第68章 BENTHAM'S LIFE(12)

Pitt proceeded to prepare the abortive Poor-law Bill,(81)upon which Bentham (in February 1797)sent in some very shrewd criticisms.They were not published,but are said to have 'powerfully contributed to the abandonment of the measure.'(82)They show Bentham's power of incisive criticism,though they scarcely deal with the general principle.In the following autumn Bentham contributed to Arthur Young's Annals of Agriculture upon the same topic.It had struck him that an application of his Panopticon would give the required panacea.He worked out details with his usual zeal,and the scheme attracted notice among the philanthropists of the time.It was to be a 'succedaneum'to Pitt's proposal.

Meanwhile the finance committee,appointed in 1797,heard evidence from Bentham's friend,Patrick Colquhoun,upon the Panopticon,and a report recommending it was proposed by R.Pole Carew,a friend of Samuel Bentham.Although this report was suppressed,the scheme apparently received an impetus.The Millbank estate was bought in consequence of these proceedings,and a sum of only £1000was wanted to buy out the tenant of one piece of land.Bentham was constantly in attendance at a public office,expecting a final warrant for the money.It never came,and,as Bentham believed,the delay was due to the malice of George III.Had any other king been on the throne,Panopticon in both 'the prisoner branch and the pauper branch'would have been set at work.(83)Such are the consequences of newspaper controversies with monarchs!

After this,in any case,the poor Panopticon,as the old lawyers said,'languishing did live,'and at last 'languishing did die.'Poor Bentham seems to have struggled vainly for a time.He appealed to Pitt's friend,Wilberforce;he appealed to his step-brother Abbot;he wrote to members of parliament,but all was in vain.

Romilly induced him in 1802to suppress a statement of his grievances which could only have rendered ministers implacable.(84)But he found out what would hardly have been a discovery to most people,that officials can be dilatory and evasive;and certain discoveries about the treatment of convicts in New South Wales convinced him that they could even defy the laws and the Constitution when they were beyond inspection.He published (1803)a Plea for the Constitution,showing the enormities committed in the colony,'in breach of Magna Charta,the Petition of Right,the Habeas Corpus Act,and the Bill of Rights.'Romilly in vain told him that the attorney-general could not recommend the author of such an effusion to be keeper of a Panopticon.(85)The actual end did not come till 1811.A committee then reported against the scheme.They noticed one essential and very characteristic weakness.

The whole system turned upon the profit to be made from the criminals'labour by Bentham and his brother.The committee observed that,however unimpeachable might be the characters of the founders,the scheme might lead to abuses in the hands of their successors.The adoption of this principle of 'farming'had in fact led to gross abuses both in gaols and in workhouses;but it was,as I have said,in harmony with the whole 'individualist'theory.The committee recommended a different plan;and the result was the foundation of Millbank penitentiary,opened in 1816.(86)Bentham ultimately received £23,000by way of compensation in 1813.(87)The objections of the committee would now be a commonplace,but Bentham saw in them another proof of the desire to increase government patronage.He was well out of the plan.There were probably few men in England less capable of managing a thousand convicts,in spite of his theories about 'springs of action.'If anything else had been required to ensure failure,it would have been association with a sanguine inventor of brilliant abilities.

Bentham's agitation had not been altogether fruitless.His plan had been partly adopted at Edinburgh by one of the Adams,(88)and his work formed an important stage in the development of the penal system.

Bentham,though he could not see that his failure was a blessing in disguise,had learned one lesson worth learning.He was ill-treated,according to impartial observers.'Never,'says Wilberforce,(89)'was any one worse used.I have seen the tears run down the cheeks of that strong-minded man through vexation at the pressing importunity of his creditors,and the indolence of official underlings when day after day he was begging at the Treasury for what was indeed a mere matter of right.'Wilberforce adds that Bentham was 'quite soured,'and attributes his later opinions to this cause.When the Quarterly Review long afterwards taunted him as a disappointed man,Bentham declared himself to be in 'a state of perpetual and unruffled gaiety,'and the 'mainspring'of the gaiety of his own circle.(90)No one,indeed,could be less 'soured'so far as his habitual temper was concerned.But Wilberforce's remark contained a serious truth.Bentham had made a discovery.He had vowed war in his youth against the 'demon of chicane.'He had now learned that the name of the demon was 'Legion.'To cast him out,it would be necessary to cast out the demon of officialism;and we shall see what this bit of knowledge presently implied.