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dissipation . Some very sound remarks on this subject will be found in a letter signed " Alick" in to-day ' s " Open Council . "
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THE DRENGTJS AT PLAY . The trial of Lord Brougham ' s " illegal netting dispute" is like a story from " The World Turned upside down . " Law is altogether inverted : the great lawyers appear as outlaws , and final justice is arrived at by a striking abnegation of law . The best of the story is der ived from the evidence of Mr . William Brougham , who makes a clean breast of it , with a naivete the most engaging . He , a Master in Chancery , was party to a proceeding in which the principal actors were charged with using a net illegal in the smallness of its meshes .
" The object was , " he said , "to go down and draw the river with a net of a peculiar construction ; " and he describes " the double-armoured net" as if he had a faith that the mere nature of the tool established the innocency of the proceeding , or that the " peculiarity" warranted the peculiarity of the expedition . But they , that is Mr . William Brougham , Master in Chancery , and Lord Brougham , ex-Chancellor and sometimes sole
representative of the Peers sitting on Appeals—these two dignitaries of the law went to try whether the act of dragging the river with such a net " was illegal or not . " Imagine an ex-Chancellor provoked to active investigation under particular statutes , thus ascertaining , personally and experimentally , whether certain acts are " legal or not . " This is the '' pursuit of knowledge under difficulties " carried to its utmost verge .
But the Alexander of Useful Knowledge has a wider field before him than the Macedonian when he wept at finding that he had come to " the beginning of the end . " Lord Brougham may earn endless laurels in that field . To test the popular notion that a shopkeeper in a London thoroughfare cannot claim , for each window broken , more than three shillings and sixpence , Lord Brougham may poke his finger through innumerable window panes . Some time since a young gentleman was arrested for snatching from a young lady that
walked with him through the thoroughfare of St . James ' s-park , at night—they were personal friends —a transient kiss , as the forfeit of some idle defiance of the moment : Lord Brougham may kiss a given number of girls between St . James ' s and Buckingham Palace , to try whether such proceedings are " legal or not . " He might drive with Master Brougham all the way down the Strand on the wrong side ; purchase a large apple-basket and take his stand in the middle of 'Change-alley ; sit
astride of the Bude light in Waterloo-place ; play at hoop on the terrace of Somerset-house j " take a sight" at the Queen ' s Majesty as she drives down Constitution-hill j empty the pockets of the first gentleman he follows in Piccadilly ; or bathe in the fountains of Trafalgar-square;—all of which steps would bring some important legal questions to a practical issue , and would add signall y to Lord Brougham ' s personal efforts for the elucidation of truth . We need not specify the practical shape which truth would take in such issues .
Mr . William Brougham seems to have an idea that the freedom of the subject is tolerably extensive ; and he has some strange notions as to the basis of English law . He thinks that a logical necessity must establish a technical legality : — " Their notion was , " he said , " that thev had an undoubted right to go down the Cumberland side , in order to fish the Westmoreland side . He could hardly believe it possible there could have been any objection to that , because , if persisted in , the river would be perfectly useless to both parties , as it was impossible to fish with a net in one part of the river without going over to the other ; a draught could not be made by taking half a river only . "
So that Mr . William Brougham supposes the logical expediency of acoiirse to justify it in the eye of the law ! As , for instance , if it were the shortest way from one place to another across the grounds of Brougham Hall , that path would be open to anybody on the principles of primaeval reason . If the hungry passenger should chance to see a tempting fruit , he would have a right to vault the fence and shake the tree ; otherwise , how is it possible that he could satiate his appetite ? We are forgetting that Master William is not at all a common lawyer , but a judge in equity , —in that branch which gives its judgment , not on technical grounds , but on natural justice and absolute equity ; called the Equity Law from that fact . Embued with that wisdom , and having , it seems , a very hermit-like sense of common law , the two
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JUSTICE TO INDUSTRY . The tenant-farmers of Shropshire have formed themselves into an association " for securing and maintaining justice to British industry ; " and their first step has been to issue an address to the landowners of Great Britain , in which they call upon that very unhappy class of persons "to assume their proper place in preparing for the coming struggle . " "When will farmers learn commonsense ? Are they really simple enough to believe that the landowners will ever engage in a " struggle " of any kind so long as rents do not fall much below
their present amount ? If the farmers want to obtain substantial justice to industry , they must adopt a course very different from that which they have hitherto pursued . Above all things , they must put a stop to that practice of engrossing farms , throwing two or three into one , which has been gradually going on till the number of the farms in England has been reduced to little more than one-third of what it was a hundred years ago . The consequence is , that there are twenty or thirty
competitors for every -vacant farm , and that rents are now 200 per cent , above what they were in 1750 . Why should landlords seek to make any change in an industrial system which has worked so profitably for them ? Their policy is to remain quiet . If the farmers are resolved to improve their condition they must form a union among themselves for their own benefit . How can they expect that the landlords will heartily join them in any movement that would provoke enquiry into the rent question ?
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SOCIAL REFORM . EPISTOLJH OBSCURORUM VIRORUM . X . —Capital . Sept . 26 , 1850 . I know , my dear Erasmus , that you are not a mere free trader , and , as you say , that you " would not be satisfied with the freest trade . " I perfectly understand your position on this point , and address myself to you , not as an antagonist , but as one of a vast class , including some of the first intellects of our day and country , that stand on the verge of
Communism without having entered into that doctrine , because they have not yet seen its principle . They have been too pertinaciously required to look at systems . Communists , too , of every sect have , with too much subjection to a sentiment , ignored both the truth and the language of political ceconomy j of which , however , the material portion of Communism forms an important element . We
want a new chapter in political ceconomy , somewhat more thorough than the pages which John Mill has as yet given to us . I do not agree with you that it requires " long years for the solution , " because I believe that as soon as we see the principle , we may at once understand it , at once begin to make a practical improvement in the organization of industry . But to that question I shall come in one of these letters not far distant .
