which, in six thousand years of thinking about right and wrong,
wise and good men have agreed upon, or successively by experience
discovered, it is that God dislikes idle and cruel people more
than any others; that His first order is, 'Work while you have
light;' and his second, 'Be merciful while you have mercy.' 'Work
while you have light,' especially while you have the light of
morning. There are few things more wonderful to me than that old
people never tell young ones how precious their youth is....
Remember, then, that I, at least, have warned _you_, that the
happiness of your life, and its power, and its part and rank in
earth or in heaven, depend on the way you pass your days now.
They are not to be sad days; far from that, the first duty of
young people is to be delighted and delightful; but they are to
be in the deepest sense solemn days. There is no solemnity so
deep, to a rightly thinking creature, as that of dawn.... You
must be to the best of your strength usefully employed during the
greater part of the day, so that you may be able at the end of it
to say, as proudly as any peasant, that you have not eaten the
bread of idleness. Then, secondly, I said, you are not to be
cruel. Perhaps you think there is no chance of your being so; and
indeed I hope it is not likely that you should be deliberately
unkind to any creature; but _unless you are deliberately kind to
every creature, you will often be cruel to many_."
Ruskin is often disquieting to conventionalists; he is too candid to
be popular with those who make long prayers and descant on charity
while they ignore justice. He puts questions to them which they do not
want to consider themselves, or to have others consider. By insisting
on the substitution of justice for charity, and by taking the
teachings of Jesus seriously, he offends the sleek money-changers who
occupy choice pews in the modern palaces of ease dedicated to the
lowly Nazarene. Such expressions as the following from the magnificent
lecture on "Work" prove far less satisfying to this class than the
popular sermons they are accustomed to hear:
"It is the law of heaven," says Ruskin, "that you shall not be
able to judge what is wise or easy, unless you are first resolved
to judge what is just, and to do it. That is the one thing
constantly reiterated by our master--the order of all others that
is given oftenest: 'Do justice and judgment.' That's your Bible
order; that's the 'service of God.' The one divine work--the one
ordered sacrifice--is to do justice; and it is the last we are
ever inclined to do. Anything rather than that! As much charity
as you choose, but no justice. 'Nay,' you will say, 'charity is
greater than justice.' Yes, it is greater; _it is the summit of
justice_; it is the temple of which justice is the foundation.
_But you can't have the top without the bottom_; you cannot build
upon charity. You must build upon justice, for this main reason,
that you have not, at first, charity to build with. It is the
last reward of good work. It is all very fine to think you can
build upon charity to begin with; but you will find all you have
got to begin with begins at home, and is essentially love of
yourself.
"You well-to-do people, for instance, who are here to-night will
go to 'Divine Service' next Sunday, all nice and tidy, and your
little children will have their tight little Sunday boots on, and
lovely little Sunday feathers in their hats; and you'll think,
complacently and piously, how lovely they look! So they do; and
you love them heartily, and you like sticking feathers in their
hats. That's all right; that _is_ charity; but it is charity
beginning at home. Then you will come to the poor little
crossing-sweeper got up also--in its Sunday dress--the dirtiest
rags it has that it may beg the better: we shall give it a penny,
and think how good we are. That's charity going abroad. But what
does justice say, walking and watching near us? Christian justice
has been strangely mute, and seemingly blind; and, if not blind,
decrepit this many a day: she keeps her accounts still,
however--quite steadily--doing them at nights, carefully, with
her bandage off, and through acutest spectacles (the only modern
scientific invention she cares about). You must put your ear down
ever so close to her lips to hear her speak; and then you will
start at what she first whispers, for it will certainly be, 'Why
shouldn't that little crossing-sweeper have a feather on its
head, as well as your own child?' Then you may ask justice, in an
amazed manner, How she can possibly be so foolish as to think
children could sweep crossings with feathers on their heads? Then
you stoop again, and justice says--still in her dull, stupid
way--'Then, why don't you, every other Sunday, leave your child
to sweep the crossing, and take the little sweeper to church in a
hat and feather?' Mercy on us (you think), what will she say
next? And you answer, of course, that you don't, because
everybody ought to remain content in the position in which
Providence has placed them.
"Ah, my friends, that's the gist of the whole question. _Did_
Providence put them in that position, or did _you_? You knock a
man into a ditch, and then you tell him to remain content in the
'position in which Providence has placed him.' That's modern
Christianity. You say, 'We did not knock him into the ditch.' How
do you know what you have done or are doing? That's just what we
have all got to know, and what we shall never know until the
question with us every morning, is, not how to do the gainful
thing, but how to do the just thing."
