Social Restraints on the Individual. 351 and he is certainly right. What, then, is the precise social danger to be dreaded, the precise counteracting virtue to be inculcated and fostered? It cannot be that we must either respect or tolerate all opinions and all practices, even if they be possibly genuine. No matter how fanatically devoted the Thug may be to his religion, or how sincere the Mormon may be in professing his patriarchal polygamy, or how thoroughly convinced the Carolinian divine may be of the scripturalness of his domestic institution,' no sane, moral community can agree to legalize or to tolerate such organized systems of theoretical homicide, pollution, and iniquity. Delusion may run into crime as easily and readily as into anything else; and cannot be suffered to plead individuality' as a reason for toleration. Every system and opinion must be brought to one final test-What are its fruits? If these antagonize the main purposes of social life, then society, by means and virtue of its appropriate powers, moral and legal, is bound either to abate or to abolish the system. Thought is free, no doubt; and the utmost encouragement ought to be given to the moral and rational expression of it. But this principle will by no means justify the preaching of sedition, the utterance of blasphemy, or the publication of obscene books and pictures. Limits must be put to the freedom of publication somewhere. Even if we had no legal prohibitions and penalties, the social ones would operate by inevitable natural law. Mr. Mill is virtually objecting to the moral constitution of human nature when he ought to be pointing out the line where a just principle and right transgresses the law of use. If we speak our minds of wickedness in high places, whether secular or ecclesiastic, the rulers are offended and frown. Why? Because they feel the moral power and truth of our denunciation; the utterance finds an echo and confirmation within their own breasts. If a large number of individuals so speak, then in time, Republican. slaveries, British opium trades, Neapolitan atrocities, and Perugian massacres will cease to be-burnt up in the full blaze of the public opinion of the civilized world." Can Mr. Mill mean to object to this salutary power? Does he claim that vice and infatuation shall be chartered with an exemption from social criticism and moral rebuke? Were this his meaning, he would not himself be so potently contributing to the formation of new opinions, and declaiming so eloquently against custom and convention. The logic of his head transcends the logic of his heart in this matter; for no sane person can possibly wish us not to disapprove of what is vile and mean; not to denounce what is perverse and pernicious; "What is it else to praise,' asks Hobbes, but to say a thing is good? Good, I say, for me or for the State? Now surely the liberty of each cannot demand from all a universal reticence in respect to characterizing either opinions or actions. not to be indignant at cruelty and shameless wrong. Our instinctive desire is always for more not less power in this direction. O God! for a million tongues Of thunder and of flame, To utter a cry that shall pierce the sky- Mr. Mill tritely remarks, indeed, that there is a limit to the legitimate interference of collective opinion with individual independence; and to find that limit, and maintain it against encroachment, is as indispensable to a good condition of human affairs as protection against political despotism.' Now the fallacy consists in assuming that there is some special abstract law or limit in this matter, apart from the nature of the special case itself. Utilitythe tendency of a system, and its actual results to society-must be the final test. Law and opinion have alike the right to pass condemnation upon that which is bad; and no individuality ought to be permitted to fashion itself after a model of its own,' if that model is found to be very dear and detrimental to society at large. The true law which should govern private and collective opinion, both in its formation and its publication, is the law of charity-by which we do not mean, however, the being blind to the evidence of evil, any more than we mean the being blind to the presence of the good. Let us honestly and fairly seek the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.' Let the logic of the reason guide and inspire the anger of the heart: in short, let our praise and blame be determined and directed by our intellect, earnestly exercised and conscientiously informed. The evil of custom and convention is precisely this-that they are traditions, to which the many bow, and for which no plea of intelligence can be advanced by their worshippers, even when they are sound in themselves. But many customs and conventions must partake of the errors, or reflect the peculiarities, of the past; and to these, by a blind conservative instinct, we are apt to cling when their utility or their excuse has long vanished. Custom never revises its opinions; and hence its régime tends to stereotype the mistakes and perpetuate the oppressions of the past. Thus, for example, by the force of convention-i. e. by the fear of each for the opinion of all-duelling survived long after it had ceased to be approved by those who submitted to its dictation; and its neck was only finally broken by that legal action which disgraced it with the brand of felony. Drinking was in the same condition in Shakspeare's day as in our own-felt to be more honoured in the breach than the observance.' But who shall bell the cat,' and set the custom at defiance? The reflecting few who most clearly perceive the folly and the mischief, and the well-meaning multitude who readily acknowledge the evil, are possibly the very last persons in the world fitted, by moral constitution, for a practical protest. Shall Educational Influence of Temperance. 353 Shall we, then, not honour the reformers who first stept out of the tyrannous routine, and who summoned a social band around. them, expressly to resist and erase the disastrous dynasty of convention? Fashions and customs there must be; for beauty, truth, and conscience demand forms as much as spirit requires body; but in the new customs and the new fashions, let the outer form be no longer divorced from the inner philosophy. The temperance movement is a reform instinct with vitality, with inspiration, and with mental freedom. Behold its weapons, its instruments, and its methods! For shield it has sincerity; for sword, the shining blade of evidence; for breastplate, faith, hope, and charity. It is a perpetual conflict of argument against opinion, of intelligence against ignorance, of spirit against flesh, of humanity against interest, of life and progress against fixity, torpor, and death. The amount of intellectual energy and discussion which it has enkindled has, in fact, been paralleled by no movement whatever since the epoch of the Reformation; while in the breadth and variety of its topics, physical, moral, and social, it has far exceeded that great awakening, and is still working at the basis of society, permeating the masses, and redeeming from slavery and debasement. Glance