VII.] THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO BENTHAM. 203 the one law of action, Supply and Demand the one to supplement it, a Utilitarian morality has been ... Note, then, in the first place, that the Smithian doctrine is presented to the world as "Political Economy." Now, if there is any meaning in words, Political Economy ought to signify the art -perhaps science—of regulating and administering the body politic. But the Smithian school tells us it is the science of wealth. The Wealth of Nations is the title given by their founder to his well-known treatise. And wealth is the one theme of all his disciples. Hence the opinion has gained? ground, and is now generally received and believed, that to be rich is the final end of a nation, as of an individual man. "The wealthiest men among us are the best." And the nation that has the greatest number of wealthy men is the best. Such is the new conception of the summum bonum. And what then is wealth? By wealth our political econo mists mean (the definition is Mr. Mill's) "all useful or agreeable things which possess exchangeable value."* Of these things money is, of course, merely the symbol, while paper money is the symbol of the symbol. Now, assuredly, if there is any belief deeply rooted in the popular mind, at the present day, it is this--and we owe its formula to Adam Smith and his disciples-that a widely extended commerce, numerous and gigantic manufactures, vast accumulations of capital, are the criteria At the of national prosperity. I take leave to say that sola this is a monstrous and deadly error. The most prosperous nation is not the nation which has most manufactures, most millionaires, the largest exports and imports. The most prosperous nation is the nation which has the least pauperism: the nation in which the men and women who compose it, are able, most easily and thoroughly, to satisfy their real wants: "the nation which has the greatest I number of honest hearts and stout arms, united in a common interest: willing to offend no one: but ready to fight in defence of their own community against all the rest of the world, because they have something in it worth fighting for." دارش Let us consider it a little. In what does national prosperity really consist? Surely, in the prosperity of the individuals composing the nation. Their prosperity is its prosperity. And a man is 11. *Principles of Political Economy, Preliminary Remarks, p. Quit VII.] POVERTY AND PAUPERISM. 205 prosperous when he possesses the means, not of bare subsistence, but of leading his life in security and comfort, according to his position: of developing soul and body of bringing up his family decently. All beyond this is luxury. Content and simplicity are the measure of the necessary. And, this being so, the true test of national prosperity is not the luxury of the few, but the substantial and rational comfort of the many. Its test! is whether the greatest possible number participate in the things requisite for the decent ordering of human life for living like men. The reasonable distribution of wealth is a thing of far more vital interest to a people than its accumulation. Poverty is one thing. Pauperism is quite another. And, as a matter of fact, it is precisely in the countries called "poor" that there are fewest paupers. One of the "poorest" of the Departments of France is La Creuse. It has no riches, because it has no manufactories. But it has only one pauper to every three hundred inhabitants. On the other hand, in the Department of Le Nord, given up to manufacturing industrialism, and reported one of the richest in France, every seventh man is a pauper. Or again, in the non-manufacturing Department of Le Dordogne, there is one pauper every three hundred and eighty-eight inhabitants. In the manufacturing Department of the Rhône, every tenth man is a pauper. It is no paradox, but the simple truth, that the countries reputed to richest-England and France for example-are really the poorest. In the countries commonly called poor, the Tyrol, parts of Italy, of Austria, of Bavaria, I have never seen real poverty. The peasants have food and raiment, plain but substantial, and are therewith content. They have that merry heart which is a perpetual feast. Simple and virtuous, they are not irritated by the consciousness of artificial wants unsupplied. The general prevalence of such artificial wants, our political economists tell us, is the very token of a "high civilization." But both the adjective and the substantive are question-begging words. I, for my part, cannot account a people highly civilized among whom delectation takes the place of duty: vapid amusement of virile activity. It appears to me to be written in broad characters over the world's annals that as the superfluous becomes the necessary, the heroic virtues which are the true roots of national, greatness, swiftly droop and die. The general increase of luxury is an indication, not of national prosperity but of national degeneration. The country is not really rich "when wealth accumulates and men decay." The Highland laird, in A Legend of Montrose, who on seeing the six silver candlesticks in the house of Sir Miles Musgrave, swore that he had "mair candlesticks and better candlesticks in his ain castle at hame than were ever lighted in a hall in Cumberland," and backed his oath with a wager, was "THE MASTER IDOL OF THIS REALM." 207 VII.] Unquestionably, one immediate result of the teachings of Adam Smith and his school has been to exalt Mammon as "the master idol of this realm." Money has been placed at the beginning and end of all human aspirations. Society has become organized on a Materialism recognizing wealth as worth. And assuredly, in its haste to be rich, this nation has pierced itself through with many sorrows. In the fierce striving for money the poor-it was inevitable-have been trodden under foot. Adam Smith has recorded his pious belief that "industrial self-seeking is overruled by an s thi invisible hand, to promote the common happiness." l What a ghastly satire are the words to ears that Latter Day Pamphlets, p. 266. |