able to purchase the greatest possible amount of the products of nature and art at the lowest possible price, disapprove of the existence of gentlemen; and if they must exist they had better (say these theorists) reside in towns, for, according to this view, a resident country gentry inculcate idleness, and keep a crowd of retainers and half-employed dependants, while a large portion of their land is given up to parks, and game-preserves, and hunting grounds; whereas if all the gentry are agglomerated in the capital, the number of their retainers kept in unproductive idleness is less, and their money goes to support industrious artisans, who manufacture silks, and carpets, and knicknacks, while their estates are managed by agents, who extract much more rent from the tenants, and consequently compel the latter to produce more from the ground wherewith to pay it. The state of society which ought to-I know not whether it does excite the most admiration from this school is the state of society in France. There are, comparatively speaking, no great country mansions which would lie waste while the owners are at Paris, and the Parisian plutocrats spend their money in the purchase of articles of luxury and show, the production of which is by economists supposed to contribute to the national wealth. There is no class of gentry gathering round them local interests and sympathies. The Parisian plutocrat, whatever may have been the protective policy of his government. has never been personally particular as to the place whence his luxuries come, nor is he particular as to the persons upon whom his money is lavished ; while scarce any of the surface of France is devoted to parks, pleasure grounds, or game preserves. Probably the economist would rather see the plutocrats of Spain spend their lives as they do in the costly idleness of the capital, than upon their estates; though his satisfaction with Spanish society can hardly be so great as with French, since in Spain the possession of domains by the nobles, though they never inhabit them, takes so much land out of cultivation. "The Madrid life of the grandees," said one who was not an economist, but possessed an intimate acquaintance with that country, "is truly deplorable; they herd amongst each other, and yet unsocially; they are mere funnels of expense. They waste their ill-paid revenues in tasteless gaspillage, without order, show, elegance, luxury, or common hospitality; they are ruined by their establishments of servants who live under their roofs - the expensive clientela of Rome without the support. Their huge, uncomfortable, ill-furnished houses are whitened sepulchres, wherein all that enters is consumed in unseemly corruption. Meanwhile their uncultivated domains, decaying hamlets, povertystricken tenantry, dismantled castles, treeless parks, and weed-encumbered gardens, demonstrate the effects of a constant absenteeism, and the complete annihilation of the wholesome relation of landlord and tenant. These are the effects of absenteeism in Spain." These are, then, the two opposite currents running through national society the one extreme conspicuous in most feudal ages, the other conspicuous in the late ages of plutocracy; which latter, as has been sufficiently noted, are the ages when political economy is most in vogue. Each has its school of statesmen- the former, Raleigh, and all our old English statesmen; the latter, Mr. M'Culloch, and those who, throwing overboard sentiment and emotion, pursue reason and calculation exclusively, and, in short, worship Mammon scientifically. Now English society as in fact does, more or less, the society of every nation in its acme- combines these two opposite cur"An English gentleman who lives on his estate," says Archbishop Whately, "is considered as a public benefactor, not only by exerting himself, if he does so, in promoting sound religion, and pure morality, and useful rents. * Annotations to Bacon's Essays, p. 358. knowledge in his neighbourhood, but also because his income is spent in furnishing employment to his neighbours as domestics, and bakers, and carpenters, &c." So far he obtains the approval of the Raleigh school, but the Archbishop seems to approve him as much, if not more, when he lives where it best pleases him, and buys the goods which best suit him. "If he removes and resides in France, his income is, in fact, spent on English cutlers and clothiers, since it is their products that are exported to France, and virtually exchanged - though in a slightly circuitous way for the services of French domestics, bakers, and carpenters. But the Sheffield cutlers are not aware even of his existence, while the neighbours of the resident proprietor trace distinctly to him the profits they derive from him." As the English gentleman is a cross between the feudal seigneur and the city plutocrat, and in his mode of life reconciles these two opposite currents of sentiment and calculation, keeping a country estate and spreading, so far as he can, happiness and prosperity around him, and cultivating influence and position among his neighbours, at the same time not objecting to sell and buy many of his wares in the cheapest market; so English statesmanship at the present day is the result of the same fusion; for the current of sentiment, if I may so call it, prevails in the days of aristocracy, and gives its character to aristocratic statesmen, who rule in the youth of nations. It prevailed in the early days of English history, and is now attempered with the political economy and sentiment-hating expediency of plutocracy. The statesmen of aristocracy are usually themselves aristocrats. At first these are mere rude chieftains, full of poetry and sentiment and bravery, but too unreflecting to deserve to be called statesmen; as they become settled and more refined, the character of military chieftainship is succeeded by that of resident patrons. A true country aristocracy can have no other character but this. There are two or three other characteristics belonging to aristocratic statesmanship, which in great part result from this character of aristocracy. In the first place, the conclave of feudal lords rules for the nation as each rules for his barony and his tenantry, not confining themselves to mere matters of police, litigation, or taxation, but regulating the morals and the life of the people. The wish of the baron, when he is not so great a tyrant as to provoke opposition, is law in his territory, and the wishes of the combined barons are law throughout the country. The first wish of such rulers in a sound and healthy nation is to have a happy and well-to-do populace; and for the gratification of this wish, having little reliance on the spontaneous efforts of the tenantry, they carry their legislation into such matters* that, though not felt so by the people of those ages, it to us appears meddlesome, interfering, and oppressive. The means which they take may be, and political economy has in later ages demonstrated that they are, mistaken and prejudicial; but the ends which they design to accomplish are good, and the subjects, knowing the ends to be good, and not seeing the error of the means, so far from writhing under this legislation, look upon its authors as the wise fathers of the people. Lord Bacon, like all the public men of his time, was a statesman of this school. His Essays inculcate the duty of sumptuary laws, restrictive of waste and excess laws to regulate the improvement and husbandry of the soil, the prices of the markets, and the interest that money should bear. Men were not then permitted to do what they would with their own. Manufacturers could not drive down the wages of their workmen, nor could the landowner refuse to keep, in sickness and in sorrow, the * Observe the attempt of this aristocratic legislation to check the growth of London. Clarendon, Hist. of the Rebellion, ii. 151. Essay on Seditions and Troubles. peasant who supplied his lordly state, nor turn, at his pleasure, his own arable into pasture land; for so the country became depopulated of the "bold peasantry, a country's pride." In return, the peasant could not change his landlord so readily, nor move from place to place, and let himself out to whom he would, with the freedom of the nineteenth century." So in the aristocracies of antiquity. The wise old men enacted rigid laws, which ruled the daily life of the people. They, residing in a camp-like town, partook more of the character of military chieftains than of independent barons; but the spirit of their legislation was the same : to provide, above all things, for the good order of the state, and the well-being of the populace; and to accomplish that end, they did not scruple to impose what would now be considered an intolerable shackle upon the occupations of the people. We have all heard of the strict laws of Lycurgus, which laid down for every man the employment of every day. In Athens the rigour was less, but the principle the same. By the laws of Solon the Athenians were bound to cultivate gymnastic exercises at stated periods; and they obeyed without reluctance as long as their government was aristocratic; but when they became democratic, these exercises were neglected, and every man did as he pleased.† According to the views of Englishmen of the present age, this characteristic of aristocratic statesmanship amounts to overgoverning; and this would seem to possess one of the faults of despotic functionarism; but there is a radical difference between the overgoverning of an early aristocracy and that of a late despotism. The former is the overgoverning of a too-zealous landlord, wishing to improve vigorously his estate, and promote the wellbeing of those upon it, but not too well informed as to * See Froude's History of England, i. 80, 272, 406. |