THE MANAGEMENT
In this final chapter it were well to look at the Social Abyss in its
widest aspect, and to put certain questions to Civilisation, by the
answers to which Civilisation must stand or fall. For instance, has
Civilisation bettered the lot of man? “Man,” I use in its democratic
sense, meaning the average man. So the question re-shapes itself: _Has
Civilisation bettered the lot of the average man_?
Let us see. In Alaska, along the banks of the Yukon River, near its
mouth, live the Innuit folk. They are a very primitive people,
manifesting but mere glimmering adumbrations of that tremendous
artifice, Civilisation. Their capital amounts possibly to £2 per head.
They hunt and fish for their food with bone-headed spears and arrows.
They never suffer from lack of shelter. Their clothes, largely made
from the skins of animals, are warm. They always have fuel for their
fires, likewise timber for their houses, which they build partly
underground, and in which they lie snugly during the periods of intense
cold. In the summer they live in tents, open to every breeze and cool.
They are healthy, and strong, and happy. Their one problem is food.
They have their times of plenty and times of famine. In good times they
feast; in bad times they die of starvation. But starvation, as a
chronic condition, present with a large number of them all the time, is
a thing unknown. Further, they have no debts.
In the United Kingdom, on the rim of the Western Ocean, live the
English folk. They are a consummately civilised people. Their capital
amounts to at least £300 per head. They gain their food, not by hunting
and fishing, but by toil at colossal artifices. For the most part, they
suffer from lack of shelter. The greater number of them are vilely
housed, do not have enough fuel to keep them warm, and are
insufficiently clothed. A constant number never have any houses at all,
and sleep shelterless under the stars. Many are to be found, winter and
summer, shivering on the streets in their rags. They have good times
and bad. In good times most of them manage to get enough to eat, in bad
times they die of starvation. They are dying now, they were dying
yesterday and last year, they will die to-morrow and next year, of
starvation; for they, unlike the Innuit, suffer from a chronic
condition of starvation. There are 40,000,000 of the English folk, and
939 out of every 1000 of them die in poverty, while a constant army of
8,000,000 struggles on the ragged edge of starvation. Further, each
babe that is born, is born in debt to the sum of £22. This is because
of an artifice called the National Debt.
In a fair comparison of the average Innuit and the average Englishman,
it will be seen that life is less rigorous for the Innuit; that while
the Innuit suffers only during bad times from starvation, the
Englishman suffers during good times as well; that no Innuit lacks
fuel, clothing, or housing, while the Englishman is in perpetual lack
of these three essentials. In this connection it is well to instance
the judgment of a man such as Huxley. From the knowledge gained as a
medical officer in the East End of London, and as a scientist pursuing
investigations among the most elemental savages, he concludes, “Were
the alternative presented to me, I would deliberately prefer the life
of the savage to that of those people of Christian London.”
The creature comforts man enjoys are the products of man’s labour.
Since Civilisation has failed to give the average Englishman food and
shelter equal to that enjoyed by the Innuit, the question arises: _Has
Civilisation increased the producing power of the average man_? If it
has not increased man’s producing power, then Civilisation cannot
stand.
But, it will be instantly admitted, Civilisation has increased man’s
producing power. Five men can produce bread for a thousand. One man can
produce cotton cloth for 250 people, woollens for 300, and boots and
shoes for 1000. Yet it has been shown throughout the pages of this book
that English folk by the millions do not receive enough food, clothes,
and boots. Then arises the third and inexorable question: _If
Civilisation has increased the producing power of the average man, why
has it not bettered the lot of the average man_?
There can be one answer only—MISMANAGEMENT. Civilisation has made
possible all manner of creature comforts and heart’s delights. In these
the average Englishman does not participate. If he shall be forever
unable to participate, then Civilisation falls. There is no reason for
the continued existence of an artifice so avowed a failure. But it is
impossible that men should have reared this tremendous artifice in
vain. It stuns the intellect. To acknowledge so crushing a defeat is to
give the death-blow to striving and progress.
One other alternative, and one other only, presents itself.
_Civilisation must be compelled to better the lot of the average man_.
This accepted, it becomes at once a question of business management.
