Experimental Legislation
EXPERIMENTAL
LEGISLATION
BY
The late Professor W.
Stanley Jevons
Reprinted from
The “Contemporary Review” of February, 1880, and
FROM HIS BOOK, “ METHODS OF SOCIAL REFORM,” BY
THE KIND PERMISSION OF MRS. JeVONS AND OF
Messrs. Macmillan and Co., Ltd.
HITCHIN
Garden City Press Limited, Printers
I 9°4
Bibliothek 7 m
§
Experimental Legislation
i
FOOL, Mr. Edgeworth, is one who has never
1 made an experiment.” Such are, I believe,
the exact words of a remark which Erasmus
Darwin addressed to Richard Lovell Edgeworth.
They deserve to become proverbial. They have
the broad foundation of truth, and the trenchant
disregard of accuracy in detail, which mark an
adage. Of course, the saying at once suggests
the question : What is an experiment ? In a
certain way, all people, whether fools or wise men,
are constantly making experiments. The education
of the infant is thoroughly experimental from the
very first, but in a haphazard and unconscious
way. The child which overbalances itself in
learning to walk is experimenting on the law of
gravity. All successful action is successful experiment
in the broadest sense of the term, and
every mistake or failure is a negative experiment,
which deters us from repetition. Our mental
framework, too, is marvellously contrived, so as to
go on ceaselessly registering on the tablets of the
6 lEyperimental Xeotslatton
memory the favourable or unfavourable results of
every kind of action. Charles Babbage proposed
to make an automaton chess-player, which should
register mechanically the numbers of games lost
and gained in consequence of every possible kind
of move. Thus, the longer the automaton went
on playing games, the more experienced it would
become by the accumulation of experimental results.
Such a machine precisely represents the acquirement
of experience by our nervous organisation.
But Erasmus Darwin doubtless meant by
experiment something more than this unintentional
heaping-up of experience. The part of
wisdom is to learn to foresee the results of our
actions, by making slight and harmless trials
before we commit ourselves to an irrevocable line
of conduct. We ought to feel our way, and try
the ice before we venture on it to a dangerous
extent. To make an experiment, in this more
special sense, is to arrange certain known conditions,
or, in other words, to put together certain
causal agents, in order to ascertain their outcome
or aggregate of effects. The experiment has
knowledge alone for its immediate purpose ; but
he is truly happy, as the Latin poet said, who can
discern the causes of things, for, these being known,
we can proceed at once to safe and profitable
applications.
It need hardly be said that it is to frequent and
carefully-planned appeals to experiment in the
lEypenmental ^Legislation
7
physical sciences, that we owe almost the whole
progress of the human race in the last three
centuries. Even moral and intellectual triumphs
may often be traced back to dependence on
physical inventions, and to the incentive which
they give towards general activity. Certainly,
political and military success is almost entirely
dependent on the experimental sciences. It is
difficult to discover that, as regards courage, our
soldiers in Afghanistan and Zululand and the
Transvaal are any better than the men whose
countries they invade. But it is the science of
the rifle, the shell, and the mountain gun—science
perfected by constant experimentation — which
gives the poor savage and even the brave Boer
no chance of ultimate success in resistance. To
whom do we owe all this, in its first beginning,
but to the great experimentalist, the friar, Roger
Bacon, of Oxford, our truest and greatest national
glory, the smallest of whose merits is that he first
mentions gunpowder ; yet so little does the English
nation yet appreciate the sources of its power and
greatness that the writings of Roger Bacon lie, to
a great extent, unprinted and unexplored. It is
only among Continental scholars that Roger Bacon
is regarded as the miracle of his age and country.
No doubt it is to Francis Bacon, the Lord High
Chancellor of England, that the world generally
attributes the inauguration of the new inductive
era of science. This is hardly the place to endeavour
8
Experimental Xeatslatlon
to decide whether the world has not made a great
mistake. Professor Fowler, in his admirable critical
edition of the <c Novum Organum,” has said about
all that can be said in favour of Lord Bacon’s
scientific claims ; yet I hold to the opinion, long
since stoutly maintained by the late Professor De
Morgan, not to speak of Baron Liebig and
others, that Lord Bacon, though a truly clever
man, was a mere dabbler in inductive science, the
true methods of which he quite misapprehended.
At best, he put into elegant and striking language
an estimate of the tendency of science towards
experimentalism, and a forecast of the results to
be obtained. The regeneration of these last
centuries is due to a long series of philosophers,
from Copernicus, Galileo, Descartes, Newton,
Leibnitz, down to Watt, Faraday, and Joule. Such
men followed a procedure very different from that
of Francis Bacon.
II
OW we come to the point of our inquiry. Is
x ^ the experimental method necessarily restricted
to the world of physical science ? Do we sufficiently
apply to moral, social, and political matters those
methods which have been proved so valuable in
the hands of physical philosophers ? Do our
legislators, in short, appeal to experiment in a
way which excepts them from the definition of
jEypenmental Xegtslation 9
Erasmus Darwin ? English legislation, no doubt,
is usually preceded by a great amount of public
discussion and Parliamentary wrangling. Sometimes
there is plenty of statistical inquiry—plenty,
that is, if it were of the right sort, and conducted
according to true scientific method. Nevertheless,
I venture to maintain that, as a general rule,
Parliament ignores the one true method of appealing
directly to experiment. Our Parliamentary Committees
and Royal Commissions of Inquiry pile up
Blue Books full of information which is generally
not to the point. The one bit of information, the
actual trial of a new measure on a small scale, is not
forthcoming, because Parliament, if it enacts a law
at all, enacts it for the whole kingdom. It habitually
makes a leap in the dark, because, I suppose, it is
not consistent with the wisdom and dignity of
Parliament to grope its way, and confess to the
world at large that it is afraid of making mistakes.