back some twenty-five years, and we shall be able to estimate better the work which has been accomplished, and the kind of work which it is. Then, the temperance reformer had his armour to seek and his weapons to forge; now he is armed cap-àpie, in panoply of proof. Then, the ranks consisted of raw recruits, led by mere boys; now, their army is composed of disciplined battalions, generalled by heroes of a hundred fights. Then, temperance had no statistics, no science, no criticism, no formal logic and literature; now, it has both facts and figures, both ancient and modern learning, a lethean logic and a fervid, manifold eloquence, which can maintain its own in the most learned assemblies of the world as a recognized branch of Social Science.' Look, too, at the number and power of the obstacles it had to overthrow, and measure the intensity of its force by its unquestioned achievements. The traditions of ages-the timidity of the weak-the ignorance of the strong-the avarice of the interested, the passions of the vile and vicious-above all, the indifference of the good. Its first apostles had to encounter ridicule from the unreasoning, jeers from snobbery, taunts from fast men, sneers from the fashionable, and even things much harder to be borne. Not only had they hurled against them sermons from the pulpit, but sermons in stones.' They were plentifully pelted with authorities. -and putrid eggs; a most distasteful mixture it must be allowed. When the people began to side with the reformers, who ceased to be mobbed, publicans would hire ruffians to disturb the meetings. With legions of foes they had few helpers. Newspapers, for many many years, dared not report the proceedings of Temperance Societies, for the political press was in shameful bondage to Bacchus. Caricatures and squibs were placarded on the walls; the daily and weekly press, the monthly magazines and quarterly reviews, were all opposed to the principles, and energetically strove to write them down. What incredible zeal, what noble and persistent self-denial, what undaunted courage, what Herculean power must those early standard-bearers-mostly young, poor, or obscure men-have put forth in this grim contest with the conventions, opinions, and passions of the world! Surely, they have been living epistles' of an illustrious individuality, worthy of being held in everlasting honour ! In its theoretical evolution, the temperance enterprise has been a ramified educational agency, a vast quickener of intellectual life. It had to argue its way upwards against the prejudices, the fashions, and the learning of the upper and professional classes. Medical men opposed it with authority; ministers of the Gospel with criticism;' litterateurs with a pretentious logic;' reviewers with inaccurate views of science; able editors with not-able leaders;-yet not only has it stood its ground, but has gone on steadily from one stage of development to another, gathering statistics, science, and criticism around it, until at last the most veteran statesman and most influential peer in all the kingdom, greets the Grand Alliance' with his frank and hearty recognition. Be sure, O libertarian! that this toil and task of twenty-five years has been a notable and providential work of social regeneration-a work which has evoked talent, inspired independence, vindicated free thought and out-spokenness, awakened and purified conscience, revived religion-a work which cannot fail to have broadened and deepened all the foundations of our mental, social, and political liberties. Our pen fails to portray in fitting colours the glorious results of that final measure at which the movement aims-the legal suppression of the traffic in strong drink. Britannia, self-delivered from her reproach, her incubus, and her curse, will rise immeasurably in character and in power. Her people, rapidly increasing in comfort and in wealth, will eagerly qualify themselves for the exercise of their political privileges, and enter into the temple of the constitution. She will then be too powerful for fear on her own account, and too just to inspire it in others. Strong with a sober strength, strong with an enlightened strength, strong with a moral strength, who shall resist the prestige of her illustrious example?-or the expression of her just will in the councils of the kings? She will remain, not merely the mistress of the seas,' but stand forth to all the nations of the civilized word a bright and chivalrous example of loyalty to truth, to humanity, and to God. ART. Trade Societies and Strikes. 355 ART. V.-1. On the Political Economy of Strikes. Paper read at Bradford Meeting of the National Association for Promotion of Social Science. 1859. By Mr. Fawcett. 2. On Trades Unions. Paper read at Bradford Meeting of the National Association for Promotion of Social Science. By Dr. John Watts. 1859. THE HE events of the last few months have again directed special attention to trade societies, their constitutions, modes of operation, and results; and assuredly there is no more important economic question demanding settlement than that of the proper positions and modes of action of employers and employed. What are trade societies and what are their objects? Generally they are combinations of workmen of the same trade, for the protection of wages; and the modes resorted to, are the adoption of rules as to the number of hours which shall constitute a day's work, and the amount of money which shall be accepted as wages for such labour. In the better class of trades, rules are also adopted to 'regulate the proportion of apprentices to skilled workmen in any given shop, and to prevent the employment of men who have not passed through an apprenticeship to the trade. A breach of any of these rules by a workman subjects him to fine or exclusion from the society, and a breach by an employer subjects him to a strike. In order to secure these objects, funds are subscribed for the relief of men out of employ, and to enable them to travel from place to place in search of work. In the best trade societies, funds are also subscribed for relief during sickness, and for the assistance of families in the event of the death of the parent, or of disability by accident or otherwise. Now we have first to inquire, Is it right to seek the accomplishment of these objects? and second, if desirable, are these objects possible? Political economy says that the price of labour, like that of any other commodity, must be dependent on supply and demand, and we find practically, that although working men try to evade the operation of the law, their very evasion is confirmatory of its truth and power; for when a trade society supports men who are out of work rather than allow them to go to work for less wages, what do they but artificially lessen the supply of the commodity of labour, and thus keep up prices; just as a great capitalist occasionally buys up the whole and hoards the greater part of some given commodity for the same purpose. And who gain and who lose by this artifice? Let us inquire. Here are a set of men kept by their fellow-workmen in idleness (presumably the worst workmen or the worst characters) who must otherwise |