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Review of Mill's “Principles of Political Economy”

Walter Bagehot

The Prospective Review, vol. IV, 16, 1848, pp.. 460-502

The work on which we are about to comment, seems to us unavoidably to present great difficulties to a

reviewer. The admirable qualities of mind displayed in it, and the extensive research out of which it has

sprung, make it necessary for the critic to practise a humility, to which he is perchance but little

accustomed. Moreover the great size of the work, the number of valuable discussions which it contains,

and, more than all, the great importance of almost the whole of its subject-matter, exact from us a

difficult selection of topics, in order that our article may not be unpleasing to our readers or altogether

unworthy of the work under review.

The course which we shall take will be first to mark Mr. Mill's position among economical and, so far as

a few words will go, among general thinkers: and, after this introduction to select a single large class of

considerations, viz., those bearing on the condition of the labouring classes: and to devote our attention

to these exclusively. We choose this branch of the subject, not only because of its own intrinsic

interest, but also because it contains a large proportion of Mr. Mill's peculiar and characteristic ideas.

He is the first among great English Economists who has ventured to maintain, that the present division

of the industrial community into labourers and capitalists is neither destined nor adapted for a long-

continued existence: that a large production of wealth is much less important than a good distribution of

it: that a state of industry in which both capital and population are stationary is as favourable to national

well-being as one in which they are advancing: that fixed customs are perpetually modifying the effects

which unrestrained competition would of itself inevitably produce: that a large body of peasant

proprietors is usually a source of great national advantage: and that a system of Emigration on a great

scale would be productive of much benefit to the English peasantry by raising their habitual standard of

comfort, and therefore putting a check on the reckless increase of a miserable population. These

propositions (which are not all that might be set down) will be enough to prove that the subject we have

selected for discussion with Mr. Mill contains a sufficient number of his peculiar opinions, and therefore

asking our readers to acquiesce in our selection of a special topic, we shall pass on to the general and

introductory portion of our article.

In the preface to his work Mr. Mill states that he wishes his work to comprise both the theoretic

exposition of purely economical doctrine, and also the extraneous considerations most necessary for

its correct application to the real world in which we have to live and act. This he says, because he

habitually bears in mind that Political Economy is founded on certain assumptions of which it is very

convenient to trace out the consequences separately, but which being seldom accurately true, and

being often very wide of the mark, will lead logically to consequences that it may be hazardous to apply

without correction to the actual condition of mankind. Thus it is perpetually assumed that men will

always buy what they want as cheaply as they can; whereas in matter of fact, vanity, liberality and

indolence are perpetually preventing purchasers from beating down prices to the full extent of their

ability.

The existence of such exceptional considerations distributes economists into two classes. What we

may call common-sense thinkers have always seen that these extraneous influences were very

important matters for their attention wherever actual practice was at all concerned. Adam Smith for

example is the most striking specimen of this class of thinkers. He is very eminent in making short

inductions from admitted facts, and in applying them with consistency and skill. He is not eminent for

precision of statement or for microscopic accuracy of thought: but he is in general very successful in

rather vague descriptions of conspicuous phenomena, and in tracing them back to the most influential

of their proximate causes. It is evident that a mind so habitually starting with observed fact would be

unlikely to neglect important agencies or to bind itself by purely hypothetical assumptions. Ricardo on

the other hand is the most important of what may be called the abstract thinkers on the philosophy of

wealth. He sets out from certain primitive assumptions, and from these he proceeds to evolve all his

results by mere deduction. He but rarely comes into contact with the actual world at all: but frames a

hypothetical one which exists nowhere out of his own imagination. Accordingly his views of his subject

must be called deep rather than wide: explaining a little very well, but leaving much without remark:

giving a little truth which it was difficult to arrive at, rather than a comprehensive summary of all the

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principles that modify the phenomena which he is considering. In reference to these peculiarities of

their minds, it is certainly very remarkable that Adam Smith should have been a recluse student, during

his whole life almost exclusively with abstractions, and that Ricardo, who is so eminently an abstract

thinker, should have been bred up in actual business, and should have attained his powers of

deductive reasoning without any early philosophical discipline. It would certainly have been expected, if

we had not known how little outward circumstances avail against the intrinsic aptitudes of a strong

mind, that Adam Smith would have looked on nature principally "through the spectacles of books," and

that Ricardo would have taken that general, vague, but in the main sufficient, judgment upon matters of

fact which is generally called "common sense," and which alone among the higher intellectual gifts is

habitually exercised in every-day practical life.

In that part of his preface to which we just now alluded, Mr. Mill has substantially expressed his

intention of conciliating the two modes of dealing with his subject; that is, of combining the abstract

deduction and logical accuracy which are exemplified in Ricardo with that largeness of view and

thorough acquaintance with diversified matters of fact for which the "Wealth of Nations" is so eminently

remarkable.

And this great undertaking he has, so far as we can judge, admirably accomplished. The principal

applications of abstract science are here treated of with a fulness of information, an impartiality of

judgment, and a command over general principles, any one of which would have by itself been enough

to make the work take rank as one of eminent merit, and to the union of which we have never seen

anything in an economical writer, even approximating equal. No great subject within the range of

Political Economy appears to us to have been wholly omitted, and if we acknowledge that all the larger

considerations which we could wish for, are not on all occasions introduced, we also admit that minds

trained in different schools of thought, and seeing life generally under a somewhat different aspect,

must inevitably form conflicting judgments as to what was, and what was not, relevant to particular

social problems. We are bound to add, that in almost all cases there is evidence that Mr. Mill has given

much and earnest attention to all the kinds of argument which seemed to him capable of being

opposed to his opinions. Nor with the exception of the 'System of Logic' have we read any

contemporary publication in which the desire for the mere discovery of truth was either so strong in

itself or so immensely preponderant over every other consideration. The false colours of prejudice and

passion have no place in an intellect so thoroughly achromatic.

We feel it, therefore, to be almost presumption in us to attempt, as we promised, a description, even in

the most general way, of Mr. Mill's position in the list of general thinkers. Yet it seems to us incumbent

on the critic of such a man to try his hand at some such task. Mr. Mill has treated with first-rate ability of

subjects which involve a discussion of many problems which concern most intimately the highest

interests of man; and if we give a notion of the place he appears to us to occupy among important

thinkers, it will be seen why, in some instances, we differ from him, and agree with those whom we

should place higher on the scale of worth. Mr. Mill then belongs we think to the Aristotelic or unspiritual

order of great thinkers. A Philosopher of this sort starts always from considerations of pure intellect. He

never assumes the teachings of conscience: he never, that is, treats as primordial facts, either the

existence of a law of duty independent of consequences, nor a moral government of the world, nor a

connection either between virtue and a reward, or between sin and retribution. He may have a great

mastery over trains of reasoning, a great skill in applying comprehensive principles to complicated

phenomena; he may have robust sense like Locke or Adam Smith, a power of exhausting a subject like

Aristotle or Bentham, or subtlety like the former, or definiteness in scheming like the latter: but

whatever be his merits or deficiencies, this remains as his great characteristic, that the light of his

intellect is exactly what Bacon calls "dry light;" it is "unsteeped in the humours of the affections:" it rests

on what is observed to be: it never grounds itself on any inward assurance of what ought to be: it

disregards what Butler calls the "presages of conscience," and attends only to the senses and the

inductive intellect. In Physical Science and even in Metaphysics, the views of such men may be

extensive, subtle or profound: in Politics also they may and often will excel, in tracing the different kinds

of administrative machinery: they will in general be excellent judges of means, though not well fitted to

appreciate what a thinker of a different order would be apt to consider, the highest ends of

Government: in morals their views will in general be vague and not seldom erroneous, for their

conscience is not luminous enough to give them vivid or well-defined convictions on the subject of duty:

and on religion it is well if their tone be not that of Protagoras:

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Such are the leading characteristics attaching to the school of thinkers, of whom Locke and Aristotle

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are perhaps the most attractive representatives, and among whom Auguste Comte is assuredly the

least valuable specimen compatible with any remarkable ability. It would lead us too far from our

subject to explain at length, that the extreme opposite of that School of thinkers is to be found in the

School of Plato, and Butler, and Kant, who practically make the conscience the ultimate basis of all

certainty: who infer from its inward suggestion the moral government of the world; the connection

between shame and fear, and between sin and retribution: from whose principles it may perhaps be

deduced, that the ground for trusting our other faculties is the duty revealed by conscience, of trusting

those of them essential to the performance of the task assigned by God to Man: thinkers, in short,

whose peculiar function it is to establish in the minds of thoughtful persons that primitive Theology

which is the necessary basis of all positive Revelation.

To what may be called the moral genius of these writers, the author before us makes no pretension: he

would, we apprehend, indeed, deny that it was possible for any man to possess what we reckon as

their characteristic merits. On the other hand, in all the merits of the purely intellectual class of thinkers,

we must travel far back into the past, before we can find any one whom we know to be possessed of

them in an equal measure. Our author is not indeed in our judgment eminently qualified either to

perceive or to appreciate nice and exquisite distinctions: he does not therefore at all make pretension

to that combination of metaphysical subtlety and practical shrewdness which so many ages have

agreed to wonder at in Aristotle: but nevertheless we hardly know of any one who has so much of that

union of sense and science so remarkable in the Aristotelic treatises on the business of mankind. And

in the firmness of grasp with which his understanding retains whatever has once come within its range,

and in the undeviating consistency with which he applies every principle that he esteems ascertained,

to every case that fairly comes within its scope, we know not where to find his equal.

