We have seen that a party chest no longer exists, so men poor in
purse, but rich in wisdom and understanding, if not called “Peers of
the Realm,” have become so by their outstanding merits. Hereditary
titles are the exception. The ancient titles and families go on,
but it is an exception when they are added to. It is agreed that
opportunists and place hunters were numerically increased by the
facilities provided for the purchase of honours. In the new State no
honours can be _purchased_, but they can be _won_! Money may make a
prominent man, but not a great one. By making the King President of
the Privy Councillors it was thought that the grave responsibility
carried with it would strengthen the monarchy, and, holding on to the
fine tradition of kingship, the country would benefit more than under
repeated elections consequent upon a shifting Republic, meaning that
stability is more likely to be reached under a Constitutional Monarch
than under a vacillating Republic.
To sum up this portion of my dream. Centralisation is a thing
of the past! Each county governs itself; and this plan has been
thought to be wise because every county has its own idiosyncracy,
its own needs, and its own powers of production, some _Industrial_,
some _Agricultural_, but each one must, to be well governed, be
represented by the most varied and highly trained minds. So each
intellectual class is called upon to administer, which system
prevents the commercial element from overriding the intellectual;
hence a better balance is maintained than under the old system,
which pushed into the background some of the best minds in the
community, who, not being commercial, but taking another view,
undoubtedly a higher one, were regarded as fanatics, their ideas
being received with a shrug of the shoulders as a gesture of
contemptuous pity.
But a wider education, hence better manners, has altered all this,
and members of a class that held in contempt any intelligence applied
other than to commerce have learnt that there are many sides to a
nation’s greatness, none of which can be neglected without detriment
to the whole. Besides the Mayor each Commune has its Minister of
Public Health, who must be a capable authority not an amateur
but an expert, who has under him a staff of officers ever on the
watch for the good of the people. Next to him is the Minister for
Agriculture. In industrial centres a Minister for Industrialism is
at work, whose duty it is to see that all factories are sanitary,
the workmen neither overcrowded or overworked. There is a protecting
Minister of all rivers and lakes, into which no refuse from factories
is permitted to drain. This law, if not obeyed, _the factory can
be immediately shut up_. All coal smoke is forbidden, whether from
factories or private houses. This law at first was resented, and
until fines for its non-observance were heavy, was not obeyed.
As soon as offenders found there was no way to avoid smoke, they
applied science and now the evil never occurs. Electricity is used as
energising power as well as for heat giving, all engines are driven
by it, hence in the whole of England the scandal of a smoking chimney
of any sort or kind is never presented.
“We are wiser now,” said a scientific man. “We know it to be not
only folly to waste coal, but wrong to smirch the sky, hide the
sun, and poison trees and vegetables with evil fumes--it can be
prevented.” As I hovered over a part of England, not long ago blasted
and blackened, where not a tree would grow, where the sun rarely
penetrated through the evil clouds of unconsumed fuel, I wondered
how it was we permitted that miserable state of things to go on. Now
the country smiles under the sun; what was a desert is a garden, and
what were pale, sad people are now sunburnt, merry and strong folk,
as the British race was before the artificial tyrant Industrialism
began to bleach them. The climate of the British Isles is not genial,
we all know that, but the difference since coal smoke has ceased
to darken the sun is so great as to provide another climate. Fogs
there are and always will be in our Island, but smoke fogs are no
more, hence an outdoor life is led which was impossible under the
circumstances of the past. If the Communes had only effected that
change they would have benefited the human race quite incalculably.
Each Commune has its Minister of Education assisted by a staff of
competent superintendents, who visit local schools and issue reports
that are laid before a Council elected from chosen men of character
and distinction. Each Commune has a Minister of Arts and Crafts, for
music and the drama, including dancing, which I notice has become
an art and an essential one, in the training of the young in good
manners and graceful demeanour.
§ 7
The Mayor or Lord Mayor is elected from any class; preferably he is
not a tradesman, but a man of wide learning and experience, hence
he is not prejudiced in favour of any trade or profession. Lawyers
are not eligible as Mayors, nor is it thought desirable that so
dignified an office should be held by auctioneers or house agents.
