Being several times in France, twice in America and Canada, thrice in
Italy and as many times in Holland, under circumstances which brought
me into relation with representative people, enabled me to become
acquainted with the ways of persons of other countries than my own.
There I met great orators, poets, statesmen, philosophers, and
great preachers of whom I had read--but whom to know was a greater
inspiration. Thus I learned the art of not being surprised, and
of regarding strangeness as a curiosity, not an offence awakening
resentment as something unpardonable, or at least, an impropriety the
traveller is bound to reprehend, as Mrs. Trollope and her successors
have done on American peculiarities. On the Continent I found incidents
to wonder at, but I confine myself in this chapter to America and
Canada, countries we are accustomed to designate as "Across the Water,"
as the United States and the Dominion which have imperishable interest
to all of the British race.
Notwithstanding the thousands of persons who now make sea journeys for
the first time, I found, when it came to my turn, there was no book--nor
is there now--on the art of being a sea passenger. I could find no
teaching Handbook of the Ocean--what to expect under entirely new
conditions, and what to do when they come, so as to extract out of a
voyage the pleasure in it and increase the discomforts which occur in
wave-life. One of the pleasures is--there is no dust at sea.
On my visit to America in 1879, I, at the request of Mr. Hodgson Pratt,
undertook to inquire what were the prospects of emigrants to that
country and Canada, which cost me labour and expense. What I found
wanting, and did not exist, and which does not exist still, was an
emigrant guide book informing him of the conditions of industry in
different States, the rules of health necessary to be observed in
different climates, and the vicissitudes to which health is liable. The
book wanted is one on an epitome plan of the People's Blue Books, issued
by Lord Clarendon on my suggestion, as he stated in them.
When I was at Washington, Mr. Evarts, the Secretary of State, gave me a
book, published by local authorities at Washington, with maps of every
department of the city, marking the portion where special diseases
prevailed. London has no such book yet. Similar information concerning
every State and territory in America existed in official reports. But
I found that neither the Government of Washington nor Ottawa would take
the responsibility of giving emigrants this information in a public and
portable form, as land agents would be in revolt at the preferential
choice emigrants would then have before them. It was continually denied
that such information existed. Senators in their turn said so. Possibly
they did not know, but Mr. Henry Villard, a son-in-law of Lloyd
Garrison, told me that when he was secretary of the Social Science
Association he began the kind of book I sought, and that its' issue was
discouraged.
On my second visit to America in 1882, I had introductions to the
President of the United States and to Lord Lome, the Governor of Canada,
from his father, the Duke of Argyll, with a view of obtaining the
publication of a protecting guide book such as I have described, under
its authority. When I first mentioned this in New York (1879) the editor
of the _Star_ (an Irishman) wrote friendly and applauding leaders upon
my project. On my second visit, in 1882, this friendly editor (having
seen in the papers that Mr. Gladstone approved of my quest) wrote
furious leaders against it. On asking him the reason of the change of
view, he said, "Mr. Holyoake, were Mr. Gladstone and his Cabinet in this
room, and I could open a trap-door under their feet and let them all
fall into hell, I would do it," using words still more venomous. Then
I realised the fatuity of the anti-Irish policy which drives the ablest
Irishmen into exile and maintains a body of unappeasable enemies of
England wherever they go. Then I saw what crazy statesmanship it was in
the English to deny self-government to the Irish people, and spend ten
millions a year to prevent them taking care of themselves.
The Irish learned to think better of Mr. Gladstone some years later.
One night when he was sitting alone in the House of Commons writing his
usual letter to the Queen, after debates were over, he was startled by
a ringing cheer that filled the chamber, when looking up he found the
Irish members, who had returned to express their gratitude to him.
Surely no nation ever proclaimed its obligation in so romantic a way.
The tenderest prayer put up in my time was that of W. D. Sullivan:--
"_God be good to Gladdy_,
Says Sandy, John and Paddy,
For he is a noble laddy,
A grand old chiel is he."
I take pride in the thought that I was the first person who lectured
upon "English Co-operation" in Montreal and Boston. It was with pride
I spoke in Stacey Hall in Boston, from the desk at which Lloyd Garrison
was once speaking, when he was seized by a slave-owning mob with intent
to hang him. As I spoke I could look into the stairway on my right, down
which he was dragged.
The interviewers, the terror of most "strangers," were welcome to
me. The engraving in Frank Leslie's paper reproduced in "Among the
Americans," representing the interview with me in the Hoffman House, was
probably the first picture of that process published in England (1881).