From the shortcomings habitual to the school to which he belongs, we cannot hold him altogether

exempt; but we are bound to add that these blemishes have rarely been presented in a form so little

calculated to offend those whose conception of life may be cast into a somewhat different form. It is, as

we have hinted, always evident that Mr. Mill has studiously endeavoured to master the opinions of

those from whom he differs: to master them we mean, not in order to collect all arguments that may

possibly be made available in their confutation, but what is much rarer, with a view of eliciting from

them, if possible, the latent truth which all large masses of human belief may be charitably supposed to

contain. With these few words we must abruptly conclude a train of thought which would not stop of

itself until our limits were exhausted. It is seldom indeed that in this age of books we come into contact

with a mind worthy to be compared with the few great authors of the past; and it is but seldom,

therefore, that we are called to begin a discussion such as the brief one which we are in the act of

ending.

We shall now go on to the more special purpose of our Article, namely, of describing and, so far as we

can, discussing, those of Mr. Mill's speculations which most intimately concern the condition of the

labouting classes. We shall first discuss the question on the supposition that the population which we

are considering is like that of England divided into the three classes of rent-owners, capitalists, and

labourers: each with separate interests, and each capable of separate and, with respect to the others,

antagonistic action. And this discussion will naturally subdivide itself into two pans: first, what settles

the rates of wages in a country with any given amount of capital and any given number of labourers;

secondly, what is the law of the growth of capital, and what the law according to which population is

augmented. We shall afterwards make some remarks on the changes which Mr. Mill would introduce

into the social framework of Great Britain and Ireland: inasmuch as he has two plans for altering the

present threefold division of the productive classes, and one plan for raising the wages paid to the hired

labouter under the present system or under any other at all similar to it.

The first question then before us is, what in such a community as England settles the rate of wages

when the number of labourers and the amount of capital are both given? On this point we think Mr.

Mill's exposition much less complete than in any other equally important portion of his work; and it will

therefore be most convenient to us to state shortly our own view, and then to show what portions of the

truth seems to us to be omitted in Mr. Mill's solution of the problem.

Among the circumstances which would first strike a philosophical observer of a country possessing

much accumulated wealth, one we think is, that the portion of the existing accumulation which is

employed in obtaining new additional wealth naturally divides itself into two classes: one which may be

called the Co-operative, and which assists and economizes the productive agency of Man; and another

which may be fairly called the Remunerative, the characteristic function of which is to reward the

exertion of human labour, by subsisting, for example, the labouter and his family, or by conferring on

them any enjoyments in which their habitual circumstances enable them to find a pleasure. The most

obvious instances of co-operative capital are steam-engines, power-looms, and machinery in general.

Remunerative capital (or what is sometimes called the wages-fund of a nation) consists of corn and

clothing, tea and sugar, and other similar commodities which the labourer consents, for the sake of

their intrinsic qualities, to receive as a compensation for his mental or muscular exertion. It is obvious

that in considering the rate of wages, the latter kind of capital is the one more certainly to our purpose.

These two commodities, Labour and Remunerative Capital, come into the market and exchange one

against the other, and their relative value seems to be settled exactly as in other cases, by the supply

of each and also the demand for it; if there be an additional supply of corn or coarse clothing, and the

demand for labour be unaltered, the working classes will be able to command more of these articles: if

their supply be less, the same classes will certainly, more or less, be straitened. The intervention of

money makes no difference here: it is the same thing, except for convenience sake, whether the

capitalist purchase the commodities desired by the labourer, and barter them directly for their labour, or

whether he gives the labourers money-tickets, by presenting which they will obtain from certain sellers

those identical commodities.

Also it is to be borne in mind that the quantity of such commodities and of labour is not the only point

which it is necessary to consider: the demand for these commodities also deserves much careful

attention. If an additional number of unproductive consumers were to come into a nation and were not

to employ any of its labourers, it is apparent that their consumption entrenches on the fund set apart for

the maintenance of the industrial classes, unless the evil be corrected by the importation of corn from

abroad, or by increased economy in the unproductive classes previously forming part of the nation. On

the other hand, if these unproductive consumers were to bring with them a stock of necessaries

adequate to their own consumption; and if they were to employ labourers on a large scale, and to pay

them either in money or in commodities, it is evident that the command of labourers over wages-paying

commodities would be increased, and that the unproductive classes must expend a larger sum in order

to obtain the same quantities of the necessaries of life. Undoubtedly if in this instance there was no

importation from abroad and no decrease in the consumption of the more opulent classes, the

labouting classes would derive no benefit from the increase in the demand for labour: the demand for

wages-paying commodities would have been also increased and their price would have risen: but as a

rule that higher price would enforce a stricter economy in the more opulent classes, and thus the

labourers would be benefitted though not to the full extent of the increased demand for the article in

which they deal. In the first case which we noticed, the remuneration for labour was attended by an

increased demand in other quarters for wages-paying commodities; and in the second by an increased

demand for labour itself at a time when the supply and demand for remunerative capital received --

from other causes -- neither increase nor diminution. The relative value of labour and of wages-paying

commodities is settled exactly as the relative value of Cloth and Hats is ascertained. The intervention of

money complicates the phenomena in either case, but, as every one acquainted with the elements of

the subject will admit, without introducing any new matter of fundamental principle.

Before proceeding further we shall quote Mr. Mill's observations on this portion of the subject. The

following passage does not strike us as a complete rationale of the entire topic: but it contains a

valuable summary of our author's opinion:--

"Wages like all other things may be regulated either by competition or by custom; but the last is not a

common case. A custom on this subject could not easily maintain itself in any other than a stationary

state of Society. An increase or a falling off in the demand for labour, an increase or diminution of the

labouring population, could hardly fail to engender a competition which would break down any custom

respecting wages by giving either to one side or the other a strong direct interest in infringing it. We

may at all events speak of the wages of labour as determined in ordinary circumstances by

competition.

"Wages then depend upon the demand and supply of labour, or, as it is often expressed, on the

proportion between Population and Capital. By Population is here meant the number only of the

working class, or rather of those who work for hire, and by Capital only circulating Capital, and not the

whole of that, but the part which is expended in the direct purchase of labour, -- to this however must

be added all the funds which without forming a part of Capital are paid in exchange for labour, such as

the wages of soldiers, domestic servants, and other unproductive labourers. There is unfortunately no

mode of expressing by one familiar term the aggregate of what may be called the wages-fund of a

country, and as the wages of productive labour form nearly the whole of that fund, it is usual to

overlook the smaller and less important part, and to say that wages depend on population and capital.

It will be convenient to employ this expression, remembering however to consider it as elliptical and not

as a literal statement of the entire truth.

"With these limitations of the terms, wages not only depend upon the relative amount of capital and

population, but cannot be affected by anything else. Wages (meaning thereby of course the general

rate) cannot rise except by an increase in the aggregate funds employed in hiring labourers, or a

diminution in the number of competitors for rise: nor fall, except either by a diminution of the funds

devolvable on paying labour, or by an increase in the number of labourers to be paid."

We think the simpler formula which we have ventured to lay down will obviate the necessity of a

recourse to an expression which is not correct, and which is calculated to throw a mist over the real

relations between machinery and manual labour. Mr. Mill is also inconsistent with himself in speaking

of the wages-fund as a part of "circulating capital," for he has defined the latter to be "the portion of

capital which is only capable of being used once:" now food is the only wages-paying commodity of

importance that is only capable of a single use: in every sense in which machinery is capable of being

used, often clothing and cottages are so too. Ricardo it is true uses habitually language of this sort, but

then he defines circulating capital to be all capital rapidly perishable, and the error is therefore in him

much less considerable, but nevertheless it is on every account undesirable to pay such special

attention to that shortness of duration which is at best but an accidental quality of remunerative capital.

From this passage, in spite of the ambiguity in its concluding formula, it is evident that Mr. Mill must in

consistency hold that an increase of machinery may be injurious to the lower classes. In other parts of

his work he fully explains that such is his opinion, and in this we entirely agree with him. If, for example,

a shifting of industrial relations should ever diminish the remunerative kind of capital, and at the same

time increase the cooperative, the proportion, as it is phrased, of labour and capital has indeed

remained unaltered; but the amount of that portion of capital which is set apart for the compensation of

human industry has undergone a diminution which may be very serious. Again, if capital has been

transferred from Agriculture to the production of Railroads, or Steam Engines, there is no question but

that caeteris paribus the working classes will be straitened by the change: their labour was before

devoted to increasing the fund out of which labour would be remunerated; after the alteration it is

devoted to manufacturing articles which, though perpetually productive of new wealth, do not in the

same degree contribute to the maintenance of a labouring population.

