FOR some years, both in the press and on the platform, I have been endeavoring to draw public attention to the degeneration which to my mind is taking place in the physique of our town populations. I have been asked for proofs of this assertion. Statistical proofs of this, to me self-evident, proposition are very hard to furnish. It is said that the statistics of army recruiting should demonstrate the truth; doubtless they would, if all recruits enlisted in towns had been born and brought up in them; but it is notorious that this is not the case, inasmuch as all the principal recruiting stations are in the cities, and if a country lad desires to enlist, he must do so by first visiting the town. This fact must at once upset all theories founded on the statistics of town recruiting for the army; but taking town and country recruits together, out of 64,000 men who enlisted in 1884, no fewer than 30,000 were rejected for physical incapacity, a proportion which cannot fail to give occasion for very serious reflection. Indeed, the difficulty of obtaining recruits for the army possessed of adequate physical strength has become so great that a general order has now been issued, in which great discretion is given the recruiting officer and doctor in passing men, the authorities trusting to the military gymnasium to bring the men after enlistment up to the proper standard. Mr. A. Alexander, director of the Liverpool Gymnasium, who is a most energetic promoter of physical education, gave, a short time ago, a course of instruction to the soldiers at Aldershot. He states that he was surprised to find that many of the recruits were unable to raise their bodies by the strength of their arms until their chins

And these

were level with the bar! are the defenders of our country! The fact that Lord Wolseley is now crying out for the authorities to supply him with men with large chests instead of large heads, proves that our most eminent general recognizes the gravity of the situation.

It is not possible either to place any very great reliance upon the statistics of health in our large towns. These also are to a certain extent useless for our purpose, inasmuch as an emigration from the country to the town is in constant progress at the rate of from 50,000 to 60,000 souls per annum. This stream of vigorous country life flowing into the towns tends to raise unduly the standard of health in the latter, while the children of these 50,000 sturdy men and women are probably more robust than those whose parents were born in the town. If we could isolate the city, and could prevent all intermarriage with the country, the degeneration in the physique of the inhabitants of the former would probably be so marked as to horrify the public, and would arouse a sense of national danger which would command the attention of Parliament and the country.

The danger of the situation lies in the gradual nature of the physical deterioration which is taking place in our midst, and in the fact that, while our purely rural population is decreasing in numbers, our town-bred men and women are augmenting at the rate of 340,000 a year. But, though it may be difficult to prove by statistics that our urban is less robust than our town population, and that each generation of pure city dwellers is less robust than the previous, it is only necessary for an intelligent man or woman to walk through the

slums of our great towns in order to assure himself or herself, beyond all question or doubt, that the physical condition of the people in these crowded districts is, to say the least, unsatisfactory, and one of which no Englishman can well be proud.

Now this being so, and given the annual increase of our urban population as stated above, surely we have a strong prima facie case for asking for a Royal Commission to inquire into the physical condition of our people. If the result of the Commission be to show that all our fears are unfounded, and that our town population is the equal of the country, we shall have every cause to rejoice; but if, on the other hand, it be shown, as I firmly believe it will, that large numbers of the inhabitants of our cities are physically unfitted, though in the prime of life, to defend the country in time of war, or to carry on her work in peace, a growing but a hidden danger to Great Britain will have been revealed, and the first step will have been taken toward the reform of an evil which would ultimately lead to a degeneration of the race and to national effacement. But only the first step; for though no reform be possible until the evil to be reformed be known and recognized, further steps must be taken if a cure is to be effected. In this instance the remedy which naturally suggests itself, is the minimizing of the unhealthy conditions of urban life which have led to such a sad result-in other words, the better housing of the poor, the establishment of breathing spaces such as parks and playgrounds, and the feeding of the children in the National Schools, as is done in Germany and France, where each child is supplied with a midday meal which he can purchase at a very cheap rate (in Germany, if the father is too poor to pay, the meal is still given, and the father is either summoned for the price or must declare himself a pauper, in which case the meal is supplied out of the rates), the due enforcement of sanitary laws, and finally the compulsory training of all children attending Board and National Schools in gymnastics and calisthenics. In order that the physical training given in the schools shall be efficient, it is necessary that it should be included in the code

of education, and that grants should be given for proficiency, just as is done in the case of intellectual training. It should never be forgotten that the mind is not likely to be healthy unless the body is in a sound condition, and that if intellectual studies were varied with physical exercises we should hear less of over-pressure and of the difficulties of getting the children to attend school. Physical exercises, especially when performed in masses and with song, are extremely attractive to children and have been found to improve greatly the discipline of the schools into which they have been introduced. The School Board of London have taken a useful step by the introduction of Swedish musical drill among the girls attending their schools.

