Those persons who are unaccustomed to consider the great effects which flow from a continuous action of small causes, are too liable to suppose that a large result can only be obtained by a violent and immediate action. They suppose that only some mighty impulse can change the face of affairs; they pray that the mountains be rent, and look to the earthquake and the tempest, not thinking that it is the still small voice that really directs. They forget that it is the humble earthworms that plough the land, and the invisible bacteria that destroy nations and alter the face of politics. Ignoring the far-reaching after-effects of action, men are led to over-do all the changes which they attempt to carry out by direct and immediate means. This is like a child who asks to have its hand cut off because its finger aches. The bad effect of sudden and violent changes may best be observed in our own history. The great changes of the Civil War left England without any checks on the violence of parties. The King and Lords had been abolished, and the Commons ruled alone. The fierce factions of the Presbyterians and Independents would have wrecked the country, had not a ruler come forward far more arbitrary than the In France the same effect was seen. The Revolution probably caused more bloodshed and more personal misery in ten years, than the old rÉgime had done in a century. England has paid twenty-five millions a year for a century past as interest on the debt incurred for crushing Napoleon. Another result should be noted with care. A great popular ferment with a diminution of constitutional control, must result in establishing a military despotism as the lesser evil for the country. Caesar, Aurelian, Cromwell, Napoleon, all arose from the popular party, as the necessary substitutes, by arbitrary action, for the constitutionalism which had been abolished. In the place of the legally regulated courses, more or less unsuitable and corrupted, it proved absolutely necessary when they were abolished to have some other supreme authority with power to enforce obedience. We are not concerned at this point to consider the relative right or wrong of the various parties just mentioned; that has nothing to do with the matter. The lesson is that a violent and rapid change of constitution leads to worse evils than those which it is sought to remedy. Every existing order of things, however imperfect or bad, must have a certain balance of parts or it could not continue. And when that The phrase therefore of a "radical reform," or briefly "radicalism," is in defiance of natural science and of historical experience; it denies the principle of gradual evolution in the development of institutions and of character. A small amount of experience of different types is enough to show its fallacy, for radicals say that "travelling abroad always spoils a good radical." In order to avoid violent change it is needful to allow free scope for gradual change. The greatest catastrophes may be caused by the accumulation of small forces; when a tiny stream becomes dammed by a landslip it may form a lake, which in bursting will devastate a whole valley. So when the gradual movement of a people is checked, and an artificial condition is enforced by laws, the breaking down of such restrictions will cause wholesale disaster. Had the Romans allowed free immigration of Gothic settlers there would never have been the Gothic conquest of Italy. Were the Californians and Australians to allow a free immigration of Japanese, under fair and equal laws, they would not have to fear a squadron demanding justice in their ports. The necessity of violent changes is therefore always the fault of those who prevent gradual changes to fit new conditions. If the House of Commons tries again It is therefore needful to leave the way open for gradual changes. In every new law, the changes of circumstance which are likely to arise should be anticipated, by leaving the way open for them to begin to act gently and gradually. The principle of fixed fines (based on income tax), regardless of any reflection on character, for various infractions of a civil law (or even of some criminal laws) should be always open, so that, as necessities arise, the prevalence of such fines would call attention to the need of some We will now turn to observe the far-reaching actual and probable effects of various laws, which at first might seem quite inadequate to cause such changes. Some years have passed since the graduation of death-duties, and we can begin to see the effects. The simple action of a tax, without any compulsion, has produced a profound change in a family system which centuries or thousands of years had left unaltered. The notorious clinging to power and money among the aged, has given way before the screw of the State. The custom which left the control of large estates to men generally between fifty and eighty years of age, and hampered their development by the dying hand, has largely yielded to the Indian custom, of the division of property among sons on their marriage or entry on public life. It is becoming habitual for a father to establish his sons with the family property, Not only is this a great social change, with far-reaching consequences in the management of property, but it will also act in other lines. When a man deals with his property in the unchecked