LINES OF ADVANCE.
Before we can imagine what may be lines of possible advance, for the
individual or the community, we should base our ideas on observing
what have been the means of advance in the past. Many of the Utopian
visions which have been sketched by different writers are in flagrant
contradiction of all history and human nature. It is at least far more
likely that gain in the future will be on similar lines to those which
have been successful in the past, rather than on lines opposed to all
previous growth.
The personal, rather than the communal, advance is the main
consideration, inasmuch as it is personal initiative of the most
able which helps the rest of the community forward. The greatest
improvements are the result of a single mind, animating perhaps a small
group of similar minds. We all know how such great benefits as prison
reform, the abolition of slavery, the restriction of child labour,
and similar movements of which the public are now proud, were each
originated by one mind, and worked by a small group in the teeth of the
bitterest opposition to start with. It goes without saying that the
same is the case in all inventions; it takes not only an inventor, but
also a commercial organiser (seldom one and the same man), to help the
public to any improvement. If ten thousand men could be picked out of
any one country, so as to remove the most fruitful minds, that country
would come to an entire standstill, and would continue in mechanical
repetition until a fresh generation gave a chance of the rise of
original minds. Probably not more than one in a thousand minds causes
useful advance among the others. And the majority of men lead automatic
lives, of which the reflexes have been trained by teaching and
experience to do what is required, and the daily actions are performed
without a single real thought, but only in response to external stimuli
of sights and orders. It is therefore in the development of the able
individuals, and in giving every chance to such whenever they arise,
that the hopes of the great mass must lie.
It is perhaps not too much to say that all general popular advance of
the community at large is based on the prevention of waste. Wherever
waste exists improvement is possible; and we need not trouble ourselves
much about the construction of the social organism, so long as we can
lay our finger on the waste and check it. As with a machine we know
the amount of force that is put into it, and can see what percentage
is yielded up usefully in its output, so it is with a community. The
design of the nature and quality of work done by the community or the
machine is another matter; though that again comes under the head of
waste if the quality is bad. We will now look more precisely at the
gains by prevention of waste in health, life, energy, and renewal.
The saving of health is one of the greatest steps that has been made,
as it has been suddenly performed within a generation. Man had
unconsciously conquered bacteria to a great extent by the invention
of cooking, and by the experimental learning of cleanliness; but the
scientific attack on bacteria and protozoa has given the prospect
of preventing all epidemic disease, and largely increasing the
efficiency of man in the most fertile countries. This advance means
the economic exploitation of the whole tropical regions, which—with
cheap transport—will provide an immense fresh basis for the advantage
of other lands. The gain in antiseptic surgery, giving safety for
operation on all internal organs, as it only affects the small
proportion of sick and injured, is not of so much general importance as
the conquest of the microorganisms, which have hitherto ruled the best
part of the world. It is in the complete domination over all forms of
life, however minute, that we shall find one of the greatest lines for
future advance. Only a small band of workers, about one in a hundred
million of the world's population, has made this advance possible.
The saving of life is another great step which will give man far higher
power; not only in the mere hindrance of death, but far more in the
increased power of work _per_ day. The power of continuity of work
is a growth of civilisation; and it is obvious that a man who can do
twelve hours' work _per_ day, instead of six hours, not only lives
virtually twice as long, but costs the community only half as much
for what he does. This continuity of work, or industry, is seen in
both high and low classes of work. Some races can do more than twice
as much agricultural work in the day as others. The same is true of
scientific or commercial work. And there have been some of the highest
minds which could only work for two hours a day, while others could
work up to fourteen or sixteen hours daily. This power of continuity
of work is obviously then a matter improvable by cultivation, both in
the individual and in the race; and as it may easily double a man's
effective life it is certainly a line of great promise for the future.
Another direction for saving a portion of life is in the rapidity of
thought and action. It is easy to find a difference of two or three
times the amount of work _per_ hour between different men. All that we
have just said about the continuity of work applies to its rapidity;
and a large gain may be looked for in cultivating pace and vigour. We
need hardly note that trades-union ideals would destroy instead of
promoting these most promising and fruitful lines of advance.
In transport from place to place the movement at fifty miles an hour
instead of five means a gain of several years of life to most men.
But here we have probably reached the useful limits, as any possible
further saving would not yield much more time.
The saving of energy is another form of the question of continuity of
work. The ideal of work—as varied as possible, and as interesting as
possible—being the joy of life and the greatest good, is an aim hardly
yet grasped by more than a very few persons. To the majority, work is
a hateful thing, to be done solely in order to get means for enjoyment
in some other way. This essentially savage and uncultivated ideal
needs to be steadily rooted out by the better adaptation of work to
the individual. An education which started by cultivating the natural
interests, using them for mental development, and only superadding
what further knowledge was really requisite for life, would greatly
help to eradicate the false and low idea of work which prevails. There
is a common feeling that business cannot be interesting in itself; but
there are few, if any, businesses which if intelligently followed will
not yield scope for some real interest of observation and study. The
greater application of mind to the work of life will leave far less
scope for fruitless amusement and—as a great painter remarked—"there
is nothing of interest in life to be compared with work."