I advocated the cultivation of the art in Great Britain, which, though
prevalent in America, was still in a crude state there. The questions
put to me were poor, abrupt, containing no adequate suggestion of the
information sought The interviewer should have some conception of the
knowledge of the person questioned, and skill in reporting his answers.
Some whom I met put down the very opposite of what was said to them. The
only protection against such perverters, when they came again, was to
say the contrary to what I meant, when their rendering would be what I
wished it to be. Some interviewers put into your mouth what they desired
you to say. Against them there is no remedy save avoidance. On the
whole, I found interviewers a great advantage. I had certain ideas to
make known and information to ask for, and the skilful interviewer, in
his alluring way, sends everything all over the land. Wise questioning
is the fine art of daily life. "It is misunderstanding," says the
Dutch proverb, "which brings lies to town." Everybody knows that
misunderstandings create divisions in families and alienations in
friendships--in parties as well as in persons--which timely inquiries
would dissipate. Intelligent questioning elicits hidden facts--it
increases knowledge without ostentation--it clears away obscurity,
and renders information definite--it supersedes assumptions--it tests
suspicions and throws light upon conjecture--it undermines error,
without incensing those who hold it--it leads misconception to confute
itself without the affront of direct refutation--it warns inquirers not
to give absolute assent to anything uncorroborated, or which cannot
be interrogated. Relevant questioning is the handmaid of accuracy, and
makes straight the pathway of Truth.
The privations of Protection, which a quick and independent-minded
people endured, was one of the wonders I saw. In Montreal, for a writing
pad to use on my voyage home, I had to pay seven shillings and sixpence,
which I could have bought in London for eighteen-pence. I took to
America a noble, full-length portrait of John Bright, just as he stood
when addressing the House of Commons, more than half life-size--the
greatest of Mayall's triumphs. Though it was not for sale, but a present
to my friend, James Charlton, of Chicago, the well-known railway agent,
the Custom House demanded a payment of 30 dols. (L6) import duty. It was
only after much negotiations in high quarters, and in consideration
that it was a portrait of Mr. Bright, brought as a gift to an American
citizen, that the import duty was reduced to 6 dollars.
The disadvantage of Protection is that no one can make a gift to
America or to its citizens without being heavily taxed to discourage
international generosity.
The Mayor of Brighton, Mr. Alderman Hallet, had entrusted to me some 200
volumes, of considerable value, on City Sanitation, greatly needed in
America. They lay in the Custom House three months, before I discovered
that the Smithsonian Institute could claim them under its charter.
Otherwise I must have paid a return freight to Brighton, as America is
protected from accepting offerings of civil or sanitary service. There
often come to us, from that country, emissaries of Evangelism, to
improve us in piety, but at home they levy 25 per cent, upon the
importation of the Holy Scriptures--thus taxing the very means of
Salvation.
For a time I sent presents of books to working-class friends in America
whom I wished to serve or to interest, who wrote to me to say that "they
were unable to redeem them from the post-office, the import tax being
more than they could pay," and they reminded me that "having been in
America, I ought to know that working people could not afford to
have imported presents made to them." Indeed, I had often noticed how
destitute their homes were in matters of table service and all bright
decoration, plentiful even in the houses of our miners and mechanics
in England. American workmen would tell me that a present of cutlery or
porcelain, if I could bring that about, would interest them greatly.
On leaving New York a friend of mine, a Custom House officer, told me he
needed a coast coat, suitable to the service he was engaged in, and that
he would be much obliged if I would have one made for him in England.
He would leave it to me to contrive how it could reach him. The coat he
wanted, he said, would cost him L9 in New York. I had it made in London,
entirely to his satisfaction, for L4 15s., but how to get it to him free
of Custom duties was a problem. I had to wait until a friend of mine--a
property owner in Montreal--was returning there. He went out in the
vessel in which Princess Louise sailed. He wore it occasionally on deck
to qualify it being regarded as a personal garment. So it arrived duty
free at Montreal. After looking about for two or three months for a
friend who would wear it across the frontier, it arrived, after six
months' travelling diplomacy, at the house of my friend in New York.
I did not find in America or Canada anything more wonderful, beggarly
and humiliating than the policy of Protection. But we are not without
counterparts in folly of another kind.