Meanwhile , we are talking of trade and some of its social incidents . One friend tells me that I am unjust , because I do not declare the merits of trade : but I am not rewriting Adam Smith : I am only touching upon some incidents commonly overlooked . Another tells me , that in my last letter I am too " abstract "—which means , of course , too far away removed from the practical business of daily life : but I am trying ) to account for the mode
in which some immense evil produces deplorable wounds over all the body of society , wounds , alas ! are not abstract at all . I am trying to find out why so many of the middle class toil to escape sinking into poverty ; why so many of the industrious feed ill , clothe ill , live in bad houses , pass their days in bad workshops , and count it a privilege
to do all these things , the other alternatives being a prison or the workhouse . Have we grown so selfish or so effeminate that we cannot fasten our attention for a few minutes on an explanation of causes that produce effects like these ? Indeed , I do not believe that we have , as yet , quite come to that pass .
The deadly errors to which trade is liable are not to be clearly and thoroughly understood without we understand the nature and operations of Capital . What is Capital ? It is that part of produce which , being more than is needed to supply the immediate wants of persons engaged in its production , is stored for future use : it may consist of food and other necessaries of life , tools , or exchangeable goods . As long as that store of
" stock" is unconsumed , the industry which would be necessary to go on producing the same things , is free to produce other things ; and hence it is rightly said that the accumulation of capital is the first step towards extensive improvement in industry ; which improvement , again , setting industry still more free , leads to the still more rapid and extensive accumulation of capital ; and so the reaction goes on , reciprocally , until it makes such countries as England .
The gratitude of " a shopkeeping nation" has been excessive , and has blinded us to some terrible incidents of this great power . We worship the idol with gaze so fixed that we do not see the victims , though they strew the ground about us . It is capital which enables trade to create such classes as needlewomen . Capital gives wealth and luxury ; it purchases the respect of mankind ; it shall bring around a Hudson hosts of men
distinguished by the highest titles and offices in the State , very few of whom would seek the homely abode of an Ariosto or a Correggio . It brings men into the most powerful Chamber of the Legislature by direct purchase ; it buys up whole branches of traffic ; it sets the remuneration of industry ; it consigns the plans of towns , street by street , to common ' builders , " and does a vast number of things that intimately concern the comfort , moral condition , the very life of human beings , in countless numbers .
(^ Economists tel l you that it is absolutely good , so that we cannot have too much of it . Some heretical ceconomists , like Chalmers and Wakefield , a growing school , tell you that it may be " redundant" in proportion to population or land , or both , and then it produces respectively * ' intense competition" in the labour market or the land market ; of which competition I will speak hereafter . I am now considering the most direct and absolute mischief caused b y capital in what are esteemed its legitimate operations .
Capital is by its nature transferable wealth , able to be directed upon any employment of industry . I have already shown you that industry , debarred for the most part from direct employment on the occupations of primary and vital necessity , has no guide to the expediency of any occupation except * ' the higgling of the market ; " in the wealthy market those occupations " pay" best which most minister in some way to luxurv . Hence industry is quite guideless , except that it seeks the highest wages ; and thus it is the readiest slave of luxury ; a liberal but a precarious paymaster , shrinking at
every rough breeze , and leaving the slaves , as Don Juan leaves his servant , to endure the wind and the rain . Often tempted , often baffled , often disappointed , industry ends by being simply guideless , ready for the first offer . In many cases , " division of employments" sets the employment of possessing capital free from that of actively using it , the possessor merely asking a fee in return . Hence capital blindly lent , on the bait of promised profit , is ever ready for the employment of
industry , as blindly lent on promise of wages . But trade is not infallible : it makes mistakes ; it enters , for example , into huge speculations for the American markets , and finds that it has filled those markets long before the factories in Glasgow and Manchester , in Sheffield and Birmingham , have worked up the orders which trade has given : there is a glut—masters work " short time , " make no profits , look grave and alarmed , and live upon their savings ; workmen are out of work , and live
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brothers wander forth to fish in the waters of nature , and walk on either bank of God ' s earth , Sir George Musgrave and certain statutes notwithstanding . For they rely , like Voltaire ' Huron , on their own immaculate virtues , on justice , and necessity . So unspoiled is human nature by the commerce of the equity law ! They proved , however , too good for this earth ; and , as often happens to persons who are too good for practical life , their virtuous proceedings were cut short by triumphant violence . Such is the victory of wickedness !
The Magistrates—who are only common lawyers —were fain to get at justice by a very curious device—by a sort of circumvention : they induced both sides to withdraw then : charges , and they themselves " refrained from giving judgment on the case in question . " This is an admirable example ! How often justice would be best served if the judge " abstained from giving judgment in the case , " and if , under that judicial forbearance , the litigants were to repent even at the twelfth hour , and were simply to leave the court .
Having got up this little drama in useful knowledge , Lord Brougham returned to the calculus and other light amusements , including Law Reform ; which , perhaps , might be made to include obedience to the law ?
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Sept . 28 , 1850 . ] 1 £ f ) $ & *« & **? 637
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 28, 1850, page 637, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1854/page/13/
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