From Local Self-Government and Centralization. (London: John Chapman, 1861.) p. 399, 66:
Local Self-Government or Centralisation?
The real and only test must always be, whichever of those external forms is acknowledged- is Local Self-Government, or is Centralization, the fundamental practical idea of the Constitution of the country?
As clearness of ideas is important, it should be stated thus early that the Centralization is properly to be applied not only, though it will be most frequently, to dictation from a Metropolitan centre; nor on the other hand, is the term Local Self-Government ever to be applied to the mere management of affairs by some, or a few. practically irresponsible, in particular Local Districts. But—
Local Self-Government is that system of Government under which the greatest number of minds, knowing the most and having the fullest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter in hand, and having the greatest interest in its well-working, have the management of it, or control over it.
Centralization is that system of Government under which the smallest number of minds, and those knowing the least and having the fewest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter at hand, and having the smallest interest in its well-working, have the management of it, or control over it.
In developing the subject a general sketch will, in the first place, be give of the true characteristics and practical realities of the English Constitution. The general fundamental and practical Principles involved will then be considered more in detail, as well as the character and consequences of infringements upon those Principles. Certain of the more important General Applications of those Principles will next be traced, and contrasted with the growth and results of those infringements. Special illustrations, which will serve to individualize and bring directly home the importance of the whole Inquire, will follow.
Local Self-Government does not then consist, as many imagine, in having local bodies, elected or otherwise, and leaving the exclusive management of everything in their hands. Its essence consists in this: — that, while these local representative assemblies exist, like the national one, for the more convenient administration of affairs, arrangements also exist by which regular, fixed, frequent, and accessible meetings together of the freemen themselves shall take place; at which all matters done by the representative bodies, local and general, shall be laid before the folk and people, discussed, and approved or disapproved; and at which all matters of common interest to the respective associated communities, either as separate bodies, or as parts of the great national whole, shall be brought forward, and fully canvassed and considered; and, having undergone this process, the public opinion thereupon shall be truly, peaceably, and healthily expressed.
It will immediately be perceived how such a system– so simple but so complete—differs from the empty shouts of crowded thousands, throwing up the cap at popular platform oratory; which is, in reality, but one, and not the least dangerous, of the shapes under which Centralization seeks to obtain her hidden purposes.
The high and ennobling sense of duty and responsibility begotten and cherished by Local Self-Government is, moreover, altogether different, both in character and results, from what takes place when a Government which has assumed to intermeddle and to dictate with respect to matters which it never ought to have touched, talks, after failure and discontent have marked its course, and in order to escape from the dilemma in which it finds itself, of how the people ought to rely upon their own resources.
The following were laid down, more than 200 years ago, as the axioms on which a free state must be maintained.
Healthy enterprise and steady progress can only go on by the fullest activity, in every direction, of all the different faculties of every one. This can only be attained by every individual mind having every opportunity of free range and scope, undwarfed and untrammelled by the consciousness that every thing must be made to square, either with a set of prescribed formal rules, or with the particular cast of opinion of any in authority. Centralization crushes all independence of thought and action, all individual energy, all self-reliance ; and hinders all scope and range for the application of any of these. The development of every thing high and generous in human nature is repressed. That of every thing mean, sordid, base, and grovelling is nurtured.
Thus unhappily it is, that those who seek the means of Centralization to gain their ends, wanting moral dignity and consciousness of truth themselves, can only carry out their ends by debasing others. Conceited, but not self-dependent, they listen to nothing which can thwart their own capricious schemes. Self-dependence is not conceit: the two qualities are, indeed, opposed to one another. Conceit is puffed up with self-importance, but lacks that inborn consciousness of truth which gives energy to personal effort, relying upon the results. Self-dependence feels the responsibility and duty of self-exertion ; rests satisfied that self-depending effort is the best evidence of sincerity and earnestness ; and declines to accept any compulsory aid.
This conceit is always accompanied by n patronizing spirit. Nothing, indeed, can be more repulsive to the spirit of a free man, than the tone of sentimental patronizing which is always on the. lips of the promoters of centralizing schemes.
Centralization always tends to induce the bowing down in worship to the material part of man’s nature, to the material part of man’s nature…
Lastly; as to the practical results, Intellectually.