To minds which are incapable of continuity of work, or of relaxation
by variation of work, mere amusements are needful. Darwin's health
prevented more than two hours' work a day, and the flimsiest of
novels was his needful relaxation. But the need of amusement for this
purpose must be taken as the index of incapacity for continuity—as
an unfortunate failure of mental and physical health—as a disastrous
defect when it occurs along with great abilities which can only
thus work at low speed. The same may be said of athletics; the need
of physical exercise outside of work is an index of incapacity for
physical health adapted to the work, an unfortunate failure of those
who are of defective condition. The idea that no one can be too strong
and robust is a wild exaggeration; physical strength needs to be
proportioned to the nature of work, and a slender wiry man will do far
better for indoor life than a plethoric mass of brawn and muscle which
needs much exercise to keep in health. Unlimited robustness is not an
absolute good, to be pursued at all costs, or else we should make
every schoolboy a Hun, living without shelter, and feeding on flaps of
raw meat which form the only saddle of his horse. In brief, the need
of athletics shows a weakness of body to be remedied, or a physical
over-development unsuited to the person's work in life; it is the mark
of unfitness, and the need ceases so soon as a man is adapted to his
work. The need of spending any considerable time on amusement is the
sign of an incapacity, which has to be removed by strengthening the
mind in the individual or in the race. The passion for amusement is
the sure evidence of a defective education, which has left the mind
incapable of continuity, or bare of interests. An important advance
therefore lies in better use of the time which is at present wasted in
fruitless action of mind or body; better adaptation and education for
the work of life will gradually raise the standard so that this form
of waste will be avoided. We do not expect a uniform type of horse to
be equally adapted to draught or hunting or racing; and similarly we
ought to specialise on different types of men fitted for agriculture,
or mechanical work, or office work.
The great subject of the waste by renewal of the population in each
generation has an immense variety of aspects; but the essential
importance of it is seen when we reflect that about half the labour of
the world is swallowed up in this renewal. The burden of production, of
rearing, of education, and the waste and loss in the process, exceeds
that of any other activity, such as supply of food or shelter, for
the adult. Hence any possible saving in this great mass of labour, or
reduction of waste, is of the first importance to the individual and
the race.
Those who have proposed temporary marriage hardly seem to have
considered that one of the most important economies adopted, perhaps
dating from a pre-human period, was that of permanent marriage. This
saved at a stroke the enormous loss of time and energy in the rivalries
of repeated mating. The gain to the race by leaving the members free
for continuous work is greater than the loss by reproducing inferior
stocks. There is no need for the system to have been intentionally
adopted for this purpose; but merely a race which economised the time
of repeated mating would soon oust a race in which it was customary.
For this reason any fancied reconstruction of society without permanent
marriage is entirely futile; even if it could be universal, yet the
advantage given to the lazy and emotional type of man above the
continuous worker would soon pull down the race. One frequent argument
for a more revocable union is the number of divorces effected or
desired. But nearly all such are among people whose judgment in any
other line of life would certainly not be trusted, and who habitually
get into trouble over other communal obligations. To abolish marriage
for their benefit would be as reasonable as allowing all debts to be
repudiated because such people cannot pay their I.O.U.'s. There is
moreover a great gain in permanent marriage when judiciously effected,
by the new mental pivot of a sense of permanent ensurance of various of
the conditions of life, which liberates the attention of both parties
from a large number of points, and leaves each free to concentrate
attention on a partial phase of feelings and duties. It is a far higher
and a spiritual counterpart of a successful business partnership,
where each member trusts the other to manage a different part of the
affair. All this mental economy and help would be impossible without
permanence.
Another wastage which has been greatly reduced in modern times is that
of high birth rate and high death rate. The allusions in mediaeval
times show a state much like that now described among the Slovenes,
where incessant maternity is only balanced by the reduction of children
due to filth, neglect, and bad conditions. The modern ideal of a small
family carefully tended is an immense advance, both for the individual
life and for the saving of waste. But its benefits should be sought and
not commanded. If the neglectful, dirty, and wasteful stocks of low
type in our midst let their children die off, it is the only balance
to their overgrowth, which would soon outnumber the better class of
population. The right end to begin at is by insisting on hard work and
tidy living, under penal enactments; the saving of the children may
then be left to take care of itself. To begin at the sentimental end,
as is now the fashion, is to degrade the whole race by swamping it with
the worst stocks.
The line of progress in invention is the remorseless "scrapping" of
poorer machines. The more serious the progress becomes, the more
scrapping needs to be done. We must not be surprised then if a sign
of human progress of mind and body should be the large number of
inefficients who are thrown out of work on the scrap heap of society.
In another direction advance has been made by general lengthening of
the stages of life. The early marriage and early deaths of past times
brought the cost of renewal at every twenty years, which was a much
severer tax on the community than renewal in thirty or forty years.
There is probably also a great benefit in the higher development of
parents before each generation. It is well recognised how the later
children of a family are more able, and of a more finished quality than
the earlier; great examples of such a view in older literature being
Joseph and David, and in our own history, Alfred. The longer growth of
mind before each generation appears to be a great gain of advance for
the race. Among the lower races, by far the most advanced are those
like the Zulu, which have a long period of hard training and active
life before settling down to family duties.
