Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1884-04-23
THE SINS OF LEGISLATORS

| from party machinery present souiCc VI
doubt and discomfort.
THE SINS OF LEGISLATORS"
Herbert Spencer, in an article printed in
the last Popular Scieace Monthly treats of
the sins of Legislators. He holds that legis-
lators are morally bound to prepare them
selves by study for the duties they assume.
From this lack of study spring sins as great
as those generated by personal ambitions or
class interest The druggist who kills by
gross mistake is held for manslaughter; the
plea of lack of knowledge does not avail
! him-Or should not. He is held to the
skill and warning derivable from common
experience. But legislators are not made
responsible for disasters occasioned by laws
! ignorantly enacted. They enter the Eng
lish Parliament without any fitness as
legislators, perhaps and the public seems
to agree with them that it is needless they
should know anything about the matters
they will he called upon to consider.
Among the evils of ignorant legislation,
of which history makes record, he cites:
Usury laws, that for centuries made the
condition of the debtor worse the endeav-
ors to stop forestalling, that in France, for
instance, prevented any one buying more
| than two bushels of wheat measures to
diminish famines by prescribing the price
of food, and which drove all food out of
market; the efforts to fix wages, etc. I'm
instructed Legislators have in past times
continually increased human suffering in
their endeayors to mitigate it. Janson
says that of 1910 public acts passed be-
tween Goth Henry H. and 1873, four
ffths were driven to whole or partial re-
peal. Between lS70-72 inclusive, of 1882
Acts passed, no less than 2,759 were totally
repealed in England.
The point made on this is that we talk
too glibly of cancelled legislation, forget
full of the injury every unwise law has
caused the human suffering, loss of money,
waste of time, prolonged anxiety, conse-
quent illness, domestic unhappiness, en-
forced submission to imposition and fraud,
etc Mr.. Spencer cites several instances
of these, especially referring to laws relat-
ing to the inadequacy of industrial dwell
ings and the chapter Of miseries he arrays
for public inspection is simply fearful, not
ably those flowing from the brick duty, its
repeal and its evils the window tax and
It's injuries the timber duties; limitations
of areas of dwellings; the artisans dwell
ings Acts, etc. In short, the State, rs rep
resented by English society, he AYERS, has
been constantly increasing evils with one
hand, which with the other it seeks to d.
minish. When it is even manifest to all
that the State causes the mischief, faith in
its benefcent agency is not at all dimin-
ished. On the contrary, when the State
causes evil by misdOing, the general cry is
that it shall do more. The fetch of the
savage is silent-does not confess its ina
bility-hut civilized man persists is as
cribing to his idol, made with his own
hands, powers which, in one way or other,
it confesses it has not.
For the conclusion Of the social scientist
we are to look in subsequent papers, but
it is possible to forecast them What he
says with regard to legislation in England
applies with force in the United States. 1t
is with us the cure-all Measured by our
demand and popular expectation, legislators
should come of class of the most skilled
administrators of wise laws possible of de-
velopment under our system-indeed should
rise superior to human possibilities. And
notwithstanding the failure of our remedy
to cure our ills, we constantly revert to it
in hopeless and often aimless sort of way,
as the only source from which help can
come. True ours is purely representa-
tive Government, theoretically, but practi-
cally we certainly do not, in the United
States, live up to the scheme, for the laws
that are ill-consdered, and receive public
condemnation, cannot certainly represent
the intelligence that puts its seal of diSap-
prevail upon them. Out of our experience
we may expect to evolve better results, how
ever, than has been done in England, since
our law-making system is more elastic, and
the hope Of pcrpctuity of the nation re-
sides in the possibility of intelligence plac-
ing in Legislative chairs its best representa-
tives, and these must be. at least in some
sense, skilled in the law-making art before
We can approach to any lofty degree of ex-
cellencc.