Now, I maintain that, in large classes of legislative
affairs, there is really nothing to prevent our making
direct experiments upon the living social organism.
Not only is social experimentation a possible thing,
but it is in every part of the kingdom, excepting
the palace of St. Stephen’s, the commonest thing
possible, the universal mode of social progress.
It would hardly be too much to say that social
progress is social experimentation, and social
experimentation is social progress. Changes
effected by any important Act of Parliament are
10
Experimental ^Legislation
like earthquakes and cataclysms, which disturb the
continuous course of social growth. They effect
revolutionary rather than habitual changes. Sometimes
they do much good; sometimes much harm ;
but in any case it is hardly possible to forecast the
result of a considerable catastrophic change in the
social organism. Therefore I hold unhesitatingly
that, whenever it is possible, legislation should
observe the order of nature, and proceed tentatively.
Social progress, I have said, is social experimentation.
Every new heading that is inserted
in the “ London Trades Directory” is claimed by
those private individuals who have tried a new
trade and found it to answer. The struggle for
existence makes us all look out for chances of
profit. We are all, perhaps, in some degree
inventors, but some are more bold and successful
than others. Now, every man who establishes a
shop or factory or social institution of a novel
kind is trying an experiment. If he hits an
unsupplied need of his fellow men, the experiment
succeeds ; that is to say, it has something succeeding
or following it—namely, repetition by himself and
others. The word “ success ” is a most happy one,
etymologically. To have success is to have a
future—a future of imitators.
It is quite apparent that all the great novelties
of recent times have been worked out in this
tentative way. How, for instance, has our vast
and marvellous railway system been developed ?
)£fpenmental Xeatslation n
Did it spring forth perfect from the wise forethought
of Parliament, as Minerva, fully armed
and equipped, leaped from the head of Jupiter ?
On the contrary, did not our wise landowners and
practical men oppose railways to the very utmost,
until they discovered what a mistake they were
making ? There is no great blame to them. Who,
indeed, could see in the rude tram-line of Benjamin
Outram the germ which was to grow into the maze
of lines and points and signals, which we now pass
through without surprise at Clapham Junction or
at London Bridge ? That most complex organisation,
a great railway station, is entirely a product
of frequent experiment. Gradatim—step by step—
would be no unapt motto for any great industrial
success. In such matters experiments are both
intentional and unintentional. Of the former the
public hears little, except when they result in some
profitable patent. The preliminary trials are
usually performed in secret, for obvious reasons,
and the unsuccessful ones are left undescribed,
and are quickly forgotten. As to unintentional
experiments, they are too numerous. Every
railway accident which happens is an experiment
revealing some fault of design, some insufficiency
in the materials, some contingency unprovided for.
The accident is inquired into, and then the engineers
set to work to plan improvements which shall
prevent the like accident from happening in the
future. If we had time to trace the history of the
12 lEyperimcntal XeQisIatton
steam engine, of gas lighting, of electric telegraphs,
of submarine cables, of electric lighting, or of any
other great improvement, we should see, in like
manner, that the wisdom of Parliament has had
nothing to do with planning it. From the first to
the last the rule of progress has been that of the
ancient nursery rhyme—try, try, try ; and if at
first you don’t succeed, try, try, try again.
To put the matter in the strongest light, let the
reader consider what he would say about a proposal
that Parliament should decide arbitrarily, by its
own wisdom, concerning any great impending
improvement : take, for instance, that of tramways
and steam tramcars. It is quite conceivable that
steam tramcars will eventually succeed so well as
to replace horse conveyance to a great extent. All
main highways will then, of course, be laid with
tram-rails. But what should we think of the
wisdom of Parliament if it undertook to settle the
question once for all, and, after taking a score of
Blue Books full of evidence, to decide either that
there should be no steam tramcars, or that steam
tramways should be immediately laid down between
all the villages in the kingdom ? The House of
Lords did take the former course two seasons ago,
and prohibited the use of steam on tramways,
because it might frighten the horses. In the next
session they felt the folly of opposing the irresistible,
and expressly allowed the experimental use
of steam on tramways.
Experimental Xeotelation 13
One of the points about the railway system
which the Government of the last generation
undertook to settle once for all was the proper
place for great railway stations in London. A
committee, chiefly consisting of military men,
decided that the railway stations should not be
brought into the centre of London. Hence the
position of the stations at Euston, King’s Cross,
Paddington, Waterloo, and Shoreditch. At great
cost their decision has been entirely reversed.
It may perhaps be objected that these are matters
of physical science and practical engineering, in
which the supremacy of experiment has long been
recognised. That is not wholly so ; for the success
of a system like that of the railways or tramways
depends much upon social considerations. However
that may be, there is no difficulty in showing
that the same principles apply to purely social
institutions. If anything, it is the social side of
an enterprise which is usually most doubtful and
most in need of experiment when it can be applied.
To construct the Thames Tunnel was a novel and
difficult work at the time, but not so difficult as to
get the populace to use it. The Great Eastern
steamship was another instance of a great mechanical
success, which was, to some extent, a social and
economical failure. Many like cases might be
mentioned, such as the real ice-rinks lately invented.
