SOCIAL UNREST IN ENGLAND,

Otago Daily Times, Issue 10306, 13 March 1895, Page 6

SOCIAL UNREST IN ENGLAND,

Edmund Bnrke laid down the famous doctrine that the whole business of government and of legislation i 3 to see that 12 honest men are got into every jury bos. That is to say, that the whole busiaeg3 of the State id to see that its citizens are protected by honest legislation and by honest men to administer it. Now I have an enthusiastic admiration for Edmund Burke. lam con7mced that he was one of the greatest political thinkers that ever lived. Bat although he was said to sea everything and to forsee everything, he certainly did not foresee far enough when he thus defined the dnty or the State. The growing socialism of England was the growth of that public opinion which is willing to admit that the State has much more to do for the citizen than merely to make it. sure that he shall have justice swarded to him in the civil or the criminal courts.

My first intimate acquaintancs with English politics was formed dnring the reign of what was called the Manchester school. Tha faith of the Manchester school was in free competition. Abolish all legislation which interferes with free competition —such wa3 the doctrine — and trust to human energy and human nature and tha productiveness of the earth for all the reei. The Manchester school accomplished some great successes. It abolished numbers of legislative restrictions that favoured one class, or what was called " one interest/ at thß expense of another. Its work was decidedly a work of advancement. Bnt its dogma was all too narrow, and, curiously enough, its faith at the same time was too fanciful. Its main belief was that free trade with foreign nations and free competition at home would remove most of the mountains that stand as a barrier between man and his happiness. Then there came an inevitable reaction which the Manchester school had itself directly helped to bring about. For the Manchester school had fought hard for the extension of the political franchise, and the extension of the franchise gave power to the working class. The working men soon made it known that they had grievances and wrongs which could not be l6tt to the operation of free competition and the widening ■beneficence of human nature. They iunisted that they had grievances and wrongs which only legislation could romove. The first of what I should call the great socialistic measures of English legislation, before working man had much share in the franchise, was the Factories Act carried by the late Lord Shaf tesbnry in 1844. There was a previous measure passed by the same philanthropist in 1842, but that act only concerned itself with what related to the working of women and children in mines. The Factories Act of 1844 was clearly based upon the principle that the State had a right to interfere with what was then erroneously and absurdly called the freedom of contract between employer and employed. On the gronnd, among other gronnds, that it did thus interfere with the freedom of contract and freedom of competition, the Manchester school opposed the passing of the Factories Act; but Lord Shaf tesbury triumphed, and everyone now admits that his triumph was a public benefit and a public blessing.

Since the passing of the Factories Act, England, under whatever Government, has been moving farther and further in this direction. What has become of the principle of contract as between landlord and tenant in Ireland 1 Tory Governments as well as Liberal Governments have decreed that its day is done. I have just said that the phrase "freedom of contract," as it was once used, is erroneous and absurd. Between the English capitalist and the English working men, between the Irish landlord and the Irish tenant, there was in the old days no freedom of contract. There could bs none. There is no freedom of contract between a fasting man and a full man. The fall man can wait; the hungry maa cannot wait. In the elder Dnmas's famous romance, " The Count of Monte Cristo," the wicked bankerDan glars, I thick, was his name—is capj tured by a brigand chief and held to ransom. Poor Danglars grows very hungry and asks for food. He is told that he can have food, but he must pay for it. He says he is willing to pay for it, and asks what the price of a fowl would be. He is told of some enormous sum—many thousands of francs. He angrily demurs, but he is politely assured that it ia all a matter for himself—he need not eat, and if he does not eat he will not have to pay; but if he decides to eat he must hand over the stipulated price. Now that is not by any means an unfair illustration of what used to be called in the old days V freedom of contract." A hungry working man, with a wire and children depending upon him, applies for employment, and 13 told that he can have it if he is willing to work 12 or 14 hours a day. He has no alternative—such was freedom of contract. Against that principle all the social legislation of modern England has set its face. Only the other day I voted in the division lobby of the House of Commons in favour of the second reading of a measure to limit the working hours to eight hoars a day. The second reading was carried by a large majority. Parliament has taken upon itself to watch over the housing of working men and of the poor in general. There are acts to regulate the employment of women in ordinary shops were dressmaking and millinery businesses are carried on.

But then, let it be remembered, if we have got back—as, for the time, we certainly have got back—to the principle of paternal government, we have quite paused away from the era whan government was in the hands of a despot or of a privileged class. We are certainly very likely to have, for some time to come, a growing interference on the part of the State with the organisation of capital and labour. But, thea, by whom is that State interforenca to be initiated and regulatad and controlled 1 By a House of Commons which contains amongst its members the representatives of the labourer as well as of the capitalist; of the employed as well as that of the employer; of the Scottish crofter as well as tho Scottish laird; of the Irish tenant-farmer as well as of the Irish landlord 1 We need cot feel alarmed about a despot power driving us on. There is bo real legislative power in England but tbss power of the House of Commons ; and the House of Commons is now, as nearly as possible, a legislature representative of tbe whole people—all classes, all ranks, all interest):; and it will become even more strictly and comprehensively so representative as the next few years grow *on. We have clearly, then, altogether given up, for the time at least, the doctrine that the State can do nothing to help the poor, to enable the poor to help themselves, to enforce proper systems of labour, to insist that those who work for daily brsad shall be enabled to work nnder decent conditions, and with due regard to health—and, in fact, to assort the right of interfering, for the good of the whole community, between those who employ and those who are employed.—Justin M'Oahthv, in the Now York Sssdjjjar.