A system which destroys self-reliance, deadens self-respect, and annihilates forethought, can have but on character in its influence on the intellect. A system which dictates and controls, instead of stimulating every individual energy, can have but the effect of dwarfing and benumbing every faculty, intellectual as well as moral.
The true end of human society can only be the cultivation, to the highest extent consistent with their healthy and harmonious action, of all the faculties of every man. It has been shown that this result follows as a necessity, from true Local Self-Government. But the surest way to dwarf the development of either intellectual or moral faculties, is to encourage the feeling of dependence, and reliance up, and continual looking up to, others for every rule of action; to engender the habit of conceiving that every thing is to be done for us, by others, — instead of for ourselves, by ourselves.
It is a very different thing for a man to learn, from what it is for him to be dictated to. Even if, as to the production of any single specific end, the immediate result could be the same, the far more important results, in a permanent moral and intellectual respect, are widely different. When dictated to, submission, dependence, and an unreasoning imitativeness are the qualities of mind produced, when the end is gained by being learned, self-respect, independence, and a habit of reflection are the qualities produced. The means of this true learning are what are needed: the attainment of special end will then assure itself. It has been shown that Institutions of Local Self-Government can alone supply the schools for so learning. Centralization annihilates education. It may rear up a polishing system, which, — when all originality of mind and all freedoms of thought and all spirit of enquiry are deadened, and mind and thought are reduced to a certain dead level, — it may call education: it may cram and dwarf the mind within artificial moulds and call that refinement: but to anything approaching true education it is the inherent antagonist, the necessary and implacable foe. Education is only good when it capacitates, Centralization can only exist by incapacitating. Discussion and free enquire are the only means to the former by the latter these are inadmissible. Centralization makes, indeed, a wilderness o f mind and morals, and calls it peace and civilization: but it leaves Revolution as the only hope for those where it prevails, who believe man was made for other purposes than to be kept in bondage to man. To preserve men from that wilderness, and from such need for Revolution as their only hope, the vigorous assertion, earnestly and practically, of the System of true Local Self-Government affords the only means.
The system of Centralizaion, then, is one by which the energies and activity and enterprise of men in their political, social, moral, and intellectual relations are fettered and tied down, and subject to the caprice and made liable to the arbitrary interference of a few irresponsible functionaries. It is demoralizing, degrading, and inconsistent with a spirit of freedom and with the existence of free institutions. It is a system of which the necessary effects and entire tendency are the smother of truth; the obstructing of investigation and true enquire; the promulgating and enforcing of individual and interested scheme and crotchets …,
“Centralization is the grasp of Despotism: Municipalities are the commons and promenades of a Free People. By the contraction of the one and the enclosure of the other we are losing our strength and freshness every day.
But let it never be forgotten that, while every step towards Centralization must meet with the determined and unflinching resistance of every honest man, the alternative is not and must never be allowed to be represented as, the old doctrine of simply “let us alone.” The true sentiment of free men will always be, to assert the principles of self-government as their inherent right, their dearest inheritance and highest dignity; but to remember that such Right only exists coextensive with Duty and Responsibility. It is not only that free men will not let others interfere to manage and control, for them, their affairs; but it is, that free men have the consciousness of the duty and responsibility not, themselves, to leave undone that by which the welfare of the community may be best advanced. It is because such sentiments are the natural and necessary growth of true Institutions of Local Self-Government, that, while “to centralize is the art and trick of despots, to decentralize is the necessary wisdom of those who love good government.”
Edward the First was one of the most powerful and warlike Kings that ever sat on the English throne. Active and energetic at home, and delighting in warlike exploits abroad to an extent which, had Centralization then existed, would long ago have swamped this nation beneath the load of a National Debt, he found the Institutions of Local Self-Government too strong for him. They effectually kept in check encroachments at home, and, as effectually, checked his warlike propensities abroad.
“There were two causes,” says Coke, “of the making of this Act [De Tallagio non concedendo—the non-grant of taxes]; the first was” a requisition of the King to some of his barons and other to follow him in arms to Normandy, or contribute money aids thereto. “which the constable and marshal, and many of the nobility and of the knights and esquires, and all the freeholders, vehemently denied, unless is were so ordained and determined by common consent of Parliament.”
