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    EDINBURGH JOURNAL
    BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS



    CHAMBERS' EDINBURGH JOURNAL

    CONDUCTED BY WILLIAM AND ROBERT CHAMBERS, EDITORS OF 'CHAMBERS'S
    INFORMATION FOR THE PEOPLE,' 'CHAMBERS'S EDUCATIONAL COURSE,' &c.


    No. 435. NEW SERIES. SATURDAY, MAY 1, 1852. PRICE 1-1/2_d._




    FORCED BENEFITS.


    The maxim, that men may safely be left to seek their own interest, and
    are sure to find it, appears to require some slight qualification, for
    nothing can be more certain, than that men are often the better of
    things which have been forced upon them. Those who advocate the idea
    in its rigour, forget that there are such things as ignorance and
    prejudice in the world, and that most men only become or continue
    actively industrious under the pressure of necessity. The vast
    advantages derived from railway communication afford a ready instance
    of people being benefited against their will. At the bare proposal to
    run a line through their lands, many proprietors were thrown into a
    frenzy of antagonism; and whole towns petitioned that they might not
    be contaminated with the odious thing. In spite of remonstrances, and
    at a vast cost, railways were made; and we should like to know where
    opponents are now to be found. Demented land-proprietors are come to
    their senses; and even recalcitrant Oxford is glad of a line to
    itself.

    Cases of this kind suggest the curious consideration, that many
    remarkable benefits now experienced were never sought for or
    contemplated by the persons enjoying them, but came from another
    quarter, and were at first only grudgingly submitted to. A singular
    example happens to call our attention. There is a distillery in the
    west of Scotland, where it has been found convenient to establish a
    dairy upon a large scale, for the purpose of consuming the refuse of
    the grain. Seven hundred cows are kept there; and a profitable market
    is found for their milk in the city of Glasgow. That the refuse of the
    cow-houses might be applied to a profitable purpose, a large farm was
    added to the concern, though of such land as an amateur agriculturist
    would never have selected for his experiments. Thus there was a
    complete system of economy at this distillery: a dairy to convert the
    draff into milk, and a farm to insure that the soil from the cows
    might be used upon the spot. But, as is so generally seen in this
    country, the liquid part of the refuse from the cow-houses was
    neglected. It was allowed to run into a neighbouring canal; and the
    proprietors would have been contented to see it so disposed of for
    ever, if that could have been permitted. It was found, however, to be
    a nuisance, the very fishes being poisoned by it. The proprietors of
    the canal threatened an action for the protection of their property,
    and the conductors of the dairy were forced to bethink them of some
    plan by which they should be enabled to dispose of the noxious matter
    without injury to their neighbours. They could at first hit upon no
    other than that of carting away the liquid to the fields, and there
    spreading it out as manure. No doubt, they expected some benefit from
    this procedure; and, had they expected much, they might never have
    given the canal company any trouble. But the fact is, they expected so
    little benefit, that they would never have willingly taken the trouble
    of employing their carts for any such purpose. To their surprise, the
    benefit was such as to make their lean land superior in productiveness
    to any in the country. They were speedily encouraged to make
    arrangements at some expense for allowing the manure in a diluted form
    to flow by a regular system of irrigation over their fields. The
    original production has thus been _increased fourfold_. The company,
    finding no other manure necessary, now dispose of the solid kind
    arising from the dairy, among the neighbouring farmers who still
    follow the old arrangements in the management of their cows. The sum
    of L.600 is thus yearly gained by the company, being not much less
    than the rent of the farm. If to this we add the value of the extra
    produce arising from the land, we shall have some idea of the
    advantage derived by this company from having been put under a little
    compulsion.

