Sanitary and Social Lectures, etc Part 11

All but despairing, Sanitary Reformers have turned again and again to her Majesty's Government. Alas for them! The Government was ready and willing enough to help. The wicked world said: "Of course. It will create a new department. It will give them more places to bestow." But the real reason of the willingness of Government seems to be that those who compose it are thoroughly awake to the importance of the subject.

But what can a poor Government do, whose strength consists (as that of all English Governments must) in not seeming too strong; which is allowed to do anything, only on condition of doing the minimum? Of course, a Government is morally bound to keep itself in existence; for is it not bound to believe that it can govern the country better than any other knot of men? But its only chance of self-preservation is to know, with Hesiod's wise man, "how much better the half is than the whole," and to throw over many a measure which it would like to carry, for the sake of saving the few which it can carry.

An English Government, nowadays, is simply at the mercy of the forty or fifty members of the House of Commons who are crotchety enough or dishonest enough to put it unexpectedly in a minority; and they, with the vast majority of the House, are becoming more and more the delegates of that very cla.s.s which is most opposed to Sanitary Reform. The honourable member goes to Parliament not to express his opinions, (for he has stated most distinctly at the last election that he has no opinions whatsoever), but to protect the local interests of his const.i.tuents. And the great majority of those const.i.tuents are small houseowners-the poorer portion of the middle cla.s.s. Were he to support Government in anything like a sweeping measure of Sanitary Reform, woe to his seat at the next election; and he knows it; and therefore, even if he allow the Government to have its Central Board of Health, he will take good care, for his own sake, that the said Board shall not do too much, and that it shall not compel his const.i.tuents to do anything at all.

No wonder, that while the att.i.tude of the House of Commons is such toward a matter which involves the lives of thousands yearly, some educated men should be crying that Representative inst.i.tutions are on their trial, and should sigh for a strong despotism.

There is an answer, nevertheless, to such sentimentalists, and one hopes that people will see the answer for themselves, and that the infection of Imperialism, which seems spreading somewhat rapidly, will be stopped by common sense and honest observation of facts.

A despotism doubtless could carry out Sanitary Reform: but doubtless, also, it would not.

A despot in the nineteenth century knows well how insecure his tenure is.

His motto must be, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die;" and, therefore, the first objects of his rule will be, private luxury and a standing army; while if he engage in public works, for the sake of keeping the populace quiet, they will be certain not to be such as will embroil him with the middle cla.s.ses, while they will win him no additional favour with the ma.s.ses, utterly unaware of their necessity.

Would the ma.s.ses of Paris have thanked Louis Napoleon the more if, instead of completing the Tuileries, he had sewered the St. Antoine? All arguments to the contrary are utterly fallacious, which are drawn from ancient despotisms, Roman, Eastern, Peruvian, or other; and for this simple reason, that they had no middle cla.s.s. If they did work well (which is a question) it was just because they had no middle cla.s.s-that cla.s.s, which in a free State is the very life of a nation, and yet which, in a despotism, is sure to be the root of its rottenness. For a despot who finds, as Louis Napoleon has done, a strong middle cla.s.s already existing, must treat it as he does; he must truckle to it, pander to its basest propensities, seem to make himself its tool, in order that he may make it his. For the sake of his own life, he must do it; and were a despot to govern England to-morrow, we should see that the man who was shrewd enough to have climbed to that bad eminence, would be shrewd enough to know that he could scarcely commit a more suicidal act than, by some despotic measure of Sanitary Reform, to excite the ill-will of all the most covetous, the most stupid, and the most stubborn men in every town of England.

There is another answer, too, to "Imperialists" who talk of Representative inst.i.tutions being on their trial, and let it be made boldly just now.

It will be time to talk of Representative inst.i.tutions being good or bad, when the people of England are properly represented.

In the first place, it does seem only fair that the cla.s.s who suffer most from epidemics should have some little share in the appointment of the men on whose votes extermination of epidemics now mainly depends. But that is too large a question to argue here. Let the Government see to it in the coming session.

Yet how much soever, or how little soever, the suffrage be extended in the direction of the working man, let it be extended, at least in some equal degree, in the direction of the educated man. Few bodies in England now express the opinions of educated men less than does the present House of Commons. It is not chosen by educated men, any more than it is by _proletaires_. It is not, on an average, composed of educated men; and the many educated men who are in it have, for the most part, to keep their knowledge very much to themselves, for fear of hurting the feelings of "ten-pound Jack," or of the local attorney who looks after Jack's vote. And therefore the House of Commons does not represent public opinion.