Here, then, it was the freeholders who resisted. The nobility was less staunch: there were many of them; but all the freeholders resisted the demand. Though Parliament was not sitting, the Shire-motes and Hundred-motes were held in regular course; and there the will of the freeholders found lawful utterance; and the King’s requisition was refused.
“The second cause was that the King the year before had taken a talliage of all cities, boroughs, and towns without assent of Parliament; whereupon grew great murmuring and discontent among the commons. For pacifying of which discord between the King and his nobles, and for the quieting of the commons, and for a perpetual and a constant Law for ever after, both in this and other like cases, this act was made;” which is, in fact, but a re-declaration of the same fundamental law a declared by William the First, and which was ever the Common Law of the land.
It is to the Folk-motes, then regular, fixed, frequent, and accessible, that we owe these re-declarations, and the enforcements of them.
Making judgment, –or, as the old and most expressive phrase was, “doing folk-right” –was another of the inherent functions of all the Institutions of Local Self-Government. The smaller ones despatched lesser matters; the large ones, as the Shire-motes, greater ones and matters of appeal. Many and highly characteristic illustrations might be given; but details must be forborne. Folk-right was done speedily, — for the Folk-motes were frequent; easily, — for the Folk-motes were at hand: and without cost, — for the freemen themselves were the judges, it being one of the highest and noblest of their functions to do folk-right among each other, without fee or reward. The modern Jury system, so little understood, is the remains of this, as will be shown hereafter, remains which many are ignorantly attacking, but which every lover of freedom will cling to as the living cornerstone of the noble edifice which he hopes to see restored in al its original strength and practical vitality.
Can no means be devised to work out a Poor Law system more healthily than this? Assuredly they might. But it will not be by a national poor rate. The necessary effect of such a device can only be the immediate increase of the evils which now exist. The idea of a national poor rate must have originated under the influence of some who are eager for the further spread of Centralization. The proposition calls to mind the Ostrich, which, hiding its own head, thinks itself unseen. It has always, however been one great and constant object with the enemies of freedom to centralize all taxation; that is, to make it general and under central control, so that no one place shall feel or know what it itself pays; that the less watchful eye may be thus kept over the amount levied and the mode of its expenditure.
The remedy must be looked for in a very different direction, and be achieved by widely different means.
It has been well remarked, with respect to the social condition of those who come within the range of the Poor Law operation, that the being compelled to seek aid “does not necessarily imply either laziness or improvidence. Commercial derangement, — the scarcity of gold or cotton, –manufacturing stoppages, — mechanical improvements, –Irish ‘clearings,’ –causes over which no individual labourer has the slightest control, –deprive him of employment and bread. Society has two ways to keep him from starving, —it has chosen the worst and most expensive. Alms and enforced idleness degrade him: the confinement, separation, garb, and dietary of a workhouse, –oakum picking, and useless ‘tests,’ –destroy his self-respect and self-reliance, his habits and capacity for labour. He is now a pauper. His children necessarily taken from school, and thrown upon the streets, grow up paupers, or worse.
“It is clearly the interest of all—of those who live by labour, and those who consume its products—that the unemployed should not thus be converted into paupers; that instead of being compelled by Poor Law regulations to be useless, dependent, and degraded, they should be enabled to continue industrious and self-dependent. What is the interest of society, is the duty of those who manage its affairs, viz., to make the unemployed independent and self-supporting, by the substitution (1) of Productive Employment for useless labour tests, and (2) of Proportionate Payment, either in money or kind, for the work done, in lieu of the present arbitrary and invariable weekly ‘relief.’
“The Relief and Test system being directed, not to make the idle industrious, but solely to decrease the allowance of food to the unemployed and destitute, has gradually brought the treatment of the poor down to, or below, that of convicted felons. Even in gaols the inmates are maintained in health, are sometimes rendered self-supporting, and morally benefitted, by useful labour. By treating as we do those whose only crime is inability to get work, honesty is discouraged; the needy commit theft for the purpose of getting into prison; schemes really effective for reclaiming young offenders are rejected, because affording a better provision for the criminal than is made for the poor and well-behaved members of society.”
