The Sun.
London, England, 1844-11-14 00:00:00

POLITICAL ECONOMY.

(From the Times.)
Every age has its panics. At one time the Turk,
then the Emperor, then the Pope, then despotism,
then the Radicals, have occupied the attention of all
who had something to lose, and leisure to be alarmed.
A few years back the cry was' that every article of
food was adulterated ; and nobody could be sure it was
bread he was eating, unless he had sown, reaped,
thrashed, ground, sifted, kneaded, baked, and sliced
the material with his; own hands, or, as a second
best course, by the hands of a confidential servant
interested in his preservation. The cholera frightened
us all once ; comets now and then ; the new tariff
spread considerable consternation in some quarters;
mad dogs are always and everywhere terrible; the
slow westward progress of white ants, and the oc-
casional visit of a real oriental locust, have in their
turn considerably affected the more cautious and
provident part of mankind. But what do our readers
suppose is the last new bugbear ? A very terrible
one, to judge from the universal horror it has excited.
All parties, and almost all classes, both sexes and all
ages, agree in the most dreadful apprehensions. The
most alarming circumstance of the new enemy is, that
it has been amongst us from time immemorial, and is
impossible to be quite eradicated. The baneful charac-
ter of its operations has only just now been discovered.
Reader—prepare your nerves. The new enemy of
mankind is Charity.
By the light of the economists it is discovered that
charity, notwithstanding her angel robes, her gentle-
ness and smiles, is the most insidious and deadly of
monsters. Her charms are meretricious, her sem-
blance a disguise, her name a misnomer, and her com-
mission a forgery. Proteus as she is, it is hard to say
in which of her many forms she is the wprst. Some-
times she presents herself in the shape ola fair young
lady, carrying a basket of provisions. Don't kiss—
don't shake hands—don't speak, but stop your mouth,
nose, and ears, and run for your life. She is more
terrible than the old hag who carries the plague to
Aleppo or Bagdad, at sight of whom the whole popu-
lation shut their windows and doors, and sit in speech-
less affright. If you have interchanged the smallest
civility with the harpy, a consuming canker will con-
taminate your substance and your store. Sometimes
the wretch assumes a dingier character, and goes
about with a cart distributing half-hundreds of coals.
Fatal incendiary. The hearth her coals have once
lighted, will never again know an honest combustion.
Sometimes she presides at a caldron, and distributes
soup to besotted crowds, who little think they are
gulping down dog's-meat and dependence, brick-
dust and bondage. Sometimes she carries bags of
clothing infected with future nakedness. Sometimes
she takes the attributes of Lucina, and delivers
paupers of paupers; whereas it is the midwives of
gypt we want just now. Sometimes she carries a me-
dicine-chest, and glories to lengthen the days of idle-
ness. Sometimes she enrols a crowd of rustics in a
penny club. Wretched beings! Their names once down
in that black list, they never will be their own men
again. Sometimes she harbours old men and women,
widows and orphans, the sick and destitute, in
lazar-houses, whose very sight spreads an epidemic
of age and infancy, widowhood, sickness, and destitu-
tion. Sometimes—direful invention of these latter
days—she invades mother earth herself, and scars
her fair face with leprous allotments. But there are
no limits to her destructive ingenuity. The charla-
tan wife readily accommodates herself to every want
and weakness of man. Not a cry can be uttered but
she presents hersents herself with some one of her
nefarious devices. To crown all, she augments the
curse of death by burying the dead, and thus making
the grave itself a school of improvidence.
Nothing can exceed the universality of the horror
which these newly discovered atrocities of charity
have excited. Quiet old gentlemen, not hitherto
supposed to trouble themselves very deeply for the
welfare of society, are now loud-tongued alarmists
on the
dangers
aradox ofas bmenueovholaesncae.borOglldar ladies,aad n
lith
would hateda p
almost rather have their houses broken into than their
reasons taken by surprise, zealously propound the sin
of giving. At the weekly meeting of district visi-
tors, the new curate, or the old incumbent (it matters
not which), is sure to open his address to his fair co-
adjutors—" Dear sisters, the great secret of charity
is to keep your money in your own pocket. There-
fore pray don't let's hear of funds. Depend upon it
they are quite unnecessary for the purposes of an en-
lightened charity." On this point the greatest bigots
are liberal, and the liberals are most certainly
bigoted. Men who hate the whole theory of political
economy with a hatred unspeakable, and consider it
a most utter and iniquitous delusion, will yet reserve
one clause. The one jewel in this toad's eye is the
rule of not giving except for an exact equivalent. As
we kill a whale for its blubber, a beaver for its fur,
a castor for its oil, and the eider duck for its down,
throwing away all the rest, so are there thousands
who extract from political economy the one precious
virtue of capital for capital, and send all the rest to
the dogs, or to any other
residuary legatee of super-
fluous remainders that may happen to occur to them.
The application of this science is a great experiment,
so they will only consent to try it on a cheap ma-
terial—namely, the poor. To take care of oneself is
low the first duty of man. He •is the greatest public
benefactor who gets on the fastest. Country gentle-
men, for conscience sake, suffer the labourers on
their property to starve, or be turned out of doors,
or sent to the union, and feel themselves to be
martyrs all the while. Their daughters, who two or
three years ago were setting up for so many Sisters
of Mercy, now sit quietly at home, and read Miss
Martineau.
For ourselves, who continue in the old tack, the
world is so turned about us,. that we hardly know
our bearings. Not a day passes but we receive ex-
postulations at the novel and revolutionary character
of doctrines which we should have thought, if any-
thing, were rather too stale for zealous propagation in
these days. It seems that not giving is now become
a catholic verity, and we who still cleave to the old
poor-law, and other beggarly elements, are now the
heretics and innovators.
How far the doctrines of the economists are cal-
culated to supersede the offices of charity, and make
a whole nation prosperous and happy, supposing them
to be thoroughly carried out, is a question so utterly
abstract and conjectural, that we may be excused
from entering into it. They cannot he carried out in
our very mixed state of society, and with the multi-
tude
of interests and prejudices arrayed against them.
We have no more immediate prospect of seeing the
whole creed of the economist adopted by the nation,
and producing its glorious millenium, than we have of
hearing the music of the spheres, or Robert Owen's
more rectangular harmonies. Consider the state of
things which the economist supposes—all the elements
of society divested of their present stiff and formal
character, and melted to perfect fluidity; labour and
capital finding their level as quickly as wind and
water ; every five shillings and every five hours flow-
ing towards the greater demand as naturally as the
surrounding water fills the vacuum you make by
drawing a bucket out of the river. The labourer, in
this theory, is ready, both by education and circum-
stances, to scent out and p'irsue an additional 6d. a
week as far and as instantly as a vulture its prey, or
a capitalist one-quarter per cent. more than he gets
now on equal security. Land, in this theory, is
nothing whatever but an investment, with no other
use, value, opinion, or fancy connected with it, than
shares in a dock or a railroad. None of these con-
ditions at present hold. Our customs and institutions
are stiff and rigid, and so they are likely to remain
for ages. 'We do then protest very strongly against
working at once, with all its purity and severity,
against the poor man, against even the aged, the
orphan, the sick, and the unfortunate, a system the
tenefits of which they of this generation are certain
never to receive. The economist turns round the
wheel, and sets his machine in motion. " Don't you
:ee labour flowing towards that capital, and capital
meeting that redundance of labour, and all those other