    An instance, perhaps even more striking, was supplied a few years ago
    by certain chemical works which vented fumes noxious to a whole
    neighbourhood. Being prosecuted for the nuisance, the proprietors were
    forced to make flues of great length, through which the fumes might be
    conducted to a considerable distance. The consequence was surprising.
    A new kind of deposit was formed in the interior of the flues, and
    from this a large profit was derived. The sweeping of a chimney would
    sometimes produce several thousand pounds. At the same time, nothing
    can be more certain than that this material, but for the threat of
    prosecution, would have been allowed to continue poisoning the
    neighbourhood, and, consequently, not yielding one penny to the
    proprietors of the works.[1]

    It has pleased Providence to order that from all the forms of organic
    life there shall arise a refuse which is offensive to our senses, and
    injurious to health, but calculated, under certain circumstances, to
    prove highly beneficial to us. The offensiveness and noxiousness look
    very much like a direct command from the Author of Nature, to do that
    which shall turn the refuse to a good account--namely, to bury it in
    the earth. Yet, from sloth and negligence, it is often allowed to
    cumber the surface, and there do its evil work instead. An important
    principle is thus instanced--the essential identity of Nuisance and
    Waste. Nearly all the physical annoyances we are subjected to, and
    nearly all the influences that are operating actively for our hurt,
    are simply the exponents of some chemical solecism, which we are,
    through ignorance or indifference, committing or permitting. There is
    here a double evil--a positive and a negative. When the Londoner
    groans at the smokiness of his streets, and the particles of soot he
    finds spread over his shirt, his toilet-table, and every nice article
    of furniture he possesses, he has the additional vexation of knowing,
    that the smoke and soot should have been serving a useful purpose as
    fuel. When he passes by a railway over the tops of the houses in some
    mean suburb, and looks down with horror and disgust on the pools and
    heaps of filth which are allowed to encumber the yards, courts, and
    narrow streets of these localities, to the destruction of the health
    of the inhabitants, he has a second consideration before him, that all
    these matters ought to be in the care of some easy-acting system, by
    which, removed to the fields, they should be helping to create the
    means of life, instead of death. We never can look upon a great
    factory chimney pouring forth its thick column of smoke, without a
    twin grief--for the disgust it creates, and the good that is lost by
    it. Properly, that volatile fuel should be doing duty in the furnace,
    and effecting a saving to the manufacturer, instead of rendering him
    and his concerns a nuisance to all within five miles.

    Troublesome as these nuisances are, there is such an inaptitude to new
    plans, that they might go on for ever, if an interference should not
    come in from some external quarter. It matters little whence the
    interference comes, so that the end be effected. We cannot, however,
    view the proceedings of a Board of Health in ordering cleanly
    arrangements, or those of a municipal council putting down factory
    smoke, without great interest, for we think we there see part, and an
    important one too, of the great battle of Civilisation against
    Barbarism. And this interest is deepened when we observe the benefits
    which Barbarism usually derives from its own defeats. The
    factory-owner, for instance, will find that, in applying an apparatus
    by which smoke may be prevented, he will not merely be sparing his
    neighbours a great annoyance, but economising fuel to an extent which
    must more than repay the outlay. By repressing nuisance, he will be in
    the same measure repressing waste.[2] Were there, in like manner, a
    general measure for enforcing the removal of refuse from the
    neighbourhood of human habitations, the rate-payers would in due time
    see blessed effects from the compulsion to which they had been
    subjected. Their groans would be succeeded by gladness, and they would
    thank the legislators who had slighted their remonstrances. When the
    cholera approached in 1849, our British Board of Health ordered a
    general cleaning out of stables, and a daily persistence in the
    practice. It was complained of as a great hardship; but the Board
    ascertained that owners of valuable race-horses cause their stables to
    be thoroughly cleaned daily, as a practice necessary for the health of
    the animals; the Board, therefore, very properly insisted on forcing
    this benefit upon the proprietors of horses generally. Can we doubt
    that a similar policy might be followed with the like good
    consequences at all times, and with regard to the habitations of men
    as well as horses?

    It would thus appear, that men may really be allowed a too undisturbed
    repose in their views and maxims, and, if always left to seek their
    own interests, would often fail to find the way. If, indeed, it were
    true that men are sure to find out their own interest, no country
    should be behind another in any of the processes or arts necessary for
    the sustenance and comfort of the people; whereas we know the contrary
    to be the case. If it were true, there should be no class in our own
    country willing to sit down with the dubious benefits of monopoly,
    instead of pushing on for the certain results of enlightened
    competition. It could only be true at the expense of the old proverb,
    that necessity is the mother of invention; for do we not every day see
    men

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