The obvious mode of staying evils the enumeration of the actual extent and immediate results of which might be greatly extended, consists in a reversal of the present system; in returning from an unnatural attempt to benumb and crush the faculties of men, to a course which shall tend, instead, to develop them in healthy exercise. To substitute productive labour for useless tests is, at the same time, to return to the idea under which a Poor Law was first framed; to elevate instead of degrading those who come within the range of the system; and to relieve the rest of society from the pressure of a burthen which prevents that power of free exercise of all their opportunities, by all, which would otherwise exist. In every point of view the substitution of such a system would be a blessing to society, and the advantage would be felt by every member of it, poor and rich, without exception; –a rare result of any improvement. That proposition must certainly command the attentive consideration of every sincere well-wisher to the elevation of the physical, moral, and intellectual condition of the people, which has as its aim, the “reordering the subsistence and education of the poor, dependent, not, as at present, upon monetary and other circumstances beyond the individual’s control, but entirely on his own labour and exertions: thereby encouraging, to the utmost, industry, intelligence, forethought, and self-dependence amongst the mass of the people.”
Such views are not theoretical: they are, in the fullest sense of the term, practical. And they are not only practical but practicable. They have been tried; and, notwithstanding obstructions offered, as usual, by Central Poor Law Boards, wherever tried they have had successful issue.
The full and efficient practical avoidance, by any such means, of the evils engendered by the (so-called) Poor Law Amendment Act, must, however, clearly depend on the entire control and management being lodged, as in other matters, in the hands of those upon the spot, and within rates sufficiently limited. By men so placed only can “the truth of the matters be the best known.” They alone can be familiar with the modes of occupation most suitable to the special circumstances, and with all their varying conditions. In the case of the Poor Law, as of every other topic that can be touched upon, the only means by which every man can constantly be made to feel, and act upon the consciousness, that Society has a claim on every man, as well as every man having a claim upon Society, is by the active practical recognition of the Principles of Local Self-Government.
In the early part of the eighteenth century a paper was published which strong and strikingly expresses the dignified sentiments of self-respect and independence which the positions of a freeholder naturally induces. A freeholder is asked “what privilege he enjoys by being a freeholder of Great Britain?” He replies: – “By being a freeholder of Great Britain, I am a greater man in my civil capacity than the greatest subject of an arbitrary prince; because I am governed by laws to which I give my consent; and my life, liberty, and goods cannot be taken from me, but according to those laws. I am a freeman!” Who gave thee this liberty? “no man gave it me. Liberty is the Natural Right of every human creature. He is born to the exercise of it as soon as he has attained to that of this reason. But, that my liberty is preserved to me, when lost to a great part of mankind, is owing, under God, to the wisdom and valour of my ancestors, freeholders of this realm.” What is the sum and substance of the virtue of a good citizen? “The love of our country comprehends in it the virtues of a good citizen, as the love of God those of a good Christian. It is the love not only of one, but of millions of neighbours not only of our neighbours now living, but of them and of their posterity.” Later, he is questioned more specifically as to his duties; and, among the rest, he enumerates the heavy responsibility of giving a well-considered vote for a representative. What follows approaches, in its lofty spirit and noble sentiment to the sublime. Well may it dwell upon the mind of any who may be disposed to favour any part of the blighting and soul-killing system of Centralization.
Thou hast perhaps but one role in five hundred, and the member is perhaps one of five hundred more: then your share of the guilt of [a corrupt election] is but small? “As he who assists at a murder is guilty of murder, so he who acts the lowest part in the enslaving his country, is guilty of a much greater crime than murder.” Is enslaving one’s own country a greater crime than murder? “Yes: inasmuch as the MURDER OF HUMAN NATURE IS A GREATER CRIME THAN THE MURDER OF A HUMAN CREATURE; or as he who debaseth and rendereth miserable the Race of Mankind, is more wicked than he who cutteth off an individual! Does not the TRANQUILITY occasioined by absolute monarchy [Centralization] make the country thrive? “Peace and plenty are not the genuine fruits of absolute monarch [Centralization]; for absolute monarchies [countries governed by Centralization] are more subject to convulsions than Free Governments; and Slavery turneth the fruitful plains into a Desart: –Whereas Liberty, like the Dew from Heaven, fructieth the barren Mountains.”
Conclusion
Whoever would ward danger off must be prepared to look that danger resolutely in the face. But, doing this, it is no less necessary that he should also well know and remember what it is that is worth warding off danger from.
