a want_, a yearning for something better, and it is that which makes
their souls discontented, hard, and unsympathetic. Their souls are
caged as the soaring eagle is caged in a menagerie. Cinders, refuse,
evil smells, foul air; instead of flowers, the life-giving sun, pure
air, and sweet scents of spring. God made these, the descendants of
Tubal Cain made the others. Their birthright has been seized by jerry
builders, exploiting companies, who care just about as much for the
people as a butcher cares for the animal whose throat he is about
to cut. To keep the industrial slave in a good humour he is treated
to unhealthy excitement of cinema shows, which to “catch on” must
partake of the Newgate Calendar, or if any Art is presented to him it
must be “_of his level_.” Of his level?
Is that the attitude to be assumed by those who should know better?
It is difficult, perhaps impossible, to kill a soul, but it can be
wounded and degraded till it is seemingly dead, has lost all power of
progression, and, like a wingless bird, can only creep on the earth.
And that is what an artificial life does, first to an individual,
then, in time, to a whole nation.
§ 13
It is dangerous to gamble with instinct. It is impossible to wholly
destroy man’s instinct, which is essentially as well as hereditarily
opposed to the artificial life of Industrialism. He _is_ an outdoor
animal, he scratches the earth instinctively. It may be through
ignorance, but so it is; he will stick a dead shrub in the ground,
thinking it will grow. Kill Agriculture and in its place erect
Industrialism, and you have killed all that is best, indeed all that
really matters in the human race!
Before the war what were called civilised countries, our own
included, had reached a point of artificial living as disastrous
to them as it had been to Rome and Byzantium in their decadence.
We, the English, were growing idle, neglecting agriculture, buying
from foreign markets instead of creating our own. We were ceasing
to be a productive nation. Whatever we could borrow we borrowed.
We propped up Germany, who grew rich out of our lack of foresight
and imagination. Ideals were laughed at and Plutus was the god
worshipped; never mind how wealth was gotten or spent, wealth was
all in all. Education, notwithstanding half-hearted and ill-digested
Bills passed through Parliament, was neglected save in so far as it
might be money-providing. It is out of such a degenerating state of
things that we must be dragged if we cannot be drawn. Artificial life
as made by Industrialism must be rectified if England is to make
intellectual progress and take again the honourable and respected
place she held. What are we making to show to generations to come?
Nothing as compared to what the past has left for us! A few iron
and steel bridges which time will destroy, a few exceedingly hideous
railway stations, a great many railway tracks, a vast amount of
“rolling stock,” which will presently be of the value of scrap iron.
Herds of motor cars and new flights of aeroplanes; monstrous
ironclads which are no sooner completed than they become out of
date; a partial and growing destruction of agriculture; and, in the
meantime, necessary expenses of even a rigid economist are trebled,
if not more, and wages rise to a point where it seems unlikely that
resources will be able to meet them, profiteering by tradesmen has
become the habit. If this be so, instead of leaving on our tracks a
well-organised road, we shall leave debts and a desert. Shall England
be turned into an ash heap? If so, the reason for doing so must be
better explained than hitherto.
§ 14
Science and industry misapplied may prove to be a curse! They _are_
misapplied when used for purposes of destruction. What folly it
is when it is regarded coolly, rationally and with common sense!
Millions upon millions of money are wasted, which, if spent in the
construction of national intellectual stability, upon education and
all that education would provide, would ennoble the nation. The great
war, made by politicians, by egoists, has been the most devastating
in the history of mankind. Science has been applied to it with acrid
avidity. Without the misapplication of scientific inventions the
disasters caused by the war would have been impossible. Science
wrongly applied, facilities invented as aids to peaceful transport
and international as well as national contact abused, have worked
havoc. The age of iron and steel, of cheap and accessible fuel,
coal and oils, of easy communication between races instinctively
and by tradition antagonistic, has said its say in something very
near the destruction of Europe. Every discovery made to be used to
promote prosperity and peace has been used for the destruction
of both. Terrible things science has done during the last five
years. Without railways, without motors, without factories, without
aeroplanes, without chemistry, each in its way desirable, if used for
construction, the great war would have been impossible; impossible
as it has been enacted. Wars will be as long as man remains foolish.
As yet it appears the folly of men is more potent than their wisdom.
They _invent_ for peace, they _use_ for war. What a contradiction
this implies! They are answerable for this misapplication of science.
