188 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



A REJOINDER TO M. DE LAYELEYE. 



By IIEEBERT SPENCEK. 



THE Editor of the Contemporary Review having kindly allowed 

 me to see a proof of the foregoing article by M. de Laveleye, and 

 having assented to my request that I might be allowed to append a 

 few explanations and comments, in place of a more formal reply in a 

 future number of the Review, I have, in the following pages, set down 

 as much as seems needful to prevent the grave misunderstandings 

 likely to be produced by M. de Laveleye's criticisms, if they are per- 

 mitted to pass unnoticed. 



On the first page of his essay, M. de Laveleye, referring to the 

 effort to establish " greater equality among men " by " appropriating 

 State, or communal, revenues " for that end, writes 



"Mr. Spencer considers that this effort for the improvement of the condition 

 of the working-classes, which is being everywhere made with greater or less 

 energy, is a violation of natural laws, which will not fail to bring its own pun- 

 ishment on nations, thus misguided by a blind philanthropy " (p. 485). 



As this sentence stands, and especially as joined with all which fol- 

 lows, it is calculated to produce the impression that I am opposed to 

 measures " for the improvement of the condition of the working- 

 classes." This is quite untrue, as numerous passages frcam my books 

 would show. Two questions are involved What are the measures ? 

 and What is the agency for carrying them out ? In the first place, 

 there are various measures conducive to " improvement of the condi- 

 tion of the working-classes " which I have always contended, and still 

 contend, devolve on public agencies, general and local above all, an 

 efficient administration of justice, by which they benefit both directly 

 and indirectly an administration such as not simply represses violence 

 and fraud, but promptly brings down a penalty on every one who 

 trespasses against his neighbour, even by a nuisance. While contend- 

 ing for the diminution of State-action of the positively-regulative kind, 

 I have contended for the increase of State-action of the negatively- 

 regulative kind that kind which restrains the activities of citizens 

 within the limits imposed by the existence of other citizens who have 

 like claims to carry on their activities. I have shown that " malad- 

 ministration of justice raises, very considerably, the cost of living for 

 all ; " * and is, therefore, felt especially by the working-classes, whose 

 state is most closely dependent on the cost of living. As one of the 

 evils of over-legislation, I have, from the beginning, urged that, while 

 multitudinous other questions absorb public attention, the justice- 

 question gets scarcely any attention ; and social life is everywhere 



* " Study of Sociology," p. 415, postscript in library edition. 