These thoughts suggest to us Ruskin, the social economist, for we must
not lose sight of the fact that this greatest of all art critics, this
strong, sane ethical philosopher who has emphasized so forcibly the
possibilities, duties, and responsibilities of the individual in all
his complex relations, is also one of the most enlightened and
broad-visioned economists of our wonderful age. By treatises, essays,
and letters he has striven for a brighter day for the breadwinners. He
has sought to elevate the ideals and tastes of all toilers, while he
has labored unremittingly to secure for them that meed of justice
which is their right, but which has so long been denied them.
So far back as 1868, when few people of position dared advocate so
sane a proposition as the governmental ownership of "natural
monopolies," John Ruskin published these bold and thoughtful words in
the London _Daily Telegraph_:
The ingenious British public seemed to be discovering to its
cost, that the beautiful law of supply and demand does not apply
in a pleasant manner to railroad transit. But if they are
prepared to submit patiently to the "natural" laws of political
economy, what right have they to complain? The railroad belongs
to the shareholders; and has not everybody a right to ask the
highest he can get for his wares? The public have a perfect right
to walk, or to make other opposition railroads for themselves, if
they please, but not to abuse the shareholders for asking as much
as they think they can get. Will you allow me to put the _real_
rights of the matter before them in a few words?
Neither the roads nor the railroads of any nation should belong
to any private persons. All means of public transit should be
provided at public expense, by public determination, where such
means are needed, and the public should be its own shareholder.
Neither road, nor railroad, nor canal should ever pay dividends
to anybody. They should pay their working expenses, and no more.
All dividends are simply a tax on the traveller and the goods,
levied by the persons to whom the road or canal belongs, for the
right of passing over his property, and this right should at once
be purchased by the nation, and the original cost of the
roadway--be it of gravel, iron, or adamant--at once defrayed by
the nation, and then the whole work of the carriage of persons or
goods done for ascertained prices, by salaried officers, as the
carriage of letters is done now.
Happily these suggestions of the distinguished Englishman have been
followed, in part at least, by several enlightened nations, but to the
disgrace of our republic, and to the great cost of the producing and
consuming masses, we are lagging behind in these respects, becoming a
camp-follower instead of a leader in the march of progress, because of
the influence exerted by a small class, who have grown so powerful
through special privileges given to them by the nation that they now
assume to thwart beneficent legislation in order that they may
continue to grow richer through this vicious form of governmental
paternalism, which places the multitude in the power of a few.
Ruskin's views on money are as disturbing to the usurers and those who
through special privileges in money have amassed fortunes of unearned
wealth as his sound position on railroads is distasteful to the
monopolists who impoverish the producer and consumer by exorbitant
rates on transportation.
The great Englishman is also too clear-sighted to accept the
fallacious doctrines of the money-changers in regard to the medium of
exchange. He is too honest to hold his peace in the presence of a
great wrong, hence his definition of money is far more nearly correct
than the false and essentially injurious definitions so industriously
promulgated by special pleaders for an interested class. "The final
and best definition of money," says Ruskin, "is that it is a
documentary promise ratified and guaranteed by the nation to give or
find a certain quantity of labor on demand."
In 1873 our author carried on a spirited discussion with some
conventional economists regarding the money of the rich. One writer
undertook to defend the lavish and reckless expenditures of the
wealthy by calling to his aid the well-worn plea that money thus paid
out finds its way into the pockets of poor families, and that thus
through the bounty of the rich the starving are blest. Ruskin, in the
course of his reply, observed that, were he a poor man instead of a
moderately rich one, he would be sure that the paper referred to would
suggest the question:
These _means of living_, which this generous and useful gentleman
is so fortunately disposed to bestow on me--where does he get
them himself?... These are the facts. The laborious poor produce
"the means of life" by their labor. Rich persons possess
themselves by various expedients of a right to dispense these
means of life, and, keeping as much means as they want for
themselves, and rather more, dispense the rest usually only in
return for _more labor from the poor_, expended in producing
various delights for the rich dispenser. The idea is now
gradually entering poor men's minds, that they may as well keep
in their own hands the right of distributing "the means of life"
they produce; and employ themselves, so far as they need extra
occupation, for their own entertainment or benefit, rather than
that of other people.
The conventional economist replied to the question relating to how the
rich man got his wealth by stating that it was obtained by the
possessor or his ancestors through a "mutually beneficent partnership"
between the rich and the poor by which the poor had their share of the
joint returns advanced to them. Mr. Ruskin in his reply stated the
question again, and then proceeded to answer it by a telling personal
illustration. He says:
"Where does the rich man get his means of living?" I don't myself
see how a more straightforward question could be put! so
straightforward, indeed, that I particularly dislike making a
martyr of myself in answering it, as I must this blessed day--a
martyr, at least, in the way of witness; for if we rich people
don't begin to speak honestly with our tongues, we shall, some
day soon, lose them and our heads together, having for sometime
back, most of us, made false use of the one and none of the
other. Well, for the point in question, then, as to means of
living: the most exemplary manner of answer is simply to state
how I got my own, or rather how my father got them for me. He and
his partners entered into what your correspondent mellifluously
styles "a mutually beneficent partnership" with certain laborers
in Spain. These laborers produced from the earth annually a
certain number of bottles of wine. These productions were sold by
my father and his partners, who kept nine-tenths, or thereabouts,
of the price themselves, and gave one-tenth, or thereabouts, to
the laborers. In which state of mutual beneficence my father and
his partners naturally became rich, and the laborers as naturally
remained poor. Then my good father gave all his money to me.
