Some most quarious onnathural place, where I'm tould the sun's scorchin' an' hot XI. Yis, she died, Sir; an' there she was buried, she niver sit fut here agin; -Cornhill Magazine. MR. CARNEGIE'S "GOSPEL OF WEALTH." A REVIEW AND A RECOMMENDATION. BY RIGHT HON. W. E. GLADSTONE. MR. ANDREW CARNEGIE has not yet travelled far into middle life, but his name has become one of considerable celebrity. As, however, this celebrity is special rather than general, he may require to be introduced by a few words to a portion of our readers. His life has been passed in America and Great Britain. He is happy in being one of those rare individuals, whose lives and whose sympathies are so distributed, rather than divided, between two great countries, that they themselves have become part of the living nexus between them and their inhabitants. Born in Dunfermline, he emigrated, as a very young lad, to the United States; and beginning, it may almost be said, from zero, he has become, by virtue of his energy, in dustry, and ability, the possessor of a vast commercial fortune, and the greatest ironmaster in the world. By using the epithet commercial, I mean to signify not that it is less stable than other fortunes, but that it is a fortune engaged in supplying the fixed and circulating capital required for a gigantic and still growing business, and not allowed to heap itself up in immeasurable accumulations. What has become of the share of profits not devoted to the extension of the concern will be sufficiently understood, when I state that it has been disposed of in practical illustration of the doctrines, which it is the first purpose of the present paper to explain. In the account just given of this remarkable person, I have not been divulging confidential or private information. I have simply put together what is well known to all such as have obtained a general acquaintance with a career pursued in the face of day, and that in a country where beyond any other country, if the expression may be allowed, everybody knows everything about everybody. Although Mr. Carnegie has spent by far the greater portion of the years he now numbers in America, yet he has made frequent and long visits to England or to his native land, and it is believed that he has the idea, if not the intention, of settling on this side the ocean. This may be interesting to some on the ground that his purse, which is a heavy one, seems to discharge its contents as freely as they have been received. But I think it will appear, as we proceed, that his doctrine is even more important than his wealth. And, as we always are curious to know what manner of man our teacher may be, I will mention that he is in and for America a stout unflinching protectionist, more than suspected of sympathy with the M'Kinley Bill; in and for the kingdoms of Queen Victoria, a Radical and something to boot. As the most open and direct of men, he would not thank anyone who palliated, or as he would say who disfigured, his political creed. There is no hardier Liberalism in this island than that which has flourished in Dundee, ever since it had some experience of the tyrannical government that, in the judicial sphere, marked the opening years of the great French War. Mr. Carnegie has recently delivered an address there. In it he soars immeaurably above the comparatively pale and colorless Liberalism in which we commonplace politicians are content to dabble.* In truth his flight is such that the naked eye is unable to follow him; we require a telescope, or at the least an opera-glass. The choice of the day was appropriate : it was the 1st of September, a day of slaughter. And the address was not an assault merely, but an onslaught on all which accompanies and qualifies, or as some of us would say mellows, consolidates, and secures the principles of popular government in this country. He evidently does not stop short of the opinion that rank, as it exists among us, is a widely demoralizing power. I have thus mentioned his political views, in order to be clearly understood, when I thrust them entirely aside for the purpose at present before us. They are broadly and clearly severed from the subject which Mr. Carnegie has, in a very interesting tract, placed before the British public, namely, the creation and employment of wealth. And that is a subject which, throughout the wide circle of what may be termed the wealthy por *To obviate any exaggerated apprehensions, I subjoin an abstract from a speech more recently delivered (Sept. 12) by Mr. Carnegie at a similar public occasion in any city in Ameri. ca in which they had not been very careful to drink the health of her Majesty. He liked to see those two titles together. They were the symbol to him of one of the most cherished desires of his heart. They symbolized, as it were, the harmony, the union of the two great branches of the English-speaking race. The health of no foreign potentate was drunk with one tithe of the enthusiasm in America as the health of that good woman, their Queen. He congratulated them that they had such a Queen to drink to and to wish long life to. It had been so seldom their privilege to have a crowned head whom they could respect, personally as well as officially. The Royal Monarchists and Republicans were united in holding that the constituted authorities must be