Bygones Worth Remembering Volume I Part 19

* "Principles of Political Economy," Book ii.

Further instruction of the people upon this subject J. S. Mill might not deprecate, but he never gave it He never went so far as Jowett, who wrote: "That the most important influences on human life should be wholly left to chance, or shrouded in mystery, and instead of being disciplined or understood, should be required to conform to an external standard of propriety, cannot be regarded by the philosopher as a safe or satisfactory condition of human things."*

* "Dialogues of Plato." Introduction to "Republic," vol. ii.

Mill's views, or supposed views, naturally excited the attention of wits. Moore's amusing exaggeration, which, like American humour, was devoid of truth, yet had no malice in it, was:--

"There are two Mr. Mills, too, whom those who like reading What's vastly unreadable, call very clever; And whereas Mill senior makes war on _good_ breeding, Mill junior makes war on all _breeding_ whatever."

The way in which opinions were invented for Mill is shown in the instance of the London Debating Club (1826-1830), which was attended by a set of young men who professed ultra opinions. Mr. J. A. Roebuck was one. It was rumoured that at a meeting at which Mr. Mill was present, a pamphlet was discussed ent.i.tled, "What is Love?" attributed to a man of some note in his day, and of unimpeachable character in private life.

Mr. Mill might have been present without knowledge of the subject to be brought forward, and may have been a listener without choice.

But in those days (and down to a much later period) the conventional fallacy was in full vogue--that civility to an opponent implied a secret similarity of opinion. Courtesy was regarded as complicity with the beliefs of those to whom it was shown. He who was present at an unconventional a.s.sembly was held to a.s.sent to what took place there--though neither a member, nor speaker, nor partisan.

CHAPTER XXII. JOHN STUART MILL, TEACHER OF THE PEOPLE

(continued)

Mill was so entirely serious in his pursuit of truth, and entirely convinced of the advantages of its publicity, that he readily risked conventional consequences on that account. He held it to be desirable that those who had important convictions, should be free to make them known, and even be encouraged to do so. In thinking this he was in no way compromised by, nor had he any complicity with, the convictions of others. But this did not prevent him being made answerable for them, as in the case of the distribution of papers sent to him by friends in his company. A copy of it came into my possession which a.s.suredly he did not write, and the terms of which he could never have approved, had they been submitted to him. On one occasion he sent to me a pa.s.sionate repudiation of concurrence or recommendation in any form, of methods imputed to him.

These eccentricities of imputation, supposed to have died by time, were found to be alive at Mills death.

The chief resurrectionist was one Abraham Hay-ward, known as a teller of salacious stories at the Athenaeum. He was a man of many gifts, who wrote with a bright, but by no means fastidious, pen. In some unexplained, inconsistent, and inexplicable way, Mr. Gladstone was on friendly terms with him. No sooner was Mill dead, and ill.u.s.trious appreciators of the great thinker were meditating some memorial to his honour, than Mr. Hayward sent an article to the _Times_, suggesting intrinsic immorality in his opinions. He also sent out letters privately to deter eminent friends of Mill from giving their names to the memorial committee. He sent one to Mr. Stopford Brooke, upon whom it had no influence. He sent one to Mr. Gladstone, upon whom it had, and who, in consequence, declined to join the committee.

Hayward was, in his day, the Iago of literature, and abused the confiding nature of our n.o.ble Moor.* Yet, when Mr. Mill lost his seat for Westminster, Mr. Gladstone had written these great words: "We all know Mr. Mill's intellectual eminence before he entered Parliament.

What his conduct princ.i.p.ally disclosed to me was his singular moral elevation. Of all the motives, stings and stimulants that reach men through their egotism in Parliament, no part could move or even touch him. His conduct and his language were in this respect a sermon. For the sake of the House of Commons, I rejoiced in his advent and deplored his disappearance. He did us all good, and in whatever party, in whatever form of opinion, I sorrowfully confess that such men are rare."

* My little book, "John Stuart Mill, as the Working Cla.s.ses Knew Him," was written to show Mr. Gladstone the answer that could be given to Hayward.

