MR. McCALMONT'S FORTUNE.
AGREAT fortune, a really great one we mean, one to be counted in millions, is the only mass of true p ower,— that is, power unlimited by rules or by responsibility to voters, which, under our modern system of life, can accrete to an in- dividual. All other forms of power—in Western Europe, at least—are, as Lord Beaconsfield said, mere mockeries, slaveries, in which personal volition plays no part of all. You may reflect what to do with a Premiership, but you cannot will to do anything at all. Power of that kind interests everybody, for everybody has secret dreams, and we do not wonder there- fore that so many papers record Mr. H. L. B. McCalmont's legal coming of age. His uncle, Mr. Hugh McCalmont, of Belfast, left him £3,121,931 17s. 8d. to accumulate for seven years at compound interest, and as the term expires in the present month, he will on October 9th obtain the full control of some four millions sterling. The Times, in recording the date, remarks that this is probably the largest fortune now at the free disposition of any person in Great Britain ; but that is, we fancy, an inaccuracy ; Lord Iveagh (Guinness) must have more, which he could at a day's notice put on a table, the 0 verstone fortune has not been wasted, and there is at least one of the diamond monopolists who possesses as much. It is natural to except the owners of mixed fortunes, land and money both, for much of their expenditure is so mapped out for them that they hardly own their properties ; but we do not quite see why either Americans or Jews, if resident in England, should be excluded from the list, and within both categories there must be men who could almost, without notice, raise larger sums. There is one, indeed, of whom fame reports that he has twenty times as much, and though that is untrue, he must regard Mr. McCalmont as comparatively a poor man. The scale of fortunes is, in fact, rising fast, so that in a few years a mere millionaire will rank only in the second class, the first class being filled by those who possess between ten and twenty millions. Still, four millions is a mighty sum, so much beyond any individual's wants that we are not surprised that humanitarians should grumble, or Socialists gnash their teeth, as they read the account, more especially as we fancy Mr. McCalmont escapes the graduated probate-duty. They are both unwise, for the application of capital to a vast area of business by which these vast accumulations are secured, tends to the cheap pro- duction of comforts and necessaries, the millionaire accepting a rate of interest with which the ordinary trader or share- holder cannot be content ; but still the sense of annoyance, born at once of envy and compassion, is not unintelligible. We wonder rather, with a surprise which no repetition of the story quite removes, that millionaires of this kind do so little to extinguish envy by devoting their wealth to ends which all men would understand, and more or less approve. The millionaires are by no means all voluptuaries or selfish men, or men without a keen wish for the enjoyment of
benefiting their fellow creatures, and the reason why they so seldom do it, though often sought, is still unexplained. We comprehend, indeed, why they do not, as Mr. Passmore Edwards so often advises, give away their fortunes. Kings do not abdicate thrones, and we are not quite sure that millionaires are not morally in the right in keeping their sceptres intact. It is at least an arguable point whether great fortunes blamelessly acquired are not great trusts, and whether therefore the individual who possesses one is not bound to keep it, and use its income, and its income only, in the best way his lights enable him to perceive. We should none of us say that a man of genius had a right to part with his gift, or a man of learning to extinguish his own knowledge, and we do not clearly perceive why a great fortune is less of a deposit trusted to its owner. The writer certainly, if he possessed one, would hold on to it; though he trusts—as all men without such possessions trust —that he would expend the income to the advantage of others than himself. What daunts the millionaires that they shrink with such few exceptions from even making an effort to benefit their kind ? We do not believe it is selfishness, for after, all the man who does not muddle away money, or gamble, or keep a racing-stud, or purchase unworthy women, can get out of £30,000 a year all that the world has to give of personal enjoyment, even if it takes the form of owning splendid scenery. Nor can the deterring influence be merely fear of worry. Millionaires are worried, no doubt, for money in the most shameless way, sometimes with covert threats; but still, with a little nerve, good private secretaries, and relations with Scotland Yard, they can meet all that at least as easily as less wealthy individuals meet the beggars, burglars, or the friends who try to sponge. Nor can the reason be what is so often alleged, that millionaires never feel themselves rich, the appreciation of their special position belonging to outsiders rather than themselves. They do feel themselves rich, and show it in their manners, the tone of their voices, their way of discussing every proposition. There must be some other reason for their parsimony, and we should like to know what it is, just as we should like to know why Kings so universally believe that they have a right to govern.
