Political elements; or, The progress of modern legislation

Introduction

Object of the Work - . - Page 1.

Chapter I. The Principle Of Reform

The general prevalence of a desire for Reform, 9 to 12 — Sources of this Desire, 13 — Is part of the general tendency of the human mind for perfection — therefore is a right principle, 14.

Chapter II

THE PRINCIPLE OF CONSERVATISM. Prevalence of with all parties, 23 — The fear men have of new things — one source of Conservatism, 26 — The sentiment or love for old things — another source of Conservatism, 31 to 36 — Conservatism as from both sources a true principle, ihid,

Chapter III. Political Parties

As the advocates of true principles, have truth in them, ibid. — As in themselves, are false, ihid. — All parlies have manifested a disposition for reform, 43 — All for Conservatism, 45 — Political Apostacy — no such thing, 50 — Use of Political parties as the means of developing political truths, 59.

Chapter IV. Political Progress

Society by its construction destined to progress, 67 — Progress is gradual increase, 70 — Aflected by the innate energies of the

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VI CONTENTS.

thing said to progress, 72 — Each series of progress emanating from and begetting another, 74 — Yet never amounting to change, 76 — Increase of quantity necessarily begets increase of quality, 78 — Progress thus being increase, 86 — And increase the result of keeping and getting, ibid. — And that the result of the operation of the principle of Reform or the creating of new forms and new matters, ibid. — And of Conservatism, or the keeping what has already been obtained, ibid. — Political Progress was the necessary result of these two principles driven into active ■operation by the influence of parties, 87.

Chapter V. Elements Of Legislation

The foundation of laws are the wants of the people, 90 — The will of the people one great means by which laws are discerned, 92 — Laws dependent on the will of the people, 95 — Legislative Science the other great power by which laws are discerned, 97 — Causes of the violent operation of the principle of Reform since the close of the war, 104.

Chapter VI

As an organising force of Legislation, 121 — Not a new thing, ibid. — In its indirect operation, 130 — Necessarily adjuncts to all opinion, 139 — Public Opinion essentially a Democratic thing, 137.

Chapter VII. Evidences Of Public Opinion

Public meetings, how far evidence of the state of Public Opinion, 143 — Petitions and private experience, how far evidence of the state of Public Opinion, 151 — The opinions of the Press, how far evidence of the stale of Public Opinion, 155.

• CONTENTS. Vll

Chapter VIII

PUBLIC OPINION, AND THE STATE, When in juxta position, 169 — Rights of, as against each other, 173 — The value of public powers dependent on their utility, 177 — Public Opinion as a test or guide does not command much consideration, 187 to 196 — As the expressions of the feelings and sentiments of the public is entitled to respect, 202— As affording evidence of the actual wants of the people is an impor • lant element of legislation, 204 — The will of the State, and the will of the people, 206 — Public opinion as a power, to be feared and to be managed, 21G.

Chapter IX. Legislative Science

The organic element of all law, 223 — Strictly no science of legislation, 225 — Success in legislation, dependent on legislators themselves, 229.

Chapter X. The Functions Of A Legislator, Whom He

REPRESENTS.

The elective franchise does not belong to the freeholders, burgesses, &c., &c., 232 — Nor to those only who pay taxes, or are of a certain age or sex, ibid. — Nor to the classes, 240— But to the whole people, 250 — Therefore representative acts for them, ibid.

CHAPTER XL

THE FUNCTIONS OF A LEGISLATOR, IN WHAT SENSE HE REPRESENTS,

Whose will and wishes a representative must follow, 252 — The right of the will necessary to the right of opinion, ibid. — The will of the represented is, in fact, expressed in the vote of the representative, 254 — So by law as appears by the form of the

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writ, 259 — But the will of the representative also expressed, 264 — So by law, 268 — When the will of the representative and the represented at variance — which entitled to dominate, 271.

Chapter XII

THE FUNCTIONS OF A LEGISLATOK. Difficulties of not joining a parly, 282 — Difficulties of joining one, 283 — Difficulties of the work of legislation itself, 284 — Capacities necessary to encounter these difficulties, 288— All sorts of capacities useful in Parliament, ibid. — But the fundamental quality required is the strictly legislative or judicial powers, 290 —For this, industry is required, 293 — Next, reasoning powers, 297 — Lastly, integrity, 300 — Importance of the strictly legislative character, 302.

CONCLUSION - •- - - 306.