There was no tongue in the House of Commons more bitter, venomous, or disparaging of the people than that of Lord Robert Cecil, afterwards Lord Salisbury; yet I record to his honour he subscribed 50 towards the memorial to Mr. Mill. One of the three first persons who gave 50 was Mr. Walter Morrison. The Duke of Argyll, the Earl of Derby, the Duke of Devonshire, Sir Charles and Lady Dilke, Mr. and Mrs. P. A. Taylor were also among the subscribers of 50 each. Among those who gave large but lesser sums were Mr. Herbert Spencer, Stopford Brooke, Leonard H. Courtney, Frederic Harrison, G. H. Lewes, W. E. H. Lecky. Sir John Lubbock, G. Croome Robertson, Lord Rosebery, Earl Russell, Professor Tyndall, and Professor Huxley. So Mr. Mill had his monument with honour.

It stands on the Thames Embankment, and allures more pilgrims of thought than any other there.

Purity and honour, there is reason to believe, were never absent from Mill's mind or conduct; but trusting to his own personal integrity, he a.s.sumed others would recognise it His admiration of Mrs. Taylor, whom he frequently visited, and subsequently married, was misconstrued--though not by Mr. Taylor, who had full confidence in Mr. Mill's honour. No expression to the contrary on Mr. Taylor's part ever transpired. It might be due to society that Mr. Mill should have been reserved in his regard. But a.s.sured of his own rect.i.tude, he trusted to the proud resenting maxim, "Evil be to him who evil thinks," and he resented imputation--whether it came from his relatives or his friends. Any reflection upon him in this respect he treated as an affront to himself, and an imputation upon Mrs. Taylor, which he never forgave. A relative told me after his death, that he never communicated with any of them again who made any remark which bore a sinister interpretation. If ever there was a philosopher who should be counted stainless, it was John Stuart Mill.

In the minds of the Bentham School, population was a province of politics. It would seem incredible to another generation--as it seems to many in this--that a philosopher should incur odium for being of Jowett's opinion, that the most vital information upon the conduct of life should not be withheld from the people. To give it is to incur conventional reprehension; as though it were not a greater crime to be silent while a feeble, half-fed, and ignorant progeny infest the land, to find their way to the hospital, the poor house, or the gaol, than to protest against this recklessness, which establishes penury and slavery in the workman's home. Yet a brutal delicacy and a criminal fastidiousness, calling itself public propriety, is far less reputable than the ethical preference for reasonable foresight and a manlier race.

Mr. Mill's success in Parliament was greater than that of any philosopher who has entered in our time. Unfortunately, very few philosophers go there. The author of "Mark Rutherford" (W. Hale White) writing to me lately, exclaimed: "Oh for one session with Mill and Bright and Cobden in the House! What would you not give to hear Mill's calm voice again? What would you not give to see him apply the plummet of Justice and Reason to the crooked iniquities of the Front Benches? He stands before me now, just against the gangway on the Opposition side, hesitating, pausing even for some seconds occasionally, and yet holding everybody in the House with a kind of grip; for even the most foolish understood more or less dimly that they were listening to something strange, something exalted, spoken from another sphere than that of the professional politician."

Mr. Christie relates that in the London Debating Society, of which Mill was a member when a young man, it used to be said of him in argument, "He pa.s.sed over his adversary like a ploughshare over a mouse."

Certainly many mice arguers heard in Parliament, who made the public think a mountain was in labour, ended their existence with a squeak when Mr. Mill took notice of them.

The operation of the suffrage and the ballot, questions on which Mill expressed judgment, are in the minds of politicians to this day, and many reformers who dissented from him do not conceal their misgivings as to the wisdom of their course. "Misgivings" is a word that may be taken to mean regret, whereas it merely signifies occasion for consideration.

