John Stuart Mill: A Criticism with Personal Recollections

POLITICAL MOVEMENTS. IO7
single individuals can rarely claim an undivided merit. If
however, what Mill says of the part he took in supporting Lord
Durham, in the London and Westminster Review, is proof against
refutation, he has rendered a great sen-ice to the world in
one important region of affairs. His words are: "Lord
Durham s report, written by Charles Buller, partly under the
inspiration of Wakefield, began a new era; its recommendations,
extending to complete internal self-government, were in full
operation in Canada within two or three years, and have been
since extended to nearly all the other colonies of European race,
which have any claim to the character of important communi
ties. And I may say that in successfully upholding the reputa
tion of Lord Durham and his advisers at the most important
moment, I contributed materially to this result"
I call the whole of his doctrines regarding the greatest poli
tical problem of all the elevating of the class that needs to be
elevated in an eminent degree sound in themselves and pro
lific of the best consequences, although we may not be able to
single out any one distinctive or separate
result. When both
parties in the State were helping to poison and delude the
working men, he (after his father) was steadily occupied in
sweeping away the refuges of lies in teaching them self-
dependence, and in warning them against bubbles and expec
tations of immediate reltef. He dared to tell them, as well as
other people, unpalatable truths ;
and but, for his teaching, the
Chartism of the thirties might have been far more perilous.
Whatever may be the view taken of the political claims put
forward in behalf of women, it will be allowed that Mill has
done morq than any single person for the bread-earners of the
sex. The cold philosophy of Sir James Stephen
would not
have taken the place of his apostolic zeal, in obtaining the
concessions of the last few years for bettering the education of
women, and for widening the spheres of their industry.
Mill, having not only inherited, but also shared, his father s
responsibility in urging upon this country a great extension of