Samuel Smiles - Later Life

Later Life

Smiles wrote articles for the Quarterly. In an article on railways he argued that the railways should be nationalised and that third-class passengers should be encouraged. In 1861 Smiles published an article from the Quarterly, renamed Workers Earnings, Savings and Strikes. He claimed poverty in many instances was caused by habitual improvidence:

Times of great prosperity, in which wages are highest and mills running full time are not times in which Mechanics' Institutes and Schools flourish, but times in which publicans and beer sellers prosper and grow rich...A workman earning 50s. to 60s. a week (above the average pay of bankers' clerks) was content to inhabit a miserable one-roomed dwelling in a bad neighbourhood, the one room serving as parlour, kitchen and sleeping-room for the whole family, which consisted of husband, wife, four sons, two cats and a dog. The witness was asked: Do you think this family was unable to get better lodgings, or were they careless? They were careless, was the reply.

In 1866 he resigned as secretary to the Leeds and Thirsk Railway to be president of the National Provident Institution, but left in 1871, after suffering a debilitating stroke. He recovered from the stroke, eventually learning to read and write again, and he even wrote books after his recovery.

In 1875 his book Thrift was published. In it he said that "riches do not constitute any claim to distinction. It is only the vulgar who admire riches as riches". He claimed that the Poor Law Amendment Act 1834 was "one of the most valuable that has been placed on the statute-book in modern times". He also criticised laissez-faire:

When typhus or cholera breaks out, they tell us that Nobody is to blame. That terrible Nobody! How much he has to answer for. More mischief is done by Nobody than by all the world besides. Nobody adulterates our food. Nobody poisons us with bad drink. Nobody supplies us with foul water. Nobody spreads fever in blind alleys and unswept lanes. Nobody leaves towns undrained. Nobody fills gaols, penitentiaries, and convict stations. Nobody makes poachers, thieves, and drunkards. Nobody has a theory too—a dreadful theory. It is embodied in two words—Laissez faire—Let alone. When people are poisoned by plaster of Paris mixed with flour, “Let alone” is the remedy. When Cocculus indicus is used instead of hops, and men die prematurely, it is easy to say, “Nobody did it.” Let those who can, find out when they are cheated: Caveat emptor. When people live in foul dwellings, let them alone. Let wretchedness do its work; do not interfere with death.

In 1881 he claimed that

Labour is toilsome and its gains are slow. Some people determine to live by the labour of others, and from the moment they arrive at that decision, become the enemies of society. It is not often that distress drives men to crime. In nine cases out of ten, it is choice not necessity. Moral cowardice is exhibited as much in public as in private life. Snobbism is not confined to toadying of the rich, but is quite as often displayed in the toadying of the poor...Now that the “masses” exercise political power, there is a growing tendency to fawn upon them, flatter them, speak nothing but smooth words to them. They are credited with virtues they themselves know they do not possess. To win their favour sympathy is often pretended for views, the carrying out of which is known to be hopeless. The popular agitator must please whom he addresses, and it is always highly gratifying to our self-love to be told that someone else is to blame for what we suffer. So it rarely occurs to these orators to suggest that those whom they address are themselves to blame for what they suffer, or that they misuse the means of happiness which are within their reach...The capitalist is merely a man who does not spend all that is earned by work.

When in 1892 Gladstone returned to power and introduced his Second Irish Home Rule Bill, Smiles wrote to his son in Ulster: "Don't you rebel. Keep quiet, though I see your name among the agitators...Your letter is frightfully alarming...Gladstone has come into power and we are threatened with Civil War. This cannot be the result of good statesmanship. Yet there are Liberal members to cheer on the maniac. Alas, alas for Liberalism!...Must I give you six months notice to withdraw my loans to the B.R. Co., for I want to keep the little money I have for wife and bairns, not for arming the Ulstermen". Smiles wrote to Lucy Smiles in 1893: "This Home Rule Bill is horrid...I am quite appalled at that wretched hound, miscalled statesman, throwing the country into a state of turmoil. I cannot understand how so many persons in this part of Britain follow that maniac, just like a flock of sheep. He is simply bursting with self-conceit. Alas! Alas for Liberalism!"

Smiles intended to publish a book on Conduct in 1896 but John Murray declined. In 1898 publication was again denied. After his death the manuscript of Conduct was found in his desk and on the advice of John Murray was destroyed.

He died in Kensington and was buried in Brompton Cemetery.