The often debated problem dealing with the human refuse of bad stocks
is one which presses most on an advanced civilisation. We will not do
like the Christian Norseman, when he put the ne'er-do-weel family into
a wide grave in the churchyard, and wiped his hands of them. We will
not even leave them to exterminate themselves by their own follies,
vices, and ignorance. But if the state takes up the burden of such
wastrels it must have an entire control of them. Responsibility without
rule is worse than rule without responsibility. The only safe course
is a rigorous enforcement of parental duties; with the alternative of
penal servitude in state workshops, the mother and children together,
the father elsewhere. There is no middle course, of semi-maintenance
by school meals, which will not injure the children by their being
correspondingly neglected at home, injure the parents by lowering the
spur of necessity to work, and injure the state by flooding it with the
worst types.
Much more drastic treatment of the unfit has been advocated, as by
Dr. Rentoul. In a future period of civilisation a logical course of
treatment might have a chance of adoption; but in our age any serious
changes of the habits of thought and action will not be tolerated,
unless brought about very gradually under small influences, such as
we have noticed as acting through taxation. What we need is to try to
give effect to the gospel of giving to him that hath, and taking away
from him that hath not. The most likely opening for such a line of
advance would be giving partial state maintenance to the best stocks,
so as to ensure large returns from them, and taxing down the worst
stocks—exactly the opposite course to the present craze. Let us try to
realise if there be a practical system for this advance.
We should need a Board of Health in each area of about 10,000
inhabitants, composed of three examining doctors. Every child on
leaving school, or at about fifteen, should be examined, merely by a
glance at the greater bulk of normal cases, but carefully in extreme
cases. The finest 5 per cent. both mentally (shown by school-leaving
certificates) and physically as well, should be premiated by assisted
higher education of suitable type. The worst 10 per cent. should be
remanded to a training school where physical and mental development
would be scientifically carried out, and as much profit as possible
made from their labour toward self-support. This would reclaim the
hooligan class effectually before they run amuck, and help on those
who need care and assistance to get a good footing in life. No course
could possibly be kinder for the weaklings. At the age of twenty a
further examination of both the best and the worst classes should
ensue. The best half of the most able should receive a certificate
granting them practically free support for all children they may have
after they have reached the age of twenty-five. The worst half of the
most incapable, or 5 per cent. of all, should be required to report
residence during their lives to the Board of Health of their district,
and informed that if they had any children they must pay a heavy fine,
or else go into servitude. This would practically mean the segregation
of the lowest class of the unfits under compulsory work. It would be
cheaper to the state to keep them thus at work, than to pay poor rates
to maintain this submerged twentieth and their helpless families.
In all these proposals there would be no Socialistic constraint of the
great majority, which is normal in mind and body. But such attention
to the unfit would be merely adding a porch to the poorhouse, the
hospital, and the asylum, and there sorting over the material which can
be possibly saved from a bad end. The nine-tenths of people who were
ordinary would be thus left even more free for individual growth than
they now are, when hampered by the inefficient residue.
We might not exclude the thought of another favourite idea of some
reformers which in a modified shape might be allowed to gradually take
root. Since Spencer Wells familiarised the world with an operation
for which he will always be remembered, hundreds of women have
gladly improved their health by a safe treatment, which, if anything,
threatened to become too fashionable. Every woman who was, as above,
required to report her residence as being unfit, and being liable to
heavy penalties on having children, should be offered the option of
perfect freedom if she chose the operation. The marriage of such women,
with men who were condemned as unfit, would entirely free both parties
from reporting and inspection in future, and give the best prospect
of happy lives to the weakest and less capable of the community, free
from what would be only too truly "encumbrances" to such people. This
course might give a permanently safe line of improvement, without any
consequent stigma or hardship in the world around; and so gentle a
change—beneficial to the individual as well as the community—seems
not outside of future possibilities. At least such a course would be
the more practicable form of such a proposed change. Of course, no such
legislation would be complete in its action, and evasions would often
occur. But if it checked even one half of the growth of bad stock it
would be an enormous gain.
We now turn to other lines of advance from the communal point of view.
The old system of community, in which all the nations of northern
Europe lived, was based on each man being his brother's keeper;
every one was liable to fines if any relative committed a crime, in
proportion to their closeness of relation. To this succeeded individual
responsibility, both in property and in penalties. This raises the
question whether it is possible to separate property and penalty in
communism. At present the tendency is to a state communism, begun
by heavy death duties and taxation (for a variety of purposes which
the taxed do not use or require), amounting to a quarter of all
property. If this system is extended, and property becomes more largely
hypothecated to public purposes, then when a man is condemned in
heavy damages or fines his neighbours will suffer by reduction of the
rateable property. Will it not be thought more fair for his relatives
to be responsible for the public loss? And if so, we indirectly revert
to the payment by relatives of a share of all fines.
To anyone who has had experience of combined labour, it is obvious how
two people working together do not perform twice as much as one alone.