In this case machinery has been shown to be hurtful to the lower classes, because its creation has

diverted resources which would otherwise have been employed in remunerating labour to the

essentially different function of aiding the production of commodities which the labourers do not

consume. It is also quite possible that the introduction of machinery may be injurious to the lower

classes by diminishing the demand for their labour. If machinery be substituted for manual labour in

any manufacturing employment, common sense, as Mr. Mill observes, sees that the labourers are

worse off in that particular employment, and the onus probandi clearly lies upon those who assert that

the labouring classes are not worse off generally for the change. What is usually said is, that the

wages-fund or remunerative capital of the country remains the same: the use of a certain portion of it is

rendered unnecessary in a particular department of industry; but the same aggregate amount exists: it

can (it is said) only be shifted from one employment to another, and it is believed that the depression of

a sort of labourers will infallibly be compensated by the extra remuneration of another. But it is in our

judgment an entire mistake to contend that remunerative capital if released from one employment is

necessarily employed in a similar capacity in some other. It is one of the points in which this description

of capital differs from the co-operative sort, that the latter, if not used for its own characteristic function

of aiding human labour, cannot be put to any other use. Machinery if not worked as such in producing

wealth, can never be made to produce pleasure to any one; but remunerative capital, which consists of

food, clothing, and other commodities adapted to satisfy certain primitive wants of man, can at once be

turned in part at least to the production of transitory enjoyment. This sort of capital, when released from

one manufacturing employment, is evidently capable of being used in satisfying the wants of

unproductive consumers. The process would be, that less money-wages would be paid in

consequence of the substitution of machinery for manual labour; that the working classes would have

less to spend on such articles as food and clothing: that these commodities would therefore fall in

price: that the fall in price would cause an increased consumption by the unproductive classes, and that

their extra consumption would entrench on the fund that previous to the introduction of Machinery was

set apart as a compensation for industrial exertion. On this point we have some reason to think that Mr.

Mill would agree with us; though this is inconsistent with his general principle which we have quoted,

and with many arguments which assume that the demand for labour is not an effective force operating

on the rate of wages. But our auth.or is continually right in detail where his formulae would lead him

wrong: and we know of no intellectual quality more thoroughly characteristic of a first-rate thinker.

There is we believe also another case in which the introduction of machinery is detrimental to the

labouring classes. It was pointed out by Mr. Senior several years ago. Mr. Mill has omitted all

consideration of it, probably because its practical importance is exceedingly slight. This case is, where

the machinery consumed more wages-paying commodities than the labourers whose exertions it has

superseded. Of this kind it is supposed that certain employments of the lower animals may be

reckoned: these creatures being for our present purpose, simply animated machines, and it being

perfectly possible that they might consume more food than the labourers whose work they were

employed to perform. The peculiarity of this case is an additional demand for remunerative capital

consequent on the increased use of machinery. The price of the former would consequently rise, and a

certain portion of it be put beyond the reach of those labourers who would otherwise have consumed it.

Another mode exists beside that just now mentioned in which the substitution of co-operative for

remunerative capital may be effected, and in which that substitution might be detrimental to the

interests of the labouring classes. Ricardo was, it is believed, the first who worked out this view of the

subject, which is somewhat more recondite than any consideration with which we have yet had to deal.

His instance is in principle as follows: Suppose that a manufacturer of remunerative commodities

should be in the habit of employing £1,000 per annum in paying labourers; then if profits were ten per

cent, it is clear that he would have a revenue of £1,100 annually; but if instead of so doing, he choose

to expend the same sum in the purchase of a machine, which will last ten years, it is apparent that his

thousand pounds will be returned to him together with the ordinary profit by a revenue of £110 per

annum and it is clearly immaterial to him as a capitalist which course he decide to pursue. But if the

commodities represented by the £110 be not so numerous as those represented by the £ 1,100, which

the greatest produce can be most easily obtained are those nearest to the consumer; and these will in

general be the first selected for cultivation. We may add, though it is a matter more of curiosity than of

importance, that there is a case in which this last cause will counteract the effect of the first, -- viz.,

where the lands least favourably situated have the greatest natural fertility. Here it might happen that

the additional labour required to bring food from a greater distance was exactly counterbalanced by the

additional fertility possessed by the more distant soils, and therefore that their cultivation would not

increase the cost-price of food. But this case of exception is too improbable to need any particular

attention, and in general it may be laid down that the first soils taken into cultivation will yield a greater

return to the same labour than those that are left without tillage until a later period. It is also a fact of

experience, and is deducible from somewhat similar considerations, that doubling the capital and

labour on the same land will not double the produce in an unaltered state of agricultural knowledge. It

is obvious that men will choose to use first the best means of cultivation which they know of. Hence it

appears that in the progress of civilisation the productive arts and the general intelligence of the

country are in constant increase, but that this increase is ever in part counteracted and sometimes

more than overbalanced by the constant necessity of resorting to the cultivation of poorer soils.

So much of the productiveness of industry, which is one cause of the increase of capital. The

propensity to save, which is the other cause, means, in more distinct words, the disposition of the

people to postpone a present enjoyment for the future advantage of themselves and others. This will

obviously vary with the estimate which the people in question are able to form of what is distantly future

-- a kind of intelligence in which children, savages, and all uninstructed persons, are peculiarly

deficient, and on the effects of which Mr. Mill has accumulated various interesting testimonies. The

saving habit will also be fostered by a general security, that those who save to-day will be able to enjoy

to-morrow, or at least be able to make over their enjoyment to whom they please; by a boldness to

meet whatever risk there is that this event will not take place; and by the comparative desirableness of

the station which is conferred by accumulated wealth. The two first seem as a rule to augment in

strength during an advance of civilisation; the third is perhaps at its maximum in a rather rude and

boisterous condition of society; the fourth attains its greatest efficiency in that state of purely

commercial industry through which the mercantile and manufacturing classes of England, as well as

the Northern States of the American Union, appear at present to be passing. To these four causes

must be added the rate of the profit which can be derived from the employment of capital. It is evident

that men will be more likely to save, cceterisparibus, when they get twenty per cent. on their capital,

than when they can get two per cent.: but the efficiency of this cause at different times and

circumstances, it will be better to consider after examining the subject of population. Then also we shall

be better able to estimate the causes which apportion capital into the two divisions that have been

before mentioned.

We have now then examined the disposition to save and the productiveness of industry. We have

found that the great causes of accelerating the growth of capital are the increase of foresight and

productive power consequent on the advance of civilisation: the great retarding cause is the

diminishing proportion of return with which the soil of the earth rewards the increasing industry of the

cultivator. And this is all which can at present be said with advantage with reference to the growth of

capital.

We now go to the subject of Population -- a topic which is of obvious importance in reference to our

peculiar subject, and about which there has been, and still is, a considerable amount of controversy.

We are not, however, able to afford to it a portion of our space proportionable either to its interest or its

difficulty. It may be broadly stated at the outset that Mr. Mill does not believe the doctrine of Malthus

and Ricardo, that an increase of the comforts or a decrease in the misery of the labouting classes is

invariably followed by an accelerated increase of population; or, on the other hand, that a diminution of

their comforts or an increase in their misery will invariably retard the increase of their numbers.(1*) Our

author is habitually aware that extreme misery is a great stimulant to population, by begetring

recklessness and improvidence: since it may be safely affirmed that an Irishman who is as badly off as

he can be, and who has no hope and scarcely an opportunity of becoming better, will, as a general

rule, practise no prudential restraint whatever.

Mr. Mill also holds what is less obvious, that a very great increase in the comforts of the population,

though it may be an immediate stimulus to population, will nevertheless in all likelihood, on the whole,

retard its increase. This proposition was admirably brought into view by Mr. Thornton, in his essay on

Over-Population. It is still, however, opposed by many reasoners; there is in the minds of some

Economists an inveterate idea, almost, if not quite, amounting to a prejudice, to the effect that the most

comfortable classes will always increase the most rapidly. If this proposition were not a frequent

assumption, silently or expressly taken for granted in many influential arguments, it would have no

intrinsic merit requiring a particular notice. Few ideas on this or on any other subject can be more

clearly opposed to very obvious facts. It might be urged that in Norway, where the population is nearly

stationary, the mass of the population enjoy a degree of comfort certainly unsurpassed, and most

probably unequalled, in any other portion of Europe. But far more obvious facts are in every country at

hand to correct this very erroneous idea. Is it by the increase of the Noblesse that the population of any

country is particularly augmented? Do the middle, the opulent, or the commercial portions of any nation

increase too rapidly? It is clear that, as we ascend in the social scale, we pass through classes which

have at each step of ascent a diminishing rate of mcrease; the fact being that comfort, the habitual

sense of having something valuable to lose, and the desire of parents that their children shall not be

below, but, if possible, above the position in which they themselves live, are all motives which operate

most as a check on population among the opulent and comfortable classes.