We fancy the true reason is very often, at least, an incurable doubt whether they can do any substantial good with their wealth,—can even avoid doing very real harm. There is some reason for that fear, for benefactions are very seldom bene- ficial. Godwin indicated some of the reasons for that in "St. Leon," his notion, however, being founded on a false con- ception of the ingratitude of mankind, and the extremely clever author of " Six Thousand Tons of Gold," just published by Messrs. limes and Co., has worked out the disabilities of a billionaire even more artistically, the mammoth fortune working pure ruin, as it were, automatically, without either intention on its owner's part or failure in his intelligence. The anonymous author has beaten Godwin wholly out of the field in the skill with which he has devised his plot, and indeed there is reason for the fear, which we believe often besets millionaires. They do not wish to give in what is called charity, for that often pauperises ; they dislike doing the work communities ought to do, and they are afraid of pledging themselves to undertakings, the accom- plishment of which would take years. That last, indeed, is a highly operative cause. The very rich shrink from binding themselves and destroying their own freedom of volition, just as Kings do; and yet if they resolve to keep their capital, they can do nothing very great in less than a generation. A man with four millions has only, if his money is to be safe, about £120,000 a year, and deducting £30,000 a year for him- -self, there remains only £90,000 to be given away, which in any one year will not accomplish much. Supposing him very reasonable and very benevolent, he will find that he is limited, after all, to certain courses of action. He must either make experiments, for which he has seldom the imagination, or he must improve the health of a district, or the intelligence of a district, or the comfort of a district,— that is, to put the matter in less abstract terms, he must either furnish a district, say a big town, with open spaces, or with free libraries, or with rebuilt houses on an extensive scale. Open spaces are beneficial for two reasons,—because they let in air, and because, if well placed, they drive the population to the outskirts, where there is room to breathe. Free libraries are beneficial, not because they educate the masses, as is so constantly alleged, but because they educate the fractional percentage of mankind who possess the powers which wide reading renders fruitful, or at least available. Mr. Passmore Edwards will do no good to South London by enabling everybody to read novels, or even better books, but he may do limitless good by developing in his libraries one inventor, or philosopher, or preacher of the highest ,class. And a rebuilt district is beneficial, because of all blessings full health is the one which yields to those who enjoy it the largest share of direct and continuous happiness, and to full health the first essential is a healthy habitation. Half the melancholy of nations proceeds from the depression generated by insanitary conditions. These are the three possible forms of benevolent enterprise, bnt to carry them out on any attractive scale, a man even with four millions must limit his range of action, and even 'then work on steadily and persistently for years,—work as if he were engaged in a business, and intended to make a fortune by it. The very rich shrink from that as a limitation of their freedom. Landlords will build very steadily on their own land throughout their entire lives—a recent Duke of Bedford, for instance, did it—but we cannot recall an instance where a millionaire or billionaire has gone on steadily at a particular work for a generation. There have been large benefactions given by the rich even in their own lifetime; but steady, dogged persistence for forty years in a benevolent labour of love displayed by an immense owner of ready money, is in our social history the very rarest of incidents. The benefactors in fact want quick returns, and under that impulse, scarcely any income is sufficient for any very great 'work. One year of Mr. McCalmont's income will hardly erect one set of Peabody Buildings, certainly would not exert the smallest perceptible effect upon the slums of London ; and it is perceptible effect for which the very rich man who is also benevolent, usually longs.
There is one function of the very wealthy which was once universally acknowledged, but has apparently died out, and that is the function of playing Maecenas. It is usual to say that this part is wholly inconsistent with modern manners, and that the promising politician or the artist of capacity, or the writer of genius, would reject aid of the pecuniary kind from any but Kings. The self-respect of the day is almost morbid ; and if the billionaire wishes to protect a new Michael Angelo, he must do it only by giving him well- ,paid work. We wonder if that is true. We do not believe one word of it ourselves, and can conceive no worthier or more beneficial expenditure of a great surplus than that of .enabling men with special powers to use those powers without the enfeebling pressure of pecuniary care. We do not believe .such help would be rejected from the immensely rich any more than from Kings, and cannot see why the benevolence which Burke accepted from Lord Rockingham should degrade anybody, while it might be of greater advan- tage to mankind than any other form of benefaction ; but we suspect it is the rarest of all the uses to which millionaires apply their fortunes. We know of no .one who has advocated it unless it were the late Lord Houghton, and do not remember in all the memoirs of the present time a single well-defined case. We suppose it takes too much trouble, and there is too much fear of ingratitude; but yet one would have thought such a work would be to some minds strangely attractive. But then, it must be done as a work, and very hard work, and extended over a large field, so that there may be an average of success and failure, and it is work from which the men of mammoth fortunes seem to shrink. At least, they do nothing continuously, and it is from continuance, and continuance only, that even they can expect the results which, in their own eyes, will justify their efforts. They will give at once, sometimes on the great scale ; but a plan for giving continuously to one object fetters, and therefore vexes or alarms them. In action millionaires are shy !
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