There is always a loss by one waiting on the action of another; and
it appears as if the amount of work done only increased as the square
root of the number of people working together. Hence the group-work
of communistic taste is very wasteful. This is practically seen among
the Slavs in Russia, where communal agriculture—which is extolled
by its admirers—produces far less _per_ acre on fine land, than is
obtained by individual agriculture on poor land in England. Again it is
notorious how the Irishman who goes to work apart among individualist
people, then flourishes as he never does when held down by the communal
claims socially enforced among his own countrymen. This is the root
of the success of the Irish out of their own land. Thus we see how
communal action is the more wasteful form of labour; and how it was a
great advance for man when he made individual success entirely depend
upon individual labour.
Another question is what form of government will most favour the
strong breeds and the new strains of ability as they arise? Certainly
any system which ties the actions of one person with those of others is
detrimental to ability. The better man is held back by the co-operation
with others, by their lower example, and by their direct disfavour. Any
communistic tie is unfavourable to advance; and it was a great step
in favour of new and improved variations when each individual stood
entirely on his own resources, and was not bound by his inferior kin.
In every way, therefore, individualism was a line of advance for men in
the past; and the principles which are involved promise that it will
yet likewise be the main line of future advance. If we look practically
at which class of government is associated with advance of ideas, of
inventions, and new types of thought, let us put on one hand the more
individualist countries, America, England, Germany, and perhaps France,
and on the other hand the more communist countries, Switzerland,
Norway, Ireland, Greece, Australia, and especially New Zealand. Can
we question for a moment which type of country is most advancing the
intellect and abilities of man?
But we must not forget that Union is strength, the motto that Belgium
strangely took on separating from Holland; and combined action has
great advantages. In this view the beneficial combination is that
to which all contribute without one being a hindrance to the other.
How far can these benefits be gained without loss to the improved
individual? The main principle is that all combinations must be
entirely voluntary, and have no suspicion of coercion about them.
Where even "peaceful persuasion" comes in, ability is crushed, and
the whole community is the loser by it. Coercive union of individuals
is the unpardonable sin against human nature, because it kills the
hopes of the future. The safe line of advance is combination by
large clubs for every purpose, with healthy rivalry between similar
institutions—benefit clubs, co-operative stores, co-operative works,
holiday clubs, and insurance of all kinds. Every inducement should be
held out to join in such combinations, giving them the assistance and
security of official auditors, as is provided for friendly societies
at present Every line in which any class can profitably unite for
economic action, on an entirely voluntary basis, and without any tie
on the individual beyond his share in the enterprise, is a clear gain
to society. In this way the taxation for these ends would fall on
those who benefit by them, and not on those who do not want them. Thus
the individual would be free to take, or leave alone, the benefits
provided; and many purposes to which taxation is now applied would
be far better effected by gigantic clubs of those classes who want
such assistance. Taxation must be strictly limited to those purposes
in which all persons must necessarily share, such as protection and
justice.
Hence a future line of advance lies in a great development of purely
voluntary co-operation in any one class, in order to obtain the
advantages of combination. In one direction it is clear what immense
savings might be thus effected. Co-operative purchase of supplies and
cooking, with distribution of hot meals to subscribers, would save
perhaps a third of the cost of living to the working classes. And if
the prepaid weekly subscriptions might be deducted before wages were
received, such a system would go far to solve the question of proper
feeding of children. Again, the education of hand-workers in the
subject of economics can be best furthered by the experience gained in
co-operative works, and even on this ground alone every encouragement
should be given to such combinations of workers.
Another line of advance now coming into practical view is the use of
various nationalities, according to their abilities for different
kinds of works in foreign countries. We have seen, in Europe, Italian
miners taken to many lands for tunnelling and submarine work, we have
Norwegians largely employed in our shipping, and English engineers
find many careers abroad. Of recent years the great mass of cheap
skilled labour of China and Japan has been getting its due share of
the world's work. The infamous manner in which the Chinese have been
treated in America is apparently now nearly at an end; the Republic
where all men are free and equal will be coerced into fairness by the
reasonable refusal to take American goods as long as the Americans will
not take Chinese labour. In British Columbia the Japanese are objected
to because they are more industrious, more economical, more sober
and quiet than the white, who, as their inferior in these principal
respects, cannot bear their competition. The Americans are likewise
trying to prevent their industry, while at the same time wishing to
make the Panama Canal with Chinese labour; in this they will probably
be rebuffed, unless the whole national position is put on a fair basis.
The objections to Chinese labour in South Africa have never been put
on the real fact—tacitly felt, though unexpressed—that the white
dreads the competition of an economical people. First they were said to
be tortured in slavery, a lie which served its big political purpose
until it was found that they would not leave; then the danger of public
crime and burglary was put forward, until it was shown that there
were fewer criminals in proportion than among other inhabitants; then
a cry of immorality was raised, until the Colonial Secretary stated
that the Kaffirs who would replace them had just the same habits. Now
the Transvaal refuses to destroy its own welfare by the falseness of
playing with any of these cries; but such hatred to free labour has all
served the political ends which were intended by an unscrupulous party
that revels in keeping a conscience. Meanwhile the Prussian Board of
Agriculture desires to import Chinese agriculturists into Germany; and
it will be strange if the great German coalfields in South Wales are
not run by the cheapest labour that can be obtained. We have no laws
to prevent Chinese working freely in England, and we cannot afford to
wreck our great China trade by starting a gross injustice of exclusion.