Indeed, the further the chief officer of the Commune is removed from
temptations of class jobbery, the better is the service he renders to
the community at large.
Prices of bread, meat and milk, the three absolute necessities, are
regulated by the commune. They vary as little as possible, and being
essential to the carrying on of life, fortunes are not made from
their sale. The law at the root of this wise decision is the result
of the profiteering of tradesmen during the late war, which became so
serious a scandal that the people suffering from it endeavoured to
make it impossible to be repeated.
The Council does its work in the capital of each county, but
the smaller cities, townships and villages are permitted to act
independently, as their several interests demand, so long as in the
main features of policy they subscribe to the intention the Chief
Council has in view. Once a year the heads of each country department
meet in the capital and make their reports. The Conference lasts for
one week, and is the occasion of a general holiday. The Conference
is open to all comers, who, while it sits, have an opportunity of
expressing their opinion upon questions of public interest. This
system seems to be working well; the discontented can air their
discontent and the contented their approval. It works well, because
all discussion is open, none taking place under closed doors; that
fact alone is conducive to confidence, by implying it and receiving
it. Where there is honesty there is no need for secrecy. “Do nothing
with closed doors,” said M. Aurelius. The whole system of government
is in the best sense Socialistic, as opposed to Individualistic the
mark of the Radical. “Every man out for himself” is a destructive
policy. While this form of Socialism makes for order, it does not
discourage individual enterprise. Opinions may be stated under a
reasonable check by minds skilled in government, which, being open to
new ideas as long as they are proved to promote _public good_, learn
by listening.
§ 8
If occasion demands it, each Commune throughout the country is
empowered to send its chief and such officers as he may select to
meet together in conference in any one of the chief cities of
Britain. This extreme measure would probably only apply in times
of a national crisis, such as possible war or unruly conduct as
strikes or other disorder imperilling the well-being of a peaceful
and industrious majority. Everything that works for unanimity, but
without weakness, seems to be becoming natural. The artificial
conditions, most disastrous in their effect, of tyrannical Trades
Unions, have given way under a return to Guilds. The painters,
craftsmen of all descriptions, and the best class of tradesmen are
under certain elastic laws appertaining to their profession or
business. There are no such mischievous people as Strike Leaders;
long ago they proved failures, and the workmen became aware of the
damage they had done to their reputation and threw them over. They
did so directly it was brought home to them that their leaders were
really tyrants. The Guilds _encourage good work_, as the Trades Union
leaders of the past encouraged bad; indeed, they have it in their
powers to impose a fine on bad work, if continued to be issued after
warning has been given or a fine paid. The guilds can expel an idle
delinquent as an unworthy citizen. As far as one could learn, that
punishment, so far, has had to be carried into effect very rarely,
because workmen and craftsmen of all kinds now recognise the wisdom
of being honest in their own interest, _i.e._, for good pay to give
good work.
§ 9
Being better educated or, shall we say, more widely informed and
more wisely led, craftsmen in every branch of industry are better
citizens, regarding their work as a contribution valuable to the
Commune and to the country at large. By degrees it is becoming a
habit of mind to regard all labour as noble, if executed honourably.
Every man, whatever his calling may be, takes a pride in doing it
well. Indeed, as my spirit wandered from place to place watching and
listening, I gathered that _idleness_ and _slackness_, encouraged
as they were by the Trades Unions, are now _despised_. For idle
workmen of any sort or in any sphere of life, in trade, profession
or craftsmanship, is not only a useless but mischievous item in the
social system. The pride engendered by honest labour is the cause of
healthy competition. Emulation is a quality which has grown to be
a habit; emulation, not envy or jealousy, which are mean. When men
grow wise they discard smallness. They do not begin every sentence
with the first person singular, but with the second or first person
plural; therefore, being inside and a part of the community, the
co-worker is an essential link in the chain which binds an entire
system and renders it strong.
This is the reverse of Radical tenet, which proclaiming the creed
of the Jew Fagin, in his discourse with Noah Claypole, “Look after
number one, my dear”--an admirable doctrine for thieves, but the
reverse for the welfare of an honest community.
