596 The greatest happiness of the greatest number

This minority, influenced as all minorities must be by self-interest, naturally sought to keep to itself the profits and power of government. As every one of the governors had an interest in maintaining corruption, the State must be entirely controlled by " sinister interests." The King was Corruptor-General; the aristocracy and members of Parliament sought the profits of their own positions from exclusive motives of selfinterest. Any extension of the British territory, empire, or government, naturally increased such opportunities. The first step to reform was, not to put the people in complete power, but to restrict the sphere of government. The first requisites of reform were therefore the destruction of patronage, the abolition of duties and customs, and the abandonment of all our over-sea dependencies. Bentham differs from almost all other democratic philosophers in having absolutely no trust in the people. A reform of Parliamentary representation was necessary only because the sinister interests, which controlled everything, would naturally object to reforming themselves by cutting down their own profits. Where every man sought power for his own self-interest, no section of the nation could have an interest in pure government except one — the majority. If the majority were in power, it must pursue the satisfaction and happiness of itself; and the identity of interest thus established between governors and governed must secure the greatest happiness of the greatest number.

This reasoning held in it some obvious flaws. It assumed an average man, whose intellect and passions everywhere induced him to seek the same ends, irrespective of circumstances or environment. The majority of the people, whether in England, China, or Peru, consisted of a uniform mass pursuing the same ends, and influenced by the same desires. But the majority might split up into groups; and each group, thus split off, might seek its own interests or have its own views of happiness; or, again, some of the majority might mistake their real interests, or disregard them through prejudice, passion, or self-sacrifice. In any of these cases, of which all were quite possible and even probable, Bentham's system was reduced to an absurdity. He declared, it is true, that in practice he would accept triennial instead of annual Parliaments, and household for universal suffrage. He also, when over eighty years of age, retracted his opinions about emancipating the Colonies, and desired to retain the unity of the empire unimpaired. But the wisdom of these practical admissions demonstrated the incompleteness of his theoretical system. His principles, if true, were immediately practical and universally applicable; to admit such important exceptions was to destroy the real basis of his system and philosophy.

Here indeed is to be discerned the fundamental error of all his thought, an inability to perceive that his first principles were too narrow and slight for the superstructure imposed upon them. His system could not explain everything, because it omitted to allow for so much. He

Bentham's defects. — James Mill 597

professed to base his philosophy on experience, but said that history was only of use to teach us the folly of our ancestors. He scoffed at theorists who neglected facts, but himself omitted to consider sentiments and prejudices, which are in themselves some of the most important of political facts. Declaring that self-interest governed all men, he sought to grind rogues honest by reason, and to destroy crime by legislation. He worked out schemes for codifying the law to the minutest detail; yet his system could not have debarred the interpretation of the judges from modifying even its essentials. He perfected his constitutional reforms to the smallest item; but his machinery would not have prevented the influence of caucus or wirepullers from nullifying the principles themselves. With limitless scorn for other constitutional theorists, his own theory was in some respects as unreal, and fully as mechanical, as that of Blackstone himself. His political reasoning rested on a faulty psychology, an erroneous conception of sociology, and a very inadequate system of ethics. Yet, despite all these defects, progressive and practical reformers throughout the world owe almost more to him than to any other man. And his new statement of the old definition, that the end of government was the good of the governed, has in theory at least found universal acceptance.

As Bentham himself never wrote a single or succinct treatise on politics, James Mill undertook to explain the Benthamite political theories to the world. This attempt was made in his famous Essay on Government (1820) and his articles in the Westminster Review (a magazine started in 1824 as the organ of philosophic Radicalism). He resembled his master in acuteness and industry, but had a juster view of ethics, psychology, and history. Otherwise, he was at once more systematic and more dull, more violent but less truly critical, more dogmatic and uncompromising in statement, less practical and more precise in his applications. Where Bentham had made only vague suggestions or specific applications, Mill laid down universal propositions and deduced exact results. After contending that democracy was the only security for continued good government, he proceeded to apply his ideas to the existing British Constitution. After denouncing the aristocracy, in terms compared with which even Bentham's criticisms were gentle, he ended by the most rigid insistence upon complete freedom of Parliament and the Press, the ballot, and universal suffrage ; though it is said that Mill, like Bentham, would have accepted household suffrage as an instalment.