INTPtODUCTIOX.

Within the last thirty years we have had a silent revolution in this country. Not France, with all her commotions, has undergone so complete a change as we. There they have hut altered the name, the form of government, the dynasty on the throne — here we have had revolutions in the opinions, in the sentiments, in the material interests of the people. There must be something in all this for him who thinks, as well as for him who acts — for the philosopher as well as for the legislator — for him who keeps the chronicle of ideas, as well as for him who records events. In revisiting the field where the strife of interests, theories, and of prejudices has been fought, when in that more quiet mood with which it is only permitted us to

B contemplate the past, we should well be able to see errors that may warn us for the future — steps that it is not too late to retrace — to find confidences and assurances from successes already achieved, that may encourage us to new attempts.

What I propose in the following pages is, to pass under survey and contemplation the events that have transpired in this country within the last thirty years — to try if there are not some truths — some principles to be found — that may serve to explain the past and to enlighten the future. By events, I do not mean those facts that more commonly fill the pages of histoiy. He who expects to find here a nice detail of the strife of interests, the manoeuvre of parties, the violence of opposition, the subterfuge of ministers, the rumour of the clubs, and what the papers said, may pass on. There are other events, liigher — the causes, the efl'ects, the compounds, the abstracts and the emanations of these — as these are but the compounds, the causes and effects, the abstracts and the emanations, of others. The fact of the existence of a desire for political improvement — the fact of the existence of causes of that desire — the facts which give rise to those causes — the effects which the desire produces — how it operates — these, too, are events no less true than those we speak of. It is these we seek out, which we treat of here — the false, though it come from men of truth — and wisdom, though it come from fools.

The present moment is unobjectionable for the inquiry of this sort.

He who records the mere actions of men, must wait till the generation whose doings they were has passed away, in order that what he writes may be history ; and lest he be but telling a tale already told. He who searches history for instruction — who chronicles what passes in the great world of truth — may at once begin his task. For of this, even the great actors themselves are but little conscious. We hold but with an idle memory the process of reasoning, the petty or the noble impulses which guide our actions, though the recollection of the acts

4 INTRODUCTIOX.

themselves remains still strong with us. The real motives of om* deeds, even at tlie very time of their commission, are often concealed from us. All that arises from prejudice, position, party-feeling, ignorance, &c. — and these are great — are essentially so. Again. The phenomena to be observed in those events — the causes that have produced them — the effects they will produce — are new also, even to those engaged in them. By them, at most, are heeded those most obvious primary reasons which give rise to each mdividual transaction. But he who by historical study and reflection, is enabled to contemplate at one view the past and pi'esent — the passing and the future — can often see those relations which exist between them — those hidden, distant, but no less powerful first causes — those natural, consequential, but too often unprepared-for effects, which to the busy world of action go unheeded.

And for some reasons the present moment is especially adapted for an inquiry of this kind, and by that strange relation which facts bear to each other, it is pecuHarly the time in which such an inquiiy may be most useful. The rapid course of events in this country of late years has been such as to work an entire confusion in poHtical parties. The pace was too good to allow of the old dilatory machineiy of faction to keep up with it. The old-fashioned distinction of Whig and Tory, that had served so well for centuries, was broken up at once — and, by the new tests of Catholic Emancipation and Reform, some of the oldest Whig houses proved Tories, and some of the most violent Tories, Whigs. The new formation of parties, under the denomination of Reformers and Conservatives, was not more fortunate. The thunderbolt of the Corn Laws split them both up at once. A large party of the Conservatives, comprising their leader, co-operated with the Reformers — v/hilst many of the old leaders of the Reform party have turned Conservative in their tendency. The formation of parties for the support of particular interests has had but a still shorter existence. The Corn Law

