labor. Let us suppose, what is at least supposable, whether it be the fact or not-that a general reduction of the hours of factory labor from twelve to ten, would be for the advantage of the work-people; that they would receive as high wages, or nearly as high, for ten hours' labor as they receive for twelve. If this would be the result, and if the operatives generally are convinced that it would, the limitation, some may say, will be adopted spontaneously, and there cannot be any need for enforcing it by a legal prohibition. I answer, that it will not be adopted unless the body of operatives bind themselves to one another to abide by it. A workman who refused to work more than ten hours while there were others who worked twelve, would either not be employed at all, or if employed, must submit to lose one sixth of his wages. However convinced, therefore, he may be that it is the interest of the class to work short time, it is contrary to his own interest to set the example, unless he is well assured that all or most others will follow it. But suppose a general agreement of the whole class; might not this be effectual without the sanction of law? Not unless enforced by opinion with a rigor practically equal to that of law. For, however, beneficial the observance of the regulation might be to the class collectively, the immediate interest of every individual would lie in violating it; and the more numerous those were who adhered to the rule, the more would individuals gain by departing from it. If nearly all restricted themselves to ten hours, those who chose to work for twelve would gain all the advantage of the restriction, together with the profit of infringing it; they would get twelve hours' wages for ten hours' work, and two hours' wages beside. I grant that if a large majority adhered to the ten hours, there would be no harm done; the benefit would be, in the main, secured to the class, while those individuals who preferred to work harder and earn more, would have an opportunity 46

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of doing so. This certainly would be the state of things to be wished for; and assuming that a reduction of hours without any diminution of wages could take place without expelling the commodity from some of its markets-which is in every particular instance a question of fact, not of principle-the manner in which it would be most desirable that this effect should be brought about, would be by a quiet change in the general custom of the trade; short hours becoming, by spontaneous choice, the general practice, but those who chose to deviate from it having the fullest liberty to do so. Probably, however, so many would prefer the twelve hours' work on the improved terms, that the limitation could not be maintained as a general practice; what some did from choice, others would soon be obliged to do from necessity, and those who had chosen long hours for the sake of increased wages, would be forced in the end to work long hours for no greater wages than before. Assuming then that it really would be the interest of each to work only ten hours if he could be assured that all others would do the same, there might be no means of their attaining this object but by converting their supposed mutual agreement into an engagement under penalty, by consenting to have it enforced by law. I do not mean to express an opinion in favor of such an enactment, but it serves to exemplify the manner in which classes of persons may need the assistance of law, to give effect to their deliberate collective opinion of their own interest, by affording to every individual a guarantee that his competitors will pursue the same course, without which he cannot safely adopt it himself.

Another exemplification of the same principle, and one of great practical moment, is afforded by what is known as the Wakefield system of colonization. This system is grounded on the important principle, that the degree of productivenesss of land and labor depends on their being in

a due proportion to one another; that if a few persons, in a newly-settled country, attempt to occupy and appropriate a large district, or if each laborer becomes too soon an occupier and cultivator of land, there is a loss of productive power, and a great retardation of the progress of the colony in wealth and civilization; that nevertheless the instinct (if such it may be called) of appropriation, and the feelings associated in old countries with landed proprietorship, induce almost every emigrant to take possession of as much land as he has the means of acquiring, and every laborer to become at once a proprietor, cultivating his own land with no other aid than that of his family. If this propensity to the immediate possession of land could be in some degree restrained, and each laborer induced to work a certain number of years on hire before he became a landed proprietor, a perpetual stock of hired laborers could be maintained, available for roads, canals, works of irrigation, &c. and for the establishment and carrying on of the different branches of town industry; whereby the laborer, when he did at last become a landed proprietor, would find his land much more valuable, through access to markets, and facility of obtaining hired labor. Mr. Wakefield therefore proposed to check the premature occupation of land, and dispersion of the people, by putting upon all unappropriated lands a rather high price, the proceeds of which were to be expended in conveying emigrant laborers from the mother country.

This salutary provision, however, has been objected to, in the name and on the authority of what was represented as the great principle of political economy, that individuals are the best judges of their own interest. It was said, that when things are left to themselves, land is appropriated and occupied by the spontaneous choice of individuals, in the quantities and at the times most advantageous to each person, and therefore to the community generally; and that to

interpose artificial obstacles to their obtaining land, is to prevent them from adopting the course which in their own judgment is most beneficial to them, from a self-conceited notion of the legislator, that he knows what is most for their interests, better than they do themselves. Now this is a complete misunderstanding, either of the system itself, or of the principle with which it is alleged to conflict. The oversight is similar to that which we have just seen exemplified on the subject of hours of labor. However beneficial it might be to the colony in the aggregate, and to each individual composing it, that no one should occupy more land than he can properly cultivate, nor become a proprietor until there are other laborers ready to take his place in working for hire; it can never be the interest of an individual to exercise this forbearance, unless he is assured that others will do so too. Surrounded by settlers who have each their thousand acres, how is he benefited by restricting himself to fifty? or what does he gain by deferring the acquisition altogether for a few years, if all other laborers rush to convert their first earnings into estates in the wilderness, several miles apart from one another? If they, by seizing on land, prevent the formation of a class of laborers for wages, he will not, by postponing the time of his becoming a proprietor, be enabled to employ the land with any greater advantage when he does obtain it; to what end therefore should he place himself in what will appear, to him and others, a position of inferiority, by remaining a laborer when all around him are proprietors? It is the interest of each to do what is good for all, but only if others will do likewise.

The principle that each is the best judge of his own interest, understood as these objectors understand it, would prove that governments ought not to fulfil any of their acknowledged duties-ought not, in fact, to exist at all. It is greatly the interest of the community, collectively and

individually, not to rob or defraud one another; but there is not the less necessity for laws to punish robbery and fraud; because, though it is the interest of each that nobody should rob or cheat, it cannot be any one's interest to refrain from robbing and cheating others when all others are permitted to rob and cheat him. Penal laws exist at all, chiefly for this reason, because an even unanimous opinion that a certain line of conduct is for the general interest, does not make it people's individual interest to adhere to that line of conduct.

13. Fifthly; the argument against government interference, grounded on the maxim that individuals are the best judges of their own interest, cannot apply to the very large class of cases, in which those acts of individuals, over which the government claims control, are not done by those individuals for their own interest, but for the interest of other people. This includes, among other things, the important and much agitated subject of public charity. Though individuals should, in general, be left to do for themselves whatever it can reasonably be expected that they should be capable of doing, yet when they are at any rate not to be left to themselves, but to be helped by other people, the question arises, whether it is better that they should receive this help exclusively from individuals, and therefore uncertainly and casually, or by systematic arrangements, in which society acts through its organ the

state.

This brings us to the subject of Poor Laws; a subject which would be of very minor importance if the habits of all classes of the people were temperate and prudent, and the diffusion of property satisfactory; but of the greatest moment in a state of things so much the reverse of this, in both points, as that which the British islands present. Apart from any metaphysical considerations respecting 46*

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