The Liberty Review, June 15, 1901
Henry Wilson, a lieutenant colonel in the British army, was a frequent contributor to The Liberty Review (published by the Liberty and Property Defence League), until he was killed in a bicycle accident on January 8, 1907. He was secretary of the Individualist Club, treasurer of the Personal Rights Association, and a contributor to Auberon Herbert’s periodical titled Free Life. In this article, Wilson comments both on the moral double standard that was used when assessing different economic classes and on the uselessness of vice legislation.
We all remember the French nobleman whose life had not been a pattern of morality, but who said, when dying, that he had no doubt the Almighty would make due allowance for the fact that he was a gentleman, and would not be so hard on his peccadilloes as if he were a plebeian. The Archbishop of Canterbury seems to share this feeling, for he said (on May 20th, in the House of Lords) that betting was certainly a vice when practised by those who could not afford it. There are some men so strong that drunkenness does not seem to affect them—so, of course, in them, it ceases to be a vice. When Captain Yelverton was asked, at the Longworth trial, if he thought seduction was wrong, he said it depended on the social position of the girl. Punch, years ago, had an amusing cartoon, representing John Thomas lounging in his mistress’s carriage and consulting his betting book. To me it seems no more blamable in a footman, who is an idle person, to fill up the vacuity in his mind in that way than it is in his master. Gambling is, of course, an inheritance from our savage ancestors, who, having no subjects of interest to think about, killed time in that way, as savages do now all over the world. We ought, by this time, to have got rid of the pestilent heresy that wealth and position give us more licence to indulge in idleness and vice than people in a humbler station. Virtue and vice ought to be independent of station or sex. There is nothing wonderful in the Bishops of Hereford and London interfering. What good can a Select Committee do? Betting has increased because more people read the papers and wages have risen, just as smoking has increased among boys since cigarettes have become common. The facts are all well known, and a Committee can throw no new light on the subject. The Bishops say that public opinion will be aroused. Let public opinion direct itself to the rich first, and not wink at the betting ring on racehorses or gambling at the clubs in Pall Mall while sanctioning raids on clubs of tailors and butchers, or on men who bet in shillings at street corners. It is very amusing to hear the Bishop of Hereford say that moderate legislation on this subject was not open to the same objection as legislation in restriction of the drink traffic, or on the hours of shop assistants. It is something to hear a confession that legislation on the latter subjects is bad; but there is still the delusion that a little of a bad thing is a good thing, and that law can alter men’s hearts.