For, to enounce with fitting clearness a great but much-forgotten truth, To have an opinion, you must have an opinion.

Strange: but true, and pregnant too. For, from it may be deduced this corollary, that nine-tenths of what is called Public Opinion is no opinion at all; for, on the matters which come under the cognizance of the House of Commons (save where superst.i.tion, as in the case of the Sabbath, or the Jew Bill, sets folks thinking-generally on the wrong side), nine people out of ten have no opinion at all; know nothing about the matter, and care less; wherefore, having no opinions to be represented, it is not important whether that nothing be represented or not.

The true public opinion of England is composed of the opinions of the shrewd, honest, practical men in her, whether educated or not; and of such, thank G.o.d, there are millions: but it consists also of the opinions of the educated men in her; men who have had leisure and opportunity for study; who have some chance of knowing the future, because they have examined the past; who can compare England with other nations; English creeds, laws, customs, with those of the rest of mankind;-who know somewhat of humanity, human progress, human existence; who have been practised in the processes of thought; and who, from study, have formed definite opinions, differing doubtless in infinite variety, but still all founded upon facts, by something like fair and scientific induction.

Till we have this cla.s.s of men fairly represented in the House of Commons, there is little hope for Sanitary Reform: when it is so represented, we shall have no reason to talk of Representative inst.i.tutions being on their trial.

And it is one of the few hopeful features of the present time, that an attempt is at last being made to secure for educated men of all professions a fair territorial representation. A memorial to the Government has been presented, appended to which, in very great numbers, are the names of men of note, of all ranks, all shades in politics and religion, all professions-legal, clerical, military, medical, and literary. A list of names representing so much intellect, so much learning, so much acknowledged moderation, so much good work already done and acknowledged by the country, has never, perhaps, been collected for any political purpose; and if their scheme (the details of which are not yet made public) should in anywise succeed, it will do more for the prospects of Sanitary Reform than any forward movement of the quarter of a century.

For if Sanitary Reform, or perhaps any really progressive measure, is to be carried out henceforth, we must go back to something like the old principle of the English const.i.tution, by which intellect, as such, had its proper share in the public councils. During those middle ages when all the intellect and learning was practically possessed by the clergy, they const.i.tuted a separate estate of the realm. This was the old plan-the best which could be then devised. After learning became common to the laity, the educated cla.s.ses were represented more and more only by such clever young men as could be thrust into Parliament by the private patronage of the aristocracy. Since the last Reform Bill, even that supply of talent has been cut off; and the consequence has been, the steady deterioration of our House of Commons toward such a level of mediocrity as shall satisfy the ignorance of the practically electing majority, namely, the tail of the middle cla.s.s; men who are apt to possess all the failings with few of the virtues of those above them and below them; who have no more intellectual training than the simple working man, and far less than the average shopman, and who yet lose, under the influence of a small competence, that practical training which gives to the working man, made strong by wholesome necessity, chivalry, endurance, courage, and self-restraint; whose business morality is made up of the lowest and narrowest maxims of the commercial world, unbalanced by that public spirit, that political knowledge, that practical energy, that respect for the good opinion of his fellows, which elevate the large employer. On the hustings, of course, this description of the average free and independent elector would be called a calumny; and yet, where is the member of Parliament who will not, in his study, a.s.sent to its truth, and confess, that of all men whom he meets, those who least command his respect are those among his const.i.tuents to secure whom he takes most trouble; unless, indeed, it be the pettifoggers who manage his election for him?

Whether this is the cla.s.s to whose public opinion the health and lives of the ma.s.ses are to be entrusted, is a question which should be settled as soon as possible.

Meanwhile let every man who would awake to the importance of Sanitary questions, do his best to teach and preach, in season and out of season, and to instruct, as far as he can, that public opinion which is as yet but public ignorance. Let him throw, for instance, what weight he has into the "National a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Social Science."

In it he will learn, as well as teach, not only on Sanitary Reforms, but upon those cognate questions which must be considered with it, if it is ever to be carried out.

Indeed, this new "National a.s.sociation" seems the most hopeful and practical move yet made by the sanitarists. It may be laughed at somewhat at first, as the British a.s.sociation was; but the world will find after a while that, like the British a.s.sociation, it can do great things towards moulding public opinion, and compel men to consider certain subjects, simply by accustoming people to hear them mentioned.

