, without being
definitely vicious, has counted upon the promised pension, and
therefore neglected any attempts to save. If you give him a pension,
you virtually tell everybody that saving is a folly; if you don't, you
inflict upon him the stigma which is deserved by the drunkard and the
thief. So difficult is it to arrange for this proposed valuation of a
man's moral qualities that it has been proposed to get rid of all
stigma by making it the right and duty of every one to take a pension.
That might conceivably alter the praise, but it would surely not alter
the praiseworthiness. It must be wrong in me to take money from my
neighbours when I don't want it; and, if wrong, it surely ought to be
disgraceful. And this seems to indicate the real point. We may aim at
altering the facts, at making them more conducive to good qualities;
but we cannot alter or attempt to decide by laws the degree of praise
or blame to be attached to individuals. It would be very desirable to
bring about a state of things in which no honest and provident man need
ever fall into want; and, in that state, pauperism would be rightly
discreditable as an indication of bad qualities. But to say that nobody
shall be ashamed of taking support would be to ruin the essential
economic virtues, and to pauperise the nation; and to try to lay down
precise rules as to the distribution of honour and discredit, seems, to
me, to be a problem beyond the power of a legislature. I express no
opinion upon the question itself, because I am quite incompetent to do
so. I only refer to it as illustrating the difficulties which beset us
when we try to remove the evils of the present system, and yet to
preserve the stimulus to industry, which is implied in competition. The
shortest plan is to shut one's eyes to the difficulty, and roundly deny
its existence. I hope that our legislators may hit upon some more
promising methods. The ordinary mode of cutting the knot too often
suggests that the actually contemplated ideal is the land in which the
chickens run about ready roasted, and the curse of labour is finally
removed from mankind. The true ideal, surely, is the state in which
labour shall be generally a blessing; in which we shall recognise the
fact--disagreeable or otherwise--that the race can only be elevated by
the universal diffusion of public spirit, and a general conviction that
it is every man's first duty to cultivate his own capacities, to turn
them to the best