privacy of a will, he can neglect the pressure of personality of his children in favour of the sentiment of leaving a powerful family name in perpetuity. But primogeniture must more or less succumb before the obvious personal claims of those who are joining in the daily life. It requires not only a flinty heart but also a brazen face, to leave younger sons penniless when personally distributing the means of ensuring the happiness and the amenities of life. Hence it is probable that estates will be much more sub-divided, and sons encouraged to continue to live on corners of the paternal acres. In short it will be a step toward the French infinitesimal splitting of property. This again will act in a fundamental manner on our colonising ability. Primogeniture has made us a colonising race; no system is so perfect for ensuring a supply of fit colonists. When each wealthy house in the land Another change is also seen resulting from these duties. England, more than other lands, was rich in private treasure houses of precious things—pictures, statuary, libraries, and other collections. These represented a large amount of capital locked up, but it yielded a rich interest in the home education of the upper classes, in redeeming them from the dull, unimaginative, coarse, or sordid lives of wealthy classes in some other lands. So long as a duty only equal to a few months' or a year's interest was levied, the succession was not too burdensome, and the state reaped a steady small return. But when the possession of such means of amenity involves at each generation a crushing tax on the productive part of an estate, they must be sacrificed. The collections are vanishing to other lands, where such short-sighted policy is unknown, and England will be left bare. A far more profitable policy would have been to exempt all artistic or historical collections from death-duties, Another serious consideration is that 10 or 15 per cent., or even 20 per cent. in case of bequests for public purposes, is taken off accumulated national capital and thrown into yearly income. The estate duty is incessantly eating up the national reserves, and using them for current expenses. We should call any family which did this shameless spendthrifts, yet this is the immoral fashion of our taxation. The effect of income tax is one of the most serious economic subjects, because it directly touches the production of wealth. There is little objection to income tax for emergencies of war, because if merely nominal (1d. in the pound) during peace, the true amount taxable will be well known, and a sudden increase will be truly collected and will not have distinct economic effects if only used for a year or two. But treating direct tax on incomes as a large source of revenue has very important effects on a commercial nation. A tax as high as 1s. in the pound is practically a tax on all English enterprise as compared with foreign. If a mill can be run at Calais to produce non-dutiable articles, free of income tax on its dividends, while a mill at Dover pays 5 per cent. tax on its dividends, that constitutes a discrimination of 5 per cent. against the English manufacturer's capital. The outcome of the whole is that all shares of English companies will stand permanently at 5 per cent. lower value than the shares of foreign companies. Or in other words £4 interest will have to be paid by an English company Another effect of income tax will be seen if the proposed higher grading of incomes is carried out. The same changes that we have traced owing to the death duties will be produced by the life duties. Property will be sub-divided wherever possible. Every child will have a trust created for its benefit, every member of a family will have a separate income, every large estate will be nominally the But the most disastrous as well as immoral kind of taxation will be that proposed as additional upon all permanent investments, under the guise of "unearned income." It is a fatally easy screw for a government to put on; but the effect of it will be to penalise all British manufacture in competition with foreign productions. All that we have noticed about the effect of a 5 per cent. tax will apply far more rapidly and decisively if a 10 per cent. tax should be put on. Shippers would sail under another flag and transfer their offices of registration; manufacturers would pass to a tax-free country; and a larger proportion of persons living on fixed income would spend it abroad. Beside the material disadvantages of such high taxation on enterprise, it would be a grave moral detriment. It is too often forgotten that in taxation the government wields one of the greatest means of moral The only way to escape the deadly effects of income tax upon home manufactures and produce would be to lay a countervailing duty on all imports, and a Another highly immoral view of taxation is that of "plucking the goose so that it feels it least." Such a maxim was appropriate and excellent for an opportunist minister of an autocratic sovereign. But the first necessity for the political health of a democracy is that the individual shall feel every tax; such is the only way to prevent the squandering of public money by the votes of ignorant taxpayers. It would be very wholesome if the national expenditure was presented as a series of personal bills, showing how much was spent on