525 John Stuart Mill

Constituency : Westminster  1865-8

There  was  no  doubt  which  was  the  most  famous  individual  contest  of  the  1865  election. As  noted  in  the  previous  post  the  Radicals  of  Westminster  were  not  happy  with  the  candidature  of  Robert  Grosvenor  to  replace  George  de  Lacey  Evans  and  eventually  alighted  on  John  , the  leading  self-designated  Philosophic  Radical ,as  an  alternative. This  eventually  led  to  the  withdrawal   of  the  second  Liberal  member,  John  Shelley, allowing  John  and  Grosvenor  to  run  in  tandem. John  made  a  number  of  caveats  so  as  not  to  soil  his  hands  with  the  dirty  business  of  politics  for  instance  no  canvassing, spending  money  or  giving  pledges,  but  was  elected  anyway. He  disliked  Palmerston  and  deplored  that  the  Liberal  members  were  rallied  under  his  banner. On  the  other  hand  he  refused  to  join  the  Reform  League  saying  "I  think  that  I  can  probably  do  more  good  as  an  isolated  thinker,  forming  and  expressing  my  opinions  independently".

So  who  was  this  guy ? John  was  born  in  London  to  a  Scottish  philosopher  and  economist  James  Mill, a  keen  adherent  of  the  utilitarianism  of  Jeremy  Bentham. Bentham  and  Francis  Place  were  heavily  involved  in  young  John's  education  with  the  explicit  aim  of  keeping  the  flame  alive  when  they  had  passed  on. As  a  result  he  became  a  child  prodigy  reading  classics  at  a  ridiculously  early  age. This  eventually  took  a  toll  on  his  mental  health  and  he  suffered  a  nervous  breakdown  at  20 from  which  he  eventually  recovered.

As  a  Nonconformist  ( actually  more  of  an  atheist ) John  could  not  go  to  Oxford  or  Cambridge and  instead  followed  his  father into the  East  India  Company in  1823. In  1851 he  married  Harriet  Taylor, an  intelligent  woman  in  her  own  right and  an  acknowledged  influence  on  his  work. That  year  his  progressive  views  on  Ireland  prompted  the  Irish  Tenants League  to  invite  him  to  stand  for  them  at  the  next  election  but  he  declined  on  the  grounds  that  he  was  a  civil  servant.

In  1848  he  published  Principles  of  Political  Economy  which  broke  with  strict  Ricardian  ideas  on  the  distribution  of  wealth  and  upheld the  legitimacy  of  social  reform.

In  1859  he  published  his  most  famous  work  On  Liberty , the  Bible  for  liberal  political  thought  to this  day. John  sought  to  define  the  ideal  relationship  of  government  to  the  individual  citizen. It  was grounded  in  Utilitarianism;  people  should  be  free  to  take  harmful  actions  provided  they  did  not  do  harm  to  others. Free  speech  was  a  necessity  for  intellectual  and  social  progress; giving  offence  did  not  constitute  "harm".  "Social  liberty" was  to  do  with  "the  nature and  limits  of  the  power  which  can  be  legitimately  exercised  by  society  over  the  individual". It  was  protected  by  certain  inalienable  rights  and  constitutional  checks. Government  should  only  be  concerned  with  the  protection  of  others  from  individual  action : "Over  himself, over  his  own  body  and  mind, the  individual  is  sovereign".  More  controversially  John  believed  that  these  principles  only  applied  to  "civilised"  societies  "Despotism  is  a  legitimate  mode  of  government  in  dealing  with  barbarians , provided  the  end  be  their  improvement, and  the  means  justified  by  actually  effecting  that  end". Censorship  was  anathema ,"the  undertaking  to  decide  that  question  for  others, without  allowing  them to  hear  what  can  be  said  on  the  contrary  side. And  I  denounce  and  reprobate  this  pretention  not  the  less  if  it  is  put  forth  on  the  side  of  my  most  solemn  convictions".

Utilitarianism,  published  in  1863, refines  Bentham's  theories  by  introducing  a  hierarchy  of  pleasures  with  intellectual  and  moral  pleasures  being  of  a  higher  order  than  physical  pleasures.Accordingly  philanthropy  is  of  a  higher  order  than  self-aggrandisement.

 John's  most  famous  Parliamentary  contribution  was  the  attempt  to  attach  a  female  suffrage amendment  to  the  Second  Reform  Act  in  1867. John  shared  some  of  Robert  Lowe's  fears  that  intelligence  and  merit  could  be  swamped  by  naked  class  interest  if  the  franchise  were  extended  too  widely  but  in  Considerations  On  Representative  Government  he  saw  the  solution  in  the  form  of  a  complex  construction  of  proportional  representation  and  plural  voting. Despite  this  he  supported  the  formation  of  labour  unions  and  farm  co-operatives. He  was  also  the  leading  campaigner  against  Governor  Eyre's  actions   in  Jamaica  forming  a  committee  to  try  and  get  him  prosecuted. When  Gladstone  agreed  to  reimburse  Eyre's  expenses  in  1868  John  wrote  "After  this  I  shall  henceforth  wish  for  a  Tory  government". Despite  this  Gladstone  looked  back  on  his  parliamentary  career  fondly  "I  rejoiced  at  his  advent  and  deplored  his  disappearance. He  did  us  all  good."

Disraeli  called  him  "the  finishing  governess"  and  Lowe  said  he  was  " a  little  too  clever  for  us  in  the House. He  reasons  with  a  degree  of  closeness  and  refinement  that  some  of  us, at  least, are  not quite accustomed  to ". John  took  some  account  of  these  criticisms  although  he  expressed  irritation  at  "the tiresome  labour  of  chipping  off  little  bits  of  one's  thoughts ,  of  a  size  to  be  swallowed  by  a  set  of diminutive  practical  politicians incapable  of  digesting  them".

John  thought  that  empire  "added  to  the  moral  influence  and  weight  in  the  councils  of  the  world, of  the  Power  which,  of  all  in  existence, best  understands  liberty".

In  1868  he  was  narrowly  forced  into  third  place  after  the  high  spending  Tory  WH  Smith  topped the  poll. John  had  spent  much  of  the  campaign  supporting  other  Radical  candidates, some  of  them opposing  sitting  Liberals. A  petition  against  Smith  was  unsuccessful  and  John  rejected  offers  of  other seats. One  of  Mill's  biographers  Biagini  pithily  observes " It  was  fitting  for  an  age  of  increasing consumerism  that  people  preferred  the  man  who  sold  books  to  the  one  who  wrote  them". John  himself  was  not  disheartened  saying  "It  is  doubtful  whether  there  remains  anything  of  the  first    importance  which  I  could  more  effectively  help  forward  by  being  in  Parliament".

In  1869  he  published  his  thoughts  on  women's  rights  in  The  Subjection  of  Women. He  saw oppression  of  women  as  a  relic  of  ancient  times  that  hindered  human  progress.

John  Vincent  wrote  that  John  "based  a  pyramid  of  analysis  on  a  pinpoint  of  information ".

In  his  last  years  John  formed  the  Land  Tenure  Reform  Association  advocating  heavy  taxation  of  unearned  increments  in  land  values  and  co-operative  agriculture, ideas  which  were  later  taken  up  by  Lloyd  George.

He  died  in  France  in  1873  aged  66.