Political Economy and Social Reform-Fawcett as a Theoretical Economist His Practical Qualities—His Courage and Independence -His Blindness-His Criticism of Indian Finance-His Common Sense-His Generous Sympathy-His Individualistic Attitude towards Social Reform.

Toynbee's Life-His Writings-His Personal Influence-The Practical Aims of his Theoretical Study-The Relations between Economic Theory and Practical Social Reform-Cairnes' Argument-Its Value -Its Defects-The Historical Method-Toynbee's Review of the Older Economists-The Wages-fund Theory-Newer Theories of Wages-The Limitations of ‘Natural Liberty'-Education-Factory Legislation-The 'Gulf' in the Theory of Laissez-faire-Toynbee's Moderation-His Approval of Theory-His 'Radical Socialism.' POLITICAL economy has been sometimes represented as condemning uniformly all schemes of social reform, and supporting the rich and powerful classes, who are prone to be content with the existing order, in their opposition to the poor, who fondly imagine that any change cannot fail to improve their own condition. Such a conception is indorsed by popular opinion. It is found on the pages of novels like Mr. Besant's Children of Gibeon, it formed the theme of the passionate denunciations of Carlyle, and

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it furnishes the grounds for the distrust, which prompts the feeling that, "if Political Economy is against the working man, it behoves the working-man to be against Political Economy."

And yet, on a broad view of the history which we have been examining, such a conception appears erroneous; for most of the English economists have felt and expressed a wish to improve the condition of society, and their sympathies have generally inclined to the side of the poorer and weaker members. They have, indeed, been anxious to effect a real and not an imaginary improvement, and to attack the disease of poverty at its roots rather than procure a temporary mitigation of its outward symptoms; but, although their heads may have been hard, their hearts have usually been tender. Adam Smith may have committed an error in thinking that there was a "Scotchman inside every man ;"1 but the direction of his sympathies was unmistakable, and he was very eager to secure for the workman the free disposal of his "most sacred and inviolable property" in the labour of his hands. Malthus was impatient with fanciful schemes of ideal societies, but his interest in the poor was real and practical. Even the abstract Ricardo was evidently anxious to improve the condition of the wage-earning classes. "The friends of humanity," he writes, "cannot but wish that in all countries the labouring classes should have a taste for comforts and enjoyments, and that they should be stimulated by all legal means in their exertions to procure them." Nor could the enthusiasm of Mill for the advancement of society be doubted, while Cirnes in his Slave Power exposed the misery caused by the institution of slavery,

1 See above, p. 10.

and in his Leading Principles was manifestly oppressed by the fear of a deterioration in the condition of the labourer. The Methods of Social Reform of Jevons are a proof of his interest in the promotion of social reform.

But the two economists, whose work we are now about to notice, supply perhaps the most convincing refutation of the popular idea of political economy as a 'dismal science' opposed to social reform. They were both social reformers, although they approached the matter from different stand-points; and they both brought their theoretical principles to bear on their practical action.

We have already seen how one English economist displayed remarkable fortitude in the endurance of physical pain.1 But the courageous resolution of Cairnes was paralleled by that of HENRY FAWCETT Immediately after his death, in 1884, Mr. Gladstone wrote to his father that "there had been no public man of our day whose remarkable qualities had been more fully recognised by his fellowcountrymen and more deeply imbedded in their memories." It would be incorrect to say that he made any considerable contribution to the development of economic theory. His Manual of Political Economy was for the most part, as it was intended to be, a summary of Mill's larger work. His book on Free Trade and Protection, which was published in 1878, expounded the authorised principles of the subject, so far as it was theoretical. But his strength seems to have lain rather in the domain of practice. Those chapters of his Manual, in which he dealt with the practical facts of the Poor Law, or of Co-operation, were the more

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1 See above, p. 119.

2 Cf. Leslie Stephen's Life of Henry Fawcett, p. 465.

See above, p. 117.

original; and his work as administrator of the Post Office, and as critic of Indian finance, was marked by practical qualities of a high order. He kept, in fact, always before him the practical aims of theoretical inquiry, and he consistently conformed his practice to his theory.

The feature of his character, which made perhaps the most indelible impression on the public mind, was his indomitable courage and independence. At a most promising period of life, when he had completed his academic career at Cambridge by attaining high mathematical honours, and winning a Fellowship at Trinity Hall, he suddenly met with a grave physical calamity. At the age of twenty-five he was deprived of his eyesight by an accidental shot from his father's gun. "It was a blow to a man,” he said, addressing a meeting at Brighton in after years, "but in ten minutes he had made up his mind to face his difficulty bravely," and to adhere to his old pursuits as far as possible. And face it accordingly he did. first words on reaching home were purposely intended to cheer his relations; and visitors to the house during the following days remarked that his father seemed more distressed than himself. He did not abandon his rowing, riding, skating, or fishing. Nor did he swerve from that intention to enter Parliament, to which he had given expression when a boy at school. He fulfilled this intention; and he rose to be Postmaster-General in Mr. Gladstone's administration of 1880. So much, indeed, did he accomplish that his infirmity was almost forgotten, and he "claimed tacitly to have no allowance made" for it.

His

This courageous independence was shown in his attitude on political questions, and it coloured his economic thought. It intensified that fear and abhorrence of the

degrading effects of pauperism, and that admiration for the independent spirit and self-reliant efficacy of co-operation, to which he gave expression in two little books on the Economic Position of the British Labourer in 1865, and on Pauperism: its Causes and its Remedies in 1871. It also characterised his action in Parliament in connection with Indian Finance, on which, in 1880, he published some articles. He offered a stubborn resistance to all the official attempts which were made to stifle his inquiries, and he compelled the thorough investigation of his arguments before Parliamentary Committees. He insisted that India was essentially a poor country, and that extreme caution and fairness were needed in the management of its finances, because its sources of revenue were ‘inelastic,' and its expenditure was elastic and increasing. The revenue derived from the land-tax, which was fixed for long periods in some districts, and in others in perpetuity, did not admit of substantial increase. The revenue derived from opium was precarious, and that derived from salt was a tax on a prime necessity of Indian life, while the proceeds arising from the other sources of customs, excise, and stamps, were inconsiderable. But the expenditure on the other hand was elastic. The military expenditure' and the cost of administration' were continually growing, the loss occasioned by the 'fall in the exchange' of silver for gold was increasing, and the Indian Government had to make larger remittances to England in payment of debt, while the interest due on account of such public improvements as railways and works of irrigation, which the Government undertook or assisted, was becoming greater. There was consequently no surplus to meet such recurring emergencies as those occasioned by famine.