THE ETHICS OF TRADE AND CAPITAL AS RELATED TO

POPULAR GOVERNMENT.

BY DAVID ALLYN GORTON, M. D.

"When the passion for wealth has become prevalent, neither morals nor talents are proof against it."-Sallust.

THE

HESE words were written by Sallust of classic memory on the eve of the disruption of the ancient republic nearly two thousand years ago. Rome then had become rich and poor, prosperous and profligate. How significant they are in connection with our own republic to-day!

The republic of America is confronted with a problem of political economics that demands the most serious consideration. It is a problem the solution of which by right belongs to the province of the politician and statesman. It is not a problem on which parties may divide, or which may be settled as the church settles an ecclesiastical question, by synods and councils. It is a problem in political science, and needs to be considered in a judicial spirit, free from partisan bias and the interests of class, and wholly from a politico-philosophical point of view.

The problem is not new. It is as old as society itself, and returns again and again to disturb the existing order of things. This problem comprehends the establishment of equality and fraternity in the body politic, the absence of which has upset republics and disrupted dynasties from time immemorial, and caused more misery than all other abnormal causes put together. It is interesting to observe that in the evolutions of states and governments, the idea of equality has been dimly recognized, and feeble attempts have been made to incorporate it in the Constitution and the laws. This may be observed in the Magna Charta, the reform laws, etc., of England. It is noticeable, likewise, in the formation of the Constitution of the United States. Fraternity and equality were the watchwords of the Revolution and the idea obtained a place in the Constitution, but as a sentiment

merely, since no provision was made to carry the idea into effect, except by the adoption of universal suffrage. It is not too much to say that the political philosophers of that revolutionary period clearly perceived the divine principle that underlies social and political order, and entertained views concerning the rights of man in harmony with the advanced thought of the most advanced nation-France. The French revolutionists of '93 insisted that men are born equal, that is, that one child is of as good quality as another, and that its condition is not necessarily affected by the accident of the social position of its parents. Vauvenagues, a French writer of that century, maintained, indeed, that the distinction between men is not mental at all, but consists of "a little more or a little less bile."

Jefferson and the much-derided Paine held to the doctrine of universal equality and gave forcible expression to it, but, like other reformers and revolutionists, they confined themselves to postulates and precepts, failing utterly to devise or embody a system of political ethics that would give it practical effect. They clearly saw and seriously deprecated the evils which afflict the masses of mankind under the iron rule of social despotism, but did not, like Solon and Lycurgus, possess sufficient sagacity to devise means to prevent their generation and development in the polity of the new government. Instead of boldly extirpating the deadly upas which had strangled and was strangling society in Europe, and establishing an ethical system in the industrial polity of the republic, they depended on the ballot to secure equity and to maintain equality in the new country. Surely, thought they, with the ballot in every man's hand he will be able to take care of himself. Their bearings were all astray. It was as if they had planted the vine without first destroying the thorns, or sown rare grain and left in the soil the seeds of a noxious weed to grow up, choke, and destroy the wholesome plant. But it may be said that the people were too ignorant or too selfish to appreciate or give effect to a polity of economics that would secure justice and equality in the body politic, or that they were not prepared to accept a polity of equity and fair dealing, preferring rather the privilege of scrambling for profits

and spoils, and taking the chances for winning a fortune in what, to the ignorant and unthinking, is the game of life. The latter was undoubtedly the case. The man of to-day, like the semisavage that he is, prefers an industrial polity that allows him to act for himself and his family unhampered by moral distinctions, or the scruples of conscience, regardless of justice or the rights of his fellowmen, taking the risk of the poorhouse or penitentiary, rather than content himself with honest toil and the fruits that it brings. He aspires to the supremacy that great wealth fosters, and would not, if he could, have an order of things in which great fortunes, which mean great swindling, could not exist. It is "the deep-rooted selfishness which forms the general character of the existing state of society," says John Stuart Mill, "that is at fault in this matter"—a selfishness, he says, that is "fostered by existing institutions."'*

He that is greatest among you, let him be your teacher, not your master and despoiler. It is one of the strangest inconsistencies to be observed in so-called civilized society, that while the human animal gravely prays for the coming of the kingdom of heaven on earth and for grace to imitate his divine Exemplar, he deliberately and covertly preys on his fellowmen and disregards the precepts of the divine Teacher. The reflective observer cannot but be amazed at the spectacle of an honest man-a socalled Christian man-practicing all manner of secrecy, deceit, duplicity, prevarication, and downright lying to further schemes of selfish profit to the wrong and injury of his fellows. Such wrongs are rated legitimate by a misguided public sentiment, and he who is most accomplished in their practice is an object of admiration and is looked upon as shrewder than other men and the fittest to survive. He is the successful man, and for that reason is intrusted with great enterprises, in which large fortunes are won-not earned-from a public less sharp and cunning, but more confiding, than himself.

