Commerce, which you favor me by sending, appears to me the most
important event that has occurred in relation to the true interests of
the country during my lifetime. It begins an era of true civilization.
I shall allude to it in the "Fors" of March, and make it the chief
subject of the one following (the matter of this being already
prepared).[65] It goes far beyond what I had even hoped to hear
admitted--how much less enforced so gravely and weightily in the
commercial world.
Believe me, faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[64] This letter was received from Mr. Ruskin by a gentleman in
Manchester, who had forwarded to him a copy of the speech made by Mr.
Richard Johnson (President) at the fifty-fourth annual meeting of the
Manchester Chamber of Commerce, Feb. 1, 1875. Mr. Johnson's address
dealt with the immorality of cheapness, the duties of merchants and
manufacturers as public servants, and the nobility of trade as a
profession which, when rightly and unselfishly conducted, would yield
to no other "in the dignity of its nature and in the employment that it
offers to the highest faculties of man."
[65] In "Fors Clavigera," March, 1875, Mr. Johnson's speech is named
(p. 54) as "the first living words respecting commerce which I have
ever known to be spoken in England, in my time," but the discussion of
it is postponed.
[From "The Monetary and Mining Gazette," November 13, 1875.]
_THE DEFINITION OF WEALTH._
CORPUS CHRISTI COLLEGE, OXFORD,
_9th November_, 1875.
_To the Editor of "The Monetary Gazette."_
SIR: I congratulate you with all my mind on the sense, and with all my
heart on the courage, of your last Saturday's leading article, which I
have just seen.[66] You have asserted in it the two vital principles of
economy, that society cannot exist by reciprocal pilfering, but must
produce wealth if it would have it; and that money must not be lent,
but administered by its masters.
You have not yet, however, defined wealth itself, or told the ingenuity
of the public what it is to produce.
I have never been able to obtain this definition from economists;[67]
perhaps, under the pressure of facts, they may at last discover some
meaning in mine at the tenth and eleventh pages of "Munera Pulveris."
I am, Sir, your obedient servant,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[66] The article was entitled, "What shall we do with it?"
[67] At the meeting of the Social Science Association already alluded
to (p. 4, note), Mr. Ruskin said that in 1858 he had in vain challenged
Mr. Mill to define wealth. The passages referred to in "Munera
Pulveris" consist of the statement and explanation of the definition of
Value. See _ante_, p. 63, note.
[From "The Socialist," an Advocate of Love, Truth, Justice, etc. etc.
Printed and Published by the Proprietor, W. Freeland, 52 Scotland
Street, Sheffield, November, 1877.]
_THE PRINCIPLES OF PROPERTY._
_10th Oct._, 1877.
_To the Editor of "The Socialist."_
SIR: Some Sheffield friend has sent me your fourth number, in the
general teaching of which I am thankful to be able to concur without
qualification: but let me earnestly beg of you not to confuse the
discussion of the principles of Property in Earth, Air, or Water, with
the discussion of principles of Property in general.[68] The things
which, being our neighbor's, the Mosaic Law commands us not to covet,
are by the most solemn Natural Laws indeed our neighbor's "property,"
and any attempts to communize these have always ended, and will always
end, in ruin and shame.
Do not attempt to learn from America. An Englishman has brains enough
to discover for himself what is good for England; and should learn,
when he is to be taught anything, from his Fathers, not from his
children.
I observe in the first column of your 15th page the assertion by your
correspondent of his definition of money as if different from mine. He
only weakens my definition with a "certificate of credit "instead of
a "promise to pay." What is the use of giving a man "credit"--if you
don't engage to pay him?
But I observe that nearly all my readers stop at this more or less
metaphysical definition, which I give in "Unto this Last," instead of
going on to the practical statement of immediate need made in "Munera
Pulveris."[69]
The promise to find Labor is one which meets general demand; but the
promise to find Bread is the answer needed to immediate demand; and
the only sound bases of National Currency are shown both in "Munera
Pulveris," and "Fors Clavigera," to be bread, fuel, and clothing
material, of certified quality.
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[68] The references in the letter are to an article on Property
entitled "What should be done?"
[69] See "Unto this Last," p. 53, note. "The final and best definition
of money is that it is a documentary promise ratified and guaranteed by
the nation, to give or find a certain quantity of labor on demand." See
also "Munera Pulveris," §§ 21-25.
[From "The Christian Life," December 20, 1879.]
_ON CO-OPERATION._[70]
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE.
DEAR MR. HOLYOAKE: I am not able to write you a pretty letter to-day,
being sadly tired, but am very heartily glad to be remembered by you.
But it utterly silences me that you should waste your time and energy
in writing "Histories of Co-operation" anywhere as yet. My dear Sir,
you might as well write the history of the yellow spot in an egg--in
two volumes. Co-operation is as yet--in any true sense--as impossible
as the crystallization of Thames mud.