§ 15
When wisdom is uppermost war will cease. Governments will not
influence one way or another when the democracy is educated and so
has become wise, when it declines to use genius in an evil direction,
when, having learnt to use well and for national good the facilities
for it which inventive genius has provided, democracy will see
straight. Governments are at a discount just now. Looking over the
world as it is at this moment it is difficult, perhaps impossible,
so far to find one which is stable or wise. Wisdom must be born out
of the people. Wisdom can only be gained by education, which means
discrimination. The free will of a people can only serve for good
when it is guided by _right_, not _wrong_, when people have been so
mentally trained as to be able to discriminate between ephemeral and
permanent welfare. If democracy is not to be a deadly failure and a
deadly curse the people must retain their soul, their honesty, their
good fellowship established upon intellectual more than emotional
fellowship.
If good is to prevail over evil the working class, the noblest of
England’s product in the past, must be led into the path which
leads to Freedom by a sense of duty owing to the whole community
which it is bound to be called upon to exercise, and to the full,
in the future. It is for “the People” to make the final choice upon
which the future of England depends--peace and prosperity or war
and anarchy! When the people are educated to see straight agitators
may roar themselves hoarse, may tell lies under cover of specious
argument, but they will not prevail.
§ 16
Agitators have never led a country as a whole, they have infected
the less enlightened members of it with discontent, perhaps with
imitable frenzy, but never have they turned the course of the stream
of progress permanently.
Agitators ruffle the surface of the waters as little boys blow
upon it, thinking they are creating a storm, which, however, is
only severe enough to upset toy ships; only so far are they really
dangerous. Agitators may roar against capitalists, but they cannot do
without them; indeed, their Utopia would be to become capitalists.
When capital says, “I will not be wasted,” and Labour says, “My
work shall not be destroyed because it is part of my best self
which I reverence,” we shall be on the high road to national and
international peace.
§ 17
Politicians may dabble in “Leagues” (we all know what they mean,
to be broken when conditions appear which seem against their
continuity). Statesmen may try to make up for previous mistakes by
twisting arguments to suit new methods, but as long as it does not
come right home to the people that war and internal dissension spells
destruction to Labour as to Capital, in the long run war, within and
without, is certain to occur again. And the next war! Every effort
made by science, plus the experience of the last five years, will be
used to destroy that which it set out to preserve.
The more splendid the services of science the more terrible will, and
must be their misapplication. Nothing that has happened in Europe,
Russia or the East, however cruel and terrible it has been, will
compare with the horrors of the next war. Cities, entire districts,
fleets and armies will cease to exist in moments, not even in days.
God’s sky will be full of destroying agents against which every
defence will be in vain. We are only out of the last great war by the
skin of our teeth. Shall we profit by the lessons it has offered or
shall we forget? That is the question.
§ 18
Shall we draw closer together as a people whose motto is
“Fraternity,” or drift apart? We can draw closer if we choose and
each one of us resolves to do “the utmost for the highest.” Civil
dissension can be as morally destructive as military rule. It sets
every instrument of the orchestra out of tune; it creates a hideous
discord and chaos which can only be resolved by the greatest enemy
to democracy--a military Government. The very thing we have been
fighting to expel from Germany may have to be enacted here in free
England if anarchical methods prevail, and there is danger (we do
not say probability) that they may if the heart of the country
becomes _rotten_. The heart of the country is Labour, but labour not
selfishly, graspingly, and tyrannically used, but as the bulwark of
protection to the community in part and as a whole. If Labour is to
take a prominent part in the affairs of the country, in legislation,
for example, its votaries _must be educated_; at present they are
not, and therefore had they the power they seek or that is demanded
for them by agitators who are only less ignorant than they, it is
impossible to gauge the difficulties and dangers into which the
country would be plunged. Before Labour is fit to govern it must
learn how to use leisure. The shorter the hours of labour the more
imperative will become education. Are our working men prepared to
use the leisure they demand for the good of the community or only to
please their, as yet, primitive instincts? From a class which is
idle or mischievous during leisure hours we can expect no wisdom,
and without wisdom no man can rule himself, much less his fellows.
From rulers we expect wide wisdom, not class prejudice. The former is
impossible, the latter certain, without education.
