PROFESSOR CA1RNES'S POLITICAL ESSAYS...*
PROFESSOR CAIRNES'S political essays are instructive and valuable' dissertations,—not so much from the originality of the ideas developed in them, or the range of information which they exhibit; nor perhaps from their style, which, though always vigorous and impressive, is rather wanting in conciseness ; but chiefly from the thoroughly scientific manner in which the author always handles his subjects. Perhaps his determination to maintain clearness and completeness of method may have sometimes influenced unfavourably the literary qualities of his work. Resolved to be exhaustive, Mr. Cairnes does not shrink from being common-place, and he seems sometimes needlessly elaborate in the refutation of obvious errors and fallacies. These faults, however, are on the- right side. Again, Mr. Cairnes's political opinions appear to us too rigid, and to be grasped with a tenacity out of proportion to' their certainty; but they are always thoroughly reasoned, and are urged upon the reader with so clear an apprehension of principles, so orderly and logical an exposition of evidence, so definite a conception and so precise an estimate of what are held to be the important elements of the question, that whether we agree or not, we gain the great benefit of being irresistibly forced tor reason in an equally methodical manner.
Hence the belief, modestly expressed in the preface, that "though the subject may in some instances be occasional, the treatment will be found not to be so," is amply justified, at any rate, as regards the largest and most important part of the volume_ Perhaps a lecture on "The Revolution in America" has some- what lost its interest, because the current of sympathy with rebel slaveholders against which it was directed has now ebbed out of our memory. Again, the essay on International Law is rather slight and fragmentary, and its chief doctrine—that the moral or social sanctions of International rules are growing in efficacy, and may be expected ultimately to supersede the physical—is not as definitely shaped in relation to possible objections as is usually the case in Mr. Cairnes's argument.
On the other hand, the first essay, on "Colonisation," is in our author's best style. It presents very effectively in sharp outline and impressive contrast the three stages of English colonisation. the first period, closed by the war of American Independence, when
* Political Essays. By .1. E. Csirnes, MA., Eruerims Professor of Polities Economy in University College, London. London: liscmUlsn and Co. the aims of colonisation were commercial, while in other matters the habits and genius of our race produced an unwatched and half-unwarranted freedom of self-government ; the second period, of Colonial-Office control and convict settlement ; the third period, initiated "by an event as obscure as the War of Independence was famous," the formation of the Colonisation Society in 1830. Mr. Cairnes (whom we may perhaps without offence call a doc- trinaire) dwells with justifiable pride on the success of this latter movement, certainly one of the most remarkable triumphs of constructive theorising that English history has to show. This success, no doubt, was somewhat obscured by the initial bankruptcy of South Australia (" bursting of the Wakefield bubble," it was said), and afterwards by the more personal fiasco of the prophet himself in his attempt to administer New Zealand. But it is undeniable that the "four points in the Colonial reformer's charter,—the sale of wild land at a uniform price, the application of the proceeds to assist emigration, the selection of the emigrants, and self-government for the colonies "—have all been sustained by the test of actual experiment. And though it must be remembered that Mr. Wakefield declared In 1849 that genuine Wakefieldism —depending on the mysterious Sufficient Price—remained as untried as Plato's Republic : though further, the complete realisa- tion of the last point of the programme, colonial self-government, has proved somewhat inimical to the rest of the system : still we may fairly attribute the present prosperity of Australia and New Zealand to the Colonisation Society of 1830. What their social condition would have been if the "gold rushes" had occurred before a full and regulated stream of untainted emigration had been established is scarcely pleasant to imagine. The con- cluding part of the essay illustrates the weak side of Mr. Cairnes's politics. He by no means belongs to the "Man- chester School," as his vigorous advocacy of a National Army, in another essay, amply shows. But when he comes to consider the colonial problem which remains for us—the ultimate organisation of the English family of nations—he can only endorse the simple, sweeping, eloquently enforced negations of Mr. Goldwin Smith. Here, as elsewhere in the book, we feel that his lucid definiteness of view is attained by a limitation of horizon. The more subtle and vague, though as, we think, preponderant, arguments in favour of maintaining a " political " as well as a " moral " union, he seems genuinely unable to appreciate.