That a mischief has got to great head, is no reason for despairing of relief from it: but it is reason, instead, for searching the more carefully into the nature of that mischief. The true patriot will never sit down and deplore what may rouse either his grief or his indignation. He will rather say, always: –“The State is inkling to a consumption, yet not incurable;” and will seek what cure may best be found.
When a system, like that of Centralization, is the great mischief to be struggled with, it will never help the cause of those who would remove it, to condescend to deal with it and its abettors as other than a system: –individuality and personality are quite beside the mark; and the descending to these will but serve to divert attention from the true radical mischief. Nor should it ever be forgotten, too, that many may become, by circumstances, mixed up with the working of a system without having had any original designs hostile to the liberties of their fellow-men. It is, in many, as much want of consideration (though undoubtedly such consideration is the duty of all) as it is fore-plotted ill, that leads them to help forward a system that is fatal to Free Institutions and to human progress. Though it is unquestionable that the plan and objects of Centralization, as a System, have been deliberately begun, and are being as deliberately carried on, in order to undermine Free Institutions, yet it may oftentimes be “worth observation, that, though” some particular measure “was fatal to Liberty, yet it was not introduced by the contrivance of ill-designing men; nor were the mischievous consequences perceived, unless perhaps by a few wise men, who, if they saw it, wanted power to prevent it.” Those placed in responsible positions, too often allow themselves to “deal with other men’s hands, and see with other men’s eyes.”
In the preceding pages it is PRINCIPLES only that have been dealt with; principles which lie at the bottom of the foundations of Political and Social organization.
It was stated at the outset, that Local Self-Government is that system of Government under which the greatest number of minds, knowing the most and having the fullest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter in hand, and having the greatest interest in its well-working, have the management of it, or control over it.
Centralization is that system of Government under which the smallest number of minds, and those knowing the least and having the fewest opportunities of knowing it, about the special matter at hand, and having the smallest interest in its well-working, have the management of it, or control over it.
These definitions have been proved, and been practically illustrated. They should abide in the memory of every man earnest after human freedom and true human progress. They will be found to yield a key applicable to numberless occasions where doubt may exist, or where subterfuge and craft are being had recourse to for the disguising of the stealthy steps of despotism.
Nearly connected with these definitions, and illustrating their practical meaning and application, definitions have been offered, and been proved and illustrated, Of Common Law and Statute Law. It has been shown that Common Law is that law which SPRINGS immediately from the folk and people themselves, and which is also ADMINISTERED immediately by the folk and people themselves: while STATUTE LAW is that law which is made by a body existing and acting by virtue of a derired authority only; and it will be always tending to encroach on Common Law, unless jealously restrained by the keeping in ceaseless practical activity of certain CONSTITUTIONAL SAFEGUARDS. Common Law owes its origin to the real consent of freemen; and requires itself to be really dealt out by them: Statute Law has only the theoretical consent of freemen; and the dealing of it out by them will always be sought to be trenched upon.
MUTUALITY and RESPONSIBILITY have been shown to be two of the most important practical ideas that run through the whole of the Common Law of England. It has been shown that these ideas attain their truest and noblest realization by means of that system of Local Self-Government which forms the whole groundwork and sole strength of the English Constitution.
Whoever has feelings of true manhood in him must contemplate with pride, well justified, how these principles and ideas have lived and borne good fruit in England through many changeful centuries; and must be impressed with a deep sense of how worthy is the work he sets himself to do who seeks to give what aid he can towards the practical realization again, in full vital activity, of these principles and ideas, and of the Institutions by which alone that realization can be secured.
It will be felt to become a duty to resist, steadily and unflinchingly, every further encroachment and unconstitutional attempt that may be tried; and to lose no opportunity of fixing attention upon encroachments heretofore made, and so of stirring up the spirit of freemen to insist on withdrawal back from them. On no pretext, or ground of temporary expediency, must any concession be made on any point of fundamental principle.
It must never be forgotten that the Common Law, the Constitution, and sound Reason, are all on the side of those who would thus stand up for Free Institutions; and that these supply weapons that cannot but ultimately triumph. Nor should the fact ever be lost sight of that, notwithstanding the extent to which Centralization has unquestionably succeeded in supplanting the old spirit of freemen by a widespread temper of sycophancy, apathy, and selfishness, the skeleton of Local Self-Government yet exists in England, ready for reanimation; and that it needs only the earnest and unselfish men should make the nature, working, and importance of those Institutions known, for that reanimation to be realized.
