WHAT WE MUST DO
What then must we all do in order that we may take our part in
abolishing the evil conditions of life which surround us, and
establishing a saner and more honest state of society? There is no
royal road or short cut to social salvation. Neither will Governmental
machinery and organisation of itself accomplish our purpose. What we
must first decide is our own attitude towards life. Do we wish that
other men and women should enjoy the same opportunities that we desire
for ourselves and those belonging to us, and, if so, are we of opinion
that it is our duty to work in order that this may be secured? In the
old-fashioned orthodox Christian religion great stress is laid on the
necessity of “conviction of sin”; that is to say, on the necessity for
men and women to convince themselves of their own wrong-doing. I think
that in some ways this is an excellent doctrine, and I should like to
see it expressed in regard to social and industrial matters. We must
all clear our own minds of cant and be quite honest with ourselves as
to the means whereby we secure our daily bread. None of us should be
content until we know the why and the wherefore of our incomes, until
we have traced them right back to their sources and convinced ourselves
of the rightfulness or wrongfulness of our money-getting. No one can
manage this for us. We can take advice from people, and can try to get
knowledge from others, but once the facts are before us, it must be
our own judgment that decides what is right or what is wrong for each
individual man and woman. If we are convinced that the means whereby
we live come to us in an honest and straightforward manner, and that
taking usury and profit-making are true and right methods of living,
there is not much more to be said. But if we decide for ourselves that
profit-making and usury are evils which enable some of us to live at
the expense of others, then our duty is quite plain: that is, to assist
by every means in our power in destroying the system which gives to us
so great a material advantage over our fellows.
There is a school of people who say that we ought to go on making money
because, unless we do, others will make it, and that if we beggar
ourselves we do not improve the social position at all. This may be
true to some extent, but, all the same, it is also true that if men and
women fill up their time simply money-making, no matter what they may
call themselves, or what opinions they may hold, they are exactly in
the same position as people who support the present order. Therefore,
those who are convinced the present methods of money-making are wrong
are called upon to live in the simplest manner, and to devote every
hour of leisure and every penny of money they can spare to assisting
the workers in their task of organising the transformation of the
present social order from competition to co-operation. I say this
because so many people imagine that they have really done their duty
when they have denounced the present order as iniquitous, while others
think they have fulfilled their duty when they have distributed large
sums of money, either in charity or for similar purposes. It may still
be that for many years to come the victims of our cruel social life
will need to be tended by those whose ministrations are paid for out
of funds provided by the rich; but this, after all, is only palliating
evil, and not abolishing it. To-day, those workmen who are thinking
are determined to abolish the _causes_ of poverty, and wish to
establish an entirely new social order. This may be accomplished by a
violent and bloody revolution (or, at least, men may attempt this),
though I do not believe the use of force will accomplish the social
salvation of mankind. It is so true “Force is no remedy” that I cannot
help believing that with the spread of education and the growth of
religion we shall cease to rely on the mailed fist in both social and
national affairs. Men and women belonging to the landed and capitalist
classes who really care for their fellows must join hands with the
workers, and by united effort establish the kingdom of brotherhood
and of co-operation. Those who are convinced that the present order is
unchristian and, in fact, unnatural must take their place in the great
working-class movement.
This movement does many things that we all feel are hurtful both to
itself and to society. That is only because the working class does not,
as a class, yet know either its strength or what it wants. In the vast
majority of cases working-class discontent is quite unorganised, and
is but the expression of a righteous wrath against conditions which
often are well-nigh intolerable. All the same, though, it is a good
rule to remember that the workers are so often right and so seldom
wrong as to make it, on the average, quite the wisest thing to stand
by them all the time. Their enemies are never slow to put them down,
and, consequently, I would urge every man and woman who wants really to
change things to get into the working-class movement. At first people
of a different class may be received with suspicion and distrust, but
if they are not self-seekers, if they go into the movement asking for
nothing, but willing to give all they have to give, whether it is brain
power or merely material resources, they will very soon find that a
place will be made for them and their help cordially welcomed.