If objections are felt—by a people so immoral as ourselves—to the
toleration of any habit of foreign residents, let it be legislated upon
equally for all nationalities in England. In this way the Canadians
expelled the rowdy negroes who had taken refuge with them in the days
of slavery. A rigid and impartial punishment of rowdyism cleared out
the undesirable negro, and left the inoffensive behind. The only
possible course of safety is not by any laws directed against any
one race; for when such laws break down in the growth of the future
there will be a terrible economic—if not political—catastrophe.
Rigid laws to check evils of all inhabitants of a country alike are
sound and safe, and will prevent most of the objectionable results of
immigration, Jewish, Italian, Chinese, or any other. With such laws a
great advance can be made by the free use of that kind of labour which
is most adapted to the work, whatever source it may come from. Such
must inevitably be the course of the distant future; and those who
play with holding what they please to call a "white man's land" will
find that "mean whites" of hot countries are wholly inferior to other
races which are fitted for such a position. Bret Harte has well stated
"the conscious hate and fear with which inferiority always regards the
possibility of even-handed justice, and which is the key-note to the
vulgar clamour about servile and degraded races."
Another subject which has seemed to be a most promising line of advance
is that of the reduction or abolition of warfare. We must not limit
our view in this to open and direct violence, there are other forms of
warfare quite as effective, and causing as much, or more, misery in the
total. The warfare of trade is always going on, each nation is pushing
its neighbours as much as it can for its own benefit. Some gain benefit
by closed markets and bleeding a monopoly, others benefit by open
markets, and each fights for what it wants by trade methods backed with
force. The free trader honestly believes that all this can and should
be abolished by each country producing what it is best fitted for, and
a tacit or legal understanding that there is to be no trade rivalry on
the various lines thus assigned to different countries. Such would be
the only system which could abolish trade warfare. Under such a system
advance would be greatly checked, if not killed. Look at the history
of quinine; only twenty years ago it was 10_s._ an ounce, and the
growers (though competing among themselves) did not think they could
improve the process or reduce the price. The chemist in Europe stepped
into the market and smashed the old system by much cheaper artificial
quinine. But the growers, sooner than be ruined, invented extraction by
petroleum, and brought down the price to 1_s._ 6_d._ an ounce. Now here
were two acts of violent trade warfare between countries; the result
being such an improvement that instead of one of the most life-saving
medicines being a luxury, it can now be used six times more freely than
before. Without trade war this would never have come about. Free trade
implies free competition, and that is trade-warfare.
Another form of trade war is holding a country for the sake of a
monopoly of trade, thus enabling a group of manufacturers—say of
France—to tax all the inhabitants under their government, especially
in colonies—as Algiers, Madagascar, Tahiti, &c. This is simply a form
of tribute, like the taxation levied by Rome on various conquered
countries; it holds back the taxed countries. If other countries wish
to get a share of that trade they will have to fight, by trade or by
violence, to conquer the right to join in it. And a trade war which
shut, say, all English markets to France, until all French markets
were open to England, would not violate any economic principle. It
is meeting force by force, exclusion by exclusion; and no shudder at
our using trade war ourselves will prevent for an instant the trade
war which is used against us. Our principles will not weigh a feather
in other nations' practice. But warfare is a temporary measure, and
retaliation must only be temporary. The great danger would be in
establishing a permanent system of taxation of foreign productions,
which would be worked to the utmost by trades unions at home, in order
to enable them to bleed the country to death by high prices. This
terrible danger of ruin is the main reason against protective duties,
though seldom, if ever, noticed in public discussion of the subject.
Another form of warfare is the relative burden of armaments. This may
be called slow combustion, in contrast to the open flame of war. Now if
there is no joint limitation—as at present—the most long-sighted and
powerful nation stands to win at this game; the result is the same as
if actual war were in progress, but the terrors and destruction of war
are avoided. But if there be a joint limitation of armament—as some
hope may be established—it must be on such a basis that no one state
is left in a condition of clear superiority to another, otherwise it
would tie the inferior state to be in a permanently inferior condition.
And the qualities which will win will be subterfuge, evasion, and bad
faith; whichever state contrives to be better prepared than another
behind the agreement will stand to win when the war does come. In the
unlimited condition the qualities win which are those best for mankind
in all other respects; in the limited condition the qualities will
win which are worst for mankind otherwise. The real fact is that great
armaments are like great states, a needful condition of the new speed
of communication. When it took two or three months to move an army
from central Europe to England, we had two or three months to prepare;
when it takes only two or three days we must be always prepared. No
one can put the clock back, and steam is the end of small armaments.
Within a generation of quick transport being started, big armaments
were found needful, and will never cease to be needful. Great permanent
combinations of states are the only line of relief under the new
conditions, which bind mankind for ever in the future.
