第8章 James Mill(8)

The Utilitarians tried to use such men,but shared the Tory opinion of their value.They had some relations with other obscure writers who were martyrs to the liberty of the press.Place helped William Hone in the Reformer's Register ,which was brought out in 1817.The famous trial in which Hone triumphed over Ellenborough occurred at the end of that year.Richard Carlile (1790-1843),who reprinted Hone's pamphlets,and in 1818published Paine's works,was sentenced in 1819to three years'imprisonment;and while in confinement began the Republican,which appeared from 1819to 1826.Ultimately he passed nine years in jail,and showed unflinching courage in maintaining the liberty of speech.The Utilitarians,as Professor Bain believes,helped him during his imprisonments,and John Mill's first publication was a protest against his prosecution.21A 'republican,an atheist,and Malthusian,'he was specially hated by the respectable,and had in all these capacities claims upon the sympathy of the Utilitarians.One of Carlile's first employments was to circulate the Black Dwarf ,edited by Thomas Jonathan Wooler from 1817to 1824.22This paper represented Cartwright,but it also published Bentham's reform Catechism,besides direct contributions and various selections from his works.

The Utilitarians were opposed on principle to Cobbett,a reformer of a type very different from their own;and still more vitally opposed to Owen,who was beginning to develop his Socialist schemes.If they had sympathy for Radicalism of the Wooler or Carlile variety,they belonged too distinctly to the ranks of respectability,and were too deeply impressed with the necessity of reticence,to allow their sympathies to appear openly.As,on the other hand,they were too Radical in their genuine creed to be accepted by Edinburgh Review ers and frequenters of Holland House,there was a wide gap between them and the genuine Whig.Their task therefore was to give a political theory which should be Radical in principle,and yet in such a form as should appeal to the reason of the more cultivated readers without too openly shocking their prejudices.

James Mill achieved this task by the publication of a series of articles in the Supplement to the Encyclopaedia Britannica ,which appeared from 1816to 1823,of which I shall presently speak at length.It passed for the orthodox profession of faith among the little circle of friends who had now gathered round him.First among them was David Ricardo.He had become known to Mill in 1811.''I'said Bentham,'was the spiritual father of Mill,and Mill the spiritual father of Ricardo.'23Mill was really the disciple of Ricardo in economics;but it was Mill who induced him to publish his chief work,and Mill's own treatise upon the subject published in 1820is substantially an exposition of Ricardo's doctrine.Mill,too,encouraged Ricardo to take a seat in parliament in 1818,and there for the short remainder of his life,Ricardo defended the characteristic Utilitarian principles with the authority derived from his reputation as an economist.24The two were now especially intimate.During Mill's first years in the India House,his only recreation was an annual visit to Ricardo at Gatcombe.

Meetings at Ricardo's house in London led to the foundation of the 'Political Economy Club'in 1821.Mill drafted the rules of the club,emphasising the duty of members to propagate sound economic opinions through the press.

The club took root and helped to make Mill known to politicians and men of commercial influence.One of the members was Malthus,who is said,and the assertion is credible enough,to have been generally worsted by Mill in the discussions at the club.Mill was an awkward antagonist,and Malthus certainly not conspicuous for closeness of logic.The circle of Mill's friends naturally extended as his position in the India House enabled him to live more at his ease and brought him into contact with men of political position.His old school-fellow Joseph Hume had made a fortune in India,and returned to take a seat in parliament and become the persistent and tiresome advocate of many of the Utilitarian doctrines.A younger generation was growing up,enthusiastic in the cause of reform,and glad to sit at the feet of men who claimed at least to be philosophical leaders.John Black (1783-1855),another sturdy Scot,who came from Duns in Berwickshire,had,in 1817,succeeded Perry as editor of the Morning Chronicle .