How is it that any kind of purely social institution
is usually established ? Take the case of the
14
Experimental ^legislation
Volunteer Force. This was commenced, not to
speak of earlier movements or the ancient Honourable
Artillery Company, by a few isolated
experiments, such as that of the Exeter Rifle Corps
in 1852, and the Victoria Rifle Corps in 1853.
These succeeded so well that when, in 1859, fears
of invasion were afloat, the imitative process set in
rapidly. Of course, wise practical people laughed
at the mania for playing at soldiers, and most
people clearly foresaw that, when once the volunteers
had got tired of their new uniforms, the whole
thing would collapse. But experience has decided
very differently. The force, instead of declining,
has gone on steadily growing and substantially
improving, until a good military authority lately
spoke of it as the only sound part of our military
system. How much has the wisdom of Parliament
had to do with the creation of this force ? I believe
that even now the Government and the military
classes do not appreciate what the volunteer force
has done for us, by removing all fear of safety at
home and enabling the standing army to be freely
sent abroad.
Take again the case of popular amusements.
Would Parliament ever think of defining by
Statute when and how people shall meet to amuse
themselves, and what they shall do, and when they
shall have had enough of it? Must not people
find out by trial what pleases and what does not
please ? The late Mr. Serjeant Cox is said to have
iByperimental legislation
15
invented Penny Readings tor the people, and they
answered so well under his management that they
were imitated in all parts of the kingdom, and
eventually in many other parts of the world.
Spelling-bees were, I believe, an American invention,
and had a very lively but brief career. Many
recent courses of popular scientific lectures arose
out of the very successful experiment instituted by
Professor Roscoe at Manchester. Many attempts
are just now being made to provide attractive and
harmless amusements for the people, and this
must, of course, be done in a tentative manner.
It is curious, indeed, to observe how evanescent
many social inventions prove themselves to be;
growth and change have been so rapid of late that
there is constant need of new inventions. The
Royal Institution in Albemarle Street was a
notable invention of its time, chiefly due to Count
Rumford, and its brilliant success led to early
imitation in Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh,
and perhaps elsewhere. But the provincial institutions
have with difficulty maintained their raison
cTetre. After the Royal Institutions came a series
of Mechanics’ Institutions, which, as regards the
mechanic element, were thoroughly unsuccessful,
but proved themselves useful in the form of
popular colleges or middle-class schools. Now,
the great and genuine success of Owen’s College
as a teaching body is leading to the creation of
numerous local colleges of similar type. This is
16 Experimental ^Legislation
the age, again, of Free Public Libraries, the
practicability and extreme usefulness of which
were first established in Salford and Manchester.
When once possessed of local habitations, such
institutions will, it may be hoped, have long
careers; but bricks and mortar are usually requisite
to give perpetuity to a social experiment.
When thus perpetuated, each kind of institution
marks its own age with almost geologic certainty.
From the times of the Saxons and the Normans
we can trace a series of strata of institutions superposed
in order of time. The ancient Colleges of
Oxford and Cambridge, the mediaeval Guilds
surviving in the City Companies, the Grammar
Schools of the Elizabethan age, the Almshouses
of the Stuart period, the Commercial Institutions
of Queen Anne’s reign, and so on down to the
Free Libraries and Recreation Palaces of the
present day. Even styles of architecture are
evolved by successful innovation—that is, experiment
followed by imitation, and this was never
more apparent than in the imitation which has
followed upon Sir Joseph Paxton’s grand experiment
at the Exhibition of 1851.*
Now, my contention is that legislators ought,
in many branches of legislation, to adopt confessedly
this tentative procedure, which is the
* I do not remember to have seen the importance of this imitative
tendency in social affairs described by any writer, except the French
Engineer and Economist, Dupuit, who fully describes it in one of his
remarkable memoirs, printed in the “ Annales des Ponts et Chaussees.”
lEyperimental Xeaielation 17
very method of social growth. Parliament must
give up the pretension that it can enact the creation
of certain social institutions to be carried on as
specified in the “hereinafter contained” clauses.
No doubt, by aid of an elaborate machinery of
administration and a powerful body of police,
Government can, to a certain extent, guide, or at
any rate restrain, the conduct of its subjects.
Even in this respect its powers are very limited,
and a law which does not command the consent
of the body of the people must soon be repealed
or become inoperative. But as regards the creation
of institutions, Parliament is almost powerless,
except by consulting the needs of the time, and
offering facilities for such institutions to grow up
as experience shows to be successful. But an
unfortunate confusion of ideas exists ; and it seems
to be supposed that because, for reasons of obvious
convenience, the civil and criminal laws are, as a
general rule, made uniform for the whole kingdom,
therefore the legislative action of Parliament
must always be uniform and definitive. When an
important change is advocated, for instance, in
the Licensing Laws, Parliament collects abundant
information, which is usually inconclusive, and
then proceeds to effect all over the kingdom some
very costly and irrevocable change ; a change
which generally disappoints its own advocates.
Take the case of the Sale of Beer Act of 1830,
generally known as the Beershop Act. This is a
18 j£yperimental ‘Hegtslatton
salient example of bad legislation. Yet it was
passed by the almost unanimous wisdom of Parliament,
the division in the House of Commons on
the second reading showing 245 ayes and only 29
noes. The Act originated with Brougham, in the
sense that he had in 1822 and 1823 brought in
somewhat similar bills, which were partially
adopted by the Government of 1830. The idea
of the Act was to break down the monopoly of
the brewers and publicans ; to throw open the
trade in beer on free-trade principles; and by
offering abundance of wholesome, pure, weak
beer, to draw away the working classes from the
gin-shops. All seemed as plausible as it was
undoubtedly well intended. Objections were, of
course, made to the Bill, and many people predicted
evil consequences ; but all such sinister
predictions were supposed to be spread about by
the interested publicans and brewers. Nevertheless,
the new Act was soon believed to be a
mistake. Sydney Smith, though he had not many
years before pleaded for liberty for the people to
drink rum-and-water, or whatever else they liked
(Edinburgh J^eview, 1819), quickly veered round,
and gave a graphic account of the beastly state of
drunkenness of the Sovereign People.*
It may be safely said that the Beershop Act
* “The new Beer Bill has begun its operations. Everybody is drunk.