Let us look now at direct war. What are the qualities which tell
for success, looking to the wars of recent times with which we are
familiar? In the brains of the army the main qualities have been (1)
Foresight; (2) Combining power; (3) Honesty; (4) Imagination; (5)
Skill; and in the muscle of the army (6) Physique; (7) Industry;
(8) Tenacity. In short, success in war requires precisely the same
qualities as success in peace. Even if the cause is bad, yet it is the
best man all round that wins. In each case recently the winner has
been the better power for future civilisation. War then may be defined
as the concentration into a year of the same results which would take
place by economic causes within perhaps a generation or a century. So
far as violent changes are undesirable—as we have noticed before—so
far war is undesirable. But on the purely humanitarian view it may be
better to flee before one's enemies for three months than have three
years' famine; it may be better to kill 100,000 in a brief campaign
than starve a million during a whole generation by bad trade owing to
slow economic changes. War strikes the imagination and impresses the
thoughtless with its horror, but a starving peace may be a far more
painful process.
It is difficult to see that any of the causes of trade war, armament
war, or open war are at all likely to be less in the future than they
have been in the past; and if the causes are the same we must expect
like effects. Nor do we see that any result of these different kinds of
war is injurious to that character of man which is requisite for his
advance in better lines. Each of these forms of competition tends to
give an advantage to the best qualified race, and to promote the most
beneficial strains of character. On the general principle that slow
evolution is preferable to violent changes we must look for advance by
intensified trade war rather than by armaments, and by the strain of
armament rather than by open war.
A direction in which great improvements of organisation may be
attained would be in better adaptation of checks. So far as possible,
checks should be abolished by establishing interests in the same
direction between different parties. The profit-sharing movement is
an excellent beginning of what needs to be fully and exactly carried
out. The checks of inspection, which have been so greatly multiplied
lately, are peculiarly liable to abuses; and a system of fewer and far
superior inspectors, much less inspection, and much heavier penalties
to correspond, would in the long run prove the safer line. The great
check by popular election is very wasteful, a general election costing
the country over a million pounds in various ways. Precisely as fair a
check would be gained by summoning one in a hundred of the electors by
lot at the day of election; and the nursing of a constituency would be
much diminished.
Lastly, let us look at the final type to which man will probably be
led by natural survival. This enquiry is limited throughout to those
qualities which are the product of external causes; and no attempt
is made to estimate the more spiritual side of man or his higher
mental development. For that we have not the same physical basis
of research, and it would be a fruitless mixture to include such
considerations—however important—in an enquiry which by its scope
might be similarly applicable to lower organisms. We are therefore
dealing here only with the physical basis of civilisation.
For the sake of safety from aggression and prevention of small
quarrels, federations of great size must prevail; while those
federations which allow for the greatest diversity between the states
will prove more adaptable and vigorous. Similarly, states which allow
of the greatest diversity of life to the individual will succeed best,
by the promotion of the most vigorous strains. More systematic law
will be needed between states. This may perhaps be on the line of all
contracts being on the seller's law, and all marriage on the husband's
law, regardless of change of residence; and all contracts being suable
on their own law in any state.
The greatest empires have in the past allowed great diversity between
states. Persia left each land to its own laws, and only required the
control of a satrap, a small tribute, and unification of army and navy.
Rome interfered very little with local law, and left the principal
cities autonomous throughout the empire. Britain has carefully
preserved local law where a system existed, as in India, the Cape,
and many varieties nearer home, even in England itself. The United
States have kept local laws of states and local legislatures. Hence
it is likely that groups of states with great variety of type will
prevail, only unified by a common system of defence and compulsory
taxation for that purpose. It is even conceivable that such a system
might be established in England, if the Privy Council was supplemented
by Colonial ex-ministers of long standing, and was granted powers of
assessment over all parliaments for the common defence.
The type of man which must prevail is that of the greatest industry and
greatest individuality; each man belonging to many voluntary societies
for various united benefits. Agriculture, the main industry of man,
will be far more elaborate and economical; as much so as the present
Chinese system, or even carried to further detail with machinery. And
the unlimited supply of atmospheric nitrates, now in sight, will also
greatly increase production. Profit-sharing or the shareholding of
all workers must gradually prevail in all industries. The growth of
rapidity of thought and action, and the economy of organisation, will
enable a living to be earned with perhaps half a day's labour, or less.
The large balance of time, beyond that which will be needed for bare
necessities, will be spent on a much greater development of natural
resources and conveniences of life; each man will thus enjoy the result
of an immense accumulated capital of improvements and benefits. In
short, each one will be rich, either by the cheapness of articles or
abundance of money, a merely relative question. The accumulated wealth
of improvement will leave a smaller profit on labour, or in other words
capital will command a very low interest. Therefore there will be
less inducement to work for saving; and hence spare time will be more
readily employed in the personal quest of knowledge, and enlargement
of mental interests, in literature, in science, in history, and in the
arts, or among the less capable in mere amusements. But the higher the
social organisation and reward of ability, the more intense will be the
weeding of the less capable, and the more highly sustained will be the
general level of ability.
