that 'tis very difficult, either by intrigue, prejudice, or passion to hurry them into any measures against the public interest."

Will the perfect commonwealth be expensive in its administration?

It will be the least expensive imaginable. Taxation is no burden. "In the commonwealth, no representative, magistrate, or senator, as such has any salary. The protector, secretaries, councils and ambassadors have salaries." But these are few in number.

What is moving toward such a commonwealth? National debts, Hume was prepared to say in his tenth essay, Of Public Credit.

"It would have required but a moderate share of prudence, when we first began this practice of mortgaging, to have foretold, from the nature of men and of ministers, that things would necessarily have carry'd to the length we see; so now we have happily reach'd it, it may not be difficult to guess at the consequence. It must, indeed, be one of two events (in the long run): either the nation must destroy public credit, or public credit will destroy the nation. 'Tis impossible that both can subsist, after the manner they have been hitherto manag'd, in this as well as some other nations."

When shall the change from the system occur?

"One would incline to assign this event a very near period, such as half a century, had not our father's prophecies of this kind been already found fallacious, by the duration of our public credit, so much beyond all reasonable expectation. When the astrologers of France were ever year forecasting the death of Harry the IV., 'These fellows,' says he, 'must be right at last.' We shall, therefore, be more cautious than to assign any precise date; an shall content ourselves with pointing out the event in general."

Reason points the change and calmness pervades the prophet.

"These seem to be the events, which are not very remote, and which reason foresees as clearly almost as she can do any thing that lyes in the womb of time. And tho' the ancients maintain'd, that, in order to reach the gift of prophecy, a certain divine fury or madness was requisite; one may safely affirm, that, in order to deliver such prophesies as these, no more is necessary, than

merely to be in one's senses, free from the influence of popular madnss and delusion."

In other words, so far as the seat of government is concerned, interest bearing bonds and the like, will fall of their own weight. The Almighty will thus be justified in the councils of the States, though denied in the councils of business and religion. That is why it is in the essay on public credit, that Hume feels that his science requires him to say, "The heights of popularity and patriotism are still the beaten road to power and tyranny; flattery to treachery; standing armies to arbitrary government; and the glory of God to the temporal interest of the clergy."

In his Discourse on Interest, Hume had made it plain that alienation of the land from the people could belong to no ideal commonwealth.

In the imperfect commonwealth,

"those who possess more land than they can labour, employ those who possess none. Thus the landed interest is immediately established; nor is there any government, however rude, wherein affairs are not on this footing.. Were money so

plentiful as to make an egg be sold for a six-pence; as long as there are only landed gentry and peasants in the state, the borrowers must be numerous and the interest high. The rent for the same farm would be heavier and more bulky . . . with higher prices of commodities... and produce the same necessity and demand for borrowing."

...

In the perfect commonwealth, there being no opportunity of the foregoing exploitation, the reverse would be true:

"For, suppose a nation remov'd into the Pacific Ocean... . Suppose, that this nation possesses always the same stock of coin, but is constantly encreasing in numbers and industry: 'Tis evident, that the price of every commodity must gradually diminish. . . . . Less money will buy a house, portion a daughter, buy an estate, support a manufactory, or maintain a family and equipage.'

But where there is a warring and a conquering country, money will be oppressive:

.....

"In the conquering country, 271 money will fall into a few hands, and be gathered into large sums, which seek a secure revenue, either by purchase of land or by interest . . . . and make itself felt by the increase of prices.. Borrowers and lenders . . . as formerly, and consequently the high interest returns."

If in modern times, says Hume, the ancient practice of providing all monies and materials necessary for war in advance of the war mere still the practice, the reaction of war against democracy would not be so oppressive. "On the contrary," he observes, "our modern expedient, which has become very general, is to mortgage the public revenues, and to trust that posterity will pay off the incumbrances, contracted during the preceding war. But not to waste time in declaiming against a practice which appears ruinous, beyond the evidence of a hundred demonstrations; it seems pretty apparent, that the ancient maxims are, in this respect, much more prudent than the modern .. According to modern policy, war is attended with increase of taxes. . . dissipation of money

...

every destructive circumstance."

The people are accordingly deluged with misinformation sorely to their hurt. "We have indeed been told that the public is no weaker upon account of its debts; since they are mostly due amongst ourselves, and bring as much property to one as they take from another. . . . Such loose reasoning and specious_comparisons will always pass, where we judge not upon principles."

The public securities thus sold to pay for wars tend to add to the inequality of fortunes. "Public securities are with us become a kind of money, and pass as readily at the current price as gold or silver . . . . In short, our national debts furnish merchants with a species of money, that is continually multiplying in their hands..... ...... Public stocks, being a kind of paper money, have all the disadvantages attending to that

species of money.

and by that means render all provisions . . . dearer than otherwise they would be

The taxes are an oppression on the poorer sort." It is in the face of this degration of the people, and the consequent loss of true democratic tone, that Hume adds, “I must confess, that there is a strange supineness, from long custom, crept into all ranks of men, with regard to public debts."

In the perfect commonwealth manhood will be rehabilitated. The people will be taught to debate the general welfare, having the power of the common good in their hands. And war, in the presence of a people so taught, will recede from the foreground. The world will live in peace. This is Hume's sturdy Anglo-Saxon 'idea' challenging political wisdom evermore.

We turn to the forces in modern England that are working along the lines of the perfect commonwealth.

CHAPTER XVIII

The English Co-operative Commonwealth

"Science has presented us with such instruments that we can easily create a tremendous superfluity of commodities if we choose to do so. If invention went no further, if science now came to a standstill, we should have tools more than adequate to abolish poverty... The people have but to will it, and we set our faces toward a civilization."-L. G. CHIOZZA MONEY, M. P., London, 1910. 272

"Eventually, and in perhaps a less remote future than may be supposed, we may, through the co-operative principle, see our way to a change in society, which would combine the freedom and independence of the individual with the moral, intellectual, and economic advantages of aggregate production; and which, without violence or spoilation, or even sudden disturbance of existing habits and expectations, would realize, at least in the industrial department, the best aspirations of the democratic spirit, by putting an end to the division of society into the industrious and idle, and effacing all social distinctions but those fair

ly earned by personal services and exertions."-JOHN STUART MILL. 273

"Then shall you see and be radiant, and your hearts shall thrill and be enlarged;

Because the abundance

...

shall be turned unto you,

The wealth of the nations shall come unto you." 274

N

O true note of democracy was ever sounded and lost. There came a time in England when David Hume was heard. John Stuart Mill was elected to Parliament. And after him came Fawcett, Thorold Rogers, Chiozza Money, and the later champions of labor. Mill's sayings, in spirit, were the reverberations of Hume's aspirations for the perfect commonwealth. "If public spirit, generous sentiments, or true justice and equality are desired," Mill could remind everybody, "association, not isolation, of interests, is the school in which these excellences are nurtured. Hitherto there has been no alternative for those who live by labour, but that of labouring either for himself alone, or for a master. But the civilizing and improving influences of association, and the efficiency and economy of production on a large scale, may be obtained without dividing the producers into two parties with hostile interests and feelings, the many who do the work being mere servants under the command of one who supplies the funds, and having no interest of their own in the enterprise except to earn their wages with as little labour as possible." 275

The old fetish of class, that is to say, is now divested of its charms:

"When I speak, either in this place or elsewhere, of 'the labouring classes,' or of labourers as a 'class,' I use those phrases in compliance with custom, and as descriptive of an existing, but by no means a necessary or permanent state of social relations. I do not recognize as either just or salutary, a state of society in which there is any 'class' which is not labouring; any human beings exempt from bearing their share of the necessary