at a later stage enabled the villeins in England to pass through a species of land-and-stock lease or métaierie to the practical ownership of their lands.1 Elizabeth, one of the strongest of our monarchs, was compelled to abandon. monopolies by the fathers of those who in the next generation passed the Petition of Right2; the Civil War in England, and the revolt of the American colonies, were both due to straining the prerogatives of the crown.

Mill has said that security consists of protection by the government, and protection against the government, and that the latter is more important; and again, that the only insecurity that is altogether paralysing, is that arising from the government, or from persons invested with its authority. Security against the arbitrary exactions of despotism is no doubt a necessary condition for the development of industry. It is, however, rather negative than positive in character, and it is a mistake to suppose that the security afforded by the government is of comparatively minor importance. On the contrary, as Bentham declares, the care of security is the principal object of legislation; and without law there is "no security, consequently no abundance nor even certain subsistence." Security, he affirms, is the distinctive mark of civilisation; and it is entirely the work of the law. It is plain that security in this sense means much more than security against the government. It implies not only protection against robbery from within and invasion from without, but above everything, security for the enforcement of contracts. "If industry creates, it is the law which preserves; if, at the first moment we owe everything to labour, at the second and every succeeding moment we owe everything to the law." The industry of modern civilisation is gov

1 Cf. Bk. II., Ch. VII.

2" To have suffered in the recent (1628) resistance to arbitrary taxa

tion was the sure road to a seat."-GREEN.

3 Principles, Bk. I., Ch. VII., p. 6.

4

* Principles of Civil Code, Pt. I., Ch. VII.: "Of Security."

erned and animated by contract; it depends for its very existence upon the constant fulfilment of an infinite series of bargains; and, in the last resort, it is the possibility of appeal to the resistless power of the state that is the guarantee of fulfilment.

Apart from the general enforcement of contracts, the government may increase security by rendering certain clauses in contracts compulsory and giving to certain terms an equitable interpretation. In contracts for the hire of land, for example, it is of great importance that the tenant should be able to put upon and into the land the capital requisite for good husbandry; but to do this he must have the assurance either that he will be able to withdraw it on the termination of his lease, or else receive fair compensation. One of the greatest checks to the accumulation of agricultural capital until quite recently was the preferential legislation in favour of the land-owner. Another good example is furnished by the development of foreign trade; for a long period a foreign merchant was responsible not only for his own debts and crimes in any country, but even for those of his compatriots. The earliest commercial treaties were designed to afford to the foreign trader on reciprocal terms some part of the security enjoyed by the home trader.

Returning to the general question, it may be observed that the longer the period of expectation of fulfilment is extended, so much greater ought to be the security. Just as for the moment an inconvertible currency may serve as well as gold for the medium of exchange, so for the moment martial law or lynch law may suffice to preserve order and enforce payment for purchases. For deferred payments, however, a more stable standard, and for deferred obligations a more stable government, is required. And from the nature of the case, from the very essence of the conception, the accumulation of capital involves the anticipation of security in the future. It is sometimes said that, under the influence of the French Revolution,

Bentham attached too much importance to security. It would be more just to say that at present, in the midst of profound peace,- external and internal,- we are so famil-: iar with security that we look upon it as part of a state of nature, instead of regarding it, so far as industry is concerned, as the latest product of civilisation. The subject will again demand attention in connection with the economic foundations of the system of private property.1

Analogous to the security afforded by government and against government is that afforded by and against the powers of nature. If a country is naturally unhealthy, or if it is subject to earthquakes or other physical disasters, and life is uncertain, the value of a future good is discounted at a higher rate. The occurrence of great plagues, apart from the destruction of labour, is usually accompanied by extravagant expenditure: 2 "let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die."

. Next in order to the various kinds and degrees of security we may place the group of motives which are included under the phrase, the effective desire of accumulation. This desire may be deficient simply owing to lack of imagination as regards the future, to a want of power to look forward. There may be no aversion to labour, and the dangers of famine, if provision is not made, may be very real, and yet, as in the famous instance quoted by Mill, of the Indians on the St. Lawrence, no work is undertaken in which the return is at all distant, and the growth of capital is effectually prevented.