One hears an answer to the assertion we have made: “Give us power and
see how we use it!” That is all very well, but before power is added
to that already in possession we must be sure that the best is being
made of what has been already attained. If the workmen of England
or of any other country are to hold offices of State in which ripe
judgment, experience and knowledge of the world, of the complications
to which it has been subjected from the earliest times, are required,
they must have a very different Utopia in the back of their minds
to that which is evident as yet. They will have to learn that to
legislate entirely in the interests of Labour (and that is what
Labour would do now) would be tantamount to the ultimate destruction
of the very thing they wish to promote--the wealth of Labour as
opposed to that of the capitalist. Before power, and such power, is
granted to a class which has had no experience of its exercise we
must be certain that their previous use of their higher energies has
justified their demands, namely, that they have fulfilled the demands
which their work should have made, well and honestly. First of all,
the workman must have given his best work to his employer, and,
having done that as the first duty to his neighbour and to himself as
an honourable man, he must have proved by the good use of his hours
of leisure that he is in earnest, that he desires not only to become
a _decent_ citizen but a _capable_ one.
Now, the best instructed of us and the most intellectually endowed
know by experience how difficult it is to so train the mind to be
ready and prompt to employ leisure to the best advantage, that is to
say, in such a manner that is useful and ennobling, not detrimental
and decadent! This is a matter which hinges on principle as well as
choice. Industry is engendered by effort as well as by theory. If a
man is industrious he has trained himself to be so by acting upon a
theory which he has found to be advantageous. Advanced democrats will
tell us: “You have no right to interfere with the hours of leisure
of a citizen. If he elects to get drunk, why not? If he gambles,
why not? If he prefers dog fighting and the prize ring to improving
his mind; if he prefers to beat his wife to treating her decently,
why not? She does not mind it. If he prefers to spend his money in
travelling about to see football matches to taking his earnings home
to his family, why not?” Yes, Mr. Democrat, but by doing so is your
pet working man even on the road to be a worthy ruler or responsible
statesman, or even in a minor degree to take part in framing laws, or
seeing that when made they are put into action? If your working man
spends his leisure in barbarous pursuits he is still, by preference,
a barbarian! If he wastes his earnings, taking little of them home to
provide for and educate a family, in the first place, does he deserve
higher wages, while those he is already receiving he uses ill? Is a
man that acts so fit to rule? Certainly not! If he abuses his own
wages, do you think he will not waste or abuse the use of public
money? Of course he will! The democrat who has added the sauce of
anarchy to his favourite dish, whose logic is framed upon assertion
unjustified by reasoning, will tell you: “You let him alone. He fills
the pockets of the big pots. If he likes to get drunk, why not? I
likes liberty, I does.” And yet the fool who says this will be the
first to urge class tyranny and claim for the idle workman a place in
a Ministry, perhaps the first place. Good God! No; before the working
classes are granted grave responsibilities they must prove they are
worthy of them by exercising a firm purpose, doing what they are
already called to do honourably and well, and show signs by industry
during leisure hours that they are men, not barbarians, and good
citizens, not anarchists!
They must prove by their private lives that their public acts will
not be a disgrace, that a high principle has been their guide,
that their souls are straight and active for good, and that a true
Fraternity, wide and embracing, has finally ruled out selfish class
prejudice. They must prove that they are in no humour to be levelled
down by their noisy leaders. They must prove their higher ambition by
not listening to the cry, “Strike again, Bill! Force the governor if
_’e_ won’t give in! The Government is weak: force it to a decision in
your favour! You ’ave the power to starve the country if you choose.
Don’t yer see yer power? Why, then, man, use it!”
§ 19
Wise people do not wish to give added power to a class that listens
to and acts upon such folly. They know if they did that the country
would suffer as a whole and become the prey to a tyranny, and a mob
tyranny, the most dangerous of all.
Before they are granted new powers we want to see the British workman
doing his work as well as he used to do it, to see him an honest man
by giving his best work for good pay.