Things profitable must be continued; things unprofitable must be
eliminated. Either the Empire is a profit to England, or it is a loss.
If it is a loss, it must be done away with. If it is a profit, it must
be managed so that the average man comes in for a share of the profit.
If the struggle for commercial supremacy is profitable, continue it. If
it is not, if it hurts the worker and makes his lot worse than the lot
of a savage, then fling foreign markets and industrial empire
overboard. For it is a patent fact that if 40,000,000 people, aided by
Civilisation, possess a greater individual producing power than the
Innuit, then those 40,000,000 people should enjoy more creature
comforts and heart’s delights than the Innuits enjoy.
If the 400,000 English gentlemen, “of no occupation,” according to
their own statement in the Census of 1881, are unprofitable, do away
with them. Set them to work ploughing game preserves and planting
potatoes. If they are profitable, continue them by all means, but let
it be seen to that the average Englishman shares somewhat in the
profits they produce by working at no occupation.
In short, society must be reorganised, and a capable management put at
the head. That the present management is incapable, there can be no
discussion. It has drained the United Kingdom of its life-blood. It has
enfeebled the stay-at-home folk till they are unable longer to struggle
in the van of the competing nations. It has built up a West End and an
East End as large as the Kingdom is large, in which one end is riotous
and rotten, the other end sickly and underfed.
A vast empire is foundering on the hands of this incapable management.
And by empire is meant the political machinery which holds together the
English-speaking people of the world outside of the United States. Nor
is this charged in a pessimistic spirit. Blood empire is greater than
political empire, and the English of the New World and the Antipodes
are strong and vigorous as ever. But the political empire under which
they are nominally assembled is perishing. The political machine known
as the British Empire is running down. In the hands of its management
it is losing momentum every day.
It is inevitable that this management, which has grossly and criminally
mismanaged, shall be swept away. Not only has it been wasteful and
inefficient, but it has misappropriated the funds. Every worn-out,
pasty-faced pauper, every blind man, every prison babe, every man,
woman, and child whose belly is gnawing with hunger pangs, is hungry
because the funds have been misappropriated by the management.
Nor can one member of this managing class plead not guilty before the
judgment bar of Man. “The living in their houses, and in their graves
the dead,” are challenged by every babe that dies of innutrition, by
every girl that flees the sweater’s den to the nightly promenade of
Piccadilly, by every worked-out toiler that plunges into the canal. The
food this managing class eats, the wine it drinks, the shows it makes,
and the fine clothes it wears, are challenged by eight million mouths
which have never had enough to fill them, and by twice eight million
bodies which have never been sufficiently clothed and housed.
There can be no mistake. Civilisation has increased man’s producing
power an hundred-fold, and through mismanagement the men of
Civilisation live worse than the beasts, and have less to eat and wear
and protect them from the elements than the savage Innuit in a frigid
climate who lives to-day as he lived in the stone age ten thousand
years ago.
CHALLENGE
I have a vague remembrance
Of a story that is told
In some ancient Spanish legend
Or chronicle of old.
It was when brave King Sanchez
Was before Zamora slain,
And his great besieging army
Lay encamped upon the plain.
Don Diego de Ordenez
Sallied forth in front of all,
And shouted loud his challenge
To the warders on the wall.
All the people of Zamora,
Both the born and the unborn,
As traitors did he challenge
With taunting words of scorn.
The living in their houses,
And in their graves the dead,
And the waters in their rivers,
And their wine, and oil, and bread.
There is a greater army
That besets us round with strife,
A starving, numberless army
At all the gates of life.
The poverty-stricken millions
Who challenge our wine and bread,
And impeach us all as traitors,
Both the living and the dead.
And whenever I sit at the banquet,
Where the feast and song are high,
Amid the mirth and music
I can hear that fearful cry.
And hollow and haggard faces
Look into the lighted hall,
And wasted hands are extended
To catch the crumbs that fall.
And within there is light and plenty,
And odours fill the air;
But without there is cold and darkness,
And hunger and despair.
And there in the camp of famine,
In wind, and cold, and rain,
Christ, the great Lord of the Army,
vLies dead upon the plain.
LONGFELLOW