No, amid the disheartenments he will encounter, must the worker in this cause forget that “albeit sometime by acts of Parliament, and sometime by invention and wit of man, some points of the Common Law have been altered or diverted from their due course, yet in the revolution of time, the same, as the safest and faithfulest bulwark and safety of the commonweal, heave been, with great applause, for avoiding of many mischiefs, restored again;” and that it has been expressly and judicially declared, by the same high authority, “that, in many cases, the Common Law will control acts of Parliament, and sometimes adjudge them to be utterly void; for when an act of Parliament is against Common Right and reason, the Common Law will control it, and adjudge such act to be void.” What has heretofore thus happened and been declared and acted on, may happen and be declared and acted on, again. It only needs for the freemen who are concerned, to understand the important practical bearing of such principles.
The whole matter may be very shortly summed up.
The question between Centralization and Local Self-Government is a question between dogmatism on the one hand, and discussion on the other; between the supremacy of an irresponsibly oligarch on the one hand, and the practical assertion of the rights and responsibilities of freemen on the other. The question is: –whether the mass of mankind are but unreasoning animals, to be dictated and drilled; or whether man is a creature “but a little lower than the angels,” and whose high nature can only truly be developed, –but is able to be developed, –by every inducement being help out to independent thought and self-reliance: whether there is a right divine in any Few to think for, manage, and govern themselves, and have it as their highest and noblest birthright and inheritance, — their right, duty, and responsibility, –to do this.
These questions must not be blinked; nor can any man who has a true and earnest Faith in Free Institutions and in Human Progress, suffer them, in any individual cases, to be avoided or speciously disguised by any plea of exceptional expediency, any spurious liberalism, or any sickly sentimentalism. What are the fruits that Local Self-Government bears, and what are the fruits that Centralization bears, must never be forgotten.
Local Self-Government makes men, everywhere, the maintainers of their own rights, liberties, independence, and wellbeing; it breeds self-respect and moral dignity –Centralization undermines, everywhere, all those rights, liberties, independence, and well-being, under pretense of setting hired functionaries to guard them; it breeds subservient sycophancy and moral degradation.
Local Self-Government cherishes and develops every moral and intellectual faculty, and gives to each of them, in every man, full scope for action; it humanizes and elevates, and kindles every kindly charity: —Centralization crushes and deadens every moral and intellectual faculty, and sets up, in their stead, the presumptuous pedantries of hired functionaries, by which life shall be regulated and action shall be guided; it brutalizes and debases, and begets and fosters a groveling material selfishness alone.
Local Self-Government seeks the continual progressive adaptation of what is tried and practical and known: —Centralization loves crude speculation, procrustean pedantry, and empirical law-making.
Local Self-Government maintains true peace and confidence between man and man, by the firm bond of mutual sympathy and mutual peace-pledge and responsibility: —Centralization strives to keep up an external show of order, by begetting apathy in some and unmanly dread in others while the fruits of the evils that it generates are sought to be kept from showing themselves above the surface, by a mercenary and demoralizing system of centralized police.
Local Self-Government makes men to know and to distinguish and actively to discharge the rights, duties, and responsibilities that belong to freemen, whether within the Domestic Circle, the Local District, or the National Union; –and it keeps every Representative Body, Local and General, in sound and wholesome activity, because kept within its due functions by active Safeguards: —Centralization seeks to obliterate all sense of the rights, duties, and responsibilities of freemen; to throw every obstacle in the way of the discharge of all of these; –and to make Representative Bodies, whether Local or General, but practical falsehoods, — kept only as forms, under the mask of which the work of Despotism may be the more effectively carried on, and all reality of Free Institutions the more easily blotted out.
Local Self-Government makes freemen always to do Folk-right among each other; and tries and adjudges always according to the golden and straight method of the law –Centralization loves only Summary Jurisdiction; and tries and adjudges always according to the incertain and crooked cord of Discretion.
Local Self-Government brings Law and Folk-Right; and the exercise of all political functions home to every man’s door, speedily, frequently, and costlessly, —Centralization makes the pretences of cheap law, and of political franchises but the cover for sapping independence and extending costliest functionarism.
Local Self-Government does all its work in open day, before the face of men: —Centralization shuns the light of day; works secretly, stealthily, and by indirect and tortuous courses behind the backs of men.