League and the Protectionists have no exis- B 2 tence now — at least as parties for the objects for which they were originally formed — for the Protectionists scarcely strive for a reestablishment of the Corn I^aws — professedly, at least. Others have not been more fortunate. For good or for evil we know not here — but the Church, by the Emancipation Act and the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts — the Law, by the Small Debts and numerous other Acts — the Manufacturing Interest, by the Ten Hours and the Import Duty Acts — the Shipping Interest, by the reconstruction of the Navigation Laws — and the Colonies, by the repeal of the duties on foreign produce — have all been, in reality, or in their own opinions, severely affected. And it is precisely in this general crash of the particular interests of the several great branches of the community, and in all the bitterness occasioned thereby, that the great interest of all may be best inquired into. For a little object that is near may serve well to block out from our view one of much c:reater majrnitude in the distance. It is precisely at this moment of the confusion of all political distinction, and amidst this universal disgust at what is considered poUtical apostacy — amid this scepticism in poHtical faith — that the minds of men are best disposed for inquiry into the real truths of the question— for searching, whether, in the history of the events of the last thirty years, some principles of political wisdom may not be evolved that may re-assure and re-unite the faith, and, to some extent, the opinions of all. Science should well be able to do this. She has explained the laws by which inanimate bodies are governed — she has taught how the worlds above are moved in order and regularity — and it is, perhaps, that she has not given it that attention it demands, that she has not placed on more definite grounds the laws by which animate beings, mankind, nations, are best ruled. But it is time that she left her study of the past and probable, for the world that moves and lives around her. If it be the majesty of the subject that pleases her, the discovery of the rules by which a people is best to be governed — the solution of all those problems which society presents — should well suffice. If it be in difficulties she delights, there are propositions in political science, as in others, too, that it shall take her ages to solve.

This much, at least, may be said, the inquiry here proposed is an important and interesting one ; and if the subject itself is found capable of being submitted to the process proposed, and if the powers that are thus brought to bear on it are found sufficient for the task, much good may be done. And if not, it were of use to have pointed out the spot where treasure might be found, though I myself failed in strength to dis cover it.

Chapter 1. The Principle Of Reform

Each age of a nation, like each particular period of a man's life, has generally some distinctive — some peculiar character impressed upon it. It is so with ours. If we look back upon the history of this country for the last thirty years, we cannot fail to observe, that the one great fact which stands out salient from all the rest, consists in a restless desire for the improvement of its political institutions. Doubtless, this has been met by the corresponding antagonistic disposition to keep them as they were, and so also to consult for the public welfare. But, whatever modification it may have been subjected to by the influence of this counter tendency, its operation has been as effective as the field it has embraced has been vast.

There is nothing new in it — nothing peciihar to the present age. The instinct for the amehoration of the institutions by which it regulates itself, is an essential principle of society, an impulse incident to all nations and to all ages. And the progi-ess made by any given people, or epoch, is in proportion to the influence this feeling has exercised. But it has manifestly operated among us here, within the period we speak of, to an unusual extent. And the proof of this is in the amount of alteration that has been effected, as contrasted with that of other times. For since the government m this country is subjected to the influence of the people, and all laws and all modifications of those laws are effected either by its expressed or tacit assent, the existence of all extensive alteration implies the desire for such a change by the people, and the amount of the result produced becomes evidence of the amount of desire that was in operation to produce it.

And not only in the nation as a whole, but all functions of the state — all institutions — all parties — all orders — have alike been affected by this disposition. The Crown in the advisers it has selected — in the measures it has recommended to the consideration of the legislature — in the tones in which those measures were couched, and in the number and importance of the royal commissions it has issued : — the House of Lords — whatever opposition it may have offered to one or two of the great measures of the day — in the ready sanction it has given to the numerous other plans for political improvement sent up from the Lower House — and in the various measures it has itself originated : — the House of Commons, in the labom* it has undergone in those long mornings in committee — and those long nights in the wearying debauchery of public debate : — the Church — the Evangelical party, and since, by the High Church portion of it — in building new churches, in rendering of those already built more worthy of the high purpose to which they are devoted — in greater attention to parochial duties, works of charity and beneficence — and in the discontinuance of all practices not in keeping with the solemn character of their duties : — the Law, in the new rules and orders issued from time to time by the judges — in the statutes for cheapening and expediting the administration of justice in the Courts of Common Law, Equity, and conveyancing, that every session brings forth under the sanction of the law officers of the Crown : — the Army and the Navy, by the new regulations for the mitigation of corporal punishment, by the more frequent promotion of well-deserving men from the ranks, by the stricter qualifications necessary for officers on promotion, and by the greater attention paid to the sciences, engineering, fortification, ship-building : — in the Universities, by the more frequent examination of the students, the greater variety of studies, the greater amount of qualification necessary for a degree— all alike have shown that all have alike been impelled by the restless, ambitious desire for self-amelioration, and for rendering themselves more effective in carrying out the object for which they exist.

What is this desire, this perpetual craving for improvement ? What is the theory — the principle of reform?