This being so, it is clear that it is the habit of the several classes of mankind to have a rate of increase

of their own, fairly determined by the consumer of those commodities will obviously be worse off than

before. In the case we are supposing the subjects of manufacture are wages-paying commodities, and

the consumers we are speaking of are the labouring classes. It is clear, therefore, that they are

straitened by whatever diminishes the aggregate annual proceeds of agriculture and of what may be

called for shortness wages-making manufactures; but that the capitalist is benefitted only by the profit

which is left after deducting the expense. In mercantile language this is expressed by saying that the

consumer is dependent on the gross and the capitalist on the net return: in more popular phraseology it

may be said that the consumer has only to heed the amount of commodities produced, whereas the

capitalist is exclusively concerned with the pecuniary excess of income over outlay. It is evident that the

operating cause is, as we said, the substitution of co-operative for remunerative capital: there was a

certain amount produced to support the labourers during the ensuing year: there is in lieu of them a

machine of equal pecuniary value: the national capital is the same in amount and the capitalist obtains

as before his accustomed profit: but nevertheless the condition of the labourer and the consumer is

deteriorated because they have a diminished supply of articles adapted to satisfy their wants.

To sum up then, the three cases in which the increase of machinery is detrimental to the labouring

population are first when its introduction diminishes the supply of remunerative capital; secondly, when

the introduction increases the demand for such capital; thirdly, when the demand for labour is

diminished by the change. We are very far from thinking that any one of these cases is of frequent

occurrence, or that any part of the present depressed state of the lower orders is in any considerable

degree owing to an extension of machinery. In our judgment Mr. Mill has ample grounds for contending

that by far the greater part of new machinery is merely an investment for the annual savings of the

country; and being on that account a new creation of wealth does not diminish the existing amount of

remunerative capital: nor do wages-paying commodities, except in the not very important instance of

coal, appear to be consumed to any considerable extent by existing machinery. We should also hold,

contrary to the opinion of Mr. Mill, that the increased demand for labour sometimes eventually caused

by the introduction of machinery is decidedly beneficial to the lower orders. The cotton trade is an

obvious instance of this: there is no reason however for wearying our readers with an examination of

our differences on this point from Mr. Mill, because our reasons are only the reverse side of those

which we have already exhibited in behalf of our opinion that any decrease in the demand for labour

from a similar cause is detrimental to the real interests of the labouring classes.

We have now examined the whole of what Mr. Mill calls the statics of the subject; that is, we have

inquired what in any given state of capital and population adjusts the remuneration of labour; and we

have found that the two efficient causes were the supply and demand for labour and the supply and

demand for a particular species of capital. We have now to treat of what in the continuation of the new

scientific metaphor is called the Dynamics of Political Economy: in other words, we must consider the

Laws according to which Capital is augmented and Population increases. We shall incidentally treat of

a problem which Mr. Mill has omitted formally to consider: viz., what in a progressive state of capital

apportions how much of it shall be of the remunerative and how much of the cooperative sort. It is

obvious that in our view this question is of great importance in reference to the interests of the

labouting classes; we believe also that we shall show strong reasons for thinking that Mr. Mill's

omission to consider it has led him into somewhat serious error.

The growth of capital, which we select for first consideration, varies, it is clear, directly with the

productiveness of industry and the disposition to save. The productiveness or efficiency depends on a

variety of causes, of which only the principal can here be specified, and of which Mr. Mill has nowhere

attempted a complete enumeration. However, it may be stated with sufficient truth for all really

important purposes, that the efficiency of industry increases with the knowledge of the productive arts,

the general intelligence of the people, and in agricultural communities with the natural fertility and

favourable situation of cultivable land. Fifty years ago it might have been not unimportant to dwell on

the importance of the cultivation of the productive sciences and their corresponding arts, but the

prodigious and evident strides which the scientific arts have recently made and the existence of such

conspicuous results as railroads, and steam-engines, and electric telegraphs, make it no longer

necessary to dilate on what has become a matter of familiar and popular knowledge. It will now also be

generally admitted that the intelligence of the workmen employed both in agriculture and still more in

manufactures is an important element in the efficiency of industry. It is incumbent on us to remark that

Mr. Mill has collected considerable evidence to prove that all workmen the English stand particularly in

need of some general education; other nations, the Italian it is said especially, seem to possess a

natural quickness of perception, by which they are able readily to master, at any time of their lives, new

single processes of manufacture. English labourers on the other hand have no such natural powers,

but are, as a rule, indebted to a general education for whatever power they possess of working at any

branch of industry save the particular one in which they have been brought up. The great authority for

this observation is the evidence taken before the Poor Law Commission on the subject of the training

of Pauper Children. There was, if we remember right, in the same evidence, and we are a little

surprised that Mr. Mill omits to refer to it, a rather remarkable body of testimony to the effect, that

though special branches and single processes of manufacture might be learnt by persons almost

entirely uneducated, yet that the power of making general arrangements or superintending efficiently

the work of others was almost always dependent on school teaching or on an equivalent selfeducation.

These two elements in the productiveness of industry are in an advancing state of society almost

always on the increase. It is very different with the third element, the intrinsic fertility of the soil. It is

obvious that, as a rule, the most productive land will be the first taken into cultivation, those who have

the first choice will in a general way choose the best. Moreover, the situation of land has an exactly

similar effect: the lands from desire of not falling themselves and not allowing their children to fall below

the condition which they themselves have been used to occupy. As a consequence of this, it is

contended, as we think justly, that though a large improvement in the condition of the people might be

attended with an immediate acceleration in the rate of increase, yet the next generation would grow up

in habits which they would be unwilling to forfeit by a general system of improvident marriage. As a

practical question, Mr. Mill thinks that no prudential restraint is practised by the agricultural labourers,

and that, if the increase of population were in the hands of that class only, the English people would

increase as fast as the American. So that there can be no ground for saying that an increase of comfort

would in our case, at least, diminish the providence of the labouting class. On the means by which Mr.

Mill would effect this desirable change we shall speak hereafter, and at present shall only add, that he

would very largely increase the funds expended on national education, so as to obtain, if possible, not

only the economic, but also the moral and intellectual requisites of a provident population.

As to the general doctrine, that a great increase in the comforts of the labouring classes is often a

check to the increase of their numbers, it fortunately happens that there is a case in point to which Mr.

Mill has an opportunity of appealing. An immense increase in the comforts of the French peasantry

was,it is well known, an immediate consequence of their first Revolution. Over and above this, the

depopulation and extra demand for labour caused by the wars of Napoleon were all circumstances

tending to raise the rate of wages, and therefore, according to the vulgar doctrine, to stimulate

population. Yet the fact has been, that the increased comfort and the new distribution of landed

property have produced a slackened increase of population, and that the French population increases

very much more slowly than the average rate of European nations.

We have purposely used language which implies our assent to this portion of Mr. Mill's doctrine. It is

not, however, to be looked upon as a principle which, like a physical law, will certainly operate with an

unvarying energy under all times and circumstances. The multiplicity of motives that incline men to

contract marriages render the theory of population the most complex part of elementary political

economy; the conclusions of science upon it are as yet very rough and general. Particular cases of

natural habit and unlooked-for conjunctures of events may well render futile the best adjusted theory of

human action. On this special subject political economy is more vague than perhaps it need be; but all

that it can ever do, is to indicate general rules; and no one can ever be exempted from the necessity of

studying each case that occurs in practice, with a due attention to disturbing agencies. On this

particular point we may say that it is considerably more likely than not that a general increase of

habitual comfort will slacken the advance of population, but not that it will do so of necessity and

invariably.

In this chapter of Mr. Mill's book, and also in some other parts of it, there seems to us to be a want of

concise formulae summing up and stamping on the memory the previous proof and explanation. We

cannot attempt here fully to supply this deficiency; but we will set down a few brief sentences for the

consideration of others. We do not mean that none of the principles which we are about to mention can

be reduced to more elementary considerations: but we wish to see drawn out a set of intermediate

principles to obviate the tiresome necessity of a continual resort to the first assumptions and axioms of

science. It should be remembered that the founders of both the great schools of logic have combined

to teach that in the skilful use of those axiomata media consists the practical utility of knowledge. It may

then be perhaps said, -- 1st. That misery so extreme as to cause disease and death is an obvious

check to the increase of population. 2ndly. That extreme degrees of misery short of this stimulate

population by producing recklessness; in technical Malthusian language this is expressed by saying

that the positive and preventive check never act together in any force. 3rdly. That the greatest

economical preventive check on population is the desire of not falling in consequence of marriage into

a state of society lower than that which when unmarried they have been accustomed to occupy; and

next in efficiency is the desire that their children shall not occupy a position in life inferior to their own.

4thly. That these desires at least among the industrial classes increase with amount of comfort

enjoyed. 5thly. That improvements in the condition of a people sufficient to raise the habitual standard

of comfort act as a check, and, not like smaller improvements, as a stimulus to the increase of

population: and the converse principle that an accession of misery and discomfort sufficient to

depreciate that standard will be an incentive and not a check to such an increase. 6thly. That the desire

of preserving their own condition is a more and more efficacious preservative against over-population

in proportion as persons feel that their own condition is dependent on themselves and not on others

and so also the desire for their children's welfare strengthens proportionably to the certainty of the

children's condition being dependent on the conduct of their own parents and not on the actions of

other people.