each department by an average £50, or £100, or £200 householder. He would then be as much ashamed of the smallness of some items as of the largeness of others. What is needed in place of the tax upon industry is a tax upon extravagance. We are accustomed to taxes which far exceed the prime cost upon tobacco and alcohol; and other luxuries should also be similarly taxed. If instead of taxing income (which is often requisite for reasonable living, or else usefully spent on improvements of the world), we had the luxuries taxed, the only people to complain (if the change were gradual) would be those who wasted instead of using their income. Let all ostentation be taxed very heavily, spacious rooms, large numbers of servants, costly food, motor cars (not professionally needed), entrance money for amusements, and We will now look to other eventual results of small continual action. The effect of transferring little by little the property in Irish land to the present occupiers has not been sufficiently noticed. For the present generation such a transference was merry enough to the tenant. But when he sells to another tenant what is to happen? Will a future tenant enter and gradually expropriate the present tenant, by treating him as a landlord? Certainly the present tenant will not be so foolish as to be thus trapped, he will demand money on the nail. How then is the future tenant to get his capital to buy the land? In most cases he will have to get it by borrowing on mortgage. And if the government is not prepared to always keep open a loan office for every incoming tenant to the end of time, a loan society or company must be his resort. Then if he should not pay this rent to the distant intangible society, his mortgage will be foreclosed. In place of a body of landlords, and landlords' agents who could always be personally approached, Ireland will fall into the hands of a landlordism of distant money-lenders without souls or feelings, and whom neither blandishments nor bullets can affect. The remedy for land difficulties and various ills, that has been so often proposed, namely the State Another large effect of trifles is seen in the cumulative character of borrowers. Mr. Harold Cox, M.P., has reminded those who are in favour of rather confiscatory proposals, that a loss of character of a public body, so that their good faith is not certain, may easily mean that they have to pay 4 per cent. instead of 3 per cent. for loans: and hence that all rents of public works paid for by loans will have to be 33 per cent. higher. This loss is far more than could be gained by entire confiscation of ground values, and entire ruin of all landlords. That this is by no means only a future risk may be seen in the stock list any day. India is not entirely safe; there are risks of financial ruin—by conquest, by ruinous wars against invasion, by ruin in insurrection, by ejectment, or by having to drop India owing to a collapse of the navy. Yet all these risks together are thought to be less than the risk of bad faith on the London County Council. Their stock stands at a lower price than India stock. Such is the large result of the many Another instance of remote changes is in the effects of the steam engine and other cheap and rapid communication. The full extent of the changes caused are yet far from being completed. Externally the great change is that of the equalisation of land values for agriculture all over the world, as the produce can be carried from land to land for a small part of its value. Hence tropical lands with rapid growth and high fertility will compete with others; and the cheapness of labour there, owing to the smaller requirements in a warmer climate, will react on all agricultural wages. There will also be a demand for cheap labour to work tropical lands to their full extent; and the facility for transportation of labourers will result in constantly shifting energetic people from rather cooler climates into the hotter land for a time, and withdrawing them again. The same system we already carry out for governing classes in India; and cheap transport will make it possible for an energetic race to hold hot countries continuously, without decay due to enervation by climate, as was the case in all earlier northern invaders. Internally the changes owing to cheap communication are that land of similar quality equalises in value; and hence the worst land will fall to bottom price all over the country, and cannot be locally of any higher value. Also it will be difficult to get people to live in unpleasant districts, as they can easily shift about; hence wages will need to be higher in such districts, and therefore the land will be still lower. Thus the mobility of the inhabitants We have already noticed another effect of this We have now traced the large effects of small economic causes, and we see how such apparently insignificant alterations may be far more effective and act far more beneficially than smashing the social machine with a sledge hammer because it does not run smoothly. We will now turn to look at some of the effects of favourite ideas of the present time. The compensation to workmen for accident seems at first sight a righteous charge upon capital for the benefit of those who are injured in their business. The immediate effect upon character is to save the careless, thoughtless, and