Local Self-Government unites all classes and interests in one effort for the Common Weal, –making every proposition to be freely and fairly discussed before all, and to be determined only after such discussion; that so each may work its way on its own merits, for the common good, and with the common consent, of all: —Centralization stirs up jealousies and strifes and heartburnings between different orders and different classes; hinders all discussion, and thrusts down, instead, its own dictated conclusions; it seeks to sow division, that it may the better rule; it fosters only selfishness and the narrowest individualism.
Local Self-Government is identified with the interests of the Many; with the reality and lastingness of Free Institutions; and with true Human Progress: —Centralization is identified with the interests of the Few; with oligarchism and arbitrary rule; and with the forced repression of man’s natural progress.
Centralization is the foul Dragon that is ever gnawing at the root of Yggdrasil, the great World-tree of Freedom: —Local Self-Government is the true Urda’s spring, whose pure waters can alone keep freshened, for ever, the strength and growth of Yggdrasil.
It is the highest duty and privilege of Free Men to watch this Urda’s spring, and to keep it ever pure and unbefouled. The responsibility lies on all who reverence the memory of true-hearted fathers, who respect their own best interests, and who would hand down a Free Inheritance to their children, to draw continually, from this Urda’s spring , the waters by which only can the happy shelter of that Yggdrasil be kept still green and growing.
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From Government by Commisssions, Illegal and Pernicious. (London: S. Sweet, 1849.) pp .353-54:
“For national and human progress local self-government forms the surest guarantee, affording as it does so many nurseries where emulation and individual enterprise are sure of bringing forth continual results, whose benefits can never be confined to the corner of their birth. … Local self-government seeks the continual progressive adaptation of what is tried and practical and known….
Local self-government can nowhere exist and be called into constant and regular activity, and so be not a name merely but a reality, without in itself producing men able and willing to originate new and valuable enterprise and improvement. Everything tends to this end. Every moral feeling is roused, and beneficially so. Even self-love, instead of seeking the “selfish prizes and petty vanities of office,” finds that its only gratification can be derived from devising some improvement, something to better the condition of a neighbour and a district.
And the circumstances of the present time offer peculiar advantages to institutions of local self-government for achieving their highest ends. The facilities of intercommunication must especially tend to make them more valuable and efficient. When a new discovery is made, it is valuable to the community in proportion to the rapidity with which the knowledge and the use of it can be spread abroad. Not only will every man in every town feel the possession of a direct interest and voice in the state, but a healthy spirit of emulation will grow up between neighboring towns.”
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From Local Self-Government Un-Mystified (London: Edward Stanford, `1857)(2nd ed.) pp. 31-33, 86-88:
“The History of English Institutions, and the devices of Centralism, are at irreconcilable feud. That history teaches us. That the Centralism which is now craved after, and called a “necessity,” was never allowed to rear its head in England when the men of England were “noble and manly and genial,” and lived in the “completeness of their manhood;” that William the Norman did not venture on it, and that Charles the First had to recant all attempts at it.
But this branch of the subject cannot be let pass without another remark. It has already been shown, in these pages, that Centralism involves despotism and revolutionism. The same cloven foot appears again, in the shape of this alleged “necessity.” Centralism becomes placed in a dilemma from which it has no escape, except by openly avowing itself for serfdom and revolution. The case is simple:—History proves that three, five, eight, ten and more centuries ago, Local Self-Government did exist in England, and had full strength to keep in check the most ambitious monarchs, as well as to fulfil the needs of every Local community in the land, and to defend the State against every foreign aggressor. If Hugh Peters’ desire had been carried out, and all our Records destroyed, the Centralizers might have indulged their theories without running against so palpable a rock. But the records exist. Our fathers stand out before us, in their very “habit as they lived,” in Domesday Book (so grossly misrepresented by the ill-informed), in Hundred Rolls, in Inquisitiones Nonarum, and in a thousand other unimpeachable records. We find that, whether it were in the crowded city or the rural parish, the men of England, including the “villeins,” were, heretofore, in the habit of handling their own business, and knew how to handle it. The things they handled were of the same nature, exactly, as those to do or interfere in the doing of which we are now told that “Centralism” is a “necessity.”