revered." Inverness. He said: "He had never known tion of the community, demands (as I think), and demands without delay, a searching, painstaking, and practical consideration. The accumulation of wealth has had its adversaries, such as Moses and Lycurgus in actual lawgiving, as well as among speculators from Plato to Diogenes. But it has been too strong for them all it is the business of the world; and further we have, I suppose, to confess that the enormous power which it possesses has been used on the whole not well but ill. Has it been sufficiently taken into view that this enormous power from day to day grows more enormous ? It is in course of rapid increase. Nor is even this all. With the growing development of commerce, still very far from its attainable maximum, the rate of that growth is like ly itself to grow. And, lastly, it must not be forgotten that the kind of wealth which chiefly grows is what may be calied irresponsible wealth wealth little watched and checked by opinion, little brought into immediate contact with duty. When the principal form of property was the possession of land, wealth and station were co-extensive, and were visible and palpable to the world. They were seen to be placed in proximity, at every point, with the discharge of duty; and as the neglect of this duty was in the public eye, they were in a partial yet real way responsible. But, apart from property in houses, where there is not in general visibility of ownership, real property in land has now become but one, and not the chief, among many items of the national wealth. As it is not merely the amount but the responsibility of wealth, in its now prevailing forms, which gives occasion to the present paper, I subjoin some figures from the well-known "Statistical Abstract," which will partially illustrate this important point. In the year 1862, the income from land was stated for the United Kingdom at 604 millions. The income charged under Schedule D was 99 millions, and the income other than land charged under Schedule A was 83 millions, together 182 millions. Thus even at that date land in its products was outweighed by other wealth in the proportion of three to one. 1889, Schedule D with its adjuncts had grown to 336 millions, showing an increment of 154 millions, or 85 per cent, while In the income from land, which in 1879-80 had nearly touched 80 millions, had'actually fallen to 58 millions. The income from land was one fourth of the aggregate in 1862; and, in 1889, it was not much over one seventh. So much for the growth of what I have termed irresponsible wealth. But now as to the growth, the portentous growth, of wealth at large. In 1842, when the Income Tax was imposed at 7d. in the pound, Sir Robert Peel, with much caution, originally calculated the proceeds at 500,000l. for each penny. They proved however to be 700,000l. for each penny. In 1889, the proceeds of the sixpenny Income Tax were for each penny two millions and fifty thousand pounds, so that in forty-seven years the wealth of the United Kingdom had been nearly trebled. It is true that in the interval (1853) the tax had been laid on Ireland; but I think the addition on this account was probably not greater, possibly even less, than the loss suffered by relaxations in various years, particularly under Mr. Lowe and (most of all) Sir Stafford Northcote, as Ministers of Finance. The annual amount of property and profits charged in 1889 was 636 mill ions. A deduction has to be made on account of the National Debt, which in reality represents not property of the nation, but the amount of an annual charge on its property and labor moreover, the tax both for lands and houses is charged on gross rental, which, in Great Britain, and especially in England, seriously exceeds the nett return. But any deductions due under these heads would be much more than compensated by additions to Schedule D on the score of profits unascertained, omitted, or understated. To state the annual income on which Income Tax is paid in the United Kingdom at 650 millions is, I am convinced, to state it moderately. We may pretty safely add a like amount for the exempt incomes of poorer but very far larger classes who do not pay income tax, and thus make the total for the three kingdoms thirteen hundred millions year. The sum is prodigious. Were we to attempt to estimate in capital the values out of which it is annually produced, we must bid adieu to all idea of exactitude. But the increment of returns of Tax on Income gives some aid toward estimating the annual increment of capital. For 1855 the entire income on which the tax was a levied may be taken at 310 millions. In thirty-five years, therefore, 340 millions have been added to the taxable income, or nearly ten millions a year. During the same period, apart from all other forms of investment, between sixty and seventy millions have been accumulated in the Savings Banks of the Post-Office; and there have without doubt been other large increments of wealth among the masses who do not pay this special tax. Upon the whole, the annual addition to the capital of the country, for many years past, cannot be taken at less than 200 millions. Let us take it, for the whole period of forty-eight years since 1842, at 150 millions annually. This gives an aggregate addition of 7,200 millions. It would