Ever faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[70] This letter, which was reprinted in the _Coventry Co-operative
Record_ of January, 1880, was written, some time in August, 1879, to
Mr. George Jacob Holyoake, who had sent Mr. Ruskin his "History of
Co-operation: its Literature and its Advocates," 2 vols. London and
Manchester, 1875-7.
[From "The Daily News," June 19, 1880.]
_ON CO-OPERATION._
BRANTWOOD, CONISTON, LANCASHIRE,
_April_ 12, 1880.
DEAR MR. HOLYOAKE: I am very glad that you are safe back in England,
and am not a little grateful for your kind reference to me while
in America, and for your letter about Sheffield Museum.[71] But
let me pray for another interpretation of my former letter than
mere Utopianism. The one calamity which I perceive or dread for an
Englishman is his becoming a rascal, and co-operation among rascals--if
it were possible--would bring a curse. Every year sees our workmen
more eager to do bad work and rob their customers on the sly. All
political movement among such animals I call essentially fermentation
and putrefaction--not co-operation.
Ever affectionately yours,
J. RUSKIN.
FOOTNOTES:
[71] The "kind reference to Mr. Ruskin while in America" alludes to a
public speech made by Mr. Holyoake during his stay in that country. The
"letter about Sheffield Museum," was one in high praise of it, written
by Mr. Holyoake to the editor of the _Sheffield Independent_, in which
paper it was printed (March 8, 1880).
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
I. THE MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS.
II. SERVANTS AND HOUSES.
III. ROMAN INUNDATIONS.
IV. EDUCATION, FOR RICH AND POOR.
V. WOMEN: THEIR WORK AND THEIR DRESS.
VI. LITERARY CRITICISM.
MISCELLANEOUS LETTERS.
I.
THE MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS.
IS ENGLAND BIG ENOUGH? 1868.
THE OWNERSHIP OF RAILWAYS. 1868.
RAILWAY ECONOMY. 1868.
OUR RAILWAY SYSTEM. 1865.
RAILWAY SAFETY. 1870.
I.
THE MANAGEMENT OF RAILWAYS.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," July 31, 1868.]
_IS ENGLAND BIG ENOUGH?_
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: You terminate to-day a discussion which seems to have been greatly
interesting to your readers, by telling them the "broad fact, that
England is no longer big enough for her inhabitants."[72]
Might you not, in the leisure of the recess, open with advantage
a discussion likely to be no less interesting, and much more
useful--namely, how big England may be made for economical inhabitants,
and how little she may be made for wasteful ones? Might you not invite
letters on this quite radical and essential question--how money is
truly made, and how it is truly lost, not by one person or another, but
by the whole nation?
For, practically, people's eyes are so intensely fixed on the immediate
operation of money as it changes hands, that they hardly ever reflect
on its first origin or final disappearance. They are always considering
how to get it from somebody else, but never how to get it where that
somebody else got it.
Also, they very naturally mourn over their loss of it to other people,
without reflecting that, if not lost altogether, it may still be of
some reflective advantage to them. Whereas, the real national question
is not who is losing or gaining money, but who is making and who
destroying it. I do not of course mean making money, in the sense of
printing notes or finding gold. True money cannot be so made. When an
island is too small for its inhabitants, it would not help them to one
ounce of bread more to have the entire island turned into one nugget,
or to find bank notes growing by its rivulets instead of fern leaves.
Neither, by destroying money, do I mean burning notes, or throwing
gold away. If I burn a five-pound note, or throw five sovereigns
into the sea, I hurt no one but myself; nay, I benefit others, for
everybody with a pound in his pocket is richer by the withdrawal of my
competition in the market. But what I want you to make your readers
discover is how the _true_ money is made that will get them houses
and dinners; and on the other hand how money is truly lost, or so
diminished in value that all they can get in a year will not buy them
comfortable houses, nor satisfactory dinners.
Surely this is a question which people would like to have clearly
answered for them, and it might lead to some important results if the
answer were acted upon. The riband-makers at Coventry, starving, invite
the ladies of England to wear ribands. The compassionate ladies of
England invest themselves in rainbows, and admiring economists declare
the nation to be benefited. No one asks where the ladies got the money
to spend in rainbows (which is the first question in the business), nor
whether the money once so spent will ever return again, or has really
faded with the faded ribands and disappeared forever. Again, honest
people every day lose quantities of money to dishonest people. But that
is merely a change of hands much to be regretted; but the money is
not therefore itself lost; the dishonest people must spend it at last
somehow. A youth at college loses his year's income to a Jew. But the
Jew must spend it instead of him. Miser or not, the day must come when
his hands relax. A railroad shareholder loses his money to a director;
but the director must some day spend it instead of him. That is not--at
least in the first fact of it--_national_ loss. But what the public
need to know is, how a final and perfect _loss_ of money takes place,
so that the whole nation, instead of being rich, shall be getting
gradually poor. And then, indeed, if one man in spending his money
destroys it, and another in spending it makes more of it, it becomes a
grave question in whose hands it is, and whether honest or dishonest
people are likely to spend it to the best purpose. Will you permit
me, Sir, to lay this not unprofitable subject of inquiry before your
readers, while, to the very best purpose, they are investing a little
money in sea air?