When Heaven made man, it gave him a religious and moral sense to make him good; and then, to make him great, it gave him a vague, indefinite, unsatiable longing for the beautiful — the excellent — for perfection. And that this might not be wasting and selfconsuming. Heaven gave him a creative power wherewith to satisfy itself.

It is other than the moral sense of right

and wrong. Though that, perhaps, has

its origin in it. The function of that is to

act as a damper in softening and modulating

the human frame, when touched by the

bold hand of passion, instinct, ambition, or

intellect. This is itself an instinct, a desire,

a cravinq; of the mind for food like that of

the body. Like that, too, its longing is

accompanied with a pleasing pain, and the

gratification with pleasure. Or, rather, like

those more delicate instincts of the sex imc

14 THE PRINCIPLE OF EEFORM.

planted within us, as the one simple principle by which the world was to be peopled, so this longing- for perfection, tliis ideal for which man was ever to be craving, but never to realize, was given him, that the world might be covered with humanity as well as with man.

This was the means by which all that higher destiny which awaited him was to be worked out. And it has been. All that surpassing excellence in religious, moral, and intellectual well-being which he has achieved — every comfort that he enjoys above that of his earliest state, has been obtained by the impulse of this longing. The essential distinction between man and the inferior orders of beings, consists in this, that they are content to think, and to act, to eat, drink, and to sleep, as now, so ever, and so on for ever; whilst man is urged by an ever-renewing, never-to-be-satisfied desire to ameliorate his condition — to add something: of the comfortable, of tlie noble of to-day to that of yesterday. The doctrine of contentment— the proverb of " leave well alone," and such like, acting exclusively, is peliarly that of the lower grades of the Creation. In its full extent it is at variance with this first principle of the physical temperament of man in the individual — and if carried out, were fatal to the destiny of man as a race. He had not yet left the caves where he first dwelt, if he had yielded to it.

No doubt all individuals are not affected by it alike. Some natures, from a naturally gross constitution, are as insusceptible to this impulse as they are to many others. Some, again, want the inventive, the creative power to gratify it with. And some races, as well as individuals, are more susceptible to its influences than others. Doubtless, too, its developement is gi'eater in the same people at certain times than at others — though this is attributable to causes and subject to certain laws. But under whatever limitations or exceptions it may lie, it is, nevertheless, clear that it does exist — that it is an essential principle of humanity.

It is this that has been at work in the political institutions of this country of late years. Whenever we see a man striving to

10 THE PRINCIPLE OF EEFORM.

effect an improvement in his religious, moral, or material well-being, if we analyze his motives, we shall arrive at, as a last conclusion, that he is doing so in obedience to this desire, this love for perfection. Society is but man in the aggregate, with all his instincts and desires. The motive powers of action are traceable to the same source in both, and in seeking to improve its well-being, a people is but acting under an unpulse that is a first principle common to humanity. To say that reforms have been carried out because they were wanted, or had become absolutely necessary, is but to re-assert what has been above maintained, since that want and that necessity arose from this impulse.

Doubtlessly, there are other, secondary motive powers, as it were, that have operated in this political change, besides that referred to. A disposition to change is a matter of physical habit, a fidgettiness, a nervous affection, with some — though in this sense, perhaps, it is only an undue operation of the principle we speak of. In others, the desire for political alteration is a vanity for imposing their own theories upon society ; in others, a means of thrusting themselves upon the theatre of events ; a standard under which political adventurers, like soldiers of fortune, enlist and fight their way to honour and power. And even by parties, by whole bodies of men, it is not unfrequently held in this mean view. But an abstract truth is not affected by this — that men see it in a false light; nor is the unity, the identity, the absoluteness of truth, destroyed by this — that men worship it through a thousand different shrines. Even religion operates on different men in different ways ; with some it is a fear — with some a hope — with some a veneration for the Omnipotent Being ; with others a mere means of gain, and with not a few a mere vanity — a display. And so, too, with morality — fear of what the world says — dread of what the law may do — conviction that on the whole it is the best policy, and many other such mean motives, are the impulses of its action on many

minds. But for all that, religion and c 2 social morality are not the less true in their general results — neither is political morality. By it all men are led to the same end that is ordained to them, though hy different ways. Even if we grant progress or reform to be a series of operations, originating in and carried out by a series of political combinations of men, with a view to serve their own ends, this will not render it the less, what we have above contended it to be — the natural impulse wliich mankind has to ameliorate his condition. For in so doing, those combinations must have been actuated either by their own innate instinct of love of perfection for that which was best in the institutions of the country ; or else, by a conviction that the public mind was impelled by such an instinct. In either case, it was the desire of man for his well-being which was the moving power.