evidently be unreasonable to estimate the entire capital of the country (by conjecture) at less than from ten to twelve thousand millions. If the entire community, taking rich and poor overhead, were to dedicate ten per cent only of the income, the amount thus given away by the individual for the honor of God and the good of his neighbor, large as it would sound at 130 millions, would still leave an increment of 70 millions at the close of the year in the prospering store of the wealthmaking classes; besides the value that would be represented in durable products of building and endowment, intended to be the prolific parents of future good, and indeed of future capital. It is now time to turn again to Mr. Carnegie, and his recent challenge to the wealthy world. It is delivered in two articles, which were first printed in the Northern States, and reprinted with slight revision on this side the water in more forms than one. It has been widely circulated, perhaps by sale, certainly in the way of gift, and the copy before me forms part of the fiftieth thousand.* This self-inade millionnaire has confronted the moral and social problem of wealth more boldly, so far as I know, than any previous writer. He may, like the rest of us, have his infirmities; but his courage and frankness, both of them superlative, are among the attendant virtues, which walk in the train of a munificence not less modest and simple than it is habitual and splendid. Mr. Carnegie's tone is not that of either *Wealth, and the Best Fields for Philanthropy. London the Victoria Publishing Company, 179 Victoria St., S. W. the ascetic or the socialist. He opens by observing that the progress of arts and industries has enormously widened the interval, which severs the conditions of the upper and the laboring classes from one another. He thinks, however, that the servant has gained something where the master has gained so much; and (p. 2) that "a relapse to old conditions would sweep away civilization with it." Luxury is, as he evidently conceives, the mother of industry; and industry is to human society what movement is to air and sea. Therefore, he boldly upholds his position as an industrial giant, and he considers enterprise on a vast scale, and the erection of colossa! fortunes, to be normal processes, and essential conditions of modern society. He speaks of the various rungs of the social ladder with the authority of a man who has trod them all, and in the disengaged and impartial spirit with which such men are not always blessed. The upshot of the great changes in invention and discovery is, that for scarcity and dearness have been substituted cheapness and abundance, nay even, as he somewhat broadly assumes, improvement in quality to boot. The laborer (p. 3) has more comforts now than the farmer of a few generations back, the farmer now than the landlord then, the landlord now than the king then. Queen Elizabeth, I think, breakfasted on beer and beefsteaks: agricultural distress must go far indeed, before the squire of our day will be content with such a bill of fare. 66 For these beneficial changes we pay a heavy price, in what Carlyle called the establishment of cash payment as the sole nexus between man and man. The ties, the relations, which were cords of a man," which were strictly human, have very largely become mechanical. More than ever the employer knows his laborer only through the products of his labor. I here interpolate on my own behalf the expression of a fear that in many quarters the change in this direction is a growing change, though there are gallant struggles to counteract it. But while the conditions may here and there be hard, Mr. Carnegie accepts them, resignedly as being imperative, and cheerfully as being on the whole beneficial. Organization, concentration, competition, survival of the fittest, elevation of the material conditions of the general life, all these are dovetailed into one another, and cannot be parted. this great, but not godless, Cyclop employs with a quiet conscience his twenty thousand men, and sends off every morning from his works a mile in length of train waggons laden with coke. The millionnaire as such has, then, a right to his place in the world, and has no occasion to be ashamed: thus far he serves God in his time and place. "Our duty is with what is practicable now: with the next step possible in our day and generation" (p. 6). But the wealth thus legitimately accumulated (and it is of wealth only, not of mere competence, that Mr. Carnegie speaks) constitutes, when rightly understood, a heavy burden upon the shoulders of its possessor. Mr. Carnegie discusses the mode of getting rid of it, only so far as concerns that portion of it which cannot be, or which is not commonly, spent. He does not consider the case of the gambler, or the glutton, or the wine-sop, or the sybarite. He lends them no wariant, either by his doctrine or his practice; but he chooses his own field of discussion, and deals with "surplus" wealth alone. Probably America has less acquaintance, than we of the older societies, with that class of men, among all the most miserable, for whom the word "surplus" never can exist, because however vast their wealth, however imperative and however attractive the obligations which rank, tradition, and social ties impress upon its use, the