§ 10
Dreams are queer things, very illogical, and not restrained by
formulæ. In dreams, Q.E.D. does not come in at all. The charm of a
dream is that it is suggestive, not conclusive. It is like a kind of
Inspiration: gaps have to be filled up; sequences are indefinite.
All manner of odd situations jostle one another. An instant of time
is as a thousand years. The ancients, in their wisdom, in their
contemplative abstraction, may not have been far off the mark when
they regarded dreams as omens, having the nucleus of some abstract
truth. Swifter than any train or aeroplane can travel, as swiftly as
a ray of light reaches the earth from the sun, the spirit, free of
the body, moves in a dream. It can inhabit Mars awhile and be back
in Piccadilly in less than a fraction of a minute divided into sixty
pulsations. The spirit has to take no ticket to travel, to pay no
price for a long journey. It has no aims, it only obeys impulse.
There being no method in a dream removes it from actualities, which
it only pictures. These being the chief characteristics of Dreamland,
in the relation of a dream, which is automatic impression, a certain
irregularity in the position of subjects to which it relates is not
only permissible, but necessary to the picture it may be destined to
paint. Having so far preserved a kind of sequence of ideas suggested
as the teller of my dream, I obey the volatile journeys into all
manner of crannies. No brain is so closely locked up that it can
prevent the great inquisitor from entering. While they are free,
dreams are tyrants over reason, to which they bear no relationship.
The interpretation of a dream must be left to the listener of the
tale it tells who can form whatever conclusion he pleases. The
rationalist will probably only see folly; the mathematician, chaos;
the unimaginative, nonsense. Probably the dreamer dreams in close
relationship to his habit of mind. He may be an optimist at one
moment a pessimist at another. He accentuates his likes and dislikes,
hence through the relation of his dream he exposes himself, and gives
himself over to every kind of criticism. To some he appears the
reverse of veracious, to others a lunatic, but to a few he may appear
in the nature of a prophet.
Having apologised to my readers, I propose now to allow my dream to
lead me, as it most certainly will do, how and where it likes, to
obey its impulses even though they are disconnected. To do otherwise
would tend to muddle up dreams with realities, or such realities
we see in waking hours. And now, feeling free, I can continue with
the story in all its oddities of arrangement, because this is not a
philosophical treatise, although it might be construed into one. It
is not my business as a dream teller to reason, but to leave that to
my readers.
In the pursuit of largeness of Vision, breadth of Faith, development
of Charity, and strengthening of Hope, the new world formed in my
dream _recognises all religions_, or rather their creeds, with their
differences of approach towards a great mystery, and places them
upon an equality of ministration. Church and State are separated.
The Hebrew, Roman, Anglican, and Presbyterian Churches are, if not
numerically equal, equally respected. The grand mystical tenets of
the Hebrews, the loneliness of the Divine Spirit worshipped, its
nearness as well as its aloofness from what it has created, its
complete unchangeable supremacy associated with its antiquity, are
respected and admired as sincere emotions of one prominent part
in the mind of man. The grave simplicity of the Hebrew ritual is
accepted as an expression of mysterious faith. Having travelled
so far into man’s mind, it was arrested before any explanation of
mysteries arrived to drag the incomprehensible into the region of
logic. No longer despised, the Hebrew faith is as the Father of many
children. Differing from it in detail, the Moslem faith is the elder
child of pure Deism. Mahommed is to his followers what Moses is to
the Hebrews and Jesus Christ to Christians. We, who have to govern
so large a portion of the Moslem world, belong to a nation which of
necessity must come into constant contact with a Faith which (having
its defects, according to Western thought) is to the people who
follow it the fountain of Wisdom and the well of Truth; a Faith,
indeed, from which the most ardent Christian can learn many lessons
of sobriety and reverence. God the all powerful is the unapproachable
Spirit; only by prayer, praise and entire trust are we brought
spiritually near to Him.
