486 History of the English Landed Interest. 



and UD selfish sentiment. But Mill found no room for sucli 

 a relationship in the altered feelings of society. For human 

 beings of ordinary strength and courage to glow with the 

 warmest gratitude and devotion in return for protection, was 

 to him unnatui'al and mean-spirited. " The laws protect, and, 

 where laws do not reach, manners and opinion shield them." 

 Mill saw, therefore, in the paternal system of government 

 merely an excuse to oppress ; and, though in mediaeval times 

 the protection of a superior might be the only condition of 

 safety, in these latter days to be in some one else's power was 

 tantamount to being exposed to grievous wrong. He imagined, 

 too, that the working-classes of Western Europe were gi'owing 

 opposed to the system of hiring and service, that the days of 

 the hewers of wood and drawers of water were numbered, and 

 that the labour interest had become powerful and intelligent 

 enough to demand as a right, what it formerly had to seek 

 as an indulgence. Mill, therefore, wanted to see the lot of the 

 poor, in all things which affected them collectively, regulated 

 hy rather than for them, and in order to prepare their in- 

 telligence for this change of State policy he was a strong 

 advocate for facilitating their better education.^ 



Turning to the more practical side of the problem, we 

 find Mill enunciating the thesis that the prosperity of the 

 labouring class depends upon the proportion between the 

 remuneration of the workman and the prices of his necessaries. 

 Wages themselves are regulated by the demand for and supply 

 of labour ; in other words, they rise or fall according to the 

 proportion between the population of the labouring class, and 

 the supply of circulating capital. The condition, therefore, of 

 the class can be bettered in no other way than by altering 

 that proportion to their advantage. Causes consequently that 

 tend unduly, either to increase or diminish the labouring popu- 

 lation, are worthy of careful consideration. In Ireland, for 

 example, the potato famine, having increased the death rate, 

 had reduced the ranks of the labour party. In England, Pitt's 

 Poor Law, having encouraged improvident marriages, had had 

 an opposite tendency. 



* Principles of Political Economy, vol. ii. bk. iv. cli. 7. 



