INDIVIDUALISM VERSUS COLLECTIVISM. 215 



INDIVIDUALISM VERSUS COLLECTIVISM.* 



By THE Eight Hon. LEONARD COURTNEY, M. P. 



BY the beginning of the present reign the study of political 

 economy in this country had worked itself free from earlier 

 errors, and it had come to be believed that the secret of social re- 

 generation lay in the utmost allowance of freedom of action to 

 every individual of the community, so far at least as that action 

 affected himself, coupled with the most complete development of 

 the principle of self-reliance, so as to bring home to every mem- 

 ber, freed from legal restraint on his liberty of action, the moral 

 responsibility of self-support and of discharging the duties, pres- 

 ent and to come, of his special position. Such was the theory 

 more or less openly expressed by economic thinkers when the 

 British Association was founded, and the same theory lay at the 

 base of Jevons's address in 1870. Can we hold it now or must it 

 be recast ? Since 1870 primary education has practically been 

 made gratuitous. The legislature had an opportunity for abol- 

 ishing the mischief of doles, but showed no inclination to make 

 use of it, and there were even traces of a feeling of favor for the 

 maintenance of these bequests of the past. The indiscriminate 

 multiplication of so-called charitable institutions has in no way 

 been reformed, and there is as great activity as ever in the zeal of 

 those who would mitigate or relieve the effects of improvidence 

 without touching improvidence itself. Codes of regulations have 

 been framed for the supervision of the conduct of special indus- 

 tries, and their sphere has been extended so as to embrace at no 

 distant period, if not now, the whole industrial community. The 

 reformed Poor Law, which was regarded as a great step in the 

 education of the workman, especially of the agricultural laborer, 

 in independence, stands again upon its trial, and proposals are at 

 least in the air for assuring to the aged poor a miniviutn measure 

 of support without any regard to the circumstances of their past 

 lives or to the inevitableness of their condition. The suggestions 

 made by responsible statesmen have indeed been more limited and 

 cautious, but it will be acknowledged of those, as of the German 

 system, from which they may be said to be in some measure bor- 

 rowed, that they involve a great departure from the ideal of indi- 

 vidual development. Add to this that there is a movement, which 

 has become practical in many large cities and towns, for the com- 

 munity itself to engross some forms of industrial activity and to 

 undertake in respect of them to meet the wants of their inhabitants. 



* From the presidential address before Section F, Economic Science and Statistics, of 

 the British Association for the Advancement of Science. 