Very sincerely yours,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _July_ 30.
FOOTNOTES:
[72] The discussion had been carried on in a series of letters from
a great number of correspondents under the heading of "Marriage or
Celibacy," its subject being the pecuniary difficulties in the way
of early marriage. The _Daily Telegraph_ of July 30 concluded the
discussion with a leading article, in which it characterized the
general nature of the correspondence, and of which the final words were
those quoted by Mr. Ruskin.
[From "The Daily Telegraph," August 6, 1868.]
_THE OWNERSHIP OF RAILWAYS._[73]
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: The ingenious British public seems 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 price 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 person 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.
I believe, if the votes of the proprietors of all the railroads in the
kingdom were taken _en masse_, it would be found that the majority
would gladly receive back their original capital, and cede their right
of "revising" prices of railway tickets. And if railway property _is_
a good and wise investment of capital, the public need not shrink from
taking the whole off their hands. Let the public take it. (I, for one,
who never held a rag of railroad scrip in my life, nor ever willingly
travelled behind an engine where a horse could pull me, will most
gladly subscribe my proper share for such purchase according to my
income.) Then let them examine what lines pay their working expenses
and what lines do not, and boldly leave the un-paying embankments to
be white over with sheep, like Roman camps, take up the working lines
on sound principles, pay their drivers and pointsmen well, keep their
carriages clean and in good repair, and make it as wonderful a thing
for a train, as for an old mail-coach, to be behind its time; and the
sagacious British public will very soon find its pocket heavier, its
heart lighter, and its "passages" pleasanter, than any of the three
have been, for many a day.
I am, Sir, always faithfully yours,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Aug._ 5.
FOOTNOTES:
[73] In the _Daily Telegraph_ of August 3 appeared eight letters, all
of which, under the heading of "Increased Railway Fares," complained of
the price of tickets on various lines having been suddenly raised. In
the issue of August 4 eighteen letters appeared on the subject, whilst
in that of the 5th there were again eight letters. Mr. Ruskin's letter
was one of four in the issue of the 6th. It has, it will be seen, no
direct connection with that one entitled, "Is England Big Enough?"
which precedes it in these volumes owing to the allusions to it in one
of these railway letters (p. 86).
[From "The Daily Telegraph," August 10, 1868.]
_RAILWAY ECONOMY._
_To the Editor of "The Daily Telegraph."_
SIR: I had not intended again to trespass on your space until I could
obtain a general idea of the views of your correspondents on the
questions you permitted me to lay before them in my letters of the
31st July and 5th inst.; but I must ask you to allow me to correct
an impression likely to be created by your reference to that second
letter in your interesting article on the Great Eastern Railway, and to
reply briefly to the question of your correspondent "S." on the same
subject.[74]
You say that I mistook the charge against the railway companies in
taunting my unfortunate neighbors at Sydenham[75] with their complaints
against the operation of the law of supply and demand, and that it was
because the companies neglected that law that they suffered.
But, Sir, the law of supply and demand, as believed in by the British
public under the guidance of their economists, is a natural law
regulating prices, which it is not at all in their option to "neglect."
And it is precisely because I have always declared that there is no
such natural law, but that prices can be, and ought to be, regulated by
laws of expediency and justice, that political economists have thought
I did not understand their science, and you now say I laugh at it. No,
Sir, I laughed only at what was clearly no science, but vain endeavor
to allege as irresistible natural law, what is indeed a too easily
resisted prudential law, rewarding and chastising us according to our
obedience. So far from despising true political economy, based on such
prudential law, I have for years been chiefly occupied in defending its
conclusions, having given this definition of it in 1862. "Political
Economy is neither an art nor a science; but a system of conduct and
legislature founded on the sciences, including the arts, and impossible
except under certain conditions of moral culture."[76]
And, Sir, nothing could better show the evil of competition as opposed
to the equitable regulation of prices than the instance to which you
refer your correspondent "Fair Play"--the agitation in Brighton for a
second railway. True prudential law would make one railway serve it
thoroughly, and fix the fares necessary to pay for thorough service.
Competition will make two railways (sinking twice the capital really
required); then, if the two companies combine, they can oppress the
public as effectively as one could; if they do not, they will keep the
said public in dirty carriages and in danger of its life, by lowering
the working expenses to a minimum in their antagonism.