There was nothing strange or new in the various suggestions of Reform made by Mill or Bentham. In 1780 the Duke of Richmond had brought forward in the Lords a motion for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage. So early as 1777 Major Cartwright began advocating the same cause in pamphlets and public addresses. But these and other reformers, such as " Citizen " Stanhope and Jebb, had attracted attention only by their eccentricities, and had made little impression on

598 Bentham and Parliamentary Reform [1817-32

the educated public. The presentation of Radicalism by Bentham and Mill attracted the philosophic by its logical completeness, the eager by its uncompromising boldness, the practical by its appeal to facts and reason. Mill was the populariser and preacher of the Benthamite philosophy, which inspired thatremarkable body of politicians, the "Philosophic Radicals." Bentham was timid and shy in society ; Mill was aggressive and bold, and speedily created the school of Philosophic Radicalism. The chief thinkers who came under his influence were Malthus, Grote, Ricardo, McCulloch, and Austin ; and of these Malthus alone rivalled Bentham in immediate fame. Though attacked with the utmost violence, his theories sank deep into the heart of the people and profoundly affected contemporary thought. Malthus called attention to the everpresent burden of want, while Bentham appeared to provide practical remedies by which improved conditions could be assured. The combined force of this appeal was almost resistless; and during the great agitations of 1817-0, and the disturbances of 1826-32, the principles of Bentham were loudly asserted. The wild demands for annual Parliaments and universal suffrage were strengthened and rationalised by the arguments of Bentham. His rigid formulae and passionless appeals to reason were placed in the forefront of the agitation and inscribed upon the banners of Radicalism. The writer who advocated democracy because of his profound distrust in the people became the man in whom the people placed most confidence. The philosopher whose face not one man in ten thousand had seen became at length a prophet, with an audience which Cobbett soon began to envy, and a following which Hunt could not surpass.

All the great popular agitators of the time ended by passing their tributes to the greatness of Bentham. In 1817 Bentham wrote to Cobbett, (asking him to print the Catechism of Parliamentary Reform, " as the celebrity of your name, compared with the obscurity of my own," would ensure its wide circulation. Cobbett had no sooner complied with this request than he found his own celebrity surpassed. Hunt, O'Connell, and Hobhouse avowed themselves the enthusiastic disciples of Bentham. The revision of the Criminal Code by the democratic Romilly and the Tory Peel, the legal reforms of the Whig Brougham—all owed much to Bentham. The action taken by Lord Durham (Lambton) in introducing new principles into our colonial policy can only be mentioned ; his influence on the Reform Bill will subsequently be traced ; but in each case he was deeply influenced by Benthamite ideas.

A more rigid practical disciple of Bentham was Francis Place, a man of the humblest origin, who owed his success in life to his own vigour and resource. His own experience impelled him to adopt the Benthamite formula, that man owed everything to his own individual energy or self-interest. Place set to work to popularise Benthamite conceptions

1745-1832] Francis Place. — Early Reform motions 599

and to organise a political machinery for this purpose. It has sometimes been contended that Place is one of the suppressed characters of our internal history, a mole of politics, whose subterranean efforts were the real cause of all popular legislation between 1824-32. That he was the chief cause of the repeal of the Combination Laws (1824) seems probable. That his sole influence did much to determine the elections at Westminster, which constituency became the cradle of Parliamentary Reform, is certain. Beyond that his influence was perhaps hardly so great as is sometimes imagined. Burdett, Cobbett, and Hunt did more to enflame popular agitation throughout the country. But in London itself Place had immense influence; and his tailor's shop at Charing Cross was the headquarters of Radicalism. So early as 1807 he began an assault upon the democratic constituency of Westminster, which had always been a stronghold of the Whigs. Place furnished the first great example of an electoral caucus, organising committees and diffusing information with such effect, that the Radical candidate, Sir Francis Burdett, headed the poll.