Those who are not singing are sprawling. The Sovereign People are in a
beastly state.”
Experimental “legislation 19
realised all the evils expected from it, and few or
none of the advantages. It is difficult to say
anything in favour of the bar at the corner publichouse,
except that it is better than the dirty low
little beershop, hiding itself away in some obscure
recess of the streets. The first is at any rate under
the gaze of the public and the control of the
magistrates ; the beershop, until within the last
few years, was too likely to become the uncontrolled
resort of the worst classes. Even now
that the beershops are brought under the Licensing
Magistrates, many years must elapse before
the evil wrought by the Act of 1830 can be
thoroughly removed. This, then, is a striking
instance of a leap in the dark, which ought never
to have been committed by a prudent legislature.
When the Sale of Beer Bill was under discussion,
the Chancellor of the Exchequer seemed to feel
that it was a Bill which needed experimental trial;
for when objection was made that the Act would
not extend to Scotland, he urged that it might be
better to try the Act in one part of the kingdom
in the first instance, and then, if it were found to
be beneficial, and to answer its intended objects,
it might be extended to other parts. *
In more recent years the granting of grocers’
licenses for the free sale of all kinds of spirituous
liquors is likely to prove itself to be an equally
disastrous leap in the dark. With the very best
* “Hansard’s Debates,” April 8th, 1830, New Series, Vol. xxiv., p. 26.
20 iSypeiimental Xegtslation
intentions, and on the most plausible theoretical
grounds, Mr. Gladstone’s Government greatly
extended the free sale of wine and beer, so that
now [February, 1880], in some popular wateringplaces,
I have noticed that almost every third shop
window is ornamented with a pyramid of beer
bottles. Yet the late Government have only
succeeded in making the grocer’s shop the avenue
to the publican’s bar. No one can for a moment
believe that the free sale of liquors for home use
has in the least degree weakened the publican’s
hold on his customers. If I had, on a priori
grounds, to plan out a scheme of liquor traffic, I
should just reverse the existing law relating to
Beershops and Grocers’ Licenses. I would prohibit
the “off” sale of liquor on any premises
where other articles were sold; the purchaser
desiring to buy wine, beer, or spirits for home
use should be obliged to go to some one of a
comparatively few well-marked shops dealing in
those things alone. On the other hand, where
liquor is sold for consumption on the premises, I
should oblige the seller to furnish food and reasonable
sitting accommodation. This would be
nothing more than a return to the old law about
Licensed Victuallers, which yet exists in the letter,
though it has been allowed to fall into practical
abeyance. The very reasonable law obliging
publicans to afford general entertainment was
sadly broken down by the Beershops Act, which
lEypenmental ^Legislation 21
provided unlimited means for the drinking of
beer, pure and simple, without food of any kind.
But my contention is that we must not proceed
in such matters on a priori grounds at all. We
must try.
Perhaps it may be said that every new law is
necessarily an experiment, and affords experience
for its own improvement, and, if necessary, its
abrogation. But there are two strong reasons why
an Act which has been made general, and has
come into general operation, can seldom serve as
an experiment. Of course, a great many Acts of
Parliament are experimentally found to be mistaken,
for they never come into considerable
operation at all, like the Acts to promote registration
of titles, not to mention the Agricultural
Holdings Act. Such cases prove little or nothing,
except the weakness, and possibly the insincerity, of
the legislature. But if an Act comes largely into
operation it is practically irrevocable. Parliament
cannot say simply “ as you were,” and proceed to
a new and more hopeful experiment. A social
humpty-dumpty cannot be set up again, j ust as it
was before, even by the Queen’s men. The
vested interests created are usually too formidable
to be put aside, and too expensive to be bought up.
A good many years, say seven or ten, at the least,
are needed to develop properly any important
legislative experiment, so that the same generation
of statesmen would not have more than three or
22 jEypedmental Xegielation
four opportunities of experiment in the same subject
during the longest political career. If we
divide up the country, and try one experiment on
one town or county, and another on another,
there is a possibility of making an almost unlimited
number of valid trials within ten or twenty years.