The extension of the franchise and the endowment of the ballot have caused misgivings in many who were foremost in demanding them. The wider suffrage has not prevented an odious war in South Africa, and the ballot has sent to the House of Commons a dangerous majority of retrograde members. John Bright distrusted the vote of the residuum. John Stuart Mill equally dreaded the result of withdrawing the vote of the elector from public scrutiny. I agreed with their apprehensions, but it seemed to me a necessity of progress that the risk should be run. While the Ballot Act was before the House of Lords, I wrote to the _Times_ and other papers, as I have elsewhere related, to say that the Ballot Act would probably give us a Tory government for ten years--which it did.

I thought that the elector who had two hundred years of transmitted subjection or intimidation or bribery in his bones, would for some time go on voting as he had done--for others, not for the State. He would not all at once understand that he was free and answerable to the State for his vote. New electors, who had never known the responsibility of voting, would not soon acquire the sense of it Mr. Mill thought it conduced to manliness for an elector to act in despite of his interest or resentment of his neighbours, his employer, his landlord, or his priest, when his vote became known. At every election there were martyrs on both sides; and it was too much to expect that a ma.s.s of voters, politically ignorant, and who had been kept in ignorance, would generally manifest a high spirit, which maintains independence in the face of social peril, which philosophers are not always equal to. No doubt the secrecy of the vote is an immunity to knaves, but it is the sole chance of independence for the average honest man. The danger of committing the fortune of the State to the unchecked votes of the unintelligent was an argument of great power against a secret suffrage.

Lord Macaulay, though a Whig of the Whigs, gave an effective answer when he brought forward his famous fool, who declared "he would never go into the water until he had learnt to swim." The people must plunge into the sea of liberty before they can learn to swim in it. They have now been in that sea many years, and not many have learned the art yet. Then was found the truth of Temple Leader's words, that "if the sheep had votes, they would give them all to the butcher." Then when reformers found that the new electors voted largely for those who had always refused them the franchise, the advocates of it often expressed to me their misgivings as to its wisdom. Lord Sherbrooke (then Robert Lowe) saw clearly that if liberty was to be maintained and extended, the State must educate its masters.

But has this been done? Has not education been impeded? Have not electoral facilities been hampered? Has not the franchise been restricted by onerous conditions, which keep great numbers from having any vote at all? Has not the dual vote been kept up, which enables the wealthy to multiply their votes at will? Before reformers have misgivings concerning the extension of liberty to the ma.s.ses, they must see that the poor have the same opportunity of reaching the poll as the rich have. George Eliot, who had the Positivist reluctance to see the people act for themselves, wrote: "Ignorant power comes in the end to the same thing as wicked power."* But there is this difference in their nature. "Ignorant power" can be instructed, and experience may teach it; but "wicked power" has an evil purpose, intelligently fixed and implacably determined.

* "Felix Holt," p 265. Blackwood's stereotyped edition.

Does any reflecting person suppose, that when the vote was given to the ma.s.s of the people, they would be at once trans.m.u.ted into intelligent, calculating, and patient politicians--that their pa.s.sions would be tamed, and their vices extinguished--that they would forthwith act reasonably? Much of this was true of the thoughtful working men. But for a long time the mult.i.tude must remain unchanged until intelligence extends. We have had renewed experience that--

"Religion, empire, vengeance, what you will, A word's enough to rouse mankind to kill.

Some cunning phrase by fiction caught and spread, That guilt may reign, and wolves and worms be fed."

But the reformer has one new advantage now. He is no longer scandalised by the excesses of ignorance, nor the perversities of selfishness.

Giving the vote has, if we may paraphrase the words of Shakespeare, put into

"Every man's hands The means to cancel his captivity."

It is no mean thing to have done this. There is no reason for misgiving here. If the people misuse or neglect to use their power, the fault is their own. There is no one to reproach but themselves.

Abolitionists of slavery may, if supine, feel misgivings at having liberated the negroes from their masters, where they were certain of shelter, subsistence, and protection from a.s.sault of others, and exposed them to the malice of their former owners, to be maltreated, murdered at will, lynched with torture on imaginary or uninvestigated accusations.