Next, to the question of your correspondent "S.," "what I expect the
capitalist to do with his money," so far as it is asked in good faith
I gladly reply, that no one's "expectations" are in this matter of the
slightest consequence; but that the moral laws which properly regulate
the disposition of revenue, and the physical laws which determine
returns proportioned to the wisdom of its employment, are of the
greatest consequence; and these may be briefly stated as follows:
1. All capital is justly and rationally invested which supports
productive labor (that is to say, labor directly producing or
distributing good food, clothes, lodging, or fuel); so long as it
renders to the possessor of the capital, and to those whom he employs,
only such gain as shall justly remunerate the superintendence and
labor given to the business, and maintain both master and operative
happily in the positions of life involved by their several functions.
And it is highly advantageous for the nation that wise superintendence
and honest labor should both be highly rewarded. But all rates of
interest or modes of profit on capital, which render possible the rapid
accumulation of fortunes, are simply forms of taxation, by individuals,
on labor, purchase, or transport; and are highly detrimental to the
national interests, being, indeed, no means of national gain, but only
the abstraction of small gains from many to form the large gain of one.
For, though inequality of fortune is not in itself an evil, but in many
respects desirable, it is always an evil when unjustly or stealthily
obtained, since the men who desire to make fortunes by large interest
are precisely those who will make the worst use of their wealth.
2. Capital sunk in the production of objects which do not
immediately support life (as statues, pictures, architecture, books,
garden-flowers, and the like) is beneficially sunk if the things thus
produced are good of their kind, and honestly desired by the nation for
their own sake; but it is sunk ruinously if they are bad of their kind,
or desired only for pride or gain. Neither can good art be produced as
an "investment." You cannot build a good cathedral if you only build it
that you may charge sixpence for entrance.
3. "Private enterprise" should never be interfered with, but, on the
contrary, much encouraged, so long as it is indeed "enterprise" (the
exercise of individual ingenuity and audacity in new fields of true
labor), and so long as it is indeed "private," paying its way at
its own cost, and in no wise harmfully affecting public comforts or
interests. But "private enterprise" which poisons its neighborhood, or
speculates for individual gain at common risk, is very sharply to be
interfered with.
4. All enterprise, constantly and demonstrably profitable on
ascertained conditions, should be made public enterprise, under
Government administration and security; and the funds now innocently
contributed, and too often far from innocently absorbed, in vain
speculation, as noted in your correspondent "Fair Play's" excellent
letter,[77] ought to be received by Government, employed by it, not in
casting guns, but in growing corn and feeding cattle, and the largest
possible legitimate interest returned without risk to these small and
variously occupied capitalists who cannot look after their own money.
We should need another kind of Government to do this for us, it is
true; also it is true that we can get it, if we choose; but we must
recognize the duties of governors before we can elect the men fit to
perform them.
The benefit of these several modes of right investment of capital
would be quickly felt by the nation, not in the increase of isolated
or nominal wealth, but in steady lowering of the prices of all the
necessaries and innocent luxuries of life, and in the disciplined,
orderly, and in that degree educational employment of every able-bodied
person. For, Sir (again with your pardon), my question "Is England
big enough?" was not answered by the sad experience of the artisans
of Poplar. Had they been employed in earth-building instead of in
shipbuilding, and heaped the Isle of Dogs itself into half as much
space of good land, capable of growing corn instead of mosquitoes,
they would actually have made habitable England a little bigger by
this time;[78] and if the first principle of economy in employment
were understood among us--namely, always to use whatever vital power
of breath and muscle you have got in the country before you use the
artificial power of steam and iron for what living arms can do, and
never plough by steam while you forward your ploughmen to Quebec--those
old familiar faces need not yet have looked their last at each other
from the deck of the St. Lawrence. But on this subject I will ask your
permission to write you in a few days some further words.[79]
I am, Sir, your faithful servant,
J. RUSKIN.
DENMARK HILL, _Aug._ 9.
FOOTNOTES:
[74] The _Daily Telegraph_ of Saturday, August 8, contained an article
on the "Increased Railway Fares," in which, commenting on Mr. Ruskin's
statement that, given the law of political economy, the railways might
ask as much as they could get, it is said that Mr. Ruskin mistook "the
charge against the companies. While they neglected the 'law of supply
and demand,' they suffered: now that they obey that law, they prosper."
The latter part of the article dealt with a long letter signed "Fair
Play," which was printed in the _Daily Telegraph_ of the same day. "To
Mr. Ruskin, who laughs at Political Economy," concluded the article;
"and to 'Fair Play,' who thinks that Parliament is at the bottom of
all the mischief, we commend a significant fact. An agitation is now
on foot in Brighton to have a second railway direct to London. What is
the cause of this? Not the Legislature, but the conduct of the Brighton
company in raising its fares. That board, by acting in the spirit of a
monopoly, has provoked retaliation, and the public now seeks to protect
itself by the aid of a competing line."