These exercises require

no apparatus and are easily learned, and I do not know a prettier sight than to see a group of happy girls practising to the sound of their own merry voices the graceful movements of the Swedish musical drill.

I hope that within a short time there will be no school within the United Kingdom which will not teach gymnastic exercises to its boys and Swedish drill to its girls. Almost every nation in Europe, with the exception of ourselves, has established such a system of compulsory physical training, and spends large sums of money in strengthening the bodies and nerves of its future citizens. We alone neglect this precaution. Do we believe that there is something in British flesh and blood which is able to withstand the deteriorating influences of bad air and food, and want of healthy exercise? If so we are living in a veritable fool's paradise, and when the stress of national danger arrives we shall find that our men are made of different stuff from those who fought and conquered the combined armies of Europe. Those men were mostly reared in country homes, on wholesome though may be coarse fare, and under the pure canopy of heaven, not fed on white bread and adulterated beer or spirits, working in cellars and warehouses into which the full daylight seldom or never penetrates. How is it that we are so behind other nations in this matter of the physical education of the people? I believe it is because our

middle and upper classes hold such a high place among the athletes of the world, that we are blind to the deficiencies in this respect of their brothers of a lower station in life. I do not suppose it would be possible to find more perfect specimens of young healthy manhood than are to be seen in our larger colleges and universities, but this should only make the contrast between their condition and that of the young lads who hang about the public-houses and roam the streets of our large towns more apparent and more startling. These young men want not only physical development, but the discipline which a course of gymnastic training would give them. It is now eighty years since Germany first established the Turnverein, or National Gymnastic Association, which by its thorough and systematic training of the entire population in gymnastic exercises, strengthening to the body and nerves, and productive of physical courage, many believe to have been in no slight degree instrumental in the thorough defeat which the French sustained at the hands of the Germans in 1870. The French seem to think this partial explanation of their defeat to be not without some possible foundation in truth, for since the war they have taken steps to teach their youth to strengthen their bodies by manly exercises. Perhaps it will be necessary for us to undergo some such national humiliation.

I trust, however, that we shall learn our lesson without the infliction of punishment, which may overtake us in other ways than by the means of the sword. The arts of peace cannot be carried out successfully by men and women feeble in body and weak in health. Physical strength is almost as much required in the peaceful contests

of everyday life as in wars; and other things being equal, the nation which has the healthiest and sturdiest human material with which to work will produce the best and most salable manufactures. We are, as a nation, dependent on the productions of our hands and brains. We cannot produce in these islands food sufficient to supply our necessities. We must therefore purchase it, and we can only purchase it by manufacturing for our neighbors, and thus earning money sufficient to pay for the food we buy. It is therefore imperative that we shall be able to make better goods than our neighbors, in order to attract their custom; and how can we hope to surpass them in the excellence of our manufactures if the intellect of our designers is weakened by bad health, and the bodies of our artisans and laborers are suffering from lassitude and depression?

This question of Physical Education is one therefore which all classes of the community should support: the workingmen for their own sakes and for that of their children; military and naval men for the reputation of their country's arms; philanthropists and divines for the love of their fellow-men; employers and capitalists for the sake of improved trade; and statesmen lest they find that the Britain which they profess to govern is sinking before their eyes, borne down by no foreign foe, but undermined through physical causes which might have been avoided but for the blindness and obstinacy with which they have fixed their gaze on distant objects and questions of haute politique, to the neglect of nearer and less interesting but more indispensable reforms connected with the health and physique of the people of Great Britain and Ireland. -Nineteenth Century.

I. ON WHAT DO THE POSSIBILITIES OF REDISTRIBUTION DEpend?

LET me once more remind the reader that I am approaching economic problems simply and solely with a view to

their practical bearings. Material

wealth, we are told, must shortly be redistributed; and however orderly the process of redistribution may be, it will at all events be sufficiently thorough and searching to change completely the existing aspect of society. My present aim is to bring the reader not to despise this prophecy, and not to be either elated or frightened by it, but to examine calmly, I might almost say frigidly, the facts on which the possibility of its realization depends.

Bearing this in mind, a very little reflection will show us that our inquiry divides itself into three broad questions,

as follows:

Firstly.-What does this material wealth, which it is desired to redistribute, consist of?

Secondly. What classes of men make it, and how much of it is made by each particular class?

Thirdly. What conditions are necessary to secure that these various classes shall go on making it to the best of their several abilities?

