第34章 Political Theory(12)

Our manufacturing wealth is a 'wen,'a 'fungous excrescence from the body politic';74it is no more a proof of real prosperity than the size of a dropsical patient is a proof of health;75the manufacturer worships mammon instead of Moloch;76and wrings his fortune from the degradation of his labourers as his warlike ancestors wrung wealth from their slaves;he confines children in a tainted atmosphere,physical and moral,from morning till night,and a celebrated minister (Pitt)boasts of this very evil;77he treats his fellow-creatures as machines,78and wealth,though accumulated,is not diffused;the great capitalists,'like pikes in a fishpond,'devour the weaker fish.79Competition is not directed to providing the best goods,but the cheapest;80every man oppresses his neighbour;the landlord racks his tenant,the farmer grinds the labourer;all the little centres of permanent life are broken up;not one man in a thousand is buried with his fathers,and the natural ties and domestic affections are prematurely dissolved.81Here,too,is to be found the source of the infidel opinions which call for suppression.London is a hotbed of corruption;82a centre of wealth;and yet,in spite of poor-laws,a place where wretches are dying of starvation,and which could collect a mob capable of producing the most appalling catastrophes.

In such a place,men become unbelievers like savages,because removed from all humanising influences,and booksellers can carry on a trade in blasphemy.

Infidelity is bred in 'the filth and corruption of large towns and manufacturing districts.'83The disappearance of clerical influence has led to 'a mass of ignorance,vice,and wretchedness which no generous heart can contemplate without grief.'84It is not surprising that,in Southey's opinion,it is doubtful whether the bulk of the people has gained or lost in the last thousand years.85Macaulay takes all this as mere sentimentalism and preference of a picturesque outside to solid comfort.But whatever Southey's errors of fact,they show at least a deeper insight than his opponent into some social evils.His proposed remedies explain his diagnosis of the evil.In the first place,it is not surprising,though it surprised Macaulay,that he had many sympathies with the socialist,Robert Owen.He saw Owen in 1816,86and was much impressed by his views.In the Colloquies,87Owen is called the 'happiest,most beneficent,and most practical of all enthusiasts';an account is given of one of the earliest co-operative schemes,88and Southey believes in the possibility of the plan.He makes,however,one significant remark.Owen,he thinks,could not succeed without enlisting in his support some sectarian zeal.As Owen happened to object to all religious sects,this defect could not be remedied.

Southey,in fact,held that the absence of religious discipline was at the root of the whole evil.

Religion,he declares,much to the scorn of Macaulay,'is the basis upon which civil government rests.'89There must,as he infers,be an established religion,and the state which neglects this duty is preparing its own ruin.'Nothing,'he declares,'in abstract science can be more certain than these propositions,'though they are denied by 'our professors of the arts babblative and scribblative'--that is,by Benthamites and Whigs.For here,in fact,we come to the irreconcilable difference.Government is not to be a mere machinery for suppressing violence,but an ally of the church in spreading sound religion and morality.The rulers,instead of merely reflecting the popular will,should lead and direct all agencies for suppressing vice and misery.Southey,as his son takes pains to show,90though he was for upholding authority by the most stringent measures,was convinced that the one way to make government strong was to improve the condition of the people.He proposed many measures of reform;national education on the principles,of course,of Dr.Bell;state-aided colonisation and the cultivation of waste lands at home;Protestant sisterhoods to reproduce the good effects of the old order which he regretted and yet had to condemn on Anglican principles.The English church should have made use of the Wesleyans as the church of Rome had used the Franciscans and Dominicans;and his Life of Wesley was prompted by his fond belief that this might yet be done.Government,he said,ought to be 'paternal';91and his leading aspirations have been adopted by Socialists on the one hand,and the converts to Catholicism on the other.

For his philosophy,Southey was in the habit of referring to Coleridge;and Coleridge's Constitution of Church and State is perhaps the book in which Coleridge comes nearest to bringing an argument to a conclusion.Though marked by his usual complexities of style,his parentheses and irrelevant allusions and glances at wide metaphysical discussions,he succeeds in laying down a sufficient sketch of his position.The book was originally published in 1830,and refers to the Catholic emancipation of the previous year.Unlike Southey,he approves of the measure,only regretting the absence of certain safeguards;and his general purpose may be said to be to give such a theory of the relations of church and state as may justify an establishment upon loftier grounds than those of the commonplace Tory.