188 



22*9 per 1,000 in rural parts, while the rate in such a large 

 city as London is only 21 per mille. High as the mortality 

 is in this country, there is little doubt that it is much lower 

 than what it was formerly. Surgeon-General Sir W. J. 

 Moore, in his address, read before the Congress of Hygiene 

 and Demography, held recently in London, pointed out that 

 death-rate in the army in India had been reduced from 69 

 to less than 14 per 1,000; European residents were so healthy 

 that the best insurance offices were willing to issue policies 

 to them without exacting extra premium, and, although the 

 system of registration was still defective, the official reports 

 of recent years showed that the average death-rates among 

 the native population had decreased in a few years from 35 

 or more to 26*67 per 1,000; many diseases were diminishing, 

 some had been extirpated. Even in the town of Madras 

 where the high mortality in recent years has attracted 

 public attention, elephantiasis, a loathsome disease which 

 was once very prevalent, has now gone out almost completely. 

 There is still a great deal to be done by means of greater 



effects of periodical drought ; which afford rapid and cheap passage to the products of 

 inland districts. And as the productive power of the country increased under such an 

 administration, we can imagine the high-minded ruler, intent on his benevolent object, 

 still drawing away from the people, by taxation, all the surplus above the necessary 

 cost of subsistence for the present population, which might otherwise be applied to the 

 increase of population, and with the means thus acquired, providing capital in its 

 various forms for the use of the frugal and temperate, perfecting communications, 

 protecting the health and lives of his subjects by sanitary arrangements, and, at last, 

 undertaking the elementary education of the whole body of the people. 



" A.11 this, it is clear, an absolute ruler of the character indicated might do for his 

 people ; and not a little of this many a benevolent and able ruler has done for his people. 

 ' The forced frugality,' to use Bentham's phrase, which his taxes have imposed, has at 

 once repressed population and stimulated industry among the existing body of labourers. 

 His wise expenditure upon public works, and in public education has sown the ceed 

 from which has sprung many a golden harvest. 



" But while we see, thus, what an ideal monarch might do for a people indolent, 

 unambitious, sensual, by applying a portion of the wealth they created to ends more 

 useful, elevating and satisfying, than their individual tastes and appetites would have 

 selected, we are forced also to remember how a large part of the wealth raised by taxation 

 has, in all ages, been spent in war, pomp and folly ; how strong is the tendency to extra- 

 vagance and even to corruption in Government expenditure ; how much of what the 

 people pay the treasury does not receive ; how much of what the treasury disburses does 

 not reach its intended object. These considerations are strong enough to justify in a 

 large degree, if not wholly, that unwillingness to entrust to Government, the consumption 

 of the wealth of the community, much beyond what is necessary to secure domestic 

 tranquillity and the administration of justice between man and man, which is so 

 peculiarly American. 



" Yet it is possible that this feeling may be carried too far. Vfhen one contrast* 

 the highways, the bridges, the streets, the harbours, the breakwaters, the light-houses, 

 and other aids to transportation and commerce, which Government provides, with the 

 best that could be reasonably looked for from individual or associated effort, without 

 the taxing power ; when one contrasts our system of public education with the best 

 that voluntary contributions or private munificence ever supplied ; when one contrasts 

 the sanitary arrangement for supplying pure air and pure water to our crowded cities 

 with the condition of things which exists where these matters are left to un-oflScial 

 action ; he wiU find occasion to qualify in no small degree his assent to the proposition 

 that, under a "veil ordered constitution. Government is only a police man, to keep people 

 from breaking each others heads or picking each others pockets." 



