870 REPORT—1896. 
may be free trade in the United Kingdom and free land in the United States, 
but the country is yet to be found in which both are realised, and even if 
both these requisites were attained the sores of social life would not be 
removed unless the spirit of self-reliance were fully developed: and how little has 
been done to secure this essential condition of progress! nay, how much has 
been done by law, and still more by usage, to weaken and destroy its power! 
The Economist of whom I have been speaking may boldly claim that so far as he 
has had a free hand, his promises have been realised; there has been a larger 
population with increased means of subsistence and diminished necessity of toil, a 
people better housed, better fed, better clothed, with fewer relative failures of self- 
support ; and if the teaching which has been partially adopted has brought about 
so much, everything it promised would have been secured had it been fully 
followed. If the teaching had been fully followed? This raises the question 
whether there are inherent difficulties in the nature of man preventing such a con- 
summation, and many will be ready with the answer that such difficulties exist, 
are permanent and cannot be surmounted. As long as human nature is what it is 
—so runs the current phrase—men will not see misery without relieving it, they will 
not wait to inquire into its cause and whether it could have been prevented, and it 
is claimed that this instinct is one of the best attributes of humanity, which we 
should not attempt to eradicate. This kind of reply easily catches the popular ear. 
It seems generous, sympathetic, humane. But it is based on a view of human 
nature being incapable of education which has been and will long be the excuse for 
acquiescence in all imperfections and even iniquity; nor can that be said to be 
truly generous, sympathetic, or humane which refuses to inquire into the possi- 
bility of curing disease, and prefers the selfishness of self-relief to the patient 
endeavour to probe and remove the causes of the sufferings of others. The 
Economist ofthe past generation would, I think, be justified in repudiating with 
warmth the feeble temper which recoils from the strenuousness of endeavouring to 
deal with social evils at their origin, and in reprobating the acceptance as inevi- 
table of vices we take no pains to prevent. This, however, does not conclude the 
whole matter. Even if we did attain the ideal of bringing home to all the members 
of the community the fatal consequences of improvidence and vice, should we find 
improvidence and vice ever narrowing into smaller and smaller circles, or should we 
be confronted with their existence as before, with this difference, that past attempts 
toalleviate their miserable consequences would be discredited and abandoned? I fear 
I must here confess to a somewhat faltering faith. That a vigorous enforcement 
of the penalties of improvidence would diminish it, is a conclusion justitied by 
experience as well as suggested by theory ; but that it and its consequences would not 
still remain gross and palpable facts is a conclusion I have not the courage to gain- 
say. At all events, I cannot refuse to consider the question whether something 
more than the complete freedom of the individual is not necessary for the reforma- 
tion of society, and to examine with an open mind any supplementary or alternative 
proposals that may be made to reach this end. Yet one thing must be said, and 
said with emphasis, of the theory of the Economist. It was a working theory. No 
theory can be accepted even for examination which does not show a working 
organisation of society, and the theory we have had under review has this necessary 
characteristic, even if it does not open up a certain way to a perfect reconstruction 
of our social system. 
It will be conceded by the most fearless and thorough-going advocates of the 
liberty of individual development, that it must be supported by large measures of 
co-operative action. No individual can by any amount of forethought protect himself 
by himself against the chances and accidents of the future. No one can tell beforehand 
what is in store for himself in respect of sickness, or accident, or those changes of cir- 
cumstances which may arise from the default of others ; and mutual aid is necessary 
to meet such contingencies. The freedom and activity of association thus indicated 
are in no way inconsistent with the fullest theory of individual responsibility. Nor 
is there any departure from it in the voluntary combination among themselves of 
persons, individually weak, to supervise and safeguard the economic conditions into 
which they may enter with others relatively stronger. A single workman may be 
