterly illiberal tendency when freedom of association is not really kept free. Mr. Hobhouse well says, " An association may act oppressively towards others and even towards its own members, and the function of Liberalism may be rather to protect the individual against the power of the association than to protect the right of association against the restriction of the law." A significant commentary on this is surely the failure of Liberalism to "protect the individual " in the Osborne case. Under the head of domestic liberty Mr. Hob- house demands that wives should be made free by giving them full responsibility, the right to hold property—the Married Women's Property Act surely gives them this right so far as it is commonly sought--the right to sue and be sued, and full personal protection against their husbands. No doubt there are a certain number of women who would like all these points conceded. But there are a great many—and we fancy they are the vast majority—who value the protection afforded by the vicarious responsibility of their husbands, and would not forfeit the security of the law of coverture on any account. To force a perilous " liberty" on persons who dislike and fear it is just one of those measures which misguided enthusiasts are so fond of calling freedom, although they may prove to be something much more like oppression. We cannot help being amused at the calmness with which Mr. Hobhouse claims everything good for the "liberating movement" which is for him synonymous with Liberalism. We notice, for instance, "the revolt of Europe against Napoleon "; but when Pitt begins to witness for Liberalism we may well feel that the evidence is too wide to be always valuable.
Next Mr. Hobhouse examines the tentative and imperfect theories, as he considers them, of Liberalism. He rejects the principles of the Manchester School as quite inadequate to the latest conditions. He thinks we have outgrown the use- fulness of " the theory of the Natural Order "; he would not agree with Paine that "a civil right is a natural right exchanged "; he would not limit the intervention of the State to a minimum, regarding it as an evil to be avoided as far as possible. On the contrary, he holds the State to be capable of the most beneficent and fruitful direction and intervention. Similarly he rejects the French amplification of the " Natural Order " theory and Bentham's " Greatest happiness of the greatest number " theory. The principles of the Manchester School and Benthamism, of course, combined to inform old-fashioned Liberalism, but whatever tribute Mr. Hobhouse is ready to pay to these principles as valuable in the making of Liberal- ism he also rejects them unequivocally. Perhaps we shall do justice to his plea for modern Liberalism if we quote the following passage, which for our part we can only call an odious conclusion of despair:—
" That system [industrial competition] holds out no hope of an improvement which shall bring the means of such a healthy and independent existence as should be the birthright of every citizen of a free State within the grasp of the mass of the people of the United Kingdom. It is this belief slowly penetrating the public mind which has turned it to new thoughts of social regeneration. The sum and substance of the changes that I have mentioned may be expressed in the principle that the individual cannot stand alone, but that between him and the State there is a reciprocal obligation. He owes the State the duty of industriously working for himself and his family. He is not to exploit the labour of his young children, but to sub- mit to the public requirements for their education, health, cleanli- ness, and general well-being. On the other side society owes to him the means of maintaining a civilized standard of life, and this debt is not adequately discharged by leaving him to secure such wages as he can in the higgling of the market. This view of social obligation lays increased stress on public but by no means ignores private responsibility. It is a simple principle of applied ethics that responsibility should be commensurate with power. Now, given the opportunity of adequately remunerated work, a, man has the power to earn his living. It is his right and his duty to make the best use of his opportunity, and if he fails he may fairly suffer the penalty of being treated as a pauper, or even, in an extreme case, as a criminal. But the opportunity itself he cannot command with the same freedom. It is only within narrow limits that it comes within the sphere of his control. The oppor- tunities of work and the remuneration for work are determined by a complex mass of social forces which no individual, certainly no individual workman, can shape. They can be controlled, if at all, by the organized action of the community, and therefore, by a
just apportionment of responsibility, it is for the community to deal with them.
But this, it will be said, is not Liberalism but Socialism. Pur- suing the economic rights of the individual we have been led to contemplate a Socialistic organization of industry. But a word like Socialism has many meanings, and it is possible that there should be a Liberal Socialism as well as a Socialism that is illiberal."
In order that there shall be no misunderstanding, Mr. Hobhouse goes on to describe " Liberal Socialism " fully, identifying it at numerous points of contact with the legisla- tion of the present Government. No man, he argues, is worth more than a certain amount, and it is right for the State to take the surplus and give it to the poorest. Even a peasant tenantry, in contradistinction to a peasant proprie- tary, is an illustration and symptom of the Liberal-Socialist theory, for the State is to" take the surplus " from the tenants. A peasant proprietary is written down as " individualist."
But what of malingering under a system of doles to the poor? Mr. Hobhouse throws out a suggestion of "punitive discipline " for those who would enjoy too much of the surplus without attempting to earn their share. We wonder what tyrannical compulsion, what unimagined Jacobin re- crimination and cruelty, may be sheltered unknowingly behind that phrase ! We believe in freedom no less than Mr. Hob- house does, but for us the perfect freedom of a strong and prospering people means freedom of contract, freedom of exchange, freedom of opportunity, and the lowest possible taxation—for that is the brake which slows all the wheels of enterprise.
Mr. Hobhouse's views on foreign and Imperial affairs are even more unsatisfactory than those we have stated. He writes of expenditure on armaments as though it were a mere perversity which could be stopped at any moment. Would that it could ! He looks forward to a time when Liberalism shall have induced the world to accept "national autonomy" within a system of " international equality." Here happily he is in advance of the prevalent opinion in the Cabinet, as we know from Mr. Lloyd George's remarks on the Morocco crisis the other day. And be is certainly wrong in assuming that his views are congenial to the democrats of the Dominions. Socialistic legislation in the Dominions is notoriously compatible with a very sturdy sense of responsibility in the matter of defence, and Australia and Canada have just adopted naval schemes which will inevitably lead them into considerable and growing expenditure. Imperialism of the Jingo order is quite dead. We who are Imperialists believe in only two obligations, but we believe in them ardently. One is the duty of defence against aggression which would make the world less free, and the other is the duty of using our strength in trust for the protection of such good causes as we are able to support. We do not pretend that chivalry has not been sometimes deferred to reasons of State, or that we have always been courageous in right doing, but we do assert that if England had not had strength and used it some nations would still be in bonds which are now free, and slavery would still be practised in many parts of the world which are now purged of it.
Previous page
