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demn it, and to seek to put an end to it-but let us look to our consistency. Many of us are its supporters without at all suspecting the fact. While we do not claim the right to decide in the case of any individual that he does wrong in deserting productive labour and engaging in trade, we cannot resist the conclusion, that the extent to which this tendency has been socially operative has largely contributed to make slavery profitable. Many would, in all ages, escape from the condition of subsistence imposed at the Fall-"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." But the numbers who do evade it increase with the facilities for evasion. In our times these facilities have become altogether unprecedented. There are only two possible sources of cure. A higher morality, making men honest in their transactions and sober in their desires; or tremendous public calamities and revulsions, such as this American war. We and our American brethren have-in disregard of light and opportunityshut out a cure from the former source. On the contrary, we have allowed the disease to go on deepening and extending-have, indeed, fostered it. But Providence has now come in to deal with the evil in a way which, however we may misrepresent it-we cannot evade.

XXI.-PRIVILEGE AND PENALTY.

THAT responsibility is proportioned to social, to political, and to moral power and influence has long been a recognised principle. That responsibility increases with the increase of power over natural or physical forces has been by no means so clearly realised. The fact, however, is undoubted, and if we refuse, or fail practically to recognise it, we must pay the inevitable penalties. The driver of a railway train has the guiding of a power, transcending out of all comparison, that which is handled by the driver of a donkey cart. On the commander of the Great Eastern there rests a very different measure of responsibility, from that which attaches to the commander of a coal barge. The tremendous and appalling consequences that may attach to a slight neglect on the part of those who handle a power like that of steam, is brought home to all minds with terrible force and clearness by such catastrophes as that of the late collision

[graphic]

Winchburgh. But, when all goes smoothly and safely,
ight is apt to become very faint, both in those who
ose whose safety comes within its scope.
We are

h and Glasgow Railway, October 13, 1862.

trade than to production for a sufficient supply of the staples of subsistence, and have, year by year, been requiring to import these in larger quantities.

It is not a healthy tendency, as we have now begun bitterly to feel. Trade and manufactures are exposed to revulsions and reverses which agriculture never can suffer. That nation is most secure of prosperity which has its main sources of subsistence, not dependent on others, but within itself. This intensified propensity to trade could not go on and extend without affecting society deeply in many relations. The circumstances of the last few years have been adapted to develop this propensity beyond any other set of conditions known to the history of the world. Facilities of transit, the removal or relaxation of commercial restriction, and an immensely increased supply of the precious metals, have operated with combined force towards this. The whole world has been opened up to commercial enterprise and cupidity, and not only legitimate business, but illegitimate business, and gambling speculation, have got a tremendous impulse. This trade furor gave a prodigious impetus to manufacture as supplying the material of trade—an unhealthy and abnormal impetus, as is most signally shown in the fact that, while for many months our cotton mills have not been turning out one-half or one-third their previous amount of goods, and cotton wool has been rising for the last year and-a-half, till it has become quintupled in price, these goods have only quite recently begun to rise.

This tremendous blow, which has fallen on our greatest branch of manufacture, and all but extinguished it, may thus have in it an element of beneficence. As the potato blight gave the death blow to commercial restriction, and produced in Ireland a prædial and social revolution (arresting the descent of a nation into limitless and hopeless degradation), so may the cotton famine be the instrument, in the hands of Providence, of an industrial and social revulsion, not less exigent or important. Commerce and manufacture were bursting into abnormal and altogether disproportionate development, whilst everywhere a lack of adequate labour for the production of raw material and the staples of food was felt and complained of. Of cotton, the Supply had been kept up to the Demand by the maintenance of a system of enforced labourthrough the determinate maintenance of slavery in the Southern States. In the light of the above considerations, we may see, amongst other things, how slavery has been hitherto sustained and buttressed. The gain the system brought the slave-holders, and those who traded with them and furnished them with capital, was the immediate stimulus. But this owed its power, and we may say its existence, to the distaste for honest labour, which we have found so prominent a characteristic of the time. We may exclaim against slavery and we ought to con

demn it, and to seek to put an end to it—but let us look to our consistency. Many of us are its supporters without at all suspecting the fact. While we do not claim the right to decide in the case of any individual that he does wrong in deserting productive labour and engaging in trade, we cannot resist the conclusion, that the extent to which this tendency has been socially operative has largely contributed to make slavery profitable. Many would, in all ages, escape from the condition of subsistence imposed at the Fall-"In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread." But the numbers who do evade it increase with the facilities for evasion. In our times these facilities have become altogether unprecedented. There are only two possible sources of cure. A higher morality, making men honest in their transactions and sober in their desires; or tremendous public calamities and revulsions, such as this American war. We and our American brethren have-in disregard of light and opportunity— shut out a cure from the former source. On the contrary, we have allowed the disease to go on deepening and extending-have, indeed, fostered it. But Providence has now come in to deal with the evil in a way which, however we may misrepresent it—we cannot evade.

XXI.-PRIVILEGE AND PENALTY.