But, apart from this consideration, a general legislative
change is not a true experiment at all,
because it affords no clear means of distinguishing
its effects from the general resultant of social and
industrial progress. Statistical facts are usually
numerical or quantitative in character, so that, if
many causal agencies are in operation at the same
time, their effects are simply added together
algebraically, and are inextricably merged into a
general total. Thus, the total numbers receiving
poor-law relief, or the numbers apprehended in
the kingdom for drunkenness, are numerical
results affected by the oscillations of trade, by the
character of the seasons, the value of gold, etc.,
etc., as well as by the Acts of the legislature. To
make a valid experiment we must have a certain
thing subject to certain constant conditions, and
we must introduce a single definite change of
condition, which will then be probably the cause
of whatever phenomenon follows. It is possible,
indeed, to experiment upon an object of varying
conditions, provided we can find two objects which
vary similarly ; we then operate upon the one,
and observe how it subsequently differs from the
j£ypenmental Xegtslatjon 23 \
jf* _ , , % \
other. We need, in fact, what the cherriists call
a “blind experiment.” Suppose, for instance,
that an agricultural chemist or a scientific farmer* './
wished to ascertain the effect of a new kind of
manure ; would it be rational for him to spread
the manure over all his available land ? Would
it not, then, be doubtful whether the increase or
decrease of yield were due to the manure or the
character of the seasons ? In this case his neighbour’s
crops might, to some extent, furnish the
“ blind experiment,” showing what had been the
ordinary yield. But, of course, the obvious mode
of procedure is to spread the new manure over
a part only of each experimental field, so that
the difference of the crops on the different patches
brings out, in a most unquestionable way, the
effect of the manure. Not only is the smaller
experiment, in a logical point of view, far better
than the larger one, but it is possible to try many
concurrent small experiments upon a farm of
moderate extent.
I maintain that, if our legislators are to act
rationally, they will, as far as possible, imitate the
agricultural chemist. The idea, for instance, of
obliging, or even allowing, all the boroughs in
the kingdom simultaneously to adopt the Gothenburg
plan, would be ridiculous and irrational.
The cost and confusion which would arise from
a sudden general trial must be very great ; many
years would elapse before the result was apparent.
24 j£ypenmental ^legislation
And that result would not be so clear as if the
trial were restricted to some half-a-dozen towns.
In the meantime it would be far better that
other boroughs should be trying other experiments,
giving us many strings to our bow, while
some towns would actually do best for the country
by going on as nearly as possible in their present
course. Specific and differentiated experience is
what we need, before making any further important
change in the drink trade.
Not only is this the rational method of procedure,
but it is practically the method to which
we owe all the more successful legislative and
administrative reforms of later years. Consider
the Poor Law question. During the eighteenth
century Parliament made two or three leaps in the
dark, by enacting laws such as Gilbert’s Act, and
very nearly ruined the kingdom by them. The
great Poor Law Commission commenced its
operations in the soundest way by collecting all
available information about the treatment of the
poor, whether at home or abroad. But, what is
more to the point, since the new Poor Law was
passed in 1834, the partially free action of Boards
of Guardians, under the supervision of the Poor
Law Commission and the Poor Law Board, has
afforded a long series of experimental results. The
reports of Mr. Edwin Chadwick and the late Sir
George Shaw Lefevre are probably the best models
of the true process of administrative reform to be
Experimental ^Legislation 25
anywhere found. In more recent years several
very important experiments have been tried by
different Boards of Guardians, such as the boarding
out of pauper children, the suppression of vagrancy
by the provision of separate vagrant cells and the
hard-labour test, and the cutting down of outdoor
relief. If the total abolition of outdoor relief is
ever to be tried, it must be tried on the small
scale first; it would be a far too severe and dangerous
measure to force upon the whole country
at a single blow. Much attention has lately been
drawn to the so-called “ Poor Law experiment at
Elberfeld,” which was carefully described by the
Rev. W. Walter Edwards, in an article in The
Contemporary Review for July, 1878, vol. xxxii,
pp. 675-693, bearing that precise title.
Even when an Act of Parliament is passed in
general terms applying to the whole kingdom at
once, it by no means follows that it will be equally
put into operation everywhere. The discretion
necessarily allowed to magistrates and other
authorities often gives ample scope for instructive
experiments. Some years since the Howard
Association called attention to what they expressly
called “ The Luton experiment,” consisting in the
extraordinary success with which the magistrates
of Luton, in Bedfordshire, enforced the provisions
of the “ Prevention of Crime Act.” The number
of committals to gaol from Luton and its vicinity
was reduced from 257 in 1869 to 66 in 1874.
26 Experimental Xegislation
The only fault of the experiment consists in the
possibility that the thieves and roughs migrated ;
but this difficulty would be less serious had the
experiment been tried in larger towns.
What little insight we can gain into the operation
of the Licensing Laws is mainly due to the
considerable differences with which they have been
administered in different places. Such is the
latitude of discretion given by the law, that magistrates
can often make very distinct experiments.
A short time ago the magistrates of Glasgow
intentionally and avowedly made the experiment
of locking up in gaol all the drunkards brought
before them. When I last heard about this
experiment it was on the point of failing, because
the gaols of Glasgow were all quite full, and still
the drunkards were coming to the bar. In 1863
the Licensing Magistrates of Liverpool commenced
a most interesting experiment, by declaring
their intention to adopt “ Free Licensing ”—that
is, to grant licenses to any suitable persons who
applied for them. The publicans’ licenses were
increased from 1,674 in 1862 to 1,940 in 1866.
The system was abandoned in this last year, owing
to a change in the constitution of the Bench.
None of the magistrates who advocated the change,
we are told, ever recanted, but some who supported
the change to a restrictive policy have been disappointed
with the results. The teaching of this
real experiment has been carefully discussed by
BSypedmental ^Legislation 27
Mr. S. G. Rathbone, in a very able letter, published
in the 'Times of February I2th, 1877, as also in
his evidence before the Lords’ Committee of
Inquiry on Intemperance (Questions 259-384,
etc.). But, apart from his objections to the interpretation
put upon the facts, the experiment was
not continued sufficiently long, and the town in
which it was tried is so unique in the annals of
intemperance as to be ill-fitted for the purpose.