But what the working-class movement less and less will tolerate is
patronage from anyone. So many superior young men and women try
to join it in order to direct and control it. These usually end by
becoming Government bosses in one form or another. The main thing
for us all to bear in mind is that, in joining the labour movement
or in supporting it, we must be prepared to become just one of the
people. This necessity always reminds me of the saying that unless
we become as little children we cannot enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
Such is the attitude of mind which should dominate our relationships
with one another; that is to say, we must have the mind of little
children in that our words and actions must carry conviction because
people understand that there is nothing more behind them than they
are intended to convey. This is true of little children; we know what
they mean because of what they say; and it must also be true of men
and women who want to be in the labour movement. There have been too
many men and women who have used the movement to become what are called
leaders and so on, and that is not what middle-class people should go
into the movement for. They should join in order to be part of it, all
the time keeping steadily in mind the fact that _true_ democracy
means people thinking and doing things for themselves, and that the
_word_ democracy does not always guarantee that those who use it
are themselves true democrats. Any who join or who are willing to
support the labour movement must be prepared for disappointments and
disillusionment. The working classes are just like the rest of the
people, liable to fits of depression and fits of elation. All the same,
the salvation of humanity must come by and through them. The better
educated, the more moneyed, can help to stimulate and train them,
but this must all be on impersonal lines. The labour movement must
stand for the whole of the people; and the present method, by which
social settlements, workers’ educational societies, labour colleges,
no matter who controls them, select out and train just a few of the
working class, can only be regarded as quite temporary measures.
Meanwhile, even to the men and women who are educated and trained in
these establishments, the object of such education and training must
always be that they may be better servants of the working classes, not
better masters, not even better leaders in the sense of desiring to
be something more than the rest of their class. In fact, we have all
to take the workers as human beings, and those who have the best kind
of brains must be content to give their brains for the service of the
others.
No one to-day considers it right that because a man is physically
stronger than his neighbours he should be allowed to rob or ill-use
them. Physical force used in that way has long been looked upon as
something anti-social and evil, but we have not yet reached the point
when we can say that brain-power shall not be exercised for personal
gain only, and this is just what I think we have to get to. We have
to make clever people understand that their brains should be used
impersonally, and for the service of the whole community, and to create
such a public opinion as will make us all realise that it is just as
dishonourable to exploit our neighbours by the use of our brain-power
as it would be to exploit them by use of our physical power. Further,
those who want to help the labour movement must come into it in
the spirit of comradeship, and without expecting to do more than
give themselves to its service; and in doing so they must strive to
understand how the labour movement proposes to work out its salvation.
It is impossible for me to do more than just to indicate a few of the
things which labour needs to get done now; none of us expect that by
a stroke of the pen or by some sudden action we shall change from a
competitive to a co-operative State. And in judging what I propose I
would urge my readers to bear in mind that often the most simple things
are the most important and the most far-reaching in their effects.
People often refuse to take part in simple movements because these are
apparently dull and uninteresting. The business of a Trade Union branch
meeting or of any labour organisation is sometimes very uninteresting;
but it is in these meetings that the best work can be carried through,
because in them men and women get to understand one another’s point
of view, and are also able to think out and organise their plans
of campaign. I say this because I think it is so important that we
should get out of our minds the idea that mere law-making, or even
administration of law, is an effective means of bringing about great
changes. It is, as I said a little way back, a change of mind that is
so much needed. To explain what I mean I would call attention to the
old story to be found in the Old Testament about Naaman the leper. This
man, suffering from leprosy, went to a prophet of Israel to find out
a cure, and was told, in effect, to go and wash himself, to cleanse
his sores. It was a perfectly sane and sensible suggestion, but it was
so simple and so obvious that the great Captain of Syria was inclined
to feel himself too big and mighty a personage for it. And this often
happens in modern life: distrusting the simple and obvious, we rush
off with our apparently big ventures, and are disappointed at the end
to find they have led nowhere. It is because of this that to-day the
workers have decided (at least those of them who are thinking about
vital things) that their first aim and object in life should be to
educate themselves, not that they may the more easily compete with one
another, but that they may use their education and brain power in order
to establish a truly co-operative system. They are demanding the full
control and ownership of their life and work. They desire that the
nation shall own land and other means of life, and that these shall
be used by the workmen in partnership with the State. In effect, the
workers must, if they are to get any kind of control of their lives,
join together in great industrial unions or guilds, representative
of particular industries, within which guilds a brain-worker and a
hand-worker shall organise side by side and, in contract or partnership
with the nation, carry on the work of supplying the nation’s needs.