The simple reason is that the vividness of the present makes the future dim and uncertain. We may descend much lower in the scale, until indeed we reach a point at

1 See Bk. II., Ch. II., § 5.

2 See the well-known description of Thucydides, Bk. II.: “... they justified a speedy fruition of their goods, even for their pleasure or licentiousness, as men that thought they lived their lives but by the day."

See also De Foe's Journal of the Plague Year: ". . . from that hour all trade, except such as related to immediate subsistence, was, as it were, at a full stop."

which primitive men seem lower than animals in providing for the future. "The native Australian is entirely destitute of foresight, being in this respect inferior to many animal species. In a general way not the most elementary idea of providing or preserving nourishment for a future occasion enters his head. In his hours of plenty he gorges, without care for the morrow, and when hunger voracious hunger is once appeased he wastes and even voluntarily destroys all that is left." 1

Sometimes the effective desire of accumulation is deficient on the moral, rather than on the intellectual, side. We find abundant instances in the most civilised nations -as in the disregard for the welfare of wife and children, and in the failure to secure independence in sickness and old age. In some cases, however, the desire of accumulation becomes a dominant or fixed idea; the end is lost sight of in the means; and to add field to field or pound to pound becomes the mainspring of life.

It is love of gain in this extreme form which has always been so severely condemned by philosophy and the Church. It is one of the best examples of the need of treating political economy as a positive science which observes and classifies facts, and not as a body of doctrines which inculcates certain maxims. From the point of view of happiness-whether of the community or of the individual — still more from the point of view of freedom, of self-culture, and of the many forms of ideal morality-the effective desire of accumulation may in some cases be described as a degraded, unreasoning superstition. It is, however, a great mistake to suppose that this extreme love of wealth. is only a product of the highest industrial communities, and that in the simpler stages of society it is absent. "This commercialisation of morals," says M. Letourneau,2 "is not incompatible with a savage state. It will flourish in any society, civilised or savage, when the love of any 1 Letourneau's Property (translation), p. 30.

2 Ibid., p. 96.

sort of gain becomes the ruling motive, the mainspring of every act." Thus of an African tribe, we are told, by Si Samuel Baker,1 that "they would fight for their cattle, although they would allow their families to be carried off without resistance; cattle would procure another family, but if the animals were stolen there would be no remedy." Again, Burton2 says of the East African: "He will refuse a mouthful of water out of his abundance to a man dying of thirst. He will not stretch out his hand to save another's goods, though worth thousands of dollars, if he is not paid to do it. But of his own property, if a ragged cloth or a lame slave be lost, his violent excitement is ridiculous to behold."

It is not necessary to dwell longer upon the pathology of the desire of accumulation; nations have been ruined by reckless extravagance, but the process of accumulation -the growth of wealth is not necessarily or usually associated with the decay of men. The desire to rise in the social scale, and the importance attached to wealth as such, have been prominent factors in social progress.

One of the principal fallacies of the traditional English political economy 3 arises from neglecting to observe that the mere possession of wealth may constitute its chief utility, and that the sense of power afforded by retaining wealth may be far greater than any pleasure afforded by consumption. Under a money economy in which any form of wealth through the agency of banks and brokers may be converted by the individual into credit documents which give him so much general purchasing power, the effective desire of accumulation depends largely upon this characteristic of saving. Moralists may deplore the fact 1 Quoted, ibid., p. 96. 2 Ibid., p. 97.

3" The greatest part of the utility of wealth, beyond a very moderate quantity, is not the indulgencies it procures, but the reserved power which its possessor holds in his hands of attaining purposes generally; and this power no other kind of wealth confers so immediately or so certainly as money." - Mill's Principles, p. 3. But he too often omits the applica

tion.