Much attention has been drawn recently to the
merits of the so-called Gothenburg Scheme, the
adoption of which has been so ably advocated by
Mr. J. Chamberlain, M.P. Now, what is this
advocacy but argument from a successful experiment
? The municipal authorities of Gothenburg
allowed a certain method of conducting the sale of
liquor to be tried there, and the success was
apparently so great that other Swedish towns are
rapidly adopting the same plan. This is just the
right procedure of trial and imitation. But if
Mr. Chamberlain means that, because the plan
succeeds in Gothenburg, therefore the municipal
authorities of English towns ought at once to be
obliged to purchase and administer the publichouses,
he goes much too far. All we ought to
do is to try the system in a limited number of
towns. Anyone acquainted with the bright little
Swedish seaport, and the orderly, polished lowerclass
population of Sweden, will be in no hurry to
draw analogies between their condition and that
28 jBypenmental legislation
of our great, busy, turbulent Anglo-Irish towns.
At any rate, it is obvious that experiments ought
to be made upon the most closely proximate
cases which can be found, and if three or four
such towns as Birmingham, Bristol, Bolton, and
Newcastle-upon-Tyne could be induced to try the
Gothenburg scheme, it would be an ample first
experiment. Even between English towns the
difference of magnitude, race, occupation, and
local government are often so great that it is by
no means certain that the same scheme will succeed
equally in all. The differences in the intemperance
rates in the several boroughs of England, to which
I shall, perhaps, draw attention on a future occasion,
are so extraordinary and profound that the Committee
of the House of Lords were thoroughly
bewildered on the subject. Under such circumstances
it should not be assumed that uniform
legislation must be the ultimate object of our
efforts.
It is a most important question how far the
proposals of the United Kingdom Alliance, for the
Suppression of the Liquor Traffic, can be approved
from the point of view here taken up. I venture
to maintain that those proposals, so far as embodied
in the Permissive Prohibitory Bill, now dropped,
had all the possible evils of a great legislative leap
in the dark, with few of the corresponding possible
advantages. Four years ago, in a paper read to
the Manchester Statistical Society, I gave reasons
£ypenmental XeQtelation 29
for believing that the long-continued and costly
proceedings of the Alliance were simply thrown
away, except so far as they might be a warning
against similar unwise attempts at legislation. I
showed that the Alliance were striving against
triple improbabilities : firstly, the improbability (as
manifested by the decreasing ratio of the ayes
to the noes in the House of Commons’ divisions)
that Parliament would ever pass the Bill ; secondly,
the improbability that, if passed, the Permissive
Act would be largely adopted by local authorities ;
thirdly, the improbability that, if adopted, it would
succeed in lessening intemperance. According to
the mathematical principle of the composition of
probabilities by multiplication, the probability that
any good would ever result from an agitation
costing more than a quarter of a million pounds,
and extending already beyond a quarter of a century
in duration, was practically nil. The only effective
answers given to my arguments were that of the
Rev. Mr. Steinthal and one or two others, who
held that the probabilities in question are not
altogether independent, because Parliament could
hardly be forced to pass the Bill unless there were
extensive localities wishing to adopt it. There is
a certain amount of truth in this objection, but it
does not to any great degree strengthen the position
of the Alliance. Their proposals in their original
form seem to me to have the character of a vast
experiment, so vast that it was intended to involve
30 lEypenmental legislation
the extinction of the trade of publicans and liquor
dealers generally in all parts of the country. Now,
that is an experiment, because it is exceedingly
doubtful whether the population would tolerate
such an interference with their habits, when the
meaning of the Act came home to them. The
information which we can draw from Maine, or
other places where prohibition of the traffic has
existed, is most conflicting in itself, and remote in
analogy. Accordingly, I should much like to see
the prohibition of the public sale of liquor tried in
several large English boroughs and districts, provided
that the necessary Act for the purpose could
be carried without stopping all other legislation on
the subject.
Within the last twelve months Sir Wilfrid
Lawson and his followers have had the excellent
good sense to drop the Permissive Bill, and proceed,
by way of Parliamentary resolution, in favour of
“ local option.” I really do not know exactly what
is meant by “ local option.” Perhaps the Alliance
itself does not know ; the wisest course would be
not to know—that is, to leave a latitude of meaning.
In any case they have changed their policy. For
year after year, for nearly the average length of a
generation, it was the eleven clauses and one
schedule of the Permissive Prohibitory Liquor
Bill, pure and simple. Now it is “ local option.”
Even if “ local option ” mean option of prohibition,
a resolution is a more tentative method of
Experimental Xegislatton
3 1
procedure than the precise clauses of the celebrated
Bill. But if, as I fondly hope, “ local option ” will
be interpreted to mean option for local authorities
to regulate the liquor traffic in the way thought to
be most suitable to the locality, including prohibition
when clearly desired by the inhabitants, then
the matter assumes a much more hopeful aspect.
Not only will the resistance to such a proposal be
far less than to the Permissive Bill, but there will
be considerable probability that when passed some
successful experiments will be carried out. In
fact, this “local option” would just be the mode
of giving a wide field for diverse experiments which
I am advocating. The teetotalers would be at
liberty to try their experiments, but they would
not in the meantime stop the progress of many
other experiments, some of which might, in the
course of ten or fifteen years, offer a sound solution
of this most difficult problem. Of course, I am
aware that this question of the drink traffic is to
a considerable extent a political one. There is a
good deal which I might say upon this topic, but
it would not be suitable to the tenor of my theme.
If the political condition of England be such that
the social reform of the people is not the main
purpose of our Government, then we must hope
that there are brighter lands where the political
position is very different.