The first of these questions I have dealt with in my first article. I pointed out the fact, to which the Socialists, indeed, give special importance, but which is denied by nobody, that material wealth, under modern conditions of production, consists for each producer primarily, not of things either useful or enjoyable to himself, but of things which he can exchange for such things; or, in other words, that it consists of so much exchange value. I then stated, as fully as space permitted, the theory by which the Socialistic school of Economists answer the second question---how they explain the genesis of this value, and the class of men to whom exclusively

* Continued from the May number.

they attribute its creation. I stated the theory, and I am presently going to criticise it. But with regard to the third question-how the second is con

nected with it; how distinct, in spite of their connection, the two questions are; and how inseparable are both from the practical problem before us-with regard to all this I have as yet said nothing, and before I proceed further there is something that must be said.

Every one is familiar with the asser

tion that property is robbery; and the plea for redistribution is supposed to be based on the theory that the wage earning masses make the wealth of society, and that justice accordingly demands that it should belong to them. This mere appeal, however, to abstract and sentimental justice is by no means the Socialists to stand, nor is it the strongfinal ground on which it is open to the

est.

The strongest ground is the theory, not that the masses or the laborers make all the wealth and therefore ought to enjoy it, but that society in proportion as it is organized on a progressively democratic basis will acquire the power of appropriating for the use of the majority any wealth, no matter who made it, which it considers can be appropriated usefully. Thus, should a handful of men produce ten times as much wealth as all the rest of their fellow-citizens put together, the State would, on behalf of the entire community, have a claim on this exceptional wealth as against its

actual makers.

substantially right. With regard to property, justice in individual cases often implies self-denial and voluntary renunciation; but in the long run and taking men in masses it practically coincides with the power of permanent possession.

And here no doubt the Socialists are

This at all events holds

good in the case of the poor as against the rich. No matter how good a title the few could show to their riches, their riches would not be long secure if the many were able at any moment to ap

propriate them, and were only restrained from doing so by their own forbearance and good feeling. If the multitude of the comparatively poor, united as it is by the pressure of actual want and misery, could, by an exertion of its organized power, divide the wealth of the few so as to secure permanent comfort for all, they would do so, and would be right in doing so. Luxury plainly has no claim to exist if it exists only on the sufferance of privation and hardship.

Now if, as the Socialists say, all wealth is produced by labor, meaning by labor the labor of an average man, the problem of redistribution presents little theoretical difficulty. Such labor, according to their view of the matter, has but one measure, which is time. An hour's work of one man produces as much wealth on the average as the hour's work of another, and thus were any of the community inclined to shirk their duties and not to exert themselves to the utmost, it would be easy for the State to detect and put pressure upon them. Let us, however, suppose for a moment--at this stage of our inquiry we can merely roughly suppose it-let us suppose that the Socialistic theory we have just mentioned is false. Let us suppose let us consent to at least entertain the idea-that instead of all men in an equal time producing on the average an equal amount of wealth, some men produce in an hour more than other men produce in a month. Let us suppose that two thirds of the national income is produced by a number of specially gifted groups, who do not together amount to more than one tenth of the population, or, at any rate, that there is some disproportion of the kind in the productivity of different classes. At once the problem of legislative redistribution becomes more complicated. If the distribution of wealth is to be anything like equal, the main business of the State will, in this case, be with the few, not with the many; for the few produce most of what the State is to divide among all; and here plainly a new question presents itself. It is perfectly easy to conceive that the State might have power to seize and distribute all that the few produce, and to defend such conduct on grounds of public utility; but another power is re

quired also which is not so easy to conceive, and which must be certainly of a wholly different kind. This is a power which shall compel the few not merely to give up what they produce to the State, but to go on producing with their present exceptional intensity. In the case of the average man we have merely to see that he does as much as his neighbors, and we are able also to promise him that he shall have the full worth of his work. In the case of the exceptional minority, we have to see that they do a great deal more than their neighbors, at the same time warning them that of the results of their exceptional work by far the larger part will be forcibly taken away from them.

First, however, let us inquire if any such minority exists. Does one man on the average make as much wealth as another? or are there classes whose productivity, measured by the average standard, is out of all proportion to their numbers, or the number of hours they work? And this brings us back to the great revolutionary doctrine of today-the doctrine which I explained in my opening article, and which remains at present without any formal refutation

the doctrine that all value is due to and is measured by labor; or that labor, in other words, is the cause of all ma terial wealth. Is that doctrine true? Or if false, why is it false?

II. THE ECONOMIC CAUSES OF PRO

DUCTION.

Of course, if in speaking of the cause of anything, we press the word cause to the utmost stretch of its meaning, the causes of any single result are infinite; and without travelling far enough to even confuse our thoughts, we are certain to arrive at a large number which, in any practical inquiry, are altogether irrelevant. Thus the entire causes of the production of a given amount of wealth are the entire sum of the conditions, whether properties of matter, human actions, human motives, or the physics of the human body, the absence of any one of which would diminish the amount in question, or alter its quality. But this catalogue may be said to include the entire constitution of the universe, and the entire history of man. Naturally Economists cannot deal with