§ 20
Paying a bad or indolent workman the same wages as an efficient and
industrious one is to put a tax on skill; it discourages the good
workman and encourages the idle one in his idleness. To forbid a
bricklayer to lay more than a minimum number of bricks per hour is to
encourage the lazy and discourage the honest workman; therefore to
curtail the production of work in quantity and quality is directly
injurious to the needs of the country and indirectly to the progress
of trade; moreover, it is unfair to the good workman as it places him
on a level with the inferior or bad one, which is not only morally
wrong but economically silly. Trades union laws have grown to be
tyrannical. They contradict what was good in their initiative. As at
present enacted they prove their authors to be ignorant men, ignorant
of the first principles of political economy and of the results which
must inevitably follow upon their acceptance. If an honest workman
has the will to lay as many bricks per hour (so he does it well) it
is tyranny to forbid him. It is neither to his interest nor of the
trade he represents to coerce him. For the reason he does better
and more work than his idle or incompetent fellow he has a right
to a higher wage; to deny him that right is to lower the standard
of workmanship generally and particularly. To oblige men to down
tools at the command of leaders against their will is tyranny! So we
find after all that grandiloquent talk about Liberty is gas. Trades
union leaders are tyrants; even more, they are slave drivers! Labour
would do well to strike against them instead of striking against
doing their duty and being honourable members of society. Indeed,
they would do well to duck them in the nearest pond as enemies, not
friends, to their cause. The fact is that as soon as the workmen
find out they have been misled retribution is likely to follow and
quickly. When the honest workman sees clearly that a false position
has been pressed upon him he will resent it and drastically. The last
railway strike is a black spot in the history of generous and liberal
England. The majority of the railway men did not wish it. It was
forced on them by the audacity and ambition of their leaders. That
statement is proved by the avidity of their return to work. Perchance
they thought it was just possible that while they were starving
others, and the helpless, they themselves would suffer with them. An
empty belly is a very valuable medicine.
Englishmen of whatever class, rich or poor, would never consent to
starve out their comrades, their children, their old fathers and
mothers. Our workmen are, _au fond_, too good fellows to do that,
even to descend to threaten it. The threat to starve the country
was not made by them but by their leaders, who, if they do not know
better how to conduct men only a little less ignorant than they, will
have to be taught to do so, and quickly.
§ 21
British workmen laboured like men to win the war. Once or twice signs
were evident that arrogant leaders were trying to seduce them, but
they failed in the long run. But after the immediate danger zone was
past, with reprehensible persistency the same leaders shook off their
reserve forced upon them by a perilous situation and started a new
war cry of class against class which the war and all the suffering
it caused should have killed. But no! While we were all admiring
the straightforward patriotism so tried by grave danger, anarchical
leaders were considering the steps they would take to achieve an
end by brutal force, thereby copying the tyrannical Germany that
was being thrust from civilised companionship with the rest of the
world. These are but mimics of a fallen power which had killed its
soul, killed every instinct of justice, all pity and human kindness
to bring about an end to gratify lust of conquest and overwhelming
tyranny under the mark of Kultur. Trades union leaders threatened
to starve London. Unable to coerce a none too strong Government by
specious proposals and platform oratory, their threat was, happily,
taken seriously, and the Government, in this instance, gave evidence
of a power of forethought which it had too often neglected in the
past. Those leaders were cheated of their prey of dead children and
old people starving for want of milk. It is difficult to abstain
from stronger words than are here used, difficult not to permit
harsh words, so dastardly cowardly was the attempt which, although
it failed, was made with a coldbloodedness that was more German than
English. That it failed to succeed was not the fault of the authors
of the scheme, who intended it to force the pace, intimidate the
people and the Government, and establish trades union leaders as
rulers of the country. In point of fact, it was blackmail! On the
contrary, they have secured obloquy from every decent man and woman,
and have happily placed themselves in a position of disorder which we
hope will continue. If they try the same game again, if they are not
met with physical resistance, they ought to be, and if the leaders of
what is in reality “conspiracy” are not “doing time,” the Government
will have to answer some not pleasant questions from a majority of
orderly citizens which is resolved not to be set out of order by
a minority of exploiters entirely out for their own interests and
self-aggrandisement. If the Government had shown weakness, as it so
often has done in somewhat similar circumstances, its doom would
have been sealed. It has too often tried the patience of the country
by unfulfilled promises and shifting ground when obstacles were
obstinate, and an entirely reprehensible policy of compromise. This
time it surprised the country by being prepared to deal with a crafty
trap. It caught the vermin in the trap they had set to intimidate
the country. That strike has gone far to prove that Labour, as at
present led and organised, is no more fitted to rule than a naughty,
ill brought up child is to rule its parents. We believe the soul of
the British workman is still clean, _au fond_; it has been tempted
to be otherwise by bad guides, taught to be dishonest by them,
to be selfish, hard, even brutal, but enough of the old stamina
has survived to encourage the belief that, under good, wise and
sympathetic, but at the same time strong leadership, the British
workmen will regain the confidence they have lost and the position of
respect which has been compromised for them.
§ 22