This last consideration of the absence of uncertainty is a point on which Sismondi has powerfully

enlarged in various of his writings. It is a great reason with him for preferring the status of a present

proprietor to that of a hired labourer. The latter is at the mercy of the speculations of capitalists and the

vicissitudes of commerce. Without knowing why, his trade may be depressed, for years; neither his

prosperity nor his adversity are of his own creation. Very different is the position of a peasantry who

have a footing on the soil -- if each man can cultivate his own land thoroughly, his position is secured:

as he cannot be ruined by the conduct of others, his comfort is not dependent on either capitalist or

landlord; he may suffer from the elements and from Providence, but so far as man is concerned, he

has within reach the "Saxon Utopia," a fair day's wages for a fair day's work.

Very similar is the effect of the two systems on population. A peasant proprietor feels that his children

will certainly descend in the scale of society if his fleehold be at his death divided among a numerous

family. He either therefore does not have so many children, or he saves a fund out of which those who

do not inherit the land may be provided for. He knows how many persons his land will maintain, and for

how many he is likely to have other funds. It is of no importance at all to him what others of his class

may do; if he is himself provident, the condition of his children is in the main secure. This kind of

causes keep the population of Norway, as the returns show, very nearly stationary. Far different is the

position of a country like England, where the lower orders are mere hired labourers, possessing, as a

rule, no accumulated capital. All this class knows is that they are dependent on the present position of

the labour-market, and that their children will be in like manner dependent on its future condition. Each

individual feels that the number of his children is but a slight point in determining the condition of each.

He has no reason at all to think that if he has only one child that one will necessarily or probably be

better off than if he have a dozen. This depends on the conduct of the whole class to which he belongs,

and he has no data, and at present no mental ability, to determine what that conduct is likely to be.

A capitalist, it should be observed, is in a position exactly similar to that of the peasant proprietor. If he

can leave each of his children the amount with which he started in life, he has every reason to think

that they will on an average be in a position not inferior to his own. It is no matter to him that his

neighbours are not equally saving: if his children have capital they will not be worse, but possibly better

off, for their neighbours not being possessed of it too. This certainly is a main element in producing the

providence in marriage, which perhaps even to an unfavourable extent is characteristic of the middle

classes in England.

From this it is clear that if the working classes could be raised to a state in which saving was a

preliminary to marriage there would be an efficacious obstacle to their reckless and indefinite increase.

If dependence on mere wages could in any way be superseded by the habit of saving for themselves

and for their children, if the working classes could be brought within the range of the motives which now

act on the rest of the community, we might confidently anticipate a great immediate improvement in

their physical condition. It is consolatory to remember that this is one of the points on which purely

intellectual education is really most serviceable. Instruction is to the mind what the telescope is to the

eye. To an uncultivated intellect what is distant will always be invisible, but a well-trained mind is

habitually able to look into the future, and to deal with the absent as though it were present. It is to be

hoped, and perhaps expected, that the present exertions for the spread of education will not fail in a

few years to increase materially the forethought of the labouring classes.

Yet by itself this intellectual improvement will not be sufficient. Before people can save, they must have

a surplus to save out of. It will be necessary to raise the condition of the lower orders considerably

above their present condition before they will become habitually a saving class. In the middle ranks a

small amount of self-restraint will make a considerable difference both in their property and in their

social position: but it would take much more than can be expected of mankind generally to make much

improvement in the condition of the lower orders. Hesiod's proverb that the half is more than the whole,

amounts in Economics to saying, that the smaller the income the harder it is to save any given

proportion of it.

Mr. Mill, however, we must pause to observe, is of opinion that population will be checked in a

somewhat different manner. He expects that there will arise an unfavourable popular sentiment against

those who overstock the labour-market, and that operating as a penalty, this feeling will diminish the

number of such offenders. We will not assert that this is impossible. Mr. Mills has pronounced that all

who deny it are profoundly ignorant of the true motives of human action. When the teacher gets

dogmatical, the learner becomes nervous, and we feel therefore inclined to be cautious. We only wish

to observe, that there is as yet no sufficient basis of fact for us to look upon it as a very well established

doctrine. We doubt also if the act of overstocking the labour-market be an act sufficiently marked and

definite to excite popular reprobation. Mr. Mill admits that no such feelings anywhere exists now, not

even where there is the greater amount of this sort of restraint; but as in these countries the labouring

population are mainly peasant proprietors, there is no occasion and indeed no opportunity for any such

popular sentiment. We can understand that where saving is an habitual preliminary to marriage, those

will be look.ed down upon and disliked who neglect it. As to much more than this we are inclined to be

sceptical. We do not know enough to speak confidently as to the factory population; but though we are

not used to be over timid in theorizing, we are not bold enough to expect anything at all like this of

English agricultural labourers. At all events it is safer and more practical to assert that the existence of

a strong saving habit among the lower classes is both a necessary and a sufficient condition of their

economical welfare.

We have now discussed the subjects of the growth of Capital and the increase of Population. In the

course of the discussion we omitted avowedly to consider two questions: What is the cause which

divides Capital into its two distinct divisions? secondly, What are the causes regulating the rate of

profit? We shall now discuss the former, which as we stated is omitted by our author. The latter it will

be expedient still further to postpone.

We do not here enjoy the benefit of Mr. Mill's guidance, but the problem does not appear to contain any

peculiar difficulty. It is a principle in the theory of value, that articles producible at equal cost will be

supplied in proportion to the demand for them: those most in demand will be most in number; those

least in demand will be fewest in supply. For if the supply of any should fall short of this proportion, their

price will rise, and an extra profit will be obtained by the producer, in consequence of which capital will

be attracted to the employment, and the supply will be augmented. This principle applies to the case

before us. The respective amounts in which equally costly portions of the two kinds of capital are

supplied, will be determined by the demand for each. The demand for remunerative capital depends on

the rate of remuneration, (which will be discussed presently,} multiplied by the number of labourers

employed at that rate. The demand for the co-operative sort of capital depends on its efficiency in

satisfying existing wants. If new discoveries in machinery make that portion of capital able to supply

more readily any desirable articles, profit will be higher in the improved department of industry, and an

increased portion of the annual savings of the country will be attracted towards it. Improvements in

machinery may therefore be detrimental to the working classes, by drawing off some capital which

would have been devoted to their maintenance to aid the production of commodities which they have

no opportunity of consuming. All improvements which increase the supply of wagespaying commodities

are of course beneficial to the labourer. It may also happen that as all machinery requires labour to

work it, the demand for the latter may be a benefit compensating the labourer for the harm done in the

way which we have pointed out. Other advantages of machinery might also be named, but each of

them are consistent with saying that an increase in the efficiency of machinery may affect the

distribution of capital between its divisions, in a manner detrimental to the working classes.

The rate of remuneration has been mentioned above, as a cause influential in deciding how much of a

country's capital shall be remunerative, and how much co-operative. It has been shown in our remarks

on Population, under how many limitations it is true there is a certain amount of commodities which the

lower classes will be content to receive, and without which they will not continue to increase. It has

been shown that this minimum of remuneration is of two sons, one physical, which is the minimum that

will keep alive the existing number of labourers; secondly, a moral minimum, susceptible under proper

circumstances both of increase and diminution. Now it is clear that if the demand for labour be

unaltered, it is essential to the industry of the country that the working classes shall have the physical

minimum of wages; and also that unless circumstances occur to depreciate the moral standard, they

will receive what the standard metes out to them. Although Mr. Mill has not inquired into the causes

which determine how much capital shall take the form of wages-paying commodities, he has

repeatedly declared his belief that the labouring classes will in general enjoy the comforts

accompanying this latter variable minimum of remuneration. He has also in some places gone further,

and attempted to show that they cannot permanently receive more. He has indeed an entire chapter on

popular remedies for low wages, which is devoted to the elucidation of this opinion. The popular

remedies to which he refers, are those in which law or public opinion afford a higher remuneration to

labour than would be given by unrestricted competition. Mr. Mill teaches that such laws or customs

must be wholly inoperative. He appears to think that there is a prima facie absurdity in attempting to

support more labourers than the "capital" of the country will maintain, or to give the same number of

labourers a larger recompense for their exertions. Now if, as certain economists are prone to assume,

all capital were of one sort, and if it could be used only for production, and were not consumable by

unproductive consumers, if in short, by some law of nature, capital could only be used in supporting

labourers, this argument would certainly be a good one. Nature would in that case have enacted that

the remuneration shall be of such and such an amount, and no human legislature could go further, or

impair her work.

But since remunerative capital can be consumed by unproductive consumers, this argument will not

hold. If wages were raised ten per cent. by law, wages-paying commodities would rise in price, and the

more opulent consumers would probably restrict their consumption, and labourers would command

more of the existing supply. Moreover, the rise of price would cause an increased production of wages-

paying commodities. Capital which was going to be employed in manufacturing steam-engines or plate,

or some such articles, would be employed in agriculture, or in preparing the coarser kinds of

manufacture which are used by labourers. Capital would be shifted from the manufacture of luxuries for

the opulent, to the production of necessaries for the indigent. How much the labouring classes would

gain would depend on the agricultural circumstances of the time. If the new application of capital to the

land only yielded such a return as would keep the price at the level which it occupied when the law

came into operation, the labouring classes would obviously gain still exactly what they gained in that

year, and no more. If, on the other hand, food could be supplied at the price it occupied previous to the

enactment of the new law, it is obvious also that the labourers would gain by the full amount in which

the law raised their pecuniary resources; the price would be as before, an their money-wages would be

greater. In general, something intermediate between these two cases would happen; the labourer

would gain more than in the first, and less than in the second. But in either case such a law would be

advantageous to labourers: and in relation to all remunerative commodities except food, the most

favourable contingency is almost certain to happen.

