cclivi 



cannot arrest this process of change ; we cannot predict with' certainty 

 the rate at which it will progress or the direction which it will take if 

 left to itself. All that we can do is to endeavour by such means as 

 are at our disposal to guide it in the right direction, to ease off the 

 abruptness of the transition from the old to tho new, from an age of 

 feudalism to an age of industrialism ; to bridge over the gulf between 

 status and contract, to prevent custom from being too violently ousted 

 by competition ; to see that rules based on commercial transactions 

 between hard and keen men of business are not applied to the ignorant 

 and unlettered peasant, when he is unable to understand them or to 

 use them. 



'' Can we afford to stand aside and let things drift, trusting that 

 they may somehow come out right in the end ? Such may be a policy 

 which would commend itself to some of the influential classes in the 

 country, to men of the strong hand and the long purse ; but such is not 

 the policy which the British Government has ever ventured or ever can 

 venture to adopt ; such is not our conception of the duty which we owe 

 to the millions whom Providence has confided to our care. We are 

 responsible for the introduction into this country of forces, which 

 threaten to revolutionize its social and economical system ; we cannot 

 fold our hands and let them work in accordance with nature's blind 

 laws. We must, to the best of our ability, endeavour to regulate and 

 control their operations, and in so doing it is inevitable that we should 

 occasionally interfere in a manner and to an extent which, to those whose 

 institutions have not for long ages undergone the strain imposed by 

 foreign conquest or foreign immigration, may not unnaturally appear 

 difficult to justify or explain. 



" That in so doing we should be charged with ignoring or violating 

 the laws of political economy is a matter of course. We do not violate 

 or ignore those laws ; on the contrary, the whole of our action as a 

 State in legislation of this kind is based on a recognition and appre- 

 ciation of the laws which regulate the production and distribution of 

 wealth, just as the whole of our action as a State in dealing with 

 famine is based on the recognition and appreciation of the laws, so far 

 as they are discoverable, which regulate the occurrence of famines. 

 We do not ignore these laws ; but we proceed on the view that their 

 operation is capable of being modified and controlled by human 

 action. 



" Assuming, then, that interference is justifiable and necessary, 

 what kind of interference is possible and expedient ; what kind of 

 legislation is suitable to the circumstances with which we have to 

 deal ? Must we not admit, are we not always being compelled to 

 admit, that it is a legislation of opportunism ? For a transitional 

 period final legislation is neither appropriate nor possible. What we 

 have to do is to establish a modus vivendi, a working arrangement not 

 merely between conflicting interests but between the customs, habits, 

 ideas and ways of different ages and different forms of civilization. 

 Our legislation must contain much that is in the nature of expedients, 

 adjustments, compromises ; it will inevitably contain provisions which 

 will be to political economists a stumbling block, and to lawyers — I 

 will say even to law-lords — foolishness — but which for all that may 

 be based on good, sound common sense.^' 



