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TRANSACTIONS OF SECTION F. 869 
Legislature had an opportunity for abolishing the mischief of doles, but showed no 
inclination to make use of it, and there were even traces of a feeling of favour for 
the maintenance of these bequests of the past. The indiscriminate multiplication 
of so-called charitable institutions has in no way been reformed, and there is as 
great activity as ever in the zeal of those who would mitigate or relieve the effects 
of improvidence without touching improvidence itself. As far as the course of 
legislation is concerned, it may be feared that it has been directed to diminish 
rather than to increase the spirit of self-reliance. Codes of regulations have been 
framed for the supervision of the conduct of special industries, and their sphere 
has been extended so as to embrace at no distant period, if not now, the whole 
industrial community. The reformed Poor Law, which was regarded as a great 
step in the education of the workman, especially of the agricultura! labourer, in 
independence, stands again upon its trial, and proposals are at least in the air for 
assuring to the aged poor a minimum measure of support without any regard to 
the circumstances of their past lives, or to the inevitableness of their condition. 
The suggestions made by responsible statesmen have indeed been more limited and 
cautious, but it will be acknowledged of those, as of the German system, from which 
they may be said to be in some measure borrowed, that they involve a great depar- 
ture from that ideal of individual development to which I have referred. Add to this 
that there isa movement, which has become practical in many large cities and towns, 
for the community itself to engross some forms of industrial activity, and to under- 
take in respect of them to meet the wants of their inhabitants. All these develop- 
ments and more may be summed up as illustrations of Collectivity—an ideal 
which has its advocates and professors, and which looks in the future for regulated 
civic and national monopolies instead of unrestricted freedom of individual 
activity, and for the supervision and control of those industries which may 
yemain unabsorbed by state or town. In pursuit of this last conception there 
have been put forward not: only requirements as to hours and conditions of 
labour, but a demand also for a Living Wage or a minimum, below which no 
workman shall be paid; and this principle has been already adopted by some muni- 
cipalities in respect of their monopolised industries. The State itself indeed has, 
through the popular branch of the legislature, declared more or less clearly in 
favour of the same principle in respect of the industries which are conducted in 
its service. 
We have not only to acknowledge the coutinued slowness of politicians to 
adopt and enforce the teaching of Economists such as Jevons contemplated, but 
also the rise of another school of Economic thought which competes for, and in 
some measure successfully obtains, the attention of the makers of laws. The 
question which has already been suggested thus becomes inevitable. We must 
inquire whether the failure of former teaching has not been due to errors in itself 
rather than to the indocility of those who have neglected it. 
The greatest difficulty which the teachers of the past have to overcome when 
put upon their self-defence lies in the suspicion, or more than suspicion, of an 
occupied multitude that their promises have failed. It is thought of them, if it 
is not openly said, that they had the ear of legislators for a generation, that the 
course and conduct of successive administrations were governed by their principles, 
and yet society, as we know it, presents much the same features, and the lifting up 
of the poor out of the mire is as much as ever a promise of the future. Some 
quicker method of introducing a new order is called for, and any scheme offering 
an assurance of it is welcomed. A ready answer can be given to much of the 
suspicion of failure that is entertained. That freedom of industrial action, which 
is the first postulate of the Economists, has never been secured. We are so much 
accustomed to the conditions of our own life that this declaration may seem 
strange to many, who will say that at least in England labour and trade are free ; 
but it must be admitted, on reflection, that in one great sphere of action the liberty 
so postulated has, for good or bad reasons, never been conceded. The limitations 
and restrictions necessarily consequent upon the system of land laws established 
among us are not commonly understood, but although much has been done to libe- 
rate agriculture from their fetters, its perfect freedom has not been attained. There 