We do not defend such a law; not only because it could not be worked in any known system of

industry, but also because it could not be urged on the capitalist as a duty to give so much additional

wages. Something must be known of his position in life, his duties to his family and those dependent

upon him, before any such principle could be affirmed. But it seems to us obvious that capitalists ought

not to beat down labourers to the lowest possible amount. They have no more right to be greedy and

avaricious than any other class; and it is discreditable in economists to teach that such conduct is not

hurtful to the public and indefensible in itself.

The effect of such a law on population is a distinct question. Ricardo would of course assume that if it

were for the benefit of the lower orders it would stimulate their increase, and wages would be reduced

to their former standard. Even so, the wages-fund of the country is increased, the rate of remuneration

is the same, but the persons paid are more. Mr. Mill reasons here after the manner of Ricardo. Nor do

we pretend to say that any such law or custom could of itself and alone raise the rate of wages

materially. But it may be one of many concurrent agencies in so raising it, and its existence may

prevent its decline by counteracting other agencies that may be depreciating the labourer's habitual

standard of comfort; and therefore might be rather a check on population than a stimulus to it.

On the whole, therefore, as to the rate of remuneration, it may be said, without wearying our readers by

unnecessary details, first, that when the demand for labour is unaltered, the physical minimum must be

maintained; secondly, that moral minimum will always be maintained when the demand for labour is

not much raised or much diminished, or when the supply of wages-paying commodities does not

become much more easy or more difficult; thirdly, that the benevolence of the higher classes answers

all the purposes of an extra demand for labour. These are the main principles regulating the rate of

remuneration. The proportion between wages-paying and what may be called instrumental capital is

settled, as has been seen by the demand for each sort; the demand for the first varying directly as the

rate of remuneration muliplied by the number of labourers employed: the demand for the second being

determined by the productive power of machinery in ministering to human wants.

Reviewing therefore what has been said, we find that we have considered the demand and supply of

remunerative capital, and under the head of Population we have discussed the supply of labour. The

demand for labour, the only remaining factor of our original formula, will not perhaps detain us long. It

depends as a whole on the power which each single act of immediate labour possesses to satisfy

human wants, multiplied by the number of such acts which are desired. From this it is clear, that it is

more beneficial to the lower classes to be employed in quickly-recurring acts, than in acts which when

once done do not require any second or at all events any but a deferred repetition. The pyramids of

Egypt once built no one cared about the builders: and it is to be feared they were put on reduced

rations of onions. This is the ground of a part of the truth implied in Ricardo's doctrine that it was better

for labourers that capital should be laid out in services than in commodities. Supposing that the

labouter sold the commodities, this would 0nly be true when the service required more frequent

repetition than the acts necessary to the production of the commodities. When the capitalist sells the

commodity, as is now most usual, it is not so good, if we look only to the interest of the labourers, to

buy the article as to employ labour more directly; since the capitalist will not always, or indeed often,

employ the whole purchase-money for their benefit.

We have therefore now pretty nearly solved the problem with which we set out, namely, what under

present circumstances regulates the rate of wages? We found that this was determined temporarily by

the supply and demand for remunerative capital as compared with supply of labour, and the demand

for it. We have now inquired, so far as our limits will allow, what are the causes permanently

determining the supply and demand both for remunerative capital and for labour. One problem has

been omitted, viz., the cause of determining the rate of profit, and these will even now be treated of

more conveniently hereafter.

We are now therefore able to go on to discuss Mr. Mill's plans for the benefit of the lower orders. The

difficulty is, that the rate of wages is so low; and the great problem for European and especially for

English statesmen in the nineteenth century is, how shall that rate be raised, and how shall the lower

orders be improved. Whatever be the evil or the good of Democracy, in itself it is evident, that the

combination of democracy and low wages will infallibly be bad. In all ages, the rulers of mankind have

for the most part agreed in having a predominating inclination for making themselves comfortable. If

power be given to a miserable democracy, that democracy will above all things endeavour not to be

miserable. This it will attempt by whatever schemes are congenial to minds and consciences, corrupted

by ages of hereditary ignorance and hereditary suffering. And woe to those who, under such a

Government, propound plans for the benefit of their rulers: Saevi proximis ingruunt. The favourite

theorist of yesterday is punished to-day because the Millennium is not yet come. Such is the lesson

which the annals of Europe in the year 1848 teach to English statesmen. The only effectual security

against the rule of an ignorant, miserable and vicious democracy, is to take care that the democracy

shall be educated, and comfortable and moral. Now is the time for scheming, deliberating and acting.

To tell a mob how their condition may be improved is talking hydrostatics to the ocean. Science is of

use now because she may be heard and understood. If she be not heard before the democracy come,

when it is come her voice will be drowned in the uproar.

So great and so urgent is in our judgment the importance of plans for the improvement of the working

classes: we regret, therefore, that so much of our space has been taken up with the explanation of the

existing state of things in England, that we must be brief in our account of Mr. Mill's schemes for the

elevation of the labouring classes. He has schemes for both England and Ireland; and we will take the

latter first.

The economical condition of Ireland is probably far worse than that of any other country possessing

equal natural advantages. The rate of wages scarcely comes up to the minimum that will support life,

and falls far short of that needful to maintain the human body in full working strength. The land tenure

appears to be about the worst possible. It has nearly all the disadvantages both of la grande and la

petite culture, without any of their corresponding advantages. This tenure is known as the cottier

system, which Mr. Mill has here defined as the system in which the peasant rents by competition only,

and not at all by fixed custom. It is not difficult to see, that in a country with a rapidly increasing

population, and but a little non-agricultural employment, a great preponderance of such a land tenure

ensures the utter misery of the labouring classes. Land is, in such a country, the first necessary of life,

and the landlords have a monopoly of it. The peasants will promise to pay any rent in order to obtain

possession of the soil. This nominal rent they will be unable to pay, and the landlord will take whatever

more is produced than is necessary to give the tenant a bare subsistence. As population increases, the

competition strengthens: the rents increase in amount, the tenant is more and more oppressed with

debt, and he has to work harder and harder in order to obtain the most meagre sustenance.

Necessaries are being bartered for luxuries, and those who need the former are at the mercy of those

who possess them. It is obvious that what has been described as the prevalent practice of Irish

landlords is morally unjustifiable. We do not charge all the Irish landlords with abetting such a system.

The better part of them do not take into account the biddings of the peasants in settling the rent, but act

on their own notion of what he is able and ought to pay: yet though the evidence taken before Lord

Devon's commission shows that such more respectable landlords are not absolutely few, it seems also

certain that they form an inconsiderable fraction of the whole rent-owning class. The ownership of land

however gives no moral title to inflict suffering on its occupants. The landlord under this system takes

habitually a cruel advantage of the necessities of the poor: and that such can be the constant course of

events in a Christian country, shows how little the Jewish Prophets are heeded by those who profess at

least to acknowledge their authority.

The question then arises, how are these cottiers to be got rid of? No man defends them; but it is

difficult to devise plans for introducing a better system. Mr. Mill's answer is that a large number of them

may be provided for by making them peasant proprietors. There are in round numbers a million and a

half(2*) of waste lands in Ireland, which there is every reason to think would repay tillage. This land is

now lying useless, and it does seem a very obvious course to bring it into cultivation. To any such

scheme as Mr. Mill's there is however a strong dislike in very many English minds. It seems to us that

the evils of Ireland have created a prejudice against this their appropriate remedy. An inveterate idea

prevails that the existence of small holdings is the cause of Irish misery, and that the scheme of

peasant proprietorship is a mode of perpetuating the existing system of land tenure. We feel sure that

this is a fair statement of much influential opinion. But yet both these two propositions are ridiculously

untrue. It is not the smallness of the holdings that is the cause of the evils of Ireland; for in Ulster,

where the condition of Irish society is far better than elsewhere, the division of land is more minute than

in any other portion of the country. Again, the system which now prevails is one of rack rents, where all

surplus beyond the bare subsistence of the tenant goes of necessity to the landlord: the system

proposed as a remedy is, that in some cases no rent at all should be paid; and in the case of more

fertile soil, that a fixed sum should be reserved, a system which would obviously give the tenant a

secure enjoyment of whatever surplus produce his industry might extract from the soil. Is there any

connection therefore between the existing system and that proposed as a remedy for it? In the one the

main feature is unlimited exaction; in the other the main feature is the fixity of the quit rent which is to

be paid. This point of fixity is one which Mr. Mill has in all its bearings admirably elucidated, and as it

seems to us with very great originality.