I can only give one instance of how I think this would work in
practice, and I do so, not because I shall be able to fill in all
the details even in one instance, but because I want to express in a
rough sort of way what I mean by national ownership and organisation
and control by the workers. Those who wish to know more about this
cannot do better than read “National Guilds,” by A. R. Orage, or “The
World of Labour,” by G. D. H. Cole; or they might write to the hon.
sec. of the National Guilds League, Mrs. Ewer, 17, Acacia Road, N.W.
For my purpose I would ask you to consider what would happen if the
mines of Britain were owned by the nation. These mines would have to
be worked. The proposal is to form a miners’ guild, or a guild of
coal-workers, including all persons engaged in the industry, and these
would determine, through delegates or by any other means they might
choose, the rates of pay which the community should pay for the getting
of coal. But all the workers within this industry would share and
share alike in the product. There would be no such thing as salaried
persons and wage-earners. The total reward of the labour engaged in the
production of coal would belong to the whole of those who assist in
whatever way in that production. They would elect their own organisers
and determine their own hours and fix their own holidays, and so on.
No one would be allowed to work in this industry who was not a member
of the guild, and the whole organisation from beginning to end would
be under the control of the guild. It will be at once noticed that
equality in the sharing of the wealth produced would abolish once
and for all the present practice of giving huge salaries and profits
to a few and a mere subsistence wage to the mass of the workers. In
addition, the guild being “blackleg”-proof, there would never be any
“blacklegs” to undersell or undercut the price of labour.
It is argued against this that the miners would be able to dictate
their own terms to the rest of the community, but this difficulty is
more apparent than real, because each industry is really dependent on
the others, and that fact would prevent the one industry from striving
to exploit the others. Exploitation, moreover, would not enter in,
because, once industry was organised on these lines, there would be
more than sufficient for all. We must all realise that the nineteenth
century, with its enormous development of machinery and scientific
invention, has settled the question of production. We can produce all
we desire. It remains for the twentieth century to find an equitable
method of distribution. Incidentally, in the case of mines, another
question would be settled. Coal-mining is an industry in which the
wages of those engaged vary considerably. It is true that a minimum
wage of a sort has been fixed for the whole country, but there is great
discrepancy in the maximum amounts that miners can earn. Coal-mining
is coal-mining wherever it is carried on, but the fact that there are
thick seams in some parts of the country and thin seams in others,
added to the fact that there are different methods of working, tends to
bring about variations of remuneration. Now, in the guild system, when
all share alike, methods would be improved, and the natural value of
one mine would be matched against the lesser value of another mine, and
the workers and the community between them would thus secure all the
advantages which the possession of minerals gives to the land.
There is the further fact that in this particular industry, as is
well known, many more labour-saving devices would be employed and
better arrangements for preventing accidents would be adopted if the
industry were organised as a social service on co-operative lines.
It is the profit- and dividend-making business which prevents these
matters from being dealt with. It may be urged that labour-saving
machinery introduced into the mines would necessitate people being
discharged, but this would not be so. Instead of discharging workpeople
the guild would reduce the hours of labour of all the workers in the
industry--which is the true use to which machinery should be put.
Machinery is only of service to the community when it is used to lessen
labour or to give a better supply of the things needed by the nation.
This, then, is what the forward school of Trade Unionists are demanding
for all industries. It is, in effect, the abolition of the wages and
profit system; and it is this proposal that I earnestly beg those who
desire to bring about a complete change in our spiritual and social
life to support. I trust no one will allow personal interests to
blur his or her mind and conscience. We do wish to get rid of rich
monopolists because we also want to get rid of the poor, but no one
will suffer. The nation can, if it will, effect this great change in
our social relationship without hurting any one. Already we are, as a
nation, organising great industries for purposes of war, have destroyed
businesses, broken up and ruined homes, wiped out in many cases the
whole life’s savings of men and women. All this in order to win the
war against Germany. No sacrifice, we are told, is, or will be, too
great. Surely we will all make an effort to destroy social evil, surely
we are able to see that co-operative production and distribution is a
finer, nobler, and more Christian social order than the present chaotic
competitive struggle which robs children of life and well nigh destroys
the morale of us all. To change our present methods means injury for
none, but a better life for all. There are many other things that we
can help forward in the labour movement. There is the whole great
question of what we are to do with our land. All through my public life
I have felt the sinfulness, the crime against society, which the mere
fact of landlordism entails. Men of my age who have seen great areas
of London cleared at the public expense, who have seen parks and open
spaces created and paid for by the people, and even in this process
used for the enrichment of those who own land, cannot but be struck
with the fact that so far the great land monopoly has gone untouched. I
see no means for dealing effectually with the land question as a whole
except by making all those who wish to use land pay, not to private
individuals, but to the State, for the use of such land. Some places
are more desirable to live in than others, some pieces of land will
give a better return than others, and this excess value--indeed, all
forms of “site values”--should always come into the national exchequer
in one form or another.