THAT responsibility is proportioned to social, to political, and to moral power and influence has long been a recognised principle. That responsibility increases with the increase of power over natural or physical forces has been by no means so clearly realised. The fact, however, is undoubted, and if we refuse, or fail practically to recognise it, we must pay the inevitable penalties. The driver of a railway train has the guiding of a power, transcending out of all comparison, that which is handled by the driver of a donkey cart. On the commander of the Great Eastern there rests a very different measure of responsibility, from that which attaches to the commander of a coal barge. The tremendous and appalling consequences that may attach to a slight neglect on the part of those who handle a power like that of steam, is brought home to all minds with terrible force and clearness by such catastrophes as that of the late collision at Winchburgh.* But, when all goes smoothly and safely, the sense of its weight is apt to become very faint, both in those who sustain it, and in those whose safety comes within its scope. We are *On the Edinburgh and Glasgow Railway, October 13, 1862.

apt to be far too little impressed with the value of the exact and prompt discharge of his appropriate duty, by each one of some hundreds of men. Yet is our safety, our very life dependent, on 30 many judgments, memories, wills, every time we accomplish a day's travel by rail.

And this brings into view another aspect of the case, which it is of the greatest practical importance adequately to realise. Responsibility is not only increased, proportionately to the increase of our power over the forces of Nature, it is also proportionately diffused. In the course of a day's journey by rail, we pass, say, one hundred stations, and, besides the guard and driver, the safety of the train is dependent on three or four persons at each. Through a slight mistake or neglect on the part of any one of these, two trains may be made to dash into each other, the terrible result being the instant sacrifice of many lives, protracted and untold suffering to many more, who escape death, but are mangled and maimed for life. But railway responsibility embraces many more within its scope than officials, charged with the despatch, stoppage, and guidance of trains. Managers and Directors are most intimately responsible for the rules they lay down, for the wages they give, for the hours of daily service they exact, for the competency-physical, mental, and moral—of the persons they employ. Nor can the body of Shareholders be held by any means irresponsible. Responsibility attaches to them, so far as the morale of the Directorate is dependant on their suffrages-whether it is vigilant and liberal, or lax and grinding. A Directorate over-anxious for the increase of dividends, will subject the public to proportionate risks, for either the employés of the Company will be over-wrought, or duty involving great responsibility will be entrusted to incompetent hands.

And this brings into view yet another speciality of the responsibility arising out of command over the forces of Nature. Where men are entrusted with the direction and guidance of their fellow-men, responsibility increases with station and position. The responsibility of a Corporal is small compared with that of the Colonel of a regiment; the General-in-Chief is responsible for the disposal and direction of the whole army; the private soldier is responsible only for himself. The latter fulfils almost all the requirements of his position, if he obeys orders, and holds unflinchingly by the post of duty. When you descend to the ranks in an army, how little depends on the individual-save as his participation of the esprit de corps gives firmness to the phalanx. The demands on the private soldier are demands chiefly on the lower qualities of our nature -those we possess in common with animals of the higher grades-force, firmness, flexibility, under the handling of directive mind.

But when the function of man is, not to apply his own force mainly, but to guide the forces of Nature, all this is changed. Not only is responsibility increased in proportion to the amount of power under guid

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ance; it attaches most directly, and presses with most weight on those lowest in position-those in immediate contact with the power. The soldier in the ranks acts as a unit in a mass. He is supported right and left-" shoulder to shoulder." The railway official is isolated. has to act as an individual. He must have all his wits about him-must be vigilant, prompt, courageous, in and by himself. The individual soldier is carried forward by the momentum of the corps. He can hardly flinch, and when he falls, another takes his place. But when the railway official fails in judgment, in vigilance, in presence of mind, in courage, the service being single-handed, being momentary, must be individual, must be instantaneous, else the opportunity is gone, and failure may entail the most tremendous consequences. In the private soldier it is the lower or physical qualities that are mainly in requisition. The mental and moral are demanded proportionately as you ascend. In the commander they must all combine, and he is fitted for his functions in proportion as they do so in richest measure and nicest balance.

We do not say that all this is exactly reversed in the case of those who are charged with the direction of the forces of Nature. But the higher qualities are certainly not less needed in the (socially) inferior, than they are in the superior position. If there is serious physical, mental, or moral defect, it will be less perilous in the Director than in the guard or pointsman. In a director the defects of the individual may be supplemented, his errors corrected, by the discernment and wisdom of his codirectors, but this corrective influence operates less and less as you descend, till-in many cases-at the critical moment, the responsibility rests on the individual employé, single and alone. In short, in the case of those who handle men, responsibility concentrates more and more in the individual as you ascend. In the case of those who guide and direct natural forces, responsibility concentrates more and more in the individual as you descend.

These facts are not only charged with various momentous lessons, they make on us certain imperative demands They demand a higher education and a deeper moral sense-in the working man-the employé as much as in the managing director, if not more. Mechanical invention is thus a direct stimulant to education-a great instrument for the elevation of the people. An instrument doubly operative, relieving (or which ought to relieve) them from much drudgery, on the one hand, requiring and calling forth higher and more various powers, a better training, a deeper and more practical moral sense, on the other.

Our progress in command over the forces of Nature, demands of all a deeper, more immediate, more practical sense of responsibility. This is the demand of Nature, we should rather say, the clear voice of God, and disregard or failure in compliance, entails the most tremendous penalties.

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