idea of enjoyment is from youth upward the only one they comprehended; and all is swallowed without compunction in the insatiable maw of their desires. It is with a more tranquil, if sometimes not less obstinate, class of offenders that Mr. Carnegie has to deal. For their benefit, he points out that there are but three ways, in which the surplus beyond expenditure can be disposed of. It can be left to the family; or it can be bequeathed for public purposes; or it can be "administered," that is to say, bestowed, or given away-by the possessor during life. To dispose of accumulated wealth by provision for the family is, in the judgment of Mr. Carnegie, the "most injudicious" of the three modes he specifies. He associates it with the custom of primogeniture, and views it as a device to gratify the vanity of the parent in the perpetuation of his name (p. 7). He thinks that the picture presented by contemporary So Europe testifies to its failure; and that to leave great fortunes to our children is to impose upon them both burden and disadvantage. Moderate life-provisions should be provided for the wife and daughters, and " very moderate allowances indeed, if any, for the sons" (pp. 7, 8). Not, then, so much the creation as the perpetuation of large money fortunes, detached from occupation and exertion, as well as from recognized responsibility to others, is to be deemed a doubtful and hazardous experiment. I confess myself to hold an opinion, shared I believe by few, which condemns the measure touching entails devised by Lord Cairns, and passed some years back with very wide assent, in so far as it gives encouragement to this form of proceeding by creating an entail of some kind for monies. But it is another matter when in commerce, or in manufacture, or in other forms of enterprise, such for example as the business of a great publishing house, the work of the father is propagated by his descendants. This proposition may indeed be extended far beyond the province of wealth-making. That children should be able to take to the employments of their fathers has been an ancient and conspicuous form of human felicity, from the time of Dardania onwards. νῦν δὲ δὴ Αἰνείαν βίη Τρώεσσιν ἀνάξει * και παῖδες παίδων, καί τοι μετόπισθε γέγωνται. We have in 1890 a Prime Minister ations ago. whose ancestors were similarly employed, to the great benefit of England, ten generIs not this a good? Is not this tie of lineage for him a link binding him to honor and to public virtue? Does not such a relation tend to quicken the stings of conscience while it lives, or when it wakes, for those who wander into evil ways? Does it not present a natural, nay a commanding, object of reverence, and is not reverence one of the firmest and surest bonds of human society, as well as one of the most refining elements of human character? These traditions have some of the power so justly ascribed by Tennyson to pure love; the power to Teach high thought, and amiable words, of whatever kind across the flowery ways of sin. There may be other impediments to good; and the barriers may be overleapt; but we are poor enough with all our resources, and cannot afford to part with the very smallest of them. Is it too much to affirm that the hereditary transmission of wealth and position, in conjunction with the calls of occupation and of responsibility, is a good and not an evil thing? rejoice to see it among our merchants, bankers, publishers: I wish it were commoner among our great manufacturing capitalists: I trust that those who are now at school may live to witness it in the descendants of Mr. Carnegie himself. Even greater is the subject of the hereditary transmission of land more important, and more difficult. The subject is too large for any real discussion here; and I admit that Mr. Carnegie's argument has the advantage of many a scandalous and guilty exhibition in its favor. This portion of the subject is the weightiest, because of the wonderful diversity and closeness of the ties by which, when rightly used, the office of the landed proprietor binds together the whole structure of rural society. It is also the most critical; and it will so continue even when we shall have got rid of the social and moral mischiefs inherent in entails, because the evasion of duty is easy, and the forms of it are such as do not force themselves on a feeble and selfish indulgence can be had with unimdiseased perception, while the means of paired abundance through labors performed by deputy. Our system of landholding may break down through rampant abuse, those who adorn it by appropriate and conor may be upheld by the high merits of spicuous virtues but in it is largely insouche, that cohesion, interdependence, and volved what the French call the familleaffection of the gens, which is in its turn a fast compacting bond of societies at large. Mr. Carnegie has doubtless much to say against this system; but there is plus and minus in the account between a country of old wealth and a country of new, and he will perhaps admit that he has not quite the whole truth on his side. I must in fairness add that he has allowed an exception to his rule. Where sons have been brought up in idleness, or for the performance of public duty without reference to gain-and occasionally these last (he says) are the very salt of the earth' |