The other portions of the book which will probably be road with most interest are the unpublished papers on Irish matters. We have firstsome "Fragments on Ireland" written in 1866, and originally intended for a small volume, with a practical aim, on the industrial condition of Ireland. Here Mr. Cairnea gives a lucid survey of the economic history of Ireland since the middle of the last century, as an introduction to a dispassionate judgment on the "burning .question" of evictions and compulsory emigration. The reader will regret that ill-health has prevented Mr. Cairnes from in- cluding in his survey the most recent changes : still his un- finished essay is, as he modestly claims, of permanent interest. He first recounts how, when the development of our manufac- tures, coincident with a remarkable succession of bad seasons, changed England from a corn-exporting to a corn-importing country, Ireland received an impulse towards the cultivation of cereals of which the effect remained till 1846. The greater part of a country naturally adapted for pasture was brought under tillage ; and at first, the increase of production even outstripped that of population, so that "for a time plenty actually reigned in Irish cabins." From 1760 to 1815 the land revenues of Ireland are believed to have been augmented in the proportion of four to one, while population more than doubled itself in the thirty-eight years from 1767 to 1805. To effect this change in a country almost destitute of circulating capital, it was necessary to pay the labourer with land ; and so the distinctive economic feature of Irish cottierism, the system of conacre, came into being. In this way, down to 1846, a factitious system of production, supported solely on the basis of corn laws, developed and established itself ; while the temper and habits of the people caused them to discount to the utmlist, in increase of population, such fluctuating unstable prosperity as the corn market supplied. Hence, as Mr. Cairnes says, "free-trade without the assistance of famine would inevitably have undermined the fabric ;" and even if Ireland had escaped the woes of 1846, a large diminution in her population could not have been prevented without what is called a "violation of the laws of political economy,"—that is, without such a sacrifice of income on the part of capitalists as no statesman could enforce, and pro- bably no philanthropist would recommend, except as a temporary effort of charity.
Passing to the years succeeding 1846, Mr. Cairnes exhibits by an effective use of statistics some hitherto unrecognised pheno- mena in the economic history of this period. He shows that in the years immediately succeeding 1846, the economic movement was essentially a change from the cottier system to one of moderate-sized farms : there being a rapid decrease in the number of farms under fifteen acres, together with an increase in the num- ber of those between fifteen and thirty, as well as of the larger ones. But during the succeeding decade the movement was distinotly towards farming on a large scale, a gradual decrease taking place in the number of farms between fifteen and thirty acres. During the first decade, from 1846 to 1856, Mr. Cairnes maintains that it was the duty of the landlordsto use their authority to effect the agricul- tural change that must come, by abolishing the smaller class of holdings. But he considers that this duty was harshly performed by the eviction of 260,000 persons (besides all who were induced to go by notices to quit), even though a large portion of these evictions were for non-payment of rent. This portion, again, he points out, is unfairly represented in the current estimates, as it was frequently the insolvency of middlemen that caused the eviction of the cultivators. On the later changes Mr. Cairnes does not ex- pressly pronounce, as here the essay unfortunately breaks off, but he indicates that his view of them would be essentially different.
The two articles on Irish University education (written in 1866 and 1873) with which the volume concludes are interesting, though somewhat depressing ; not the less depressing, because the tone of Mr. Cairnes himself (as an uncompromising opponent of Mr. Gladstone's policy) is unmistakably triumphant. Still in the two papers taken together he presents, with his usual conscien- tious precision, the elements of a problem, all possible solutions of which seem to have been gradually excluded by the growing definiteness of antagonistic principles while yet the urgent need of a solution becomes more and more obvious. Mr. Cairnes him- self avoids seeing this, by clinging to the conviction that "the Catholics as a body have not rejected the Imperial policy of mixed education ;" it would be, he urges, the mere "pedantry of consti- tutionalism " to be guided by the votes of the majority of Irish representatives in this matter, as they are returned mainly by classes who have no interest in Universities. We fear, however, that this "pedantry" is so deeply engrained in the habits of English legislation, that most wise politicians regard Mr. Cairnes's own view as pedantry ; and though it is balanced in the present case by an equally inveterate aversion to Popery, this does not make the prospect more encouraging, nor strengthen our answer to the advocates of Home Rule.
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