The only other remedy proposed for Ireland is the wholesale eviction system. Some persons who wish

to adapt Ireland in all respects to the model of England have wished to introduce large tillage farms,

and to make day labourers of the lower classes. We have before given some reason, and Mr. Mill has

collected almost demonstrative evidence, that on grounds principally derived from the theory of

population a nation of peasant proprietors is much preferable to one of hired agricultural labourers. But

putting this aside, there is strong reason peculiar to the individual case for preferring to introduce into

Ireland the system of peasant proprietors. The Poor Law Commissioners for Ireland state "that

agricultural wages vary from sixpence to one shilling a-day: that the average of the country in general is

about 8 ½d., and that the earnings of labourers come, on an average, to from 2s., to 2s. 6d a-week or

thereabouts." Now the number of the cottier population is exceedingly large, and it is evident that the

addition of anything like it to the number of hired labourers would bring down the rate of wages

enormously. It is obvious that, bad as the cottier system may be, this remedy for it is worse than the

disease. Wages are now 2s. 6d a-week; what will they be after a great reduction?

It is said that capital will come from England to employ the additional labourers. But Mr. Mill justly

replies that capital will not come from England until the social state of the lower classes is improved,

and therefore if we adopt the scheme of large farms we are forced on the dilemma that capital will not

come till the people are improved, and that the people will not be improved before the capital comes.

Also there is no likelihood that a sufficient amount of capital would come. The Poor Law

Commissioners state that there are in Ireland five agricultural labourers to the extent of soil which

employs two in Great Britain. It is obvious that if the agriculture of Ireland is assimilated to that of

England, this immense surplus of labourers would be thrown out of employment.

Moreover the system of peasant proprietors has been tried in Ireland and has worked well. There exists

in Ulster a kind of incipient copyhold, from which a tenant at will cannot be turned out so long as he

pays a fixed customary rent. From this it is an obvious consequence that the consent of the occupying

tenant must be purchased before a new one can have possession of the soil. It is this institution of

tenant-right which has made the people of Ulster so superior to those in other parts of Ireland. They

have this system because being English and Scotch they were a better race of people in the beginning;

but peculiarities of race act not by magic, but by creating social habits and institutions: the cause of a

well-organized industry when it is not improved from without must always be an appropriate disposition

of the industrious classes, yet it is not the less true that the happiness of the labourers results

immediately from the beneficial organization. Hence it appears that the institution which it is proposed

to extend has been already tried and has succeeded admirably.

As to the effect of peasant proprietorship on Irish population, there is every reason to believe that the

class of people whom we are now concerned with practise no prudential restraint whatever, and there

can therefore be no reason for saying that any new system will be productive of increased

improvidence. It has also been shown that Mr. Mill has ground for saying that, against over-population,

peasant proprietorship is the best preservative yet known. But, besides these two weighty

considerations, there is reason to prefer this system to that of hired labourers, because Government

may lay down rules to preserve the integrity of properties, and these rules may act as a check on

population over and above the natural effects of peasant proprietorship. These rules should be

enforced because "brute custom" is of great force in matters of population, and habits of improvidence

cannot be suddenly eradicated. But on the opposite plan of replacing the cottiers by hired labourers, no

check at all would be put to the increase of population; the labourers would be abandoned entirely to

their own control, and as they most likely would not become a saving class, they would in all likelihood

soon be no better off than at present, although we grant the false assumption that their condition would

for a brief period be improved. On this account therefore we should hold that, whether or not the

nominal proprietorship should be reserved for the government, it would be certainly advisable to keep a

watch over the subdivision of properties exactly as is now done by the more intelligent and respectable

of Irish landlords.

These arguments are, it is obvious, quite independent of any opinion on the intrinsic merits of the small

system of cultivation. All that it is necessary to show for our present purpose is, that there is no such

enormous evil in the small system of cultivation as to overbalance that good which we hope would

accrue from the institution of peasant proprietorship. Mr. Mill's judgment seems, however, to us so

admirable on this point, that we will sum it up and present it entire to our readers; a study of it will serve

to remove from the minds of many economists those opinions which, where they are not mere

prejudices, are conclusions drawn from a very limited and exceptional experience. Mr. Mill's

conclusions are, that the small system is a social nuisance when the rent is unfixed, and can be raised

in consequence of the improvement of the property, and that it does more harm than good when the

properties are too small to employ the whole time of the proprietor and those dependent on him; when

the property is too small to give the owner a full security against any probable accidents of crop: and

also that this system wastes much time when the properties do not lie in one place, but are divided into

smaller holdings, between which the tenant has often to go to and fro. Also that in the case of crops not

requiring very minute attention, the same labourer will extract from the same land a greater return

under the large system of cultivation, but that the small system will yield a larger gross produce than

the large to the same number of hands employed, because of the greater industry and forethought

which are developed in the minds of the peasant proprietors by the certain hope of enjoying the fruits of

their own labour.

It is a consequence of this last proposition that the surplus produce available for supporting a non-

agricultural population will be greater under a system of peasant proprietor than under any system of

large farms on which the hired labourers are equally well fed. It is out of this surplus that all the most

valuable portions of the community -- all those whose trade it is to instruct, govern and educate the

community -- are for the most part subsisted. When therefore the agricultural population have a fair

share of comfort, this surplus is the real test of the advantages or disadvantages accruing from any

agricultural system; but in any other case it is no test at all. There is no advantage but much evil in

giving the labourers (as is done in Somersetshire(3*) and Wiltshire) less food than will keep men in full

working condition, in order that a large surplus may be left to support nonagricultural classes. Large

masses of men are always degraded morally by extreme physical suffering. In matter of fact, a large

portion of this surplus is expended on the producers of luxuries and on those non-productive classes

who do nothing either for the wealth or the improvement of the community, and it is preposterous to

benefit these at the expense of a more useful class. But even if the whole surplus were expended on

the educators of the community it would be no adequate compensation for the moral degradation of a

large portion of those who are to be educated. "Thou shalt not muzzle the ox which treadeth out the

corn" is the true rule of Economics, and it is disgraceful that thinkers enough are found to hold and

imply, if not in terms to state, a different doctrine.

On the whole, therefore, there is no ground for universally preferring the large system of cultivation,

which, indeed, appears to be more beneficial only where it is necessary to enforce the utmost economy

of labour. There is therefore no objection arising from the theory of agriculture against introducing the

small system into Ireland. We have advanced strong positive reasons almost wholly derived from Mr.

Mill's work, for recommending their immediate introduction: we have only to add on this point, that if the

waste lands should prove insufficient to provide for the whole of the cottier population, Mr. Mill would

turn their present holdings, under proper restrictions as to size, into farms, at a fair quit-rent, tendering

of course to the proprietors of the soil the fair market-value of the land; a measure which assumes no

more powers over the soil than an ordinary railway bill, and which is certainly justifiable if experience

should prove it to be necessary. '

Such is Mr. Mill's remedy for Ireland. For England he has two remedies: one, which we will mention

first, is designed to modify the intense and angry feeling of competition between labourers and

capitalists that is observable at present. This is the scheme which was first recommended for general

adoption by Mr. Babbage, and which, according to Mr. Mill, has been tried with excellent results both in

America and in France, and also in this country for a long time past, in the Northern Whale Fisheries

and the Cornish Mines. It essentially consists in making the workman the partner of the capitalist: in

other words, it is proposed to pay them not a fixed salary, but a proportion of the profits. We need not

here dwell much on the merits of this scheme, because it was not long since discussed in this Review

by one more competent to the task. Its merit chiefly consists in giving the labourers an interest in the

success of their work. From this it would ensue that industry would be stimulated and the gross

produce be augmented both of manufacture and agriculture. A good feeling between labourers and

capitalist would also facilitate all productive operations: and on this account there is every reason to

believe that the adoption of this plan would raise to some extent the remuneration of labour, because

the fund out of which labourers are paid would be greater than under the present system. But it is not in

the least likely that this alteration in the mode of paying wages would in itself be adequate to meet the

present difficulty. It may be doubted whether a plan could not be devised as a development of this

scheme for combining the advantages both of the large and the small systems of cultivation, and also

for making the condition of children as exclusively dependent on the actions of their parents, as is the

case with the children of peasant proprietors. But whether this be so or not, it is clear the present rate

of wages is too low to be sufficiently raised by any improvement in the mechanism of distributing. The

additional amount produced would be quite insufficient to effect so great a change as is necessary.

Mr. Mill has therefore provided another scheme more capable of producing great and immediate effect.

This remedy is a large scheme of Emigration. He recommends the transplantation of a number of

labourers large enough to change the standard of comfort in which the remainder would live, and in

which the next generation would be habitually reared. This plan is not to be confounded with that

recommended by the Times newspaper, and extensively countenanced by many influential persons.

This latter scheme apparently contemplates an annual emigration as a permanent outlet for the

overflow of the population. This latter will not remedy the present state of the lower classes, though it

might keep one which was already good from any deterioration. Mr. Mill's scheme, on the other hand,

is designed for the elevation of the lower orders as a whole. It will be evident that we are in consistency

bound to maintain that no objections from the theory of population could be raised to this scheme,

because we have laid down that large alterations in the standard of comfort generally raise what has

been called the moral minimum of wages.