The best way of dealing with the liquor traffic
would be to hand over the matter to the hands of
3 2 Experimental Xealelatlon
a strong executive commission, framed somewhat
on the lines of the Poor Law Commission. This
body should have the power of authorising schemes
proposed by local authorities, and should supervise
the working of such schemes, and collect minute
information as to the results. They would work
entirely through local authorities, whether the
corporations of cities and boroughs, or the benches
of Licensing Magistrates. Before allowing any
very serious experiments, such as the abolition of
the public sale, the local authority would have to
present evidence that the mass of the inhabitants
was in favour of such a measure, and the Commissioners
would then probably assign a suitable
district, and authorise police regulations suitable
for the most advantageous trial of the experiment.
This method would carry out to the fullest point
the idea of a “local option.” Free licensing might
be tried in Liverpool, and such other boroughs as
liked to venture on such a hazardous experiment.
The Gothenburg scheme would be adopted by
Birmingham and a few other towns. Manchester
might prefer the slighter measure of a rigid restriction
and supervision of the public-houses. It is
to be hoped that Sunday closing and a lessening
of the week-day hours would be voted by many
local authorities, and the experiment of remodelling
the trade, as suggested above, ought certainly to
be tried. I should also like to see some trial
made of the important suggestion put forward by
lEypertmental Xeoislation
33
Dr. John Watts, at the last meeting of the Social
Science Association. He suggests that in each town
or district a limited number of licenses should be
sold by public auction or tender. His purpose
apparently is to limit the number of licenses, and
yet to secure the profits of the monopoly to the
community.
After the expiration of ten or fifteen years,
Parliament would be in possession of a great
amount of really practical information, but the
probability is that it would not be found necessary
to pass any great Act for the subsequent
regulation of the traffic. The scheme which was
found to work best would by degrees be imitated
in the districts of corresponding circumstances,
just as the Gothenburg scheme is being imitated
in other Swedish towns. I do not think that
in a matter of this sort the final law need be
exactly uniform. In the Licensing Act of 1872,
it was found undesirable to fix a uniform hour
of closing public-houses all over the country.
Owing to the difference of habits, the Metropolitan
area was allowed one hour later at night,
and considerable latitude was left to the Licensing
Magistrates to vary the hours of closing. Surely
such matters approximate more in character to
hackney cab regulations or matters of police,
which have long been left to the borough
authorities. It is only the political question,
looming behind the social or legislative question,
34
j£ypedmental Xegislation
which could warrant Parliament in deciding that
people shall go to bed one hour earlier in the
country than in London. But Parliamentary experience
concerning the Licensing Act of the
late Cabinet, and the now defunct Permissive
Bill, cannot encourage any party to press for a
further great general measure of licensing reform.
As to the present state of things, it could not
be much worse nor more absurd. What with
the great variety of kinds of licenses, the doubts
and fears of the magistrates as to their power
of withdrawing licenses or restraining extension
of premises, the remissness—to use a mild expression—of
the police in prosecuting the offences
of publicans, and the universal facility of obtaining
any amount of drink at the nearest grocer’s shop
—I say things really cannot be much worse than
they are. Under the vigorous exertion of local
option the state of affairs would undoubtedly
improve in some parts of the country; the
pressure of public opinion, of the proposed Commissioners,
or, in the last resort, of Parliament,
would eventually force the negligent localities to
follow the example of the most successful “ local
option schemes.”
Let it be understood that I do not for a
moment suppose that there is much, if any,
novelty in the proposals made above. In one
place or another almost every suggestion, except,
perhaps, that of a superintending Commission,
iBypedmental Xeatslation
35
has been made and discussed. The Lords’
Committee have themselves recommended “that
legislative facilities should be afforded for the
local adoption of the Gothenburg and of Mr.
Chamberlain’s schemes, or of some modification
of them.” And the Lords have themselves
recognised the value of social “experiments” in
providing counter-attractions to the public-house.
In their final report, dated the 17 th of March last,
they remark (p. xliv.) :
These experiments are too recent, and, in spite of their
rapid increase, too partial and limited to enable the Committee
to pronounce with confidence on their ultimate
success, or on the extent of the influence they may exercise in
diminishing intemperance ; but they desire to express their
strong opinion that, if generally prosecuted and conducted
with due regard for the wants and comforts of a population
among whom education is gradually diffusing a taste for
enjoyment far less coarse and gross than in the past, they are
destined to have an important influence for good. It is
obvious that the desire for recreation is felt by all classes
alike.
What is this, however, but an express recognition
by the House of Lords of the need of
experimentation as regards the entertainment and
recreation of the people ? I fail to see how such
experimentation either can or ought to be confined
to philanthropists. If we look around and notice
the vast new restaurants of London, the innumerable
glittering railway bars in all parts of the
36 iSypenmental 112913131100
country, the music halls of all ranks and kinds
the dancing and drinking saloons of some provincial
towns—such as Nottingham—and the great
enterprise with which such places of recreation as
the Pomona and Bellevue Gardens at Manchester
are conducted, we shall see that social experiments
are not confined to the teetotalers. Indeed, it
would not be difficult to prove that the nugatory
Licensing Laws, as now administered, present the
least possible obstacle to the publicans in pushing
their experiments, while they do prevent social
reformers from interfering, or from establishing
counter-experiments on an equal footing. It is
hardly too much to say that the Licensing Laws
are laws to give a license to the publicans and
grocers to do what they like to extend the sale of
spirituous liquors.