Those who aided the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves are bound to ceaseless vigilance in defending them. But despite the calamities of liberty, freedom has added an elastic race (who learn the arts of order and of wealth) to the family of mankind, and misgivings are obsolete among those who have achieved the triumphs and share the vigils and duties of progress.

Mr. Mill was essentially a teacher of the people. He wished them to think on their own account--for themselves, and not as others directed them. He did not wish them to disregard the thoughts of those wiser than themselves, but to verify new ideas as far as they could, before a.s.senting to them. He wished them not to take authority for truth, but truth for authority. To this end he taught the people principles which were pathways to the future. He who kept on such paths knew where he was. Herbert Spencer said he had no wrinkles on his brow because he had discovered the thoroughfares of nature, and was never puzzled as to where they led. Mr. Mill was a chartmaker in logic, in social economy, and in politics. None before him did what he did, and no successor has exceeded him. By his protest against the "subjection of women," he brought half the human race into the province of politics and progress.

They have not all appeared there as yet--but they are on the way.

CHAPTER XXIII. ABOUT MR. GLADSTONE

Mr. Gladstone's career will be the wonder of other generations, as it has been the astonishment of this. Mr. Morley's monumental "Life" of him will long be remembered as the greatest of all contributions to the education of the British politician. It is a life of Parliament as well as of a person. Those who remember how Carpenter's "Political Text Book"

was welcomed will know how much more this will be valued.

Never before was a biography founded on material so colossal. Only one man was thought capable of dealing with a subject so vast and complicated. Great expectations were entertained, and were fulfilled in a measure which exceeded every antic.i.p.ation. The task demanded a vaster range of knowledge than was ever before required of a biographer.

Cla.s.sic pa.s.sages, not capable of being construed by the general reader, are translated, so that interest is never diverted nor baffled by flashes of learned darkness. When cardinal and unusual terms are used, which might be dubiously interpreted, definitions are given which have both delight and instruction. He who collects them from Mr. Morley's pages would possess a little dictionary of priceless guidance. A n.o.ble action or a just idea is recognised, whoever may manifest it Some persons, as Mr. Gladstone said of Kinglake's famous book, "were too bad to live and too good to die." Nevertheless, their excellence, where discernible, has its place in this biographical mosaic Thus unexpected pieces of human thought emerge in the careers of the historic figures who pa.s.s before the reader, by which he becomes richer as he proceeds from page to page. Illuminating similes abound which do not leave the memory--such fitness is there in them. Historic questions which interested those who lived through them, are made clear, by facts unknown or unregarded then. Men whom many readers detested in their day are discovered to have some n.o.ble feature of character, unrevealed to the public before. Mr. Morley is a master of character--a creator of fame by his discernment, discrimination, impartiality, and generosity to adversaries, from which the reader learns charity and wisdom as he goes along. Knowledge of public life, law, and government, come as part of the charm of the incidents related. Memorable phrases, unexpected terms of expression, like flashes of radium, gleam in every chapter. The narrative is as interesting as the adventures of Gil Bias--so full is it of wisdom, wonder, and variety. From all the highways, byways, and broadways of the great subject, the reader never loses sight of Mr.

Gladstone. All paths lead to him. Like Bunyan's Pilgrim, the biographer goes on his shining way, guiding the reader to the shrine of the hero of the marvellous story. Mr. Gladstone moves through Mr. Morley's pages as a king--as he did among men. He sometimes fell into errors, as n.o.ble men have done in every age, but there was never any error in his purpose. He always meant justly, and did not hesitate to give us new and enn.o.bling estimates of hated men. His sense of justice diffused, as it were, a halo around him. Mr. Morley's pages give us the natural history of a political mind of unusual range and power which was without a compeer.

As Mr. Gladstone began, he advanced, listening to everybody, to use one of Mr. Morley's commanding lines: "He was flexible, persistent, clear, practical, fervid, unconquerable."

In "Vivian Grey," Disraeli foreshadowed his bright and vengeful career.