The only proposal at present for dealing with this problem is the
taxation of land values, and that appears to me to be a perfectly
legitimate means of raising revenue. Whatever system we are living
under, if any of us wish to enjoy something which it is impossible for
others to enjoy, we ought to pay either in extra service or in some
other way for the privilege. Henry George, when he called attention to
the land question thirty years ago, was on perfectly sound ground. We
cannot hope for a reformed society if land remains private property and
all the value which the pressure of population gives it goes into the
pockets of private people. This is another form of profit-making which
has to be somehow put right. To travel through the United Kingdom these
days and to use one’s eyes is to become aware that to a large extent
our country is unpopulated. The war is making us understand this and
is making us also understand how dependent we are on other nations for
our food and other things needed for our subsistence. The progressive
workman is asking himself with a very bitter insistence how it is that
he and his should be cooped up, in the great cities (yes, and in the
tiny villages too), in little bits of houses with scarcely room to
breathe, whilst all around him are hundreds of thousands of acres
of land practically unused, and great parks, with walls and railings
surrounding them, used only for the pleasure and convenience of just a
handful of people.
Therefore on this question we should all unite, and push forward the
solution of it with all the force of which we are capable.
There are two other questions with which I wish to deal in this
chapter. The first is that of political power. I am convinced that
the first thing for the workers is to recognise their economic
power, and for this reason. All forms of production have changed;
individual production is practically nonexistent, and co-operative
production is now an absolute necessity; but at present that which
is _co-operatively_ produced is _privately_ owned, and the
object of the workers is to substitute co-operation both in production
and in distribution, and to establish the right of those who produce to
own everything they produce. Therefore, I have put economic questions
first, but, to obtain possession of the land and to obtain possession
of the railways and other means of life, we shall need political power,
and this political power should be in the hands of women as well as men.
I believe that the grant of citizenship to all adults, men and women,
from the age of twenty-one, would be one of the most far-reaching
reforms possible, and would establish the working class with a status
that would enable them to take a much more intelligent interest in
their affairs than now. The difficulty that we are in with regard to
this question is the fact that for so long sex domination has been
rampant in the civilised world; but this is slowly being overcome.
Some millions of women now have the vote for the election of the
President of the American Republic; many thousands of women voted in
the Australian Commonwealth on the question of conscription; so the
enfranchisement of women to the extent of allowing them a voice in what
are called Imperial and international affairs is not a novel proposal,
but is actually in operation.
Our country cannot for much longer lag behind. When it is remembered
that men and women are equally interested in the organisation of
society and industry, there seems no reason for denying women equal
status as citizens. On international questions and questions relating
to war no argument is needed. It is the women of Europe in every
belligerent country who, in their breasts, are bearing the main burden
of sorrow and suffering entailed by the frightful slaughter and loss on
every battlefield. Those women who, in Belgium, Poland, Serbia, and now
Roumania, have seen their homes and their belongings destroyed by the
devilish business of blasting a way through any of the parts of Europe
cursed by the presence of war, have clearly established the right
of women to vote as to whether such things shall or shall not be.
Besides, if anything else is needed to convince anyone of the justice
of women’s claims, you have only to remember that, as in international
affairs, so in national affairs, women are the biggest sufferers from
our unchristian and devilish form of society. They suffer most from
unemployment, sweating, low wages--from all the social evils which
afflict our land. Those who seek to redeem humanity and intend to use
political machinery must support in every way possible the claim of
women to political enfranchisement and citizenship.
The other, the last thing of all, that I wish to mention is the matter
of children. Long ere this our children should have been freed from
work of any kind. In a civilised nation a child’s playtime ought to
be its best time. The driving of children to work half-time in mills
and factories is acknowledged by all thinking persons as a great
social evil. I suppose all my readers will have heard that the Bantam
Battalions are mainly recruited from Lancashire, where women work
in the factories and children work half-time. There must be some
connection between the low standard of physique and conditions of child
life. We must abolish the half-time system and tell the capitalists,
and those who support the system, that any business which depends on
the robbery of our children’s birthright is not worth preserving.