He who possesses or controls the property of a people is master of their liberties. It matters not how it is done, whether by sharp practice or by piracy, the exactions of a czar or taxation, *"Autobiography," page 233.

"corners" or special legislation, " combines or the laws and customs of business-the people are enslaved all the same. The lesson taught by the ancient republic ought to be instructive to this. Or must a republic, like youth, learn by its own experience? There is no certain way to judge the future but by the past. Let us cite a solitary example from Rome: When Rome acquired possession of Italy, large estates fell into the hands of the patricians and conquerors. These estates were cultivated by tenants who, free before, now became slaves. Thus was prevented the growth of a free, agricultural class, the evil consequences of which may be seen in Italy to-day. The patricians, by these means, gained enormous wealth, which they used to corrupt the commonalty of the capital. By monopolizing the products of labor, they subjected the laborer. War and rapine served the patrician and demoralized the people through the power of wealth. When Rome became a nation of soldiers she threw off the toga, the emblem of citizenship, and put on the sword. The condition of the middle class fell by degrees to that of the plebeian-living mainly on the expenditures of the privileged class, forced to do their bidding and to fight their battles. And when a reformer arose in the person of Tiberius Gracchus, and proposed to limit the possession of the soil by the patrician to four hundred acres each, and to divide the balance among the people, giving them thirty acres apiece, he was violently assailed, and finally slain at the hands of a patrician mob. It was to prevent the repetition of such movements in behalf of justice and equality that a stronger government was introduced and a Julius Cæsar enthroned.

The fate of democracy at Rome has been repeated in the history of every people. The most modern illustration of the enslaving of a people by spoliation in Europe may be found in Russia. Living a simple pastoral life, cultivating the earth and the arts of peace, the people of that empire enjoyed for centuries the free possession of the soil they tilled and lived upon. Peace prevailed, if not plenty, and mendicity was unknown. But evil days came by the irruption in the sixteenth century of that great robber and chieftain, Boris Godounof, who established a system

of government which was fast dying out in the rest of Europe, namely, the feudal system. The change from a peaceful, pastoral life to one of strife, war, reprisals, and rapine, developed the usual results-rival factions and powerful chieftains, civil and military, among whom the people and all their possessions were freely distributed. The land, the common mother and rightful heritage of all men, became the exclusive property of those whose might in strife proved themselves to be equal to its possession. Life estates were established, at first by force and afterward by law. Thus was laid the foundation of a noble and privileged class. The owners of the soil were freemen; the tillers of the soil were vassals, whom the great Godounof, at a later period, boldly reduced to a condition closely allied to slavery. His decree was "that the servants of nobles who worked by contract should not be allowed to quit their masters; and the masters were prohibited from dismissing their servants who had lived with them for a certain period. By this law multitudes became serfs without knowing it."*

A century later came Peter the Great, whose greatness consisted in riveting the chains of servitude on the masses which were so skilfully forged by Godounof. What had hitherto been held as a life estate, Peter made hereditary and perpetual In 1845, nearly the whole of the vast territory of Russia was held by a few thousand nobles, and with it, also, the men, women, and children and other animals who were permitted to drudge upon it-slaves every one as abject and absolute as a Louisiana negro before the Civil War-numbering, exclusive of beasts, about twenty-four million souls, or rather serfs, for their souls were long since crushed to death beneath the iron heel of a selfishness as base and demoniacal in conception as any the arch enemy of mankind might devise. Need we wonder that it produced resentments which materialized into nihilism? Rabbe and Duncan characterize the conduct of Peter the Great "as a most atrocious crime, far outweighing any service he may have rendered to civilization." By beggaring the people he despoiled them of their liberties.

* "History of Russia," Vol. II., page 267, by Alphonse Rabbe and Jonathan Duncan.