That fluctuation will occur is inevitable; but it will be gradually
understood that the utmost freedom of labour and communication is the
only way to allow changes to be gradual, and so to avert the great and
disgraceful catastrophes of forcible migration of hordes. Hence there
will tend to be an incessant flow of labour from country to country,
assisted by international labour bureaus: thus the wage of any given
ability will be equalised over the world, and hence prices of all
produce will equalise also. The whole of this action will further
enforce the power of ability, and tend to end or mend the less capable.
We must, then, look for a world with approximately equal civilisation
and prices in all lands; but with each people developed in their
own lines of ability, in accord with climate and conditions, to
such a point that no other people can compete with them in their own
conditions. The equatorial races tending to have less initiative
and vigour than those of colder climates, the equatorial lands will
therefore tend to be each attached to a temperate land which will
supply more energy to their development; while a steady drift of
population from colder to hotter lands will take place, as for a
generation or two they will retain a greater vigour. Thus the tropics
will be the seat of the keenest competition and extinction of races;
while the borders of the arctic regions will always afford most room
for human increase.
So far as peoples turn their backs on the inevitable goal, they
will have to painfully retrace their course, or else disappear by
extinction; while the peoples who move toward the lines of success will
be the fathers of the future. Will they be found in East or West?
INDEX.
A.
Ability, inherited, 4
sporadic, not inherited, 5
driven out, 3, 4, 8, 21
favoured by war, 98
Administration depends on character, 1
Advance checked by communism, 20, 21
checked by education, 73-75
due to individual, 78, 80
gained by saving waste, 79
Agriculture, elaboration of, 101
to be saved from townsmen, 54
Amusement, passion for, 20, 82, 83
Anarchism, product of great states, 67
Armaments, big, needful, 98
war by, 97
Artificial conditions encourage variation, 5
Athletics, needed by the unfit, 82
Atrophy of mind, 7-9
Aurelian, 36
Automatic lives of majority, 79
B.
Barbaric society, complex, 21
Bartholomew's Day, 1662, 41
Benevolence, scope of, v.
Betting, 19
Birth rate, waste of high, 85
Bricklayers' Union, influence of, 31
Building, dear in England, 31
Bye-laws, value of, 44
C.
Capacity, _see Ability_.
Capital used for income, 47
Capitalists, result of diminishing, 50
Catastrophes produced by small causes, 42
Cattle, competition among, 25
Change, gradual, to be allowed, 43
effect of, 13, 63
violent, injurious, 41
Character, the basis of society, 1
production of, 2
subject to natural law, 2
low type at present, 15-19
killed by municipalising, 26
grown by experience, 74
Checks, better use of, 99
Children, later more able, 86
maintenance of, 8, 60, 86-88
Chinese labour, need for, 93-95
Civil war, results of, 39-41
Civilisation a means of diversity, 68
Clubs, benefit of, 92
Collections, dispersal of, 46
Colonising result of primogeniture, 45, 46
Combinations, must be voluntary, 91
Combined labour, wasteful, 90
Committees, mind of, 9
Commons rule alone, 39-41
weakness of, 43
Communal organisation of early Europe, 22
Communication, results of, 56, 66, 98
Communism a bar to useful variation, 20, 21
and early Christianity, 24
and fatalism, 25, 26
and labour, 90
Compensation for accidents, 58
Competition, necessity of, 3, 10
dislike of, 10
among cattle, 25
Continuity of work, power of, 80, 81
Co-operation a main line of advance, 92
Cox, Mr. Harold, 55
Crimes, survivals of early life, 73
Criminals to be sorted into communities, 73
Cromwell an arbitrary ruler, 40
value of, in anarchy, 40, 41
D.
Death duties, effect of, 44, 46
Despotism, a refuge from anarchy, 41
Devolution of the Roman Empire, 36
Diocletian, decree of prices, 37, 38
Disciples, early, hard-weeded, 24
Diseases of bodies politic, vi., 19
Diversity, need of, 65-77, 100
of moral standards, 67, 68
of types required, 69
dangerous form of, 70
still existing, 71-3
of marriage laws, 71, 72
Dulness of observation, 16, 17
E.
Education, a bar to advance, 73-76
experiments needed, 75
variety of, needed, 75, 76
Elections, waste by, 100
Emigration beneficial, 13
harmful, 13, 14
Environment subject to man, 3
Equatorial races, future of, 103
Escape of the capable, 8
Extremes of condition appear together, 5
F.
Factions of the Civil War, 39, 40
Farm colonies, 8
Fatalism and communism, 26
Federations must prevail, 100
Five-mile Act, 40
France, ability drained from, 4
cost of Revolution in, 41
Free-trade only possible with bounties, 52
Free-will a subject of normal variation, 2
G.
Gallienus, 35
German immigration, 15
Government cannot tax its own payments, 49
Gracchus, cheap com of, 29
Gradual changes to be allowed, 43
H.
Happiness based on character, 2
Health, saving of, 79, 80
Housing problem, cause of, 31
Huguenots closely weeded, 24
expulsion of, 4
I.
