§ 15.

Not only does the ultimate welfare of the citizen demand that he should himself conform to the moral law; it equally concerns him that every one should conform to it. This interdependence which the social state necessitates makes all men’s business his business, in a more or less indirect way. To people whose eyes do not wander beyond their ledgers, it seems of no consequence how the affairs of mankind go. They think they know better than to trouble themselves with public matters, making enemies and damaging their trade. Yet if they are indeed so selfish as to care nothing about their fellow-creatures, Edition: current; Page: [447] whilst their own flesh-pots are well filled, let them learn that they have a pounds, shillings, and pence interest at stake. Mere pocket prudence should induce them to further human welfare, if no higher motive will. To help in putting things on a juster footing will eventually pay. The diffusion of sound principles and the improvement of public morality, end in diminishing household expenses. Can they not see that when buying meat and bread and groceries, they have to give something towards maintaining prisons and police? Can they not see that in the price of a coat they are charged a large percentage to cover the tailor’s bad debts? Every transaction of their lives is in some way hampered by the general immorality. They feel it in the rate of interest demanded for capital, which (neglecting temporary variations) is high in proportion as men are bad.a They feel it in the amount of attorneys’ bills; or in having to suffer robbery, lest the law should commit on them greater robbery. They feel it in their share of the two and a half millions a year, which our metallic currency costs. They feel it in those collapses of trade, which follow extensive gambling speculations. It seems to them an absurd waste of time to help in spreading independence amongst men; and yet, did they call to mind how those railway shares, which they bought at a premium, went down to a ruinous discount because the directors cringed to a rich bully, they would learn that the prevalence of a manly spirit may become of money-value to them. They suppose themselves unconcerned in the quarrels of neighbouring nations; and yet, on examination, they will find that a Hungarian war by the loans it calls for, or a Danish blockade by its influence upon our commerce, more or less remotely affects their profits, in whatever secluded nook of England they may live. Their belief is that they are not at all interested in the good government of India; and yet a little reflection would show them that they continually suffer from those fluctuations Edition: current; Page: [448] of trade consequent upon the irregular and insufficient supply of cotton from America—fluctuations which would probably have ceased, had not India been exhausted by its rulers extravagance. Not interested? Why even the better education of the Chinese is of moment to them, for Chinese prejudice shuts out English merchants. Not interested? Why they have a stake in the making of American railways and canals, for these ultimately affect the price of bread in England. Not interested? Why the accumulation of wealth by every people on the face of the earth concerns them; for whilst it is the law of capital to overflow from those places where it is abundant, to those where it is scarce, rich nations can never fully enjoy the fruits of their own labour until other nations are equally rich. The well ordering of human affairs in the remotest and most insignificant communities is beneficial to all men: the ill ordering of them calamitous to all men. And though the citizen may be but slightly acted upon by each particular good or evil influence, at work within his own society, and still more slightly by each of those at work within other societies—although the effect on him may be infinitesimal, yet it is on the cumulative result of myriads of these infinitesimal influences that his happiness or misery depends.