442 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



shops Act, commanding inspection of white-lead works and bake- 

 houses, regulating times of employment in both, and prescribing in 

 detail some constructions for the last, which are to be kept in a con- 

 dition satisfactory to the inspectors. 



But we are far from forming an adequate conception if we look 

 only at the compulsory legislation which has actually been established 

 of late years. We must look also at that which is advocated, and 

 which threatens to be far more sweeping in range and stringent in 

 character. We have lately had a cabinet minister, one of the most 

 advanced Liberals, so called, who pooh-poohs the plans of the late Gov- 

 ernment for improving industrial dwellings as so much " tinkering " ; 

 and contends for effectual coercion to be exercised over owners of 

 small houses, over land-owners, and over rate-payers. Here is another 

 cabinet minister who, addressing his constituents, speaks slightingly of 

 the doings of philanthropic societies and religious bodies to help the 

 poor, and (apparently ignoring the Poor Law) says that " the whole of 

 the people of this country ought to look upon this work as being their 

 own work " ; that is to say, some wholesale government measure is 

 called for. Here, again, is a radical member of Parliament, who leads 

 a large and powerful body, aiming, with annually-increasing promise 

 of success, to enforce sobriety by giving to local majorities power to 

 prevent freedom of exchange in respect of certain commodities. There 

 is a rising demand, too, that education shall be made gratis for all : the 

 payment of school-fees is beginning to be denounced as a wrong — the 

 state must take the whole burden. Moreover, it is proposed by many 

 that the state, regarded as an undoubtedly competent judge of what 

 constitutes good education for the poor, shall undertake also to pre- 

 scribe good education for the middle classes — shall stamp the children 

 of these, too, after a state pattern, concerning the goodness of which 

 they have no more doubt than the Chinese had when they fixed theirs. 

 Then there is the " endowment of research," of late energetically urged. 

 Already the Government gives every year the sum of many thousand 

 pounds for this purpose, to be distributed through the Royal Society ; 

 and, in the absence of those who have much interest in resisting, the 

 pressure of the interested, backed by those they easily persuade, may 

 by-and-by establish that paid " priesthood of science " long ago advo- 

 cated by Sir David Brewster. Once more, plausible proposals are made 

 that there should be organized a system of compulsory insurance, by 

 which men during their early lives shall be forced to provide for the 

 time when they will be incapacitated. 



Nor does enumeration of these further measures of coercive rule, 

 looming upon us near at hand or in the distance, complete the ac- 

 count. Nothing more than cursory allusion has yet been made to that 

 accompanying compulsion which takes the form of increased taxation, 

 general and local. Partly for defraying the costs of carrying out 

 those ever-multiplying coercive measures, each of which requires an 