Long before the dawn of Radicalism proposals of Parliamentary Reform had on several occasions been made to the two Houses. In 1745 Sir Francis Dashwood proposed such a motion; in 1766 Lord Chatham denounced the corruption and venality of the boroughs. In 1770 Chatham declared for triennial Parliaments and proposed adding a third member to the counties, to counteract the influence of corrupt boroughs. In 1776 Wilkes proposed a motion, which contained all the leading principles of Parliamentary Reform adopted during the next fifty years. During the years 1782-5 the younger Pitt brought forward motions for Reform without success. The example of the French Revolution frightened everyone, and induced the majority of Englishmen to cling to the old system. Consequently the Reform motions, proposed by Charles Grey during the years 1793-7, were rejected by enormous majorities. All these proposals, with the possible exception of that of Wilkes, were made by politicians who were supported by some section of the Tory or Whig parties. Burdett was the first to dissociate himself absolutely from the two historic parties, and to propose Reform from a Radical standpoint. The Benthamites never wearied of denouncing the half-measures and timid compromises of the Whigs. James Mill called them shufflers and cowards; Place defeated their candidates at Westminster. The Radicals instinctively foresaw that the Whigs, rather than themselves, would secure political benefits from the discredit into which Bentham's merciless criticisms, and the popular agitations, had thrown the Tory Government. Burdett'.s first motion was in 1809; and in 1810 he spoke on a motion for Reform. Grey was now in the Lords; his enthusiasm for Reform had cooled, and his support of these proposals was wavering and qualified. The Grenvillite section of the Whig party was utterly opposed to Reform; and Lord

600 Attitude of the Whig and the Tory parties [1817-32

Holland declared in 1817 that Reform formed no part of the Whig party programme. In 1819 Burdett brought forward a motion for Reform in a series of famous resolutions, which were clearly inspired by Bentham. He was opposed by the youthful Lord John Russell and a minority of Whigs, on the ground that the changes proposed were wild and visionary. But in this same year Russell brought forward motions for the disfranchisement of corrupt boroughs, and for the transference to large unrepresented towns of the franchises so forfeited. Thus, at the moment when Reform seemed to have become an exclusively Radical question, it was revived by a section of the Whig party in a moderate and reasonable form.

The attitude of the Tory party towards the great question of Parliamentary Reform was the same during the Radical agitation of 1817-21, as in the years 1821-32 which marked the gradual acceptance of Reform by the Whig party. It has often been thought that the political views of the Tories were based wholly on reactionary prejudice and upon blind hatred of innovation; and that their creed was that of laisser-faire, with the principles and justifications of such a policy withdrawn. Yet, just at this time, Coleridge in the Friend, first published in 1809, republished with additions in 1818, was laying a philosophic basis for Tory views, which proved a surer foundation for the conservation of society than any which even Burke had supplied. Coleridge indeed was mystical and unintelligible to most contemporaries, and his influence was not apparent until many years later, when it induced John Stuart Mill to modify and restate the Utilitarian philosophy. But Canning, who adapted Burke to suit the needs of a new age, gave in his speeches something of a philosophic exposition of Tory principles, and something of an intellectual argument against Reform. The essence of true liberty was that it should be limited, balanced, and graduated. Thus the rights of minorities, of corporations, and of vested interests should be respected, as they were extremely useful in securing liberty. Every class depended upon the one above it; and the existing ties and relations between class and class not only ensured liberty to the individual, but stability to the government. The great danger to England was the growth of the industrial masses, for large city populations were liable to become mobs and rabbles, selfish in prejudices, ungovernable in passions, and entirely at the mercy of unscrupulous demagogues. The old securities had been the dependence of servants upon their masters, the allegiance of the tenant to the squire, the respect and tradition which made the lower classes admit the gentry to be their natural leaders. But these old ties were every day loosened; the old privileges were rapidly disappearing; the old traditions were fast fading. Only one security still existed — the system of parliamentary representation. The peculiar diversity of the franchise in different constituencies guarded the State from the excesses of a blind or headstrong majority.