The Roman Catholic community of thought is, in a sense, nearer to
Western life and ideals than the Hebrew or Moslem, but the element
from which it sprang is the same. The One Supreme God, the Father
of His creation, and the mystical spirit which contains _all_.
Differences are only matters of words, they are additions which in
no wise touch the root of the matter. God Almighty is still the root
from which springs the Tree of Life and all its branches. Deus and
Zeus are the same word. All the pagan gods emanate from the Divine
centre, be it Olympus, Rome, or Jerusalem. The Roman Church saw fit
to construe pagan mythology in a new vernacular. Its saints and holy
men became the lesser gods, but no less or more were they, or are
they, absolutely dependent upon the all powerful Deity, the final
author of all, the dispenser of all, the father of all.
The Anglican Church is the child of the Roman and grandchild of
pagan mythology, the great grandchild of the Hebrew Faith. The
metal of which the chain is formed is gold forged by the Divine
Spirit. Probably the break between the Anglican and Roman Church
was a political, more than a religious, _evolution_. The English
never liked submission to Rome. England has always been a friend to
liberty, an enemy to tyranny, and long may it so remain, be it either
religious or political.
Nonconformity, especially that branch we call “Presbyterian,”
came from an attempt to simplify ritual, as far as possible, to
reconstruct allegiance with primitive worshippers. The root of belief
the reformers did not touch. The Deity remained pre-eminent. The new
world, that of my dream, while admitting differences, recognises
essential similarities. Hence all denominations are held equal--equal
as regards the respect due to them, and equal in the intention
which dominates differences of detail. Was it not Augustine who
said: “There is no religion which has not something of the Spirit
of God in it”? Sectarianism takes no part in the new world. I saw
in my dream that the cathedrals and churches of England are open
to all religions. To the Hebrews the altars there are as the ark
presided over by the shining cherubims. To the Moslem as a symbol
of the nearness of the Divine Being; to the Catholics as the symbol
of self sacrifice; to the Presbyters as symbols of Divine Hope and
assistance. In them the ancient Psalms of David are sung by Hebrews,
whose incense carries prayers of the faithful up to their roofs and
far above them again. Jesus Christ worshipped in the Synagogue--why
should not the Hebrews worship in His Temples? I saw in my dream that
the Roman Mass, in all its splendour of detail, its imagery, its
exuberance of symbolism, is celebrated in the cathedrals and churches
once reserved as Temples of Protestantism. The simpler ritual of the
Anglicans is also reverently administered, and the almost entirely
bald ritual of Presbyters finds its place within the historic walls
of the churches of Liberal England.
The breadth of sympathy thus shown to all religious denominations my
spirit saw had nothing but a good result. It is a form of departure
which is catching; it engenders peace; it breaks up animosity;
it extends mental outlook from small to great things. Without
temporising differences it permits them, it places them as small
matters by the side of big essentials, hence the charity to which a
broad view of religion has given rise is spreading and seems to enter
into the spirit of a new and larger life. Hence religion appears
to me to coalesce with a spirit of fraternity which, obviously, is
growing, not sentimentally, but as a social and indispensable fact.
The cathedrals and churches are adorned with pictures, not
necessarily sectarian or of what are called religious subjects.
Prominent features of the History of the World are presented, but I
do not remember to have seen any pictures in which war is figured.
The new world abominates war, and while it is in a measure prepared
for such a foolish experiment as war is, it is not considered
worthy of handing down by the Arts of Peace, which are and must be
_constructive_.
It is recognised that while mankind is selfish, grasping and cruel,
wars will occur. The ideal is, of course, general disarmament, but
that is unlikely. Still, it is thought that the more widely and
constantly the Arts of Peace are sown, and the greater interest
taken in life, not as a dissipation, but as concentration of energy
used on things that matter, the less likely war will intervene and
shatter, for perhaps a century, all peaceful intellectual progress.
War may bring out fine qualities, but experience has told us, in a
minority. War is brutalising to those engaged in it, even to the
atmosphere near and far from its centre. War, when the lust for it
has entered, degrades a people. Bloodshedding is a form of madness.