incompetent from the results of their faults; this at once reduces largely the weeding and educational effects of the bad qualities. No man would ever have become careful if he did not find the necessity of being so. Even if a tendency to malingering can be avoided, yet the teaching effect is done away. It may be thought that it is better to save the individual from his indiscretions rather than cure the race. Like most sentimentalism it causes more misery in the long run. Another, and entirely separate, effect is to prevent the employment of those who by age or bodily defect are the more liable to accident; the immediate hardship of loss of employment to these classes is, in the total, probably greater than the hardship of loss of employment by accidents which it is sought to compensate. We injure the The provision of old age pensions is another pleasing scheme. In the first place it will diminish the need of foresight and of self-restraint; it will thus weaken character by removing the great driving force of self-interest. The burden will have to be borne by all, including those who are already at the last gasp, and will tend to push such over the border line. It will not discriminate between those who have borne a large share in the cost of national renewal by bringing up a family, and those who have selfishly squandered all they received. And like outdoor poor relief, it will be discounted in wages, and tend to lower the wage rate if no savings are to be expected. A sounder plan would be to revert to the kind of communal system of our forefathers, and make a legal demand for a pension of, say, £2 a year from every child, and 10s. a year from every grown up nephew or grandchild. Thus those who have done most for the State by renewal would receive most in return, and the greatest inducement would be given to bring up children to active and capable lives. The idea of a right to maintenance would be the knell of any State which undertook it. The endowment of wastrels, the taxing of all the capable for the propagation of the incapable, and the wholesale deterioration of character, would be utter ruin to a nation. Nature knows of no right to maintenance, but only the necessity of getting rid of those who need it by mending or ending them. There is another movement which seems most desirable and humane at first sight, and irreproachable in its economic aspect: the saving of infant life by greater care. A huge waste of life is going on, and it has been proved that it is preventable. But however much we must sympathise with it, we cannot shut our eyes to its meaning. England produces over 300,000 excess of births over deaths yearly, and perhaps a tenth more might be added to that by care of infant life. But would that tenth be of the best stock or the worst? We must agree that it would be of the lower, or lowest type of careless, thriftless, dirty, and incapable families that the increase would be obtained. Is it worth while to dilute our increase of population by 10 per cent. more of the most inferior kind? Will England be stronger for having one thirtieth more, and that of the worst stock, added to the population every year? This movement is doing away with one of the few remains of natural weeding out of the unfit that our civilisation has left to us. And it will certainly cause more misery than happiness in the course of a century. Lastly, let us look to the general question of the results of the accumulation of wealth in the hands of different classes. Roughly we may divide three classes of money-earners: the lower, who receive weekly pay, and are tempted to spend it all by the certainty of poor relief when needed; the middle, who receive yearly pay, and must save if they are to avoid losing caste in late life; the upper, who make large but uncertain profits by organising work, or by financial manipulation, regular or irregular. During the last century we have seen a great growth Now, lastly, the surplus is passing into a new class, the large business speculator, the financier, and trust-man. So far as we can yet see, this class is justifying itself far more than the middle class. In fifty years the middle classes have not given as much to endow education as the millionaires have given in five years. A man with a gigantic income cannot spend more than a few per cent. of it on himself. He must use it for large public enterprises which benefit mankind. To put it in another form, a great dealer has organised a method for taxing the community in such a way that they do not notice it. And if he spends the tax on public improvements or endowments—railways, new inventions, or universities—he is an active benefactor to the whole community. He sponges up the surplus which would otherwise be frittered away in ostentation or luxury, and drops it out where it is a permanent benefit. As a principle we may hate the trust-man We have now seen in many directions how great are the changes in the constitution of society, which are brought about by a succession of small movements, each of which imperceptibly bears its share in the change. We see thus how carefully small tendencies should be watched; and we learn how needless and often how futile is a violent uprooting of institutions instead of a gradual growth. Another lesson to note is that every attempt to interfere by legislation in the natural working of |