The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1884-11-05
Property Rights OF Married
WOmen---Again.

Mr.. Editor:-Snce writing the commune
cation on " The Property Rights of Married
Women" / have had conversation on the
subject with two gentlemen who rank high
extremely high-as authorities in their
respective fields of inquiry. One has more
than national reputation in political sci
ence, and the other is quite as widely known
for his knowledge of the practical working
of all matters concerning property. Both of
these gentlemen warmly commended the
general positions of my communication
They are in sympathy with many of the fea-
lures of the recent movement in England
and this country towards greater freedom
of women in respect of property and labor,
but share in my own distrust of the present
somewhat headlong progress This is be-
cause the method has been too purely indi-
vidualistc and unmindful of those social re-
ldtions of the individual which later and
sounder theories OF government, political
economy and law, are bringing TO the front.
The last English book on the subject of po-
litical economy" The Industrial Revolu-
tion,' by the late Arnold Poynbee-opens
its first lecture with this statement of a fact,
now confessed by all scholars except n few
of the ultra free trade economists Its very
first sentence is. "The bitter argument be-
tween economists and human beings has
ended in the conversion of the economists"
1t seems to be true that England has lately
been changing the emphasis other legislation.
Having pushed freedom of contract beyond
the verge of safety in property rights OF wo-
men and freedom of labor she now sees the
need of guarding against the evils that are
sure to attend extreme liberty by the fac
tory acts and other measures designed to
protect the home from the inroads of mod
ern industrialsm. The ldiSSez.tdire or let
alone policy is yielding to state interference.
In reality" said Stanley jerome, the
factory act is the great charter of the work
ing classes" Is it not singular that later
American legislation, in its strong tendency
to favor great corporations to the relative
neglect of the interests of the laborer and
the owner of small properties, has been grow
ing somewhat aristocratic, while England
and other countries are giving much more
attention to the social and more real needs
of the people-especially of the working
classes! In our American glorification of
BUSINESS" thereby often meaning bust
ness from the point of view of capital mainly,
we have partially ignored labor as the work
of " hrnian beings" just as Poynbee says
English economists have been driven to see
the producers of wealth to be. | repeat
what was acknowledged in my communca-
ton, that married women need more than
they have had, but that larger study may
well convince the friends of the measure that
it is hardly best for Vermont to rush into the
course proposed by the senate bill at this
session. / may add that both gentlemen,
to whom reference was made in my first SEN
tence. themselves by the way, progressive
protectionsts, would both agree with me in
tracing the movement for the property rights
of women to the same root with free trade.
Great freedom to the individual in all re-
spects is plainly the goal of society, but both
in economic and political relation the adj
vance is part of the whole social progress.
Absolute horizontal reduction" of legal
restraints upon trade is not the only place
where that method of ignoring long estab-
lshed conditions is likely to be dangerous.
And one glory of our political system is that
we are nation of separate commemorative
in which the necessary experimental legis
lation of all progressive states need not be
ale everywhere at the same time. In
seeking a good measure, Vermont can af-
ford to wait a little in order to get the best
SPECTATOR.