We must insist that the age for leaving school shall be raised to
sixteen, and that from sixteen to eighteen every child shall be trained
for such work as he or she appears most fitted for, whether it be
hand or brain work. What this will cost we need not stop to consider.
The war has demonstrated our ability to raise and spend money for
destruction; we must not be put off by any thought as to the money-cost
of construction. The one chief thing to do is to insist that children
shall not be used as machines for mere money-making, but shall be taken
out of the competitive labour market, where so very often they are
used to bring down the standard of life and destroy not only their own
future but the whole standard of living for their parents.
There is much more to be said on these and kindred subjects, but I have
written, I hope, enough to stimulate thought amongst those who desire
to help in the work of social reconstruction. In conclusion, may I ask
all my readers to keep in mind the one central thing I have tried to
insist upon all through this book? It is just this, that we all need a
complete change of heart. I do not mean this only in the old religious
sense, though I think the expression is quite the soundest that can be
used. We have all been so accustomed to think along personal lines, so
accustomed to imagine that our own good could not at the same time be
our neighbour’s good, that we have drifted into the position we are in
to-day. When I say that it is a change of heart that we need, I mean
an entire change of outlook. We must get it out of our heads that there
is not enough wealth for all men, women, and children. We must get rid
of the idea that either an individual or a nation can be benefited
by using its power to dominate others. The futility of this has been
proved beyond dispute; the class war and the great international war
both demonstrate the fact. For all this we must not be discouraged.
None of us are able to see all the good or all the evil there is in
the world. We can see what appears on the surface, but all down the
ages men and women have been striving to reach forward to the day
when, the world over, we all shall live in peace and harmony with one
another. Through all time there have been those who have dreamed dreams
and seen visions, who, because of their visions, have given hope and
courage to the common people. We, too, must dream our dreams and see
our visions of a nobler order yet to be: we must look beyond to-day
and see the future. This humanity, of which we are part, is capable of
fine and noble things. The records of history are full of the stories
of what men and women have done, and what has been done in the past can
certainly be done over again.
Just now we can see around us how much sacrifice people are making, how
much they are giving up, in the great effort to destroy the Germans.
It is the spirit behind this effort which we want to put into the work
of destroying evil in our midst. We need all the enthusiasm, all the
sacrifice, all the grit and determination that the men who are fighting
in Europe have shown, but we shall have this satisfaction all the time,
that the things we are striving to destroy are evil conditions, not
human life.
The war on the Continent and the class war at home are horrible, and
they are unnatural and inhuman, and the very fact that we are all
ashamed of the conditions which cause them, and excuse and seek to
palliate them, proves that this is so. Mankind has turned its face from
God, says a Hindu writer: and this, of course, is true, just as it is
untrue to say that God has turned His face from the world.
I have faith in the common people. There has been plenty of
disillusionment in my lifetime, but, in the main, I, like every other
man and woman who is working amongst the people, know quite well
that, given the chance, the mass of people always respond to the best
that is put before them. It is not a bit true that human nature is
necessarily ugly or brutal or destitute of idealism. Just before the
war multitudes of young men and women were engaged in the labour and
suffrage movements. These two movements were working to a large extent
hand-in-hand, and the enthusiasm which both called forth came from
the young people. Those with whom I came in contact and who formed the
“Herald League” were just young rebels fighting for a great impersonal
ideal. Few of them had a clear-cut scheme for social salvation, but all
of them had a very clear-cut idea of what they wanted to accomplish.
It was liberty, fraternity, comradeship which they were setting before
themselves. Some of these men you will find on the battle-fields of
France, called there by the cry of Belgium; others you will find,
equally honourable, in the prisons of our country, flung there because
some of the older men who rule us do not understand what the word
conscience means. And it is these who will come back when the war is
over and form the vanguard of the great army of men and women who are
going out in another kind of war--the war against poverty, crime, and
sorrow. Comfortable, well-to-do people may stand aloof, may refuse to
assist or take part, but the truly religious men and women, those men
and women who believe in the unity of life and the one-ness of the
great human family, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, will
step into the ranks, and will take their place as soldiers in this
great army, and will be content to work and organise and to give all
they have to give, in order that the end may be reached. To some this
will mean sacrifice of material things, to others it will mean the
sacrifice of place, of privilege and power; but to the true man and
woman that will not count as of any importance if by their sacrifices
the great movement of human solidarity may be helped forward.