Besides, the community — the age — has adopted the movement, or has not repudiated it, and so has made it its own ; and, therefore, it can no longer be looked on as only the work of one particular party. And the great steps which humanity has taken in other directions as well as in politics, have all heen commenced by individual exertions, and at first mainly supported by it. And the motive power of these exertions has often been a blind enthusiasm in the mass, a desire of notoriety and a prospect of selfadvancement in an energetic few. It is nothing new in history, for the sublimest results to follow even from the meanest motives. It is well for society that its interests are so mixed up with that of individuals ; else, would those higher and nobler aspirations, which, no doubt, are the ruling power in some minds, flag, and be but little able to contend with the stolidity, inertness, and selfishness which oppress the mass.

The desire of improvement, then, which has manifested itself since the close of the war in the civil institutions of this country, is but a part of the great impulse of all humanity towards improvement. And if this be so, some important results will follow. For, first of all, a new and almost boundless field of observation and experience, as

20 THE PRINCIPLE OF EEFORM.

to it, is at once opened to us. We are no longer limited to a twenty years' trial of it; the whole career of humanity, so far as it is known to us, lies open for our consideration. On the principle that equrJs are equal to equals, all that we know of this principle — such as it existed in the mind of man in the individual, or man in the race, in past time — will be true of it, such as it exists in the body politic at the present.

Again, it follows, that the principle of progress, of reform, or under whatever name it may go, is a right one. For no man who does not hold that the state of mankmd, such as it now is, is not preferable to that when they lived in the woods — or that the institutions of this country are not better now than when trial by ordeal or by battle prevailed — can refuse to admit that the princi[)le of progress is a true one. Even if he did, he must admit that, from its universality, it is a law of human nature, and as such, that it should not, or could not, be gainsaid.

Again, it follows, that it is boundless — endless — in its operation ; that there is no moment of cessation — that its work is never to be done. It may be weakened by the toil it imposes on itself, but never satisfied — never extinguished ; for that which it longs after, lives for, perfection, is never to be enjoyed — never to be realized. Improvement in political well-being, as in other well-being, but leaves us still with desires — with power of discerning further means of satisfying itself — new hopes — greater powers and consciousness of power for achieving them. There may be something enfeebling in the thought, that the desire for political, as all other improvement or reform, is never to be satisfied — something paralyzing to the energies, to think that, achieve what we may, victory is never to be obtained, the day is never to come when we may repose from our work at last. But it is so. It is in our religious, moral, and intellectual well-being — and so in our political. A people lives ; and, whether it advances or retrogrades, it changes ever, and its institutions must change too. And there is no such thing, then, as finality in political science.

Chapter II. The Principle Of Conservatism

But however powerfully the principle of Reform, the tendency to change and alteration, may have been at work among us of late yeai's, it has not been exclusively so. The influence of its antagonistic principle — that of Conservatism — has been immense and as extensive in its operation, at least. There is a Conservatism in tlie sense of a desire to keep existing institutions, but not necessarily as they are -, and a Conservatism as a desire of keeping them as they are — bad or good — without alteration. It is clear that, in both meanings of tlie word, it has deeply penetrated the minds of the people of this country, notwithstanding all the political changes and alterations that have been going on.

That Conservatism, in its most absolute sense — that of opposition to all alteration — has operated on the public mind, is manifest in the slow progress which all propositions for alteration have made with it. Parliamentaiy Reform was a quarter of a centuiy actively and incessantly before the public before it impressed itself upon its belief. The people became indifferent to it duiing the six years next succeeding its being earned into effect.^ It was so with the Catholic Emancipation Act. Four ministries w^ere broken up upon it before it became tolerated, and it is questionable whether it ever was in England — at least before its passing.'' How slowly the Repeal of the Corn Laws made its way in this country, notwithstanding the advocacy it received from the most powerful journal of the day, and the vast exertions that were made by interested parties in it, is still in the recollection of all of us.

* See Note A, in the Appendix. *■ See Note B, in the Appendix.

Yet the truth of those measures, both in wisdom and in justice, is generally granted now, though to the last there is still a strong opposition.