Although the liquor traffic presents the widest
and most important sphere for social experiment,
there are many other matters to which it must
be applied. Consideration in detail must show
whether, in each case, the tentative method is or
is not the proper method. But it is easy to name
several other reforms which ought, in all probability,
to be approached in the experimental
manner. Thus, peasant proprietorship ought
certainly to be tried in Ireland, as it was intended
to be tried under the Bright clauses of the Irish
Land Act. I am familiar with most of the
economic objections to peasant proprietorship in
lEypenmental ^Legislation
37
this kingdom, and I have read sufficient of the
large literature of the subject to know that evidence
in favour of and against such a tenure of land is
exceedingly divergent and perplexing. The proper
resource, then, is to try the thing—not by some
vast revolution in the land-owning of Ireland, as
proposed by the late Mr. Mill, a measure which,
in the first place, would never pass Parliament,
and, if it did, would cost an enormous sum of
money, and probably result in failure—but by a
small and progressive experiment. “ Earth
hunger ” is a very potent passion, and 1 believe
it is that from which the Irish people are really
suffering. Bread and bacon are not the only good
things an Irish peasant might aspire to ; a place
to call his own, a share of the air and sunlight of
his native isle, and a land-bank in which to save
up the strokes of his pick and spade, might work
moral wonders. It is not safe to predict the action
of human motive ; but, at any rate, try it, although
the trial cost as much as one or two first-rate ironclads,
or a new triumph over a negro monarch.
Surely, the state of our Irish Poland is the worst
possible injury to our prestige.
Much doubt exists, again, as to whether imprisonment
is necessary to enforce the payment of small
debts. If needless, it is certainly oppressive.
But if the abolition of the power of imprisonment,
on the part of County Court judges, would really
destroy the credit of the poorer classes with their
38 iBypertmental Xegielatton
tradesmen, a general measure to that effect would
be dangerous, and difficult to retract. I do not
see how the question can be decided, except by
trying the effect in a certain number of County
Court districts, and watching the results.
It would be well worth the trouble to try the
effect, upon a certain body of inhabitants, of the
most perfect sanitary regulation, somewhat in the
manner foreshadowed by Dr. B. W. Richardson in
his “ City of Hygeia.” This I should like to see
tried, as regards the middle classes, in some newlybuilt
watering-place, with full and special powers of
sanitary regulation to be granted it by Parliament,
avowedly as an experiment. At the same time, a
few large blocks of workmen’s dwellings ought to
be built and placed under experimental sanitary
laws. I am convinced that legislation must by
degrees be carried much further in this direction
than is at present the case, but it ought to proceed
tentatively.
One of the difficult questions of the present
day is; How can London be supplied with
water ? There would be few engineering difficulties
if it were allowable to separate the supply
of pure water for drinking and cooking purposes
from the much larger quantities required for other
purposes. Will people drink the impure water?
Who can decide such a question satisfactorily,
except by experiment on a moderate scale ? What
could be more absurd than to spend millions upon
Experimental Xegislatton 39
procuring a separate supply of pure drinking
water for the population of London, and then
finding that the population would drink the impure
water ? Many other like matters must be
referred to trial, but it is not the purpose of this
article to present a catalogue of experimental
reforms, or to follow the argument out into all
the possible details.
I am well aware that social experiments must
often be subjected to various difficulties, such as
the migration of inhabitants, or even the intentional
frustration of the experiment by interested
parties. I have heard it said that the prohibition
of the liquor traffic could not be tried on a small
scale, because the publicans would be sure to
combine to send liquor into the area. If they did
so, the fact could readily be put in evidence, and
if they can defeat the teetotalers in detail, I am
quite sure that they will defeat them upon any
very great and general measure like the Permissive
Bill. As to migration of inhabitants, it must be
provided against either by suitably increasing the
areas of experimental legislation, or else by collecting
information as to the amount and probable
effects of the migration. But the main point of
my theme is to prove that we cannot really plan
out social reforms upon theoretical grounds.
General argument and information of all kinds
may properly be employed in designing and choosing
the best experiments, but specific experience
40 Experimental legislation
Garden City Press Limited, ^Printers., Hitchin, Herts.
on a limited scale and in closely proximate
circumstances is the only sure guide in the complex
questions of social science. Our method
must be that of the supremely wise text: “ Prove
all things ; hold fast that which is good.”
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Experimental Xegislation 37
iis kingdom, and I have read sufficient of the
rge literature of the subject to know that evidence
favour of and against such a tenure of land is
ceedingly divergent and perplexing. The pro-:r
resource, then, is to try the thing—not by some
1st revolution in the land-owning of Ireland, as
•oposed by the late Mr. Mill, a measure which,
the first place, would never pass Parliament,
td, if it did, would cost an enormous sum of
-oney, and probably result in failure—but by a
nail and progressive experiment. “ Earth
anger ” is a very potent passion, and 1 believe
is that from which the Irish people are really
ifering. Bread and bacon are not the only good
-ings an Irish peasant might aspire to ; a place
call his own, a share of the air and sunlight of
i s native isle, and a land-bank in which to save
) the strokes of his pick and spade, might work
oral wonders. It is not safe to predict the action
human motive ; but, at any rate, try it, although
e trial cost as much as one or two first-rate ironi:
ids, or a new triumph over a negro monarch.
irely, the state of our Irish Poland is the worst
;■ issible injury to our prestige.
Much doubt exists, again,as to whether imprison-Ent
is necessary to enforce the payment of small
bts. If needless, it is certainly oppressive.
J: it if the abolition of the power of imprisonment,
the part of County Court judges, would really
stroy the credit of the poorer classes with their