The only other important difficulty likely to be started is the expense, and this Mr. Mill has a theory to

encounter. He remarks that it is of no consequence that taxation entrench on the capital of a country, if

the capital appropriated by Government were about to expatriate itself on account of a prevailing low

rate of profit. If Government borrow the money, the process is that the coming of a new trustworthy

borrower into the market raises the rate of interest and keeps capital at home. If the amount is raised

by taxation, the effect is, that a certain portion of capital which was on its way to the loan-market, and

from thence to foreign countries, is intercepted by the Government, and transferred to purposes of a

national instead of an individual utility. In the case of England this argument certainly applies. It is a fact

of experience, that when the interest of money(4*) is two per cent., capital habitually emigrates, or,

what is here the same thing, is wasted on foolish speculations, which never yield any adequate return.

It would clearly be no national loss if this capital were appropriated by the Government for national

purposes: the best mode, perhaps, being to take it direct from capital on a terminable annuity of thirty

years' duration. So that Mr. Mill has clearly answered those Economists and Manchester manufacturers

who exclaim against entrenching on the National Capital for any purposes, however philanthropic. He

has shown, by an argument which is so obvious when seen, as to disguise the merit of seeing it, that

there exists an ample fund out of which all the higher interests of state can be satisfied, without

diminishing the permanent opulence of the country. Nor is there any service so much needed from a

political philosopher at the present time.

This argument, though weighty as it stands, cannot be fully appreciated, except by taking into account

one or two general circumstances affecting the rate of profit, the consideration of which we accordingly

postponed until the present time. The first of these propositions is, that an unlimited amount of capital

cannot be employed in an old country without a diminution of the rate of profit. It has been shown that

an increase of co-operative capital is of necessity accompanied by some increase of remunerative,

because machinery cannot be worked without manual labour, and the extra demand for labour will

require more funds to compensate for its exertion. But a large portion of remunerative capital consists

of food, which as we have seen requires the application of capital to land under circumstances which in

any fixed condition of the productive arts reduce the rate of return in proportion as the capital expended

is from time to time augmented. The price of corn therefore rises, and it may be assumed that either

the physical minimum of wages exists and must be maintained, or that the moral minimum exists and

will be maintained. In either of these cases, the moneywages of labour must rise or the real

remuneration of labour will fall off. Moreover, it is clear that if money-wages rise, and the price of

commodities do not rise also, profits must fall. The capitalist has more to pay for getting his work done,

and he has also less for himself in consequence. That prices cannot rise is clear, because the cause

here assigned acts, with an exception, here unimportant, equally on all employments. If money were

produced in the country, the wages of the miners would rise, as well as the wages of other labourers, or

the same cause which is supposed to operate to raise the value of commodities, as compared with

money, is equally operative to raise the value of money as compared with commodities. It is obvious

that no circumstance can change the relative value of the two commodities which affects equally the

supply of both, and does not at all affect the demand for either.

Therefore with an increase of capital, it is proved that there must be an increase of food; that an

increase of food is most frequently accompanied by an increased cost of handwork,(5*) and that an

increased outlay on manual labour will be accompanied by a diminution of profit.

This assumes, that the industrial arts undergo no improvement sufficient to compensate for the inferior

return from poorer soils, and to prevent the price of food from rising. Mr. Mill is of opinion, that in

general the progress of industrial improvement is a less powerful force than the necessity of resorting

to inferior land. The price of food from century to century is the obvious criterion of this fact, if only

money be of an unaltered cost. Taking into account any deranging circumstances affecting the rate of

wages, it is also clear that the history of the rate of interest will be an adequate indication of the force

respectively exerted by each of these two antagonistic agencies. The history of the rate of interest in

England has yet to be written, and therefore we cannot find any complete test, by which to discover the

relative progress of these two forces. Few subjects so interesting to a philosopher, yet remain so

thoroughly uninvestigated.

The obvious bearing of this theory on the Emigration of capital is, that since the rate of profit is being

gradually lowered in an old country, sometimes it will come to a point at which persons will rather seek

a higher rate abroad. There is always a certain minimum rate for anything below which persons will not

think it worth while to accumulate. That minimum varies indeed with the habits of a people, yet in any

one generation there is a point beyond which it will not go; and there is obviously a minimum beyond

which it will not go at all. In an old country like England this minimum rate will not bear much reduction,

and therefore we must contentedly look for the emigration of capital, and, what is worse to the world,

though nationally the same, its destruction by foolish speculations, of which commercial crises are the

inevitable results.

Hence it is clear that there will be in this country, for many years, a fund from which the higher

purposes of Government may be achieved without entrenching on the support of the labouring people

or the real opulence of the nation. In reference to the Emigration scheme, it may be said, that the effect

of Government interference simply is to determine, that capital, which was going to leave the country,

shall go to that particular foreign country, to which the labourer has been removed. It was before fixed

that capital should emigrate: the direction of that migration is settled by the operations of Government.

On such grounds as these, therefore, Mr. Mill contends that his scheme if adopted is in the highest

degree beneficial. It is greatly preferable to any that we have ever seen proposed for remedying the

economical wants of the lower classes: and its adoption is in our judgment the very best measure open

to the selection of an English Government. To us it seems the best attainable means of attaining a

necessary condition of all future social improvement.

We have now arrived at the end of our long labour. We have discussed the circumstances now

affecting the condition of the labouring classes, and also the schemes proposed for their advantage. Of

Mr. Mill's speculations on this subject we have shown ourselves no lukewarm admirers. And on this

account we are at liberty to say that his chapter on the future condition of the labouring classes very

much disappointed us. The lower orders are there treated as if they were beings of pure intellect. We

do not for a moment deny that it is of great consequence to give the working classes intellectual

cultivation, and to develop in their minds a relish for intellectual pleasures, yet we also think that the

peculiar qualities of Mr. Mill's mind have led him to assign to such considerations a space out of

proportion to their importance. The most important matters for the labouring classes, as for all others,

are restraining discipline over their passions and an effectual culture of their consciences. In recent

times these wants are more pressing than ever. Great towns are depots of temptation, and, unless care

be taken, corrupters of all deep moral feeling. The passions also act with more violence than elsewhere

in the intervals of a monotonous occupation, and owing to the increasing division of labour the

industrial tasks of mankind are every day becoming more and more monotonous. To these

considerations Mr. Mill has not alluded, nor has he enlarged on the dangers of that union between

democracy and low wages which in our view make his plans for the elevation of the populace of such

urgent and practical interest. If Mr. Mill had been a mere political economist, no blame would have

attached to him. But he considers, beside the abstract and isolated consequences of the more desire

for wealth, the application also of these consequences, with all necessary corrections, to the real world

of human action. He was therefore bound to have noticed the deeper considerations we have named,

and to have neglected to notice them is an omission not less unpleasing because decidedly congenial

to a purely intellectual and secular thinker.

And now as we are in the act of concluding our remarks on this admirable work, it is full time to mention

what is perhaps its most peculiar merit. It has been well remarked that a writer on detached points in a

science need only show his reader where he has succeeded: the author of a systematic treatise must

also show them where he has failed. The latter must follow the course of his subject, though it lead him

to problems which he fails to solve -- the former by selecting his favourite points may easily conceal

from his readers that he has ever been vanquished at all. The most appropriate praise to this work is,

that it evades no difficulty, and of the problems which occur solves rightly a proportion, on its peculiar

subject, beyond all precedent large. No doubt a severe judge will decide that this book is far from

perfect. He will we think find there some indistinctness of expression and some diffusehess of

explanation, an occasional dogmatism where there is ground for doubt, an excessive averseness to

subtle speculation, and a defective appreciation of some moral and religious considerations. But after

all abatements have been made, the severest judge will unhestitatingly pronounce that though there

have been in England many acute speculators who have by their economical writings gained much

credit in their day and generation, three men only have by such means attained permanent rank among

the great thinkers of their country, and that these three are Adam Smith, Ricardo, and John Mill.

NOTES:

1. This was the original Malthusian doctrine, though its author much modified it in the later editions of

the Essay on Population. Ricardo, however, who thought himself a Malthusian, asserts it in terms

(Works, p. 248, Ed. M'Culloch), and everywhere tacitly or avowedly reasons on the assumption of it.

2. The exact numbers are: --

Cultivable. Fit for pasture.

Leinster 186,000 345,000

Ulster 419,000 629,000

Cormaught 430,000 726,000

Munster 390,000 630,000

Total 1,425,000 2,330,000

This is not the calculation of a theorist; but the estimate of Mr. Griffith, the land-valuer for the Irish land-

tax; who is not in any way pledged to the waste land scheme. The figures are given in the report of

Lord Devon's commission.

3. Mr. Thornton, the best authority on the subject, states that recruiting-sergeants find a marked

difference of muscular strength between the south-west of England and the better-fed

counties of the north and east. (Over-population, p. 24.)

4. See Fullerton on the Currency, p. 161.

5. What we call in the text the art of work or handwork, is usually called the cost of labour; but this

phrase expresses naturally the rate of a labourer's wages per diem. The only use of a special phrase is

to mark that the labourer is concerned with what he gets as pay for a given exertion during a given

time, i.e., his wages: and that the capitalist is concerned with the result of that exertion, i.e., the work

done. The common phrase seems to us to fail signally in working out this distinction.

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