Visitors to England no doubt wonder to find us, a commercial nation,
fining the merchant of enterprise a shilling (the workman was so
fined until late years) for every pound he expends on journeys of
business--keeping a travelling tax to discourage trade. But John Bull
does not profess to be over-bright, while Uncle Sam thinks himself the
smartest man in creation. We retain in 1904 a tax Peel condemned in
1844. But then we live under a monarchy, from which Uncle Sam is free.
France used to be the one land which was hospitable to new ideas, and
for that it is still pre-eminent in Europe. But America excels Europe
now in this respect. Canada has not emerged from its Colonialism, and
has no national aspiration. Voltaire found when he was in London,
that England had fifty religions and only one sauce. America has no
distinction in sauces, but it has more than 200 religions, and having
no State Church there is no poison of Social Ascendency in piety, but
equality in worship and prophesying. I found that a man might be of any
religion he pleased--though as a matter of civility he was expected
to be of some--and if he said he was of none, he was thought to be
phenomenally fastidious, if not one of theirs would suit him, since
America provided a greater variety for the visitor to choose from than
any other country in the world.
Though naturally disappointed at being unable to suit the stranger's
taste, they were not intolerant. He was at liberty to import or invent a
religion of his own. Let not the reader imagine that because people are
free to believe as they please, there is no religion in America.
Nearing Santa Fe in New Mexico, I passed by the adobe temple of
Montezuma. Adobe is pronounced in three syllables--a-do-be--and is the
Mexican name for a mud-built house, which is usually one story high; so
that Santa Fe has been compared to a town blown down. When the Emperor
Montezuma perished he told his followers to keep the fire burning in the
Temple, as he would come again from the east, and they should see "his
face bright and fair." In warfare and pestilence and decimation of their
race, these faithful worshippers kept the fire burning night and day for
three centuries, and it has not long been extinguished. Europe can show
no faith so patient, enduring, and pathetic as this.
The pleasantest hours of exploration I spent in Santa Fe were in the
old church of San Miguel. Though the oldest church in America, there are
those who would remove rather than restore it. A book lay upon an altar
in which all who would subscribe to save it had inserted their names,
and I added mine for five shillings.
When an Englishman goes abroad, he takes with him a greater load of
prejudices than any man of any other nation could bear, and, as a rule,
he expresses pretty freely his opinion of things which do not conform
to his notions, as though the inhabitants ought to have consulted his
preferences, forgetting that in his own country he seldom shows that
consideration to others. On fit occasion I did not withhold my opinion
of things which seemed to me capable of improvement; but before giving
my impressions I thought over what equivalent absurdity existed in
England, and by comparing British instances with those before me, no one
took offence--some were instructed or amused at finding that hardly any
nation enjoyed a monopoly of stupidity. There is all the difference in
the world between saying to an international host, "How badly you do
things in your country," and saying, "We are as unsuccessful as you in
'striking twelve all at once.'"
We all know the maxim: "'Before finding fault with another, think of
your own." But Charles Dickens, with all his brightness, forgot this
when he wrote of America. Few nations have as yet attained perfection in
all things--not even England.
When in Boston, America, 1879, I went to the best Bible store I could
find or be directed to, to purchase a copy of the apocryphal books of
the Old Testament. In a church where I had to make a discourse, I wanted
to read the dialogue between the prophet Esdras and the angel Uriel.
The only copy I could obtain was on poor, thin paper; of small, almost
invisible print, and meanly bound. The price was 4s. 2d. "How is it," I
inquired, "that you ask so much in the Hub of the Universe for even
this indifferent portion of Scripture--seeing that at the house of the
Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, in Northumberland
Avenue, London, a house ten times handsomer than yours, in a much more
costly situation--I can buy the same book on good, strong paper, in
large type, in a bright, substantial cover for exactly 3s. less than you
ask me." "You see, sir," said the manager of the store, "we have duty
to pay." "Duty!" I exclaimed. "Do you mean me to understand that in this
land of Puritan Christians, you tax the means of salvation?" He did not
like to admit that, and could not deny it, so after a confused moment he
answered: "All books imported have to pay twenty-five per cent, duty."
All I could say was that "it seemed to me that their protective duties
protected sin; and, being interested in the welfare of emigrants, I must
make a note counselling all who wish to be converted, to get that done
before coming out; for if they arrive in America in an unconverted state
they could not afford to be converted here." Until then I was unaware
that Protection protected the Devil, and that he had a personal interest
in its enactment.
My article in the _Nineteenth Century_ entitled, "A Stranger in
America," written in the uncarping spirit as to defects and ungrudgingly
recognising the circumstances which frustrated or retarded other
excellences in their power, was acknowledged by the press of that
country, and was said by G. W. Smalley--the greatest American critic
in this country then--to be "one of those articles which create
international goodwill." Approval worth having could no further go. It
was surprising to me that mere two-sided travelling fairness should meet
with such assent, whereas I expected it would be regarded as tame and
uninteresting.