The a.s.sociation will not have existed in vain, if it only removes that dull fear and suspicion with which Englishmen are apt to regard a new subject, simply because it is new. But the a.s.sociation will do far more than that. It has wisely not confined itself to any one branch of Social Science, but taken the subject in all its complexity. To do otherwise would have been to cripple itself. It would have shut out many subjects-Law Reform, for instance-which are necessary adjuncts to any Sanitary scheme; while it would have shut out that very large cla.s.s of benevolent people who have as yet been devoting their energies to prisons, workhouses, and schools. Such will now have an opportunity of learning that they have been treating the symptoms of social disease rather than the disease itself. They will see that vice is rather the effect than the cause of physical misery, and that the surest mode of attacking it is to improve the physical conditions of the lower cla.s.ses; to abolish foul air, fouled water, foul lodging, and overcrowded dwellings, in which morality is difficult, and common decency impossible.

They will not give up-Heaven forbid that they should give up!-their special good works; but they will surely throw the weight of their names, their talents, their earnestness, into the great central object of preserving human life, as soon as they shall have recognised that prevention is better than cure; and that the simple and one method of prevention is, to give the working man his rights. Water, air, light. A right to these three at least he has. In demanding them, he demands no more than G.o.d gives freely to the wild beast of the forest. Till society has given him them, it does him an injustice in demanding of him that he should be a useful member of society. If he is expected to be a man, let him at least be put on a level with the brutes. When the benevolent of the land (and they may be numbered by tens of thousands) shall once have learnt this plain and yet awful truth, a vast upward step will have been gained. Because this new a.s.sociation will teach it them, during the next ten or twenty years, may G.o.d's blessing be on it, and, on the n.o.ble old man who presides over it. Often already has he deserved well of his country; but never better than now, when he has lent his great name and great genius to the object of preserving human life from wholesale destruction by unnecessary poison.

And meanwhile let the Sanitary Reformer work and wait. "Go not after the world," said a wise man, "for if thou stand still long enough the world will come round to thee." And to Sanitary Reform the world will come round at last. Grumbling, scoffing, cursing its benefactors; boasting at last, as usual, that it discovered for itself the very truths which it tried to silence, it will come; and will be glad at last to accept the one sibylline leaf, at the same price at which it might have had the whole. The Sanitary Reformer must make up his mind to see no fruit of his labours, much less thanks or reward. He must die in faith, as St.

Paul says all true men die, "not having received the promises;" worn out, perhaps, by ill-paid and unappreciated labour, as that truest-hearted and most unselfish of men, Charles Robert Walsh, died but two years ago. But his works will follow him-not, as the preachers tell us, to heaven-for of what use would they be there, to him or to mankind?-but here, on earth, where he set them, that they might go on in his path, after his example, and prosper and triumph long years after he is dead, when his memory shall be blessed by generations not merely "yet unborn," but who never would have been born at all, had he not inculcated into their unwilling fathers the simplest laws of physical health, decency, life-laws which the wild cat of the wood, burying its own excrement apart from its lair, has learnt by the light of nature; but which neither nature nor G.o.d Himself can as yet teach to a selfish, perverse, and hypocritical generation.

FOOTNOTES

{3} This lecture was one of a series of "Lectures to Ladies," given in London in 1855, at the Needlewoman's Inst.i.tution.

{21} The substance of this Essay was a lecture on Physical Education, given at the Midland Inst.i.tute, Birmingham, in 1872.

{36} 9, Adam Street, Adelphi, London.

{49} A Lecture delivered at Winchester, May 31, 1869.

{77} Lecture delivered at Winchester, March 17, 1869.

{110} I quote from the translation of the late lamented Philip Stanhope Worsley, of Corpus Christi College, Oxford.

{114} Odyssey, book vi. 127315; vol. i. pp. 143150 of Mr. Worsley's translation.

{126} Since this essay was written, I have been sincerely delighted to find that my wishes had been antic.i.p.ated at Girton College, near Cambridge, and previously at Hitchin, whence the college was removed: and that the wise ladies who superintend that establishment propose also that most excellent inst.i.tution-a swimming-bath. A paper, moreover, read before the London a.s.sociation of School-mistresses in 1866, on "Physical Exercises and Recreation for Girls," deserves all attention. May those who promote such things prosper as they deserve.

{187} Lecture delivered at Bristol, October 5, 1857.

{192} This was spoken during the Indian Mutiny.

{257} Delivered at St. James's Hall, London, 1859.

{271} Fraser's Magazine, No. CCCx.x.xVII. 1858.

{276} We find a most honourable exception to this rule in a sermon by the Rev. C. Richson, of Manchester, on the Sanitary Laws of the Old Testament, with notes by Dr. Sutherland.