If the men of England were able to handle these things then, how comes it that they are less able to handle them now? Surely they do not less concern them now. Is it, then, “education.” or “progress,” or “civilization,”—or what is it, that has unfitted them? By what process has it happened, that the understandings of men have become disenabled to comprehend and grasp what were formerly “common things” to all men? Is it the natural degeneracy of the race? Or is it, that the importation into England of the centralizing system, has chilled the sense of men’s duties to their neighbours, and drawn them from those habits, by keeping up which alone can the true practical education of free and intelligent men be made a living thing? Have superficial book pedantry and “aesthetics” been made to supersede the practical training of men in the duties of life?
These are questions which the advocates of Centralism have got to answer, before they can put forward their case with even an honest face. They are questions that cannot he evaded. The facts are against them: History is my testimony and my appeal. Hollow theory, begotten of self-interest, is the only resource of those who crave, in any shape, powers of Centralism.”
…
“The practical idea, and the result, of local self-government are, to bring it constantly home to the contemplation and practice of every man, that the state is made up of individuals, of whom every one has his part to fulfill. The practical idea, and the result, of centralization, on the other hand, are, to diffuse the passive impression that the state is something apart from its members, and that it has the right, and the function, to keep each and all of those members within a certain tether, the length of which it belongs to it to determine, and for which no right nor responsibility of judging belongs to them.
The object and result of all legislation in the direction of centralization are, to take away the free action of every man over his own property; to stay the free use, by every man, of his own resources, his own ingenuity, and his own free efforts and enterprise. Universal obedience to the pedantic schemes of a few self-appointed closet theorists, is proclaimed to be more conducive to human progress, than the development and spreading of truths wrought out by the ceaseless and multitudinous energy and enterprise of millions of active, thoughtful, and practical men, daily meeting, face to face, the difficulties to be overcome, conscious of the responsibility that lies upon themselves to grapple with and overcome them, and directly interested in attaining the best results. This is what centralization really docs, and is, when stripped of the disguises under which its advocates always seek to cover its natural repulsiveness. The empirical and undiscussed projects of interested individuals, are enforced as law over the whole land, instead of such arrangements being adopted as those who alone are interested have chosen, by their own well-considered counsel and free consent. The only, encouragement given, is to those who are subservient enough to follow up the particular hobby of the individual who happens, for the time, to have chief influence in any special central board.
Where true local self-government actively exists, on the other hand, as many minds as possible being engaged, having the most means of knowing every condition of the circumstances to which any proposition applies, and with the greatest practical interest in seeing the best applications carried out, the result is, necessarily, a state of certain and steady progress. If any newer and better adaptation, in any department, be discovered, it can neither he silently suppressed nor openly frowned down by a few whose self-love or self-interest may happen to be touched. It is secure of a free and fair discussion by those interested only in the attainment of the best; and, if it have the character of truth and soundness, it is sure of ultimate adoption; for the interests of all are identical with the adoption of the most efficient means by every one.
When men leave things to be managed, for them, by others, whether those others be Crown-commissioners or occasionally elected bodies, they cease to have their own attention fixed continually on them; cease to accumulate and to communicate experiences; cease to understand, therefore, the relations of the whole to themselves as individuals, and of themselves to the whole. They are gradually less and less able to know or understand anything at all about the true merits of matters so important to their interests; and they become the mere helpless victims of demagogues, jobbers, and speculators.
And, mental independence gone, moral independence goes too. Men are taught that, not self-reliance and self-help, but reliance on, and subserviency to, governments and official personages, is their interest and duty. They are taught that neighbourly charities and sympathies arc to be commuted for so many shillings in the pound paid to the rate-collector! Selfishness supervenes over everything. It swallows up every sentiment; engrosses every thought.
Besides this, it is a system of practical communism and confiscation. Irresponsible taxation necessarily forms a part of the system. The helpless ratepayers are taxed, without any real means of scrutiny, and without hope of redress. The plan of compulsory taxation, moreover, is applied to all parts of the system, whether any of the special objects accomplished are needed by the individuals charged or not. And permanent debts are fastened, like a mill-stone, round the necks of the victims; as, no place being allowed to private enterprise, every cost, every experiment, every compensation, becomes a permanent charge on the pockets of the ratepayers, which future improvement and future discovery can only add to, instead of lightening. The natural tendency is, to a state of dead stationary bondage.”