In the same way, Mr. Gladstone wrote the whole spirit of his life in his first address to the electors of Newark. His career is in that manifesto, which has never been reprinted. The reader will be interested in seeing it Here it is:--

To the Worthy and Independent Electors of the Borough of Newark.

"Gentlemen,--Having now completed my canva.s.s, I think it my duty as well to remind you of the principles on which I have solicited your votes as freely to a.s.sure my friends that its result has placed my success beyond a doubt. I have not requested your favour on the ground of adherence to the opinions of any man or party, further than such adherence can be fairly understood from the conviction that I have not hesitated to avow that we must watch and resist that uninquiring and un-discriminating desire for change amongst us, which threatens to produce, along with partial good, a melancholy preponderance of mischief, which I am persuaded would aggravate beyond computation the deep-seated evils of our social state, and the heavy burthens of our industrial cla.s.ses; which, by disturbing our peace, destroys confidence and strikes at the root of prosperity. This it has done already, and this we must, therefore, believe it will do.

"For a mitigation of these evils we must, I think, look not only to particular measures, but to the restoration of sounder general principles--I mean especially that principle on which alone the incorporation of Religion with the State in our const.i.tution can be defended; that the duties of governors are strictly and peculiarly religious, and that legislatures, like individuals, are bound to carry throughout their acts the spirit of the high truths they have acknowledged. Principles are now arrayed against our inst.i.tutions, and not by truckling nor by temporising, not by oppression nor corruption, but by principles they must be met. Among their first results should be sedulous and especial attention to the interests of the poor, founded upon the rule that those who are the least able to take care of themselves ought to be most regarded by others. Particularly it is a duty to endeavour by every means that labour may receive adequate remuneration, which unhappily, among several cla.s.ses of our fellow-countrymen, is not now the case. Whatever measures, therefore, whether by the correction of the Poor Laws, allotment of cottage grounds, or otherwise, tend to promote this object, I deem ent.i.tled to the warmest support, with all such as are calculated to secure sound moral conduct in any cla.s.s of society.

"I proceed to the momentous question of slavery, which I have found entertained among you in that candid and temperate spirit which alone befits its nature, or promises to remove its difficulties. If I have not recognised the right of an irresponsible Society to interpose between me and the electors, it has not been from any disrespect to its members, nor from any unwillingness to answer their or any other questions on which the electors may desire to know my views. To the esteemed secretary of the Society I submitted my reasons for silence, and I made a point of stating those views to him in his character of a voter.

"As regards the abstract lawfulness of slavery, I acknowledge it simply as importing the right of one man to the labour of another; and I rest upon the fact that Scripture--paramount authority on such a point--gives directions to persons standing in the relation of master to slave for their conduct in that relation; whereas, were the matter absolutely and necessarily sinful, it would not regulate the manner. a.s.suming sin is the cause of degradation, it strives, and strives most effectually, to cure the latter by extirpating the former. We are agreed that both the physical and moral bondage of the slave are to be abolished. The question is as to the order and the order only; now Scripture attacks the moral evil before the temporal one, and the temporal through the moral one, and I am content with the order which Scripture has established.

"To this end I desire to see immediately set on foot, by impartial and sovereign authority, an universal and efficient system of Christian instruction, not intended to resist designs of individual piety and wisdom for the religious improvement of the negroes, but to do thoroughly what they can only do partially. As regards immediate emanc.i.p.ation, whether with or without compensation, there are several minor reasons against it, but that which weighs most with me is, that it would, I much fear, exchange the evils now affecting the negro for others which are weightier--for a relapse into deeper debas.e.m.e.nt, if not for bloodshed and internal war.* Let fitness be made the condition of emanc.i.p.ation, and let us strive to bring him to that fitness by the shortest possible course. Let him enjoy the means of earning his freedom through honest and industrious habits, thus the same instruments which attain his liberty shall likewise render him competent to use it; and thus, I earnestly trust, without risk of blood, without violation of property, with unimpaired benefit to the negro and with the utmost speed which prudence will admit, we shall arrive at the exceedingly desirable consummation, the utter extinction of slavery.