When the spark is kindled, a flame soon grows, which is fanned by
lunatics, and one fears, sometimes by adroit commercial schemers
who see in devastation a chance to enrich their pockets. When once
greed takes the place of contented energy, avarice, dishonesty and
self-seeking enter and shatter national progress. Indeed, there is
no end to the mischief war may encourage. The seeds of avarice are
sown early in life. Victims to it become unconscious of the rapidity
of its growth, its poison spreads indefinitely, and what is in
reality vice is excused by the plausible word “business,” which,
if laid bare to its root, means tripping up the neighbour, and, if
possible, without being found out. It is because tradesmen behaved
so ill during the period of their country’s danger that, the eyes
of the people are now opened, they are watched, hedged in by honest
men, that they shall have no opportunity in the new Commune to rob
their fellow citizens of food again. In my dream, by listening and
observing, I saw that all classes were bent upon the same conclusion,
to attain much for all! This has led to a great reform in the
education of the young in their tender and malleable years.
§ 11
The public schools are not only in name public; they are open to all
without distinction of class. The peer’s son will sit on a school
bench beside the peasant’s. The only difference being that the
richer pay higher fees. All classes pay something for education;
what is got for nothing no one values, but the education given is
identical. Upon the whole it is desirable that all students live in
their homes. Day scholars are encouraged more than boarders; and,
as we shall presently see that home life is in every respect more
refined than it was. Under the old system, “squalor” was more the
rule than the exception; it is so no longer. Home life, if properly
conducted, is dignified. Every home should be a miniature State, and
it is becoming so here. Wealth is not necessary to make a worthy
home; it is the atmosphere of industry, amity, and union there
which constitute the best school in which to rear a good citizen.
The enormous and unprecedented rise in wages, largely caused by the
rapacity of tradesmen as well as Government waste of public money,
has indirectly promoted industry (not industrialism). Even the better
off folk do not send out work which can be done at home. Tradesmen
have defeated themselves in a large measure. The best provided
citizens are craftsmen, who can use their hands for any manual work,
rough or fine. If a chair is broken, no “gentleman” will send it to
be mended, he mends it himself.
Experience is fast teaching everybody that a day is long, not short,
and that _unlimited_ specialisation is neither good for soul or body,
rich or poor. The close student of art or letters needs recreation.
He finds it in the new order in manual work, in craftsmanship which
detaches the mind from pursuits necessarily sedentary, and which, if
continued for too many hours a day, are detrimental to health and
vigour. In my wanderings I noticed that one of the chief changes
in or differences from the old life is that every man, woman and
child _is at work_, rich or poor. Hence games and sports of all
kinds, while they take a rational place in life, are not now its
main object. In the public schools every student has to learn some
handicraft. I see the peasant boy sawing away at one end of a log,
while the peer’s son is sawing at the other. It is recognised, of
course, that equality of power is out of the question. Few are born
to rule, but all can serve their country. Endowments are different
in quantity and quality. There are fingers so made as to be bad
instruments for performing delicate tasks, as there are minds
incapable to lead men. A skilled craftsman--skilled, I mean, in the
delicate handling of material--is one thing, the doing rougher work
(quite as useful) is another, and more easily obtained. Young fellows
soon find out what, and what not, they can accomplish. The outcome
of this is energy extended, and if the professional tradesman or
craftsman find himself boycotted, he has only to thank his greed
and his overweening selfishness during hard times for now being
hit with the same weapon he employed on his fellows. Not overmuch
attention is given to BOOKS. The first principle initiated is “good
citizenship,” honest dealing, and the carrying out of the ancient
saying, “Whatsoever thou findest to do, do with thy might.”
§ 12
Business on shifty lines or vicious principles may bring a temporary
fortune, but honest dealing will make good and useful members of
society, who will last out the former, who, in all higher walks of
life, are not seldom mental bankrupts. Music, especially concerted
and vocal, forms a part of general education, and in like manner,
drawing, but music takes a prior place. Like physical drill, music
is useful in training concerted action. Obedience to a leader is a
necessary discipline. Some silly people used to think the study of
music enervating; the wise know it is otherwise.