Illustrated papers, 18
Immigration, 14, 15
Income tax, effect on trade, 47-49
Individual thought essential, 9
Individualism a line of advance, 91
Infant life, saving of, 60
Inspection, abuse of, 99
Intellect, limitations of, 17
Intolerance of Puritans, 39-41, 70
gain and loss of, 66
Investments, foreign, demand for, 48
Ireland, emigration injuring, 14
land-holding in, 53
Italian labour abroad, 93
J.
Janus, the peace bringer, vii.
Japanese too industrious, 93
L.
Labour, combined, wasteful, 90
in the tropics, 56
Land in Ireland, 53
state ownership of, 53-55
equal values of, 56
Laws impartial to all residents, 94
Life, infant, saving of, 60
Life-duties, effect of, 49
Lighting system faulty, 17
Little-Italy party, 35-37
Loans, risks of, 55
Local administration, variety in, 44
London County Council, 17, 55
Low races pass under higher, 1
M.
Malignants deprived, 41
Man subjugates environment, 3
permanence of type of, 10-12
final type of, 100-102
Marriage ceremony, period of, 72
laws, diversity of, 71, 72
temporary, 84
Medical examination of children, 87
Mencius quoted, 7
Mental changes similar to physical, 2-7
qualities inherited, 4
growth encouraged by use, 6
growth to old age, 6
Merovings, degradation of, 7
Middle-class waste, 61
Mind subject to natural variation, 2-7
variability induced, 6
arrested at various ages, 6
atrophy of, 7-9
unchanged in nature, 11-12
Monopolies, 9, 96
Moral standard typical of a society, 68
Morality, relative standard of, 67-68
Municipalising enterprises, 26
N.
Nationalisation of land, 53-55
Nationalities, use of various, 93
New Testament teaching, 23, 24
Norse poor law, 22, 86
O.
Officialism, 9
Old age pensions, 59
Oman, Prof., 29
P.
Pasts have all been present, vii.
Patriotism killed by separate groups, 71
Permanence of type of man, 10-12
Peters, Carl, opinion of, 20
Physical changes similar to mental, 2-7
Pleasures, low type of, 17-19
Polybius on history, iv.
Poverty results from opportunity, 5
Prayer, Book of Common, proscribed, 40
Present time, apparent importance of, vii.
Prices, consequence of regulating, 37, 38
Primogeniture diminished, 45
effect of, 45, 46
Private enterprise most effective, 9
Prodigal son, his rights, 24
Profits to be earned from wealth, 30-32
Profit-sharing, 92, 99
Proletariat, support of, 30-32
Property parted in life, 44, 49
Proscriptions, disastrous effect of, 4
Provinces parted from Rome, 36
R.
Radicalism contrary to evolution, 42
Railway stations, faulty, 16
Railways, effects of, 56, 66
Rapidity, gain by, 81
Reasoning interest obliterated, 74
Regulation pattern men, 74
Relatives, responsibility of, 22, 89
Remedy for the incapable, 8
Renewal of population, 83
Rentoul, Dr., 87
Responsibility without rule, 86
Retaliation in trade war, 97
Retrograde characters ruined by help, 7
Ruling faculty of man, 3
S.
Scrapping of machines and men, 85
Seebohm, Dr., 22
Selection the means of elevation, 3, 20
repressed by communism, 20-27
Slavery not fatal to Rome, 34
Sloth a deadly sin, 16
now compulsory, 16
Socialism, use of word, 23
Society, barbaric complexity, 21
a mixture of stages, 72
final type of, 100-103
Sport, 18, 19
States, large, a result of speed, 66
Submerged tenth, 6, 14, 69, 88
Survivals of earlier stages, 72, 73
T.
Taxation in death duties, 44-46
on capital, 47
on trade, 47-50
in life duties, 49
immoral, 50, 51
should be felt, 52
limitations of, 92
Taxation of extravagance, 52
Tenth, submerged, 6, 14, 69
Theologic morality, 68
Thought, lack of, at present, 16
Town, type of, 57
Townsman favoured, 28
Trade unionism and sloth, 16, 81
in Rome, 29-34
compulsory, 30-34
and the poor, 30, 31
assessment of tax, 32
Transit, rapid, result of, 56-58
Trust-man class, 62
Trusts, creation of, 49
U.
Unfit, treatment of, 87-89
Uniformity, evils of, 65, 67
Unintellectual character, source of, 74
Utilitarian morality, 67
V.
Variability induced, 6
Variation produced by artificial conditions, 5
needed for advance, 65, 69
about one centre, 70
Vice not fatal to Rome, 34
Violent changes injurious, 39-41
W.
Wages, equality of, 8
Waltzing quoted, 34
War by trade, 95
by armaments, 97
by violence, 98
favours best stocks, 98
causes, permanent, 99
Waste, taxation of, 52
the bar to advance, 79
Wealth held by different classes, 60
White labour dreads competition, 94, 95
Work, distaste for, 20, 81
power of, 80, 81
to be adapted to the person, 81, 82
Workmen, atrophy among, 8
Workmen's Compensation Act, 58
BRADBURY, AGNEW & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE.
Transcriber's Note
Obvious punctuation and spelling errors have been repaired.
Pg. 108: Added missing sub-topic heading "I." of Index.
End of Project Gutenberg's Janus in Modern Life, by W. M. Flinders Petrie