Space forbids a more extended notice of Mr. Ruskin's broad and
thoughtful views on economic problems, but before closing this paper,
I wish to notice how the life of this great philanthropist has touched
and brightened other lives. Many men think noble thoughts and at times
are stirred by the loftiest aspirations, but in actual everyday life
they sadly fail to live up to their teachings; but he who can and does
master himself, he who gives his life for justice and thinks of the
welfare of others before he considers himself, has reached a far
higher summit than have the most gifted intellects who, while
apprehending the beauty of goodness, fail to express that beauty in
their daily lives. John Ruskin's life has been at once earnest, pure,
and unselfish.
Of the unexampled manner in which he gave up his beautiful wife to his
friend--how he quietly secured a divorce that she might become the
wife of the man she loved--electing to pass the rest of his life alone
rather than destroy her happiness,--these facts are well known, and
Mr. Ruskin has been severely criticised for not holding his wife in
unwilling bondage. But he was so constituted that it was impossible
for him to endure the thought of being directly or indirectly the
cause of another's misery.
Another striking illustration of his unselfishness is seen in the
manner in which he has disposed of his fortune, which at the time of
his father's death amounted to a million dollars. With this money he
set about doing good. Poor young men and women who were struggling to
obtain an education were helped, homes for working men and women were
established, and model apartment-houses were erected. He also promoted
a work for reclaiming waste land outside of London. This land was used
for the aid of unfortunate men who wished to rise again from the state
into which they had fallen through cruel social conditions and their
own weaknesses. It is said that this work suggested to General Booth
his colonization farms. Ruskin has also ever been liberal in aiding
poor artists, and has done much to encourage the artistic taste among
the young. On one occasion he purchased ten fine water-color paintings
by Holman Hunt for $3,750, to be hung in public schools of London.
By 1877 he had disposed of three-fourths of his inheritance, besides
all the income from his books. But the calls of the poor and the plans
which he wished to put into operation looking toward education and
ennobling the toilers, and giving to their gloomy lives something more
of sunshine and joy, were such that he determined to dispose of all
the remainder of his wealth except a sum sufficient to yield him
fifteen hundred dollars a year on which to live.
Of all English writers of our century no one has left a more valuable
literary legacy than has John Ruskin, but the splendid and voluminous
works of his brain are even less priceless than the example of his
wonderful life. That he is in the shadow in his old age is by no means
strange; a nature so sensitive, so finely strung, so keenly alive to
the sufferings of others on every hand, has necessarily felt what the
well-kept and self-engrossed animals around him knew nothing of.
Indeed, just here we find the chief reason why the finest natures
suffer so keenly in this age of heartless greed, self-absorption, and
gold madness, of wanton extravagance and biting poverty, of widespread
misery and growing discontent. Sensitive natures who are spiritually
alive to the misery around them must suffer while they sow the
seed-thoughts of a new day--suffer uncomplainingly until the
waiting-time of this great transition period has passed.
In John Ruskin we find great breadth of thought and a wide range of
intellectual vision, going hand in hand with a profound philosophical
grasp of life's deepest problems; and, what is more, these excellences
are rendered luminous by the influence of an enlightened soul. His
life has been characterized by nobility of purpose, purity of thought,
a passion for nature and art, and an enthusiasm for humanity.
THE SINGLE TAX IN OPERATION.
BY HON. HUGH H. LUSK,
_Ex-Member of the New Zealand Legislature._
Few if any of the various economic theories that have been advanced,
claiming attention in virtue of their practical benefit to the
existing conditions of human affairs, have gained so immediate or so
widespread an acceptance amongst intelligent persons as that which is
familiarly known as "the single-tax" theory propounded by Mr. Henry
George. In all parts of the English-speaking world, at least, the
theory has obtained many and enthusiastic disciples, who have
believed, and probably still believe, that they find in Mr. George's
doctrine a panacea for many of the most apparent of the evils which
oppress society not less under our advanced civilization than they did
at any former period of the world's history. It may be said, indeed,
that we hear less of Mr. George and the single tax now than we did a
few years ago, and from this some will argue that the idea has died or
is dying out of men's minds; this, however, is almost certainly a
mistake.
In the history of any great system of alleged reform there may be
traced at least three distinct stages which are marked by different
degrees of prominence in the public regard. The first of these may be
called the period of promulgation, the second that of fermentation,
and the third that of experiment. If the evils proposed to be reformed
are manifest and widely recognized the first of these stages is almost
certain to excite wide attention and much controversy on both sides.
The earliest stage, that of mere discussion, however, soon wears
itself out, and the theorists who argued in favor of, as well as those
who argued against, the new system, having exhausted their ingenuity
in argument, turn for the most part to something newer, and let the
matter drop.
Then follows the period of incubation. Removed from the din of
controversy a certain number of people are always found who are keenly
sensible of the evils which the new system was supposed to cure, and
who continue to meditate upon the possibility of its possessing the
power to do so. These persons, it may be, make but little noise in the
arena either of literature or politics, but they are not the less
active, nor perhaps in the end the less really influential, on that
account. Their influence is of the sort that depends upon a solid
conviction, right or wrong, that the theory which they support is the
true one; and as long as the evils, which the system they adhere to
professes to cure, continue to exist, so long their influence may be
expected to increase.
It is the third or experimental stage which is the critical one, and
generally speaking it is well when that stage can be reached without
any needless delay. By experiment alone can the value of such theories
be tested to the satisfaction of the practical mind of humanity, and
it is only as the result of a trial that men will either consent to
admit the value of a proposed reform or to abandon a specious theory
to which they have once given their adherence.
The single-tax theory of political economics advanced by Henry George,
having passed through the first of these three stages with something
more than the usual publicity and controversy, has already been in its
second stage for a good many years. The cessation of active
discussion, which appears to some people to argue that it has passed
into oblivion, or is at any rate well on the way toward such a
consummation, is only evidence that it is in its second, or
fermentation, period. Nobody can pretend for an instant that any one
of the evils pointed out by Henry George as the things that called
loudly for reform, have actually been reformed since the date of the
publication of his original essay on "Progress and Poverty." No
reasonable man can doubt that many, if not all of these evils, ought
in some way to be dealt with, and if possible amended. While such is
the case it is impossible wholly to get rid of the theory which
trenchantly pointed out those evils and professed at least to offer an
effective remedy.
Under these conditions few things could be more desirable than that
the matter should be advanced to the third of its natural stages by
being submitted to the critical test of experience. Nothing short of
this will ever satisfy the mass of mankind of the feasibility of the
system proposed, or of its adequacy to meet the evils complained of;
nothing less will set free the minds of many thousands of intelligent
persons to inquire into other methods of reform than the fair trial of
the single-tax system, and its failure to cure the evils which its
author expected it to cure. The difficulty, which indeed is by no
means a slight one, is to find a favorable arena in which the
experiment can be tried, and a community prepared to make the
experiment.
It must be remembered that, if the evils aimed at by the proposed
remedy of the single tax are great and far-reaching, its complete
application could hardly, in most communities, amount to less than a
practical revolution. Striking as it does at the whole received theory
of land tenure, as sanctioned throughout the civilized world by the
practice of many centuries, it arrays against itself the prejudices of
the most influential classes in every long-established community, and
its introduction is necessarily surrounded by difficulties and at
least apparent injustices which must indefinitely delay any attempt to
bring it to the test of experiment there. The only reasonable hope,
indeed, of reducing the theory of the single tax to the plane of
experience is to find a country not yet fully committed to any other
system, and occupied by a self-governing people sufficiently
intelligent to perceive the evils of other existing systems of land
tenure, and sufficiently enterprising to be willing to experiment in
this direction.
It may perhaps prove of no little benefit to other communities that
one self-governing country has been found which has been both able and
willing to make trial of the principle which has been so strongly
contended for by the author of "Progress and Poverty," and by those
who have seen in his proposals a way of escape from many of the most
serious difficulties that beset civilized communities at the present
day. There is probably no other country which is to-day in so good a
position to enter upon experimental legislation in this and other
directions as the British colony of New Zealand. An island community
separated by more than a thousand miles from its nearest neighbors,
possessed of practically unlimited powers of self-government, and
inhabited by a prosperous and intelligent population, substantially
of unmixed British race, there is little either in their external
relations or internal circumstances to prevent the colonists of New
Zealand making many experiments in economic legislation. And during
the last quarter of a century this fact has been fully realized by the
people and their leaders. They have established a system of education
which is at once more popular, free, and comprehensive than even the
most complete systems in force in this country; they have placed local
option in the control of the liquor traffic upon a broad and entirely
popular basis, which has rendered New Zealand the most sober and
law-abiding of communities, without introducing the doubtful principle
of prohibition; they have thrown open the franchise unreservedly to
all persons of full age and competent education, without regard to
sex; and they have successfully introduced life insurance and
trusteeship of estates by